Frugal Stuff and Freebies

As my earlier post about coupons might indicate, we tend to/try to live a frugal life style. Especially now that I am a stay at home mom we simply don't have a whole lot of income while my husband finishes up his PhD. So for now we shop at Aldi, enjoy the fruits of my coupon hobby, watch Hulu and Netflix instead of going to movies, limit the number of times we eat out, watch clearance sections at local stores, etc. I also follow a lot of frugal blogs; and I often fill out the surveys, requests for free samples, and enter the giveaways that these blogs point me to. Sometimes it surprises me what comes to my door. There is the constant stream of free magazines, various trial size boxes of cereal, three packs of baby diapers, travel packets of shampoo and body wash, coupons of all kinds, etc. However, today's freebie takes the cake.

A free Pandora bracelet. Yep. FREE jewelry knocked at my door this morning! It was complete chaos this morning--Catherine had just discovered how to take shelves out of the bookcase that holds her clothes and diapers and had dumped the contents of my coupon binder--when the FedEx man hammered on the door. He handed me this:

Of course it was in a plain padded white envelope, he didn't just hand over a bracelet. It was a thank you for filling out a survey about Pandora Jewelry. I was incredibly honest while taking the survey: I've never shopped there in my life, don't plan on shopping there, find much of their stuff too over-the-top for my tastes, and I think that it is absurdly overpriced. (On the last note, guess what they value this bracelet at? $95! Can you believe that?!?! Of course, you can find similar styles on ebay for about $10.) I have to admit, I do rather like this bracelet. The overall style is simple and the bead is pretty.

It just goes to show you that you never know what will show up on your doorstep!