Healthy Simple Living » Blogging

How I Got a Free $130 Ceramic Crockpot

lilla — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:08:13 +0000

Not until I got back to the USA, did I realize how bad the economy has been hit. Whoa! Things aren’t nearly as bad in Australia. So I’ve had to be a wee bit creative in saving and spending and came across some pretty cool resources that I would like to share.

1) FREECYCLE – This is a grassroots and entirely nonprofit movement of people who are giving (& getting) stuff for free in their own towns. It’s all local and there are chapters everywhere in the USA. What a wonderful way to recycle and reuse, instead of throwing more stuff into the landfills!

So far, I’ve given away a VCR that I just don’t use anymore and a back massager still in the box. I’ve picked some cool things too, like a bunch of brand new mason jars (I’m replacing my plastic storage containers) and this awesome ceramic crockpot above for making sauerkraut. Ceramic crockpots like this one cost over $130 – so this was an awesome find and looks brand new. Check out Freecycle and pass along the link. Recycle and reuse!!

2) DEALZON - There are a lot of coupon shopping websites out there, but DEALZON is my favorite. I have it in my Google reader, so I get updates on the best deals and coupon offers. Sometimes there are a lot of offers that I’m just not interested in, but I’ve been able to scout out a few good nuggets among them.

One of them was a free three-month membership to Amazon Prime. This means I get free 2nd-day shipping on most products I order from Amazon. And when you sign up, you can immediately set your account to cancel this service at the end of 3 months, so you don’t get stuck paying the annual fee if you don’t want to. What a luxury it’s been getting my stuff in 2 days! Usually I chose the long 7-10 day delivery option to save money, so Amazon Prime has been a really nice perk.

Also through Dealzon, I got a free $4.99 credit in Amazon movies-on-demand, an Ivan Mog gourmet caramel apple for my niece (at least I can sneak a little bit of fruit in her, right?) and a free 3-part video tutorial on guitar-playing. I haven’t played in awhile, so hopefully this will inspire me to start again. Fun stuff!

Free Gourmet Caramel Apple!

3) SWAGBUCKS – This is a web search site where you receive results from Google & Ask.com, earn “Swag Bucks” periodically as you search the web and then redeem your Swag Bucks in the Swag Store. Personally, there’s not much merchandise that interests me in the Swag Store, but I can definitely use the gift cards! It only takes 14 swagbucks to get a $5 gift card at Red Envelope, 20 swagbucks for a $5 gift card at Alice.com and 45 swagbucks for $5 gift card at Amazon. There are other ways to earn besides searches, like referrals (hint, hint.) So if you decide to join and are so inclined, please help a chica out and click on my Swagbuck link. It would be much appreciated. ;D

How I Get Free Gift Cards!

Well, that’s all I can think of for now. Hope this helps some. Do you have any good budgeting tips to pass along? I would love to hear them!

P.S. Speaking of free stuff, I’m going to have an awesome free giveaway soon. Stay tuned!

I’m Still Here!

lilla — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 00:47:18 +0000

WOW – I can’t believe a week went by without blogging. To tell you the truth, it’s been nice taking a vacation from my blog. I wasn’t preoccupied, wondering what I was going to write about. I had more time to do things. But at the same time, I’ve noticed that my “blogging muscle” (the one inside my skull) has gotten weak. There’s something to be said about blogging daily to keep the creative writing juices flowing. SO that being said, time to play catch-up!

Last we left our “show,” I was faced with the weekend minefield – lunch with a friend on Saturday followed a family gathering on Sunday. I’m happy to report, that all went well. After walking around town with my friend trying to decide where to eat, she suggested the Whole Foods salad bar – YAY! That’s EXACTLY where I wanted to go, but thought it might be too chintzy since I hadn’t seen her in months. So that worked out great and I had a big green salad with a couple of vegetable sides and one macaroon.

Then at my family’s gathering, I thought about my recent post where I wished social gatherings didn’t center around food. So I decided to bring the game Pictionary and we all had A BLAST! Instead of mindlessly picking at food all night, we were in tears from laughter. Between my niece endlessly picking new cards until she found one SHE wanted to draw and my Aunt drawing these elaborate artistic masterpieces, we had a hoot!

For food, I brought raw walnut pesto stuffed mushrooms and my famous raw carrot cake and they both went over very well! My SAD sister loved the carrot cake and asked me if it was “fake” as in one of my raw concoctions and not a standard recipe. FAKE!?! I told her mine was the REAL DEAL with whole food ingredients that you can actually pronounce like carrots, walnuts, raisins and cinnamon and her typical store-bought cake with plastic frosting was the fake one. She laughed and even asked for the recipe – cool!

Lots more to catch up on, but I’ll leave it at that for now. I doubt I will be blogging every day as my life has gotten exponentially busy lately, but I plan on writing a few times per week. I AM still Twittering though, so if you want to know what I’m up to, just check the sidebar on the right for my Twitter updates. Ciao for now!

p.s. Thank you to everyone who was “worried” about me while I was MIA. I was really touched to see that my silly blog was missed and how my cyberfriends were concerned. You are all so sweet and wonderful. Thank you for your friendship from the bottom of my heart! xox

I’m Moving!

lilla — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 12:05:36 +0000

Yes that’s right, I’m moving again. Well, my blog is anyway. I’ve decided to jump the Blogspot ship and get on the Wordpress wagon.

Still have to iron out design issues, but I will probably be moving sometime this week. My blog will continue to be about the same topics – shredding, raw food, life, travel – with maybe a bit more of a vlogging twist.

Hopefully, everything will go smoothly with the move, but there’s a chance you might lose me in your feed readers. Blogspot doesn’t make moving easy, so I’ll keep you posted.

Welcome to "Healthy Simple Living" with Kali Lilla

lilla — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 02:15:00 +0000

Hello All,

As you can see, I did a little redecorating today at my new home ‘Healthy Simple Living.’ My goal is to start blogging about a variety of topics from nutrition to eco-living to travel and of course, shredding!

I plan on filming more bite-size videos, putting together a monthly e-newsletter and other mini-reports and fun goodies.

One thing you’ll notice is that my daily pics have moved to my sidebar. I will be dropping my pics into a monthly streaming photobucket – a short version of a timelapse video.

I hope you enjoy the new website!

Love, Lilla

228 – Last Day of the Month at the DMV

lilla — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 02:00:00 +0000

Well, that title pretty much sums up my morning…and my afternoon. If you live in the US, you know what I mean. I spent most of my day sitting in a hot car in 90 degree weather, in a long queue, waiting to have my car inspected on the busiest day of the month at the Division of Motor Vehicles. At least I had the foresight the bring my ProBlogger book and read it again for the second time. I’m determined to apply every single tip I can to my new blog.

Speaking of which, my one-day old blog “cut it’s teeth” and got it’s first comment and newsletter subscriber today! Yay, thank you Lynda! I’ve printed your comment out and taped it to my computer just like a new business that frames their first dollar bill for good luck.

I’m having so much fun with my new blog Mysore Ashtanga that I’ve been kind of been neglecting this one. The older child has fallen out of favor for the new baby sibling. LOL. After I get MA up and running to my satisfaction, I’ll start putting more time into KL.

Signing off now to get some sleep in preparation for the Shredder+ Challenges, although my ankle is still achy. I must have done some serious damage. I think I will only be walking for awhile, no running.