This week our Twitter Tuesday Profile focuses on Catherine, a professional blogger living in Southern Ontario, Canada. Among the various sites she writes for and operates is Frugal-Freebies.com which she tweets about too from @FrugalFreebies. Working at home suits this wife, mother of three, and grandmother of two perfectly because when she’s not writing she’s caring for two recently-rescued dogs, Denny and Dexter.
OODC: How did you get started blogging and tweeting?
@FrugalFreebies: Originally I was running Born to Love, a natural baby product company that I created way back in 1982. I taught myself HTML back in 1998, and created the website too. But I was ready to move on now that my children were grown up, and looking around for something else to do.
I originally started blogging about the over 44 year old pregnancy stories I had been collecting, and branched out from there.
I first discovered freebies & coupons as a young mum, and now that I have the entire internet to search – my husband is amazed at how much free stuff I have got & how much we have saved! I started searching for free samples to help us cut costs, and before you know it, it had become a blog! I had found so many free samples, I just had to share them with all of my friends and readers.
OODC: Why are you so passionate about scoring freebies?
@FrugalFreebies: Well, first of all it’s fun! And it’s free! It helps with the family budget, we get to try things we might not have bought, and I like the challenge of finding great freebies to share with my readers. I always get excited when I find a really great freebie to share!
And the coupons have been really exciting – my best shopping trip was a total value over $200, with an out-of-pocket cost of $17 after coupons!
In the recent past we went to the movies for free, ate at A&W and Harvey’s for free and my husband got his morning coffee for free at McDonald’s. We’ve gotten 6 cases of Pepsi for free, 15 bottles of Ocean Spray Cranberry Cocktail Juice for free, and have saved over $1,000 in coupons! Last Canada Day, we all ate for free at the Mandarin All-You-Can-Eat Buffet.
Did I mention that it is fun – and free!
OODC: It must be fun to see what shows up in your mailbox every day– what free stuff showed up this week?
@FrugalFreebies: It’s actually been a slow week but I have gotten a coupon for a free loaf of Silver Hills bread, a sample of Hugo fragrance, a 15 pack of React5 gum and 3D glasses, a package of Kashi GoLean Crisp!, a package of Purina Beneful Incredibites dog food, a coupon for free Halo dog treats.
But my best freebie this week was the dog car seat harness and dog carrier I got from Amazon (value $105) for free with the SwagBucks I had collected!
OODC: What do you hope people gain from reading your blog?
@FrugalFreebies: A mailbox overflowing with freebies, of course! My readers tell me I help them save a great deal of money too!
It can be a lot of time and work to dig through all the offers out there. I read tons of freebie offers every day – trying to find the ones that are legit, still active and actually arrive. I try to save my readers some of the time and legwork of freebie hunting, and provide them with interesting freebies to request.
My motto is – so many freebies, so little time!
OODC: Who are some of your favorite money tweeters?
@FrugalFreebies: Some of the friends I have made along the way… @freesamplefreak, @bargainmoose, @smartcanuckand @SwagBucks.
Thanks again to @FrugalFreebies for being part of this week’s Twitter Tuesday Profile. Want to be considered for an upcoming profile? Just tweet me!
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