Why You Need Facebook and Twitter Accounts

Hopefully you won't need a Facebook account forever.  Unfortunately, lots and lots of companies use Facebook for marketing, and thus as a means to pass deals on to you.  And Facebook is pretty annoying about it - you can't just go and get the deal or coupon or whatever.  You generally have to launch an app which gives said company access to your information.

Tip:  if you really want that deal, go ahead and accept the app, get the deal, and then circle back around and disallow the app.

Twitter is similar, but not as bad, and if you're not a big tweeter, you probably don't care what happens with your Twitter account.  But you may not an account to get some deals.

Amazon is a typical example.  For certain deals (typically mp3s), if you allow them, Amazon will tweet on your behalf and credit your account (again, for a couple of bucks in mp3 purchases).  

More Free Books

BookBub is a pretty decent notification service.  There's nothing really special - it just informs you of the sales (i.e., very heavily discounted) or free books currently be offered by either Amazon or Kindle.  You can get updates via email or via your Facebook page.  Site is especially great if you have an iPad or an Android tablet - that way you can get the best of both worlds with either Amazon or B&N titles.

Free on Fridays

There's a wealth of free stuff out there, but some sites have offers on specific days.  In this case, welcome to Free Book Fridays from Barnes and Noble.   You can't just walk to a B&N and take a free book - this is for owners of the Nook or tablet that has a Nook application.  Again, you're probably not going to find The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but you're also not going to find a bunch of one-starred poorly edited books either.

Call Jenny

We have too many cards.  We have credit cards.  We have debit cards.  We have membership cards.  We have loyalty cards.  We have those "buy 10 subs and get the 11th free cards."  I have so many, that I have a stack in the kitchen and forget to take the one I need.  This can be frustrating when I get to the grocery store and forget my loyalty card.

Just give them your phone number you say?

We have too many phone numbers (or at least I do).  Mine, the house, my cel, the wife's cel.  Work.  Google number.  My old phone number at my old house.  The point is, a lot of these cards have old phone numbers on them to where I don't know what phone number to give them.

Or I'm out of town at a store where I don't have a loyalty card and will never use a loyalty card again.

That's where Jenny comes into play.

If you ever want to take advantage of a store's loyalty program discounts, and certainly don't want to sign up, use the local area code and then put in 865-5309.  Yes, that's Jenny's phone number from the wall in Tommy Tutone's classic one-hit wonder.  People don't want to give their personal phone number, so they use Jenny's instead.

Planning Your Annual Menus

If you are really (and I mean really) into planning out your year and saving money, there is a month-by-month listing of when groceries go on sale (e.g., March is apparently frozen food month).  Keep in mind, though, this site has a good deal of advertising and is a mommyblog.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but mommyblogs have a somewhat notorious reputation for pumping up products that advertises on the site.