2- After you have registered, just come back to this post and leave a comment and you are officially ENTERED! You must leave a comment to enter after you have registered.

3- Giveaway ends Tuesday, July 5th at Midnight PST. At which point I will use Random.org to pick a winner. Must be 18 and a U.S. citizen to enter.

Want Extra Entries? If so, you can do the following:

~ 1 Extra Entry – ‘Like’ Rather-Be-Shopping on Facebook. My ‘Like Box’ is on the right. Just let me know in your comment and you’ll get another entry. If you already like us (we like you too!) then just let us know in your comment and you will get an extra entry as well.

~ 5 Extra Entires – If you are a blog owner, create a post about the new Rather-Be-Shopping.com and some of the benefits and I will be glad to give you 5 extra entries. Just E-mail Me the link to your post and I wll take care of the rest!

Past Winners:

Giveaway #1 – $75 Walmart Gift Card – Depsy from Twenty Nine Palms, CA

Giveaway #2 – $75 Walmart Gift Card – Andi from Bakersfiled, CA

Congrats to both, who will be next?? Good luck and thanks for coming by and registering!

Blog of the Day: Deal Seeking Mom.com

Featured blog #2, and it’s a good one. Have a great weekend y’all!

Our second featured blog is Deal Seeking Mom.com. The blog is run by Tara and she specializes in printable coupons, freebies, giveaways, and a sprinkling of coupon codes thrown in. Deal Seeking Mom is fairly similar to the blog I featured yesterday (Money Saving Mom), but I would say that the biggest difference is Tara does a better job highlighting specific grocery store deals. She has weekly deal round-ups to many popular grocery stores including CVS, Food City, Fry’s, Harveys, and Shaws to name a few. It takes a lot of work and dedication to put these round ups together week after week. Definitely worth a look.

Deal Seeking Mom also offers some editorial posts on current shopping trends. I found the post Is Couponing Just a Trend? quite interesting. I would agree with Tara that couponing is a way of life with many consumers. Saving money can become quite addictive as well. Popular shows like TLC’s Extreme Couponing serves as a great example of this. Personally, I think couponing will continue to grow in popularity. Especially as we struggle to get the economy moving in the right direction. There is absolutely no sense paying full price when you don’t have to.

Great job Tara on your blog, keep up the great work.

Blog of the Day: Money Saving Mom.com

I am always looking for new ideas for the Rather-Be-Shopping.com blog. So the other day I got an e-mail from a loyal user saying how much she enjoyed the ‘blog interview series’ I started and said I should do a daily blog spotlight. So I am going to give it a try. It’s going to be easy to find blogs to spotlight as I have visited some very fun and useful blogs over the past 10 years. The one thing that all the blogs and sites will have in common is they will ALL save you money! So look for a new featured blog every few days. Unless, of course, I am playing Mr. Mom for the day, or working on my new barn. Yes, I am going to have some animals here at the homestead. Perhaps a couple goats and maybe a pony. I can’t believe I just typed that, I better not let my daughter read this or she will never stop talking about it.

Our first featured blog is Money Saving Mom.com. The thing I like most about Crystal’s blog is her writing style. You feel like you know her and she is just talking to you at a neighborhood BBQ. I have been stopping by here blog every once in a while for the past several years and I always find a post that is heartfelt. Today it was How To Make Money Blogging: 10 Ways to Build & Increase Your Readership (Part 1) which offers advice to fellow bloggers. Great tips like creating useful content, commenting on other blogs, and guest posting. It is refreshing to see a successful blogger willing to help those that are just starting out. The link above is just for part 1, check out her blog for the other 3 parts of the series.

As for the nuts and bolts of Money Saving Mom.com, Crystal literally has a entire tool chest full. Some of her popular blog categories include store deals, online coupons, giveaways, freebies, printable coupons, income earning ideas, and recipes. If you love a freebie, you should definitely check out her weekly Giveaway Link Up. I actually used her free service a couple weeks ago when I was doing our Wal-Mart gift card giveaway and got a nice response from it. Go check out Money Saving Mom.com today, you won’t regret it. Keep up the great work Crystal.

Sign-Up For Personalized Coupon Alerts

Register for FREE Coupons Alerts! – Click Here

We have been getting some email from folks wondering exactly how our new ‘Coupon Alerts’ feature works. So I wanted to take this opportunity to break it down for you. I will answer some of your specific questions and by doing so I think you will understand exactly how this feature works.

Question #1 – Is it free to sign-up for your ‘Coupon Alerts’?

Answer - Yes, totally free.

Question #2 – How often do you email me new coupons?

Answer - If we add a coupon for one of the stores or categories you chose to get alerts for, then you will get an e-mail that day. So it really depends on your particular stores and how often we add coupons for them.

Question #3 – How do I sign-up for your ‘Coupon Alerts’?

Answer – First thing you have to do is Register with Rather-Be-Shopping.com.

Question #4 – After I register, what do I do?

Answer – Next you need to Sign-In to your account and configure your ‘Coupon Alert’ Settings. The image below shows you exactly what this page looks like. You just check off all the stores and shopping categories that you want to receive alerts for. Once you have done that, just click ‘Submit’ at the bottom and your done! If you do not want to receive any e-mail alerts just uncheck all of your boxes.

Question #5 – I am still having trouble figuring this out. What do I do?

Answer – Please Contact Us and we would be more than happy to help you out with your specific issues. We want to make sure everybody gets registered so they can save money.

Here is a video tutorial we made that shows you how to register for ‘Coupon Alerts’:

• Athleta.com – Free Shipping on your $50+ online order – View all Athleta coupon codes Here.
• Birthday Express – Save 10% Off your $65+ online purchase – View all Birthday Express coupon codes Here.
• Gap.com – Save 30% off your entire online order – View all Gap coupon codes Here.
• Lands’ End.com – Free Shipping on your entire online order – View all Lands’ End coupon codes Here.
• Movies Unlimited.com – Over 1200 DVDs Under $9.00 (Buy 4 and get FREE Shipping) – View all Movies Unlimited coupon codes Here.
• Vera Bradley.com – Save 25% OFF your ENTIRE order of certain styles – View all Vera Bradley coupon codes Here.

Blog Spotlight: 10 Questions With Andrew of JoeShopping.com

Andrew and I have been taking similar life paths for a while now. Married (with kids), doing the coupon thing, and more entrepreneurial gusto then you can fit into a U-haul truck. With so many spammy shopping/coupon sites on the Internet, it is refreshing to find someone doing it the right way and focusing on great content. Thanks Andrew for participating in my 10 questions feature. I hope your new endeavor becomes extremely successful. Please E-Mail me if you are interested in being interviewed and having your blog or website featured.

10 Questions With Andrew of JoeShopping.com

1. Describe your website in 5 sentences or less?
~ JoeShopping.com is one part comparison shopping, two parts coupons and deals, and one part social networking. Users can shop for over 5 million products using our comparison shopping feature, where we show you the best (and cheapest) places online to buy a specific product. Consumers don’t need to bounce back and forth between multiple online stores to see who has the best price; we do the legwork for them. We’ve also got thousands of coupons for hundreds of stores, a robust Hot Deals section full of everything from video games to shoes, and an active shopping community where users help each other out in terms of gift suggestions, product reviews, shopping blogs and just about anything related to shopping.

2. What makes JoeShopping different from all the rest?
~ While there are a lot of deals or coupon sites out there, no one seems to be doing it all in one. JoeShopping.com takes the best tools available and puts them all in one place. Between coupons, hot deals and price comparisons, you’re bound to find the best prices online. Additionally, our social network was built from scratch, so it’s very integrated with the entire site. You can write a product review of the latest Halo video game and it will show up in your activity stream for all your friends to see. Additionally, just by using the site (reviewing products, writing blog posts, submitting Hot Deals, voting on content), you can earn unique badges and points. These points (called JoePoints), can be used at the end of each month to enter our sweepstakes. And while I can’t say anything more at the moment, we have some BIG plans for the near future in terms of JoePoints, where users will be able to exchange them for a whole lot more.

3. What would I be surprised to find in your refrigerator right now?
~ I really wish I could say something cool like a frozen dinosaur embryo. But the zaniest thing you’d find is probably 5 or 6 packages of turkey bacon.

4. If you were deserted on a desert island and could pick one music CD to bring, what would it be? (assuming you had a CD player and electricity )
~ Do they still make CD players with batteries? I guess I’d have to go with Queensryche’s “Operation Mindcrime.” It’s always been one of my all-time favorites. And yes, I do actually own it on CD, not mp3.

5. When and why did you first start your site?
~ We officially launched JoeShopping.com late October of 2010, having incorporated in March 2010. But there’s a much longer history behind it. To sum it up as quickly as I can… back in 1999, I started up an online coupon site with a high school friend of mine. We ran it for years, and it got extremely successful. So much so, that we ended up selling it back in 2008. But years before we sold it, we had JoeShopping in mind and did some basic work on the site. We wanted to do something a bit different than just coupons. Initially, it began as a very basic comparison shopping site, but as MySpace was taking off (soon followed and squashed by Facebook), we really enjoyed the whole social network space, and wanted to somehow include that in our design. It kind of snowballed from there. Selling the coupon site not only gave us the money to fund our new company, but just as importantly, it gave us the much-needed time to work on it. We really wanted to build a super useful, fun and interactive site that revolved around shopping. Something that we’d be real proud of and love to share with everyone.

6. What post on your blog best depicts the essence of you?
~ Well, that’d either be our Hot Deals section or all the great Badges users can earn. Hands down, Hot Deals is my favorite section of the site. Not just because I can find things like the Back to the Future trilogy on Bluray for just $14.99 (which I missed out on!), but I just love the way we made it interactive. Users can add deals themselves, and even vote on whether a deal is hot or not. They can also comment on deals, and receive email notifications when someone comments after them. Then we average out the scores and show a rating for that product. I guess that depicts my essence somewhat because I like to take basic approaches (in this case, simply a deal) and make it as cool, fun and entertaining as possible. Even if you don’t buy a single thing, it’s still fun to look at all the deals and vote or comment on them. As for the badges, they just show how much fun we have with the site overall. They’re cute, cartoony graphics that virtually reward users for performing various actions on the site.

7. What blog or website influenced you the most when you started?
~ That’s a tough one because sooo many sites were influential. Things like Facebook and Twitter for sure. But also social networks like LinkedIn, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, etc. Not to mention the hundreds of online stores themselves. But Facebook was probably the most influential at first, mainly because they’re the current King of Social Networks.

8. Who would play you in a movie about your life, and why?
~ Well, I’d like to say John Cusack since he’s just a fun, lovable kind of guy. Plus, then I’d get a shot at finally meeting him.

9. Where do you see JoeShopping in 5 years?
~ I’m hoping the name JoeShopping will be on everyone’s lips the way Facebook is these days. We have a slew of features in store to keep improving on the online shopping experience, so we really do hope to be the source for everything shopping online. That includes going down to the local retailer level and really working closely with them. It’s a lofty goal for sure, but we’re nothing if not ambitious.

10. What is your favorite breakfast cereal and why?
~ As a kid, that was a toss-up between Sugar Smacks and Corn Pops. But I’ve tried both recently (thanks to my two sons) and they really don’t hold up too well. The only one that still does is Cookie Crisp. You just can’t go wrong with cookies for breakfast.

Thanks Andrew for playing along! Remember to E-Mail me if you are interested in being interviewed and having your blog featured.

Coupon of the Day: Up to 20% Off at Pet Food Direct.com

Save $8 OFF your $50+ order, Coupon Code: PETS8

Save $20 OFF your $100+ order, Coupon Code: PETS20

Save $30 OFF your $150+ order, Coupon Code: PETS30

Expires 6/30/11

Side Note: As I have mentioned in the past we have bunch of four legged things at our home. Various tables and chairs, a golden retriever, a Bassett hound, a cat, 25 tropical fish, and now 6 baby chickens. Yes, we are in completely over our heads, but the kids are enjoying every minute of it. The nice thing is that they are getting old enough to take on a lot of the pet responsibilities themselves. Which is great for dear old Mom and Dad. But my point is, with that many critters, our pet food bill, as well as flea/tick treatment costs, and Heartguard prevention, is NOT unsubstantial. So coupons like these from Pet Food Direct.com are great for me. Not only do they carry deals on pet food, but I also buy our Frontline flea and tick medicine from PFD. With the help of one of the coupons, I can save at least 15% over what my veterinarian sells Frontline for. As most parents can attest, every dollar counts!

~ Check out all of our Pet Food Direct coupons for additional deals like 25% off Supplements and Vitamins.

Other “Furry and Cute” Coupons:

• Petco.com – Free Shipping on your $49+ online order – View My Petco online coupons Here.
• 1-800-PetMeds.com – Save 5% Off your entire online purchase – View My 1-800 PetMeds online coupons Here.
• Petsmart.com – Pay only $5.99 Shipping on your $60+ online order – View My Petsmart online coupons Here.

Coupon of the Day: 20% Off + Free Shipping at Macy’s.com

Save 20% OFF your ENTIRE order + FREE Shipping, Coupon Code SUMMER

Expires 6/15/11

Side Note: I have been doing this whole online coupon thing for a while now. I have been promoting Macys coupon for a while as well. You know the kind of coupon I am talking about, right? 10% off some brand I have never heard of OR 5% cash back after your spend $250. Whooppee. In other words, “crappy coupons”. So when they sent me a coupon for 20% off w/ free shipping it got my attention and thus I have turned it into a coupon of the day. I hope you can put it to good use because it does not come around very often.

~ Check out all my Macy’s coupon codes for additional deals like $25 off bridesmaid dresses.

Other “Better than normal” Coupons:

• Office Max.com – Save 20% Off your online order – View My Office Max online coupons Here.
• Eddie Bauer.com – Save 20% Off your entire purchase – View My Eddie Bauer online coupons Here.
• Overstock.com – Free shipping on your entire order (Rare. No mimimum purchase required) – View My Overstock.com online coupons Here.