Shoes, cool sites, and saving money

First off, how awesome are these?!

They're wedding shoes. :)

79 days to go!

Let me tell you a little story about how I purchased them for 37% off without any sales or coupon codes.

First, Google's shopping search found them for me for $84.45 at ShoeBuy, which was the cheapest price online. Next, I went to Ebates to see if ShoeBuy offered a rebate through them. They did! 10% back! Not only was that awesome, but they also informed me that if I bought them on a Thursday and used EBillMe to pay for them, I would get another 20% back.

So, it's Thursday. I got online this morning to purchase my Navy Satin Nina Evelixas and first went to Ebates (in case you don't know, Ebates is a rebate site for online purchases-- it's FREE to join and you get a $10 credit just for signing up) and Ebates sent me to ShoeBuy.

When you create a ShoeBuy account, you get 10% off your first purchase, so that brought my $84.45 shoes down to $76. Since it's Thursday and I used EBillMe to pay (it's where you send them a payment through your bank's online bill pay), I got $15.20 back. Now the shoes are $60.80.

Ebates will give me 10% back from the original $76 price, so another $7.60 off. That makes my shoes $53.20. Just doing a couple extra things that took me maybe one minute to complete saved me $31.25!

Lessons learned:

1. ALWAYS go through Ebates before you make any online purchases.

2. Bookmark ShoeBuy for shoes and make purchases on Thursdays.

Endless shoes and organic laundry soap

First off, this is a long post, but if you make it through to the end there is a good chance you'll learn something you didn't know before. I have to share a few awesome things I've discovered in the last couple of weeks-- and skimming the post is totally okay-- so here we go.

Find #1: Google's "Shopping" Search
So, as a banker-by-day I am required to wear black shoes and I've been searching for work shoes that are "eco-friendly". In case you were wondering, NO ONE sells black pumps that are environmentally responsible. Or if they do, they are way, way beyond my price range. I finally found the Clarks Taipei at both Zappos and Piperlime for $78. In the midst of all this searching I happened to notice the Shopping option on the Google toolbar (you know, up there with Images and Maps) so I typed in "Clarks Taipei black" and lo-and-behold. Endless.com were the first results and they were $59.90!

Find #2: Endless.com
Free overnight shipping. Free return shipping. Best price I could find (and seriously, I checked everywhere-- including Ebay.) There you have it. Short and sweet. Check out Endless.com.

Find #3: Clarks shoes

Tage is obsessed with Eccos. He searches them out on Craigslist and Ebay. Don't ask me how many pairs he owns... but I have a feeling I can no longer give him a bad time about it. When my Taipei's arrived I had run home for lunch so I opened them up, tried one shoe on and oh. my. goodness. Seriously comfortable. I immediately took the other one out of the box and wore them back to work. I've been wearing them for a couple of weeks now and they are still awesome, all day long. Thank you Clarks. And they're pretty cute too, as far as work shoes go. P.S. Since we're on the subject of shoes, go read the shoe post HERE, complete with an adorable model, from A Woman in her Thirties.

Find #4: Eco Nuts

Okay, okay. I know you're thinking, "What the?" This find is completely unrelated to the previous three, except for the fact that it is too awesome not to share. I've been looking for green cleaning alternatives lately and found Eco Nuts laundry "detergent". They are literal nuts, like from a tree, that you place in a small pouch and toss in with the wash. I ordered a regular size box that is supposed to wash 90 loads of laundry (or 50 if you use hot water) for $10 ($15 after shipping.)

This is what they look like. Crazy, right? The pouch is tiny and it takes me a while to find it when I'm transferring clothes from the washer to the dryer, but they seriously work! Mason's diapers are just as clean as when we were using baby detergent, take up about a million times less space (and if you live in 900 sq. ft. this is important), are cheaper AND do not harm the environment. After the Eco Nuts have run their course in your washing machine, you can use them to make handsoap or an antimicrobial multi-purpose cleaner for your house. Seriously. How awesome is that?!

So there you have it. Some cool stuff you might not have known about. Or maybe you already did! Whew.

Need an Easter dress?

It is Friends & Family weekend at Gap Inc.

Email me (or leave a comment) and I'll send you a coupon with a barcode on it. You get 30% off at Old Navy, Gap, Gap Outlet, Banana Republic and Banana Republic Outlet stores. Including clearance!

I keep toying with the idea of making Mason a cute little vest for Easter.

Finding one on sale would be so much easier though.

P.S. Have you heard about Starbucks' "Free Pastry Day"? HERE is a coupon for a free pastry you can use next Tuesday until 10:30AM. As if I need another reason to visit Starbucks.