Hello friends,
I have to say that with all the celebrity deaths this month news coverage of the first ever Buxr Founder’s Meeting was severely under-reported. And unlike some freebie offers, our Buxr coffee mugs were actually delivered. 
We are still waiting for pics with your mugs. Please don’t be shy!! 
Now let’s get down to business, the Monthly Contest Results are in! The voters voted and the top 8 monthly users will receive cash prizes. But wait, there’s more! The top 20 members who have NOT yet received a mug, will get one this month (you only qualify for a mug once). If you finish in the top 20 and have already received a mug in prior contest then you will get a cool Buxr mousepad instead!
Special note: In order for us to mail you a coffee mug or mousepad, we obviously need your address. Please go login to your Buxr account, go to Payee Information and enter you mailing address. Please try to enter address information by July 10th, so we can mail the mugs or mousepads out to you promptly.
Top 8 Winners receiving cash prizes and a Buxr Coffee Mug or Mousepad:
1st place: TheBest 204 Points — $100 + Mousepad
2nd place: Solstice 200 Points — $100 + Mousepad
3rd place: Overaged 193 Points — $100 + Mousepad
4th place: Onkarkulkarni 177 Points — $75 + Mousepad
5th place: Chinnam 170 Points — $75 + Mousepad
6th place: Arzkar 165 Points — $50 + Mousepad
7th place: Jackbauer 153 Points — $50 + Mousepad
8th place: llocomotive 151 Points — $50 + Mug
The remaining 12 winners will receive Buxr Coffee Mugs or Mousepads:
9th place: Emma123 149 Points — Mousepad
10th place: jack69darin 144 Points — Mousepad
11th place: kldpm 136 Points — Mousepad
12th place: redsoxrokk 108 Points — Mug
13th place: MrCheap 96 Points — Mousepad
14th place: steve_05 89 Points — Mousepad
15th place: k-rock360 84 Points — Mousepad
16th place: bigger915 82 Points — Mug
17th place: ashley 78 Points — Mug
18th place: vedlon 76 Points — Mug
19th place: joestring 69 Points — Mug
20th place: phunkeey 63 Points — Mousepad
Cheers to all of our winners. Thanks for all of your contributions to the community.
Refer a friend contest results:
We have only one winner in the refer a friend contest and it’s last month’s winner too.
Bigger915 with 5 good friends wins $50
Thanks for spreading the word about the site. We are currently working on re-vamping the refer a friend offer. We hope it will be very exciting for everyone.
Site Updates
Yan has been slaving away adding cool features this month, here are some updates you may or may not have noticed:
- Top Members Page - Check out this page to see some of Buxr’s top contributors. You can see stats like number of deals submitted, percentage of deals rejected, topics started, comments left, and a cool new stat called “reputation” which is calculated based on the number of votes a member collects with their comments. This list is especially useful for new members trying to figure out who to be nice to.
- If the Top Members page didn’t have enough stats for you, we’ve updated user profiles with lots of cool new stats like number of problems reported and fixed, percentage of “best deals” scored, friends referred, and more. Just click on any member’s name to see their stats.
- Hosted Coupons - If you have a coupon image or file you can now upload it straight to Buxr. You no longer have to use 3rd party hosting sites to store these coupons. This is a great advantage since uploading to Buxr is both permanent and fast.
Thanks for your support
We are working hard on some exciting changes for Buxr that we think will really help grow the site and will make bargain hunting more enjoyable. Thanks again to everyone for contributing to Buxr.com, we are looking forward to seeing you again in July!
Mike & Yan @ Buxr.com
July 1st, 2009
Sometimes the best things in life are free, and very often they end up on Buxr. But sometimes things are not as “free” as they seem, or even worse they may cost you real money. Which brings me to the topic of this blog post, what we consider “free” and what we consider being a smart freebie hunter.
1. What is a freebie?
In my opinion a freebie is something that you get without paying any money upfront or later on. This means there is no shipping, rebate, cash back, subscription, or credit card required to get the freebie. A real freebie has no monetary cost attached to it. But as we all know, nothing in life is really free, there is always a cost. That cost may be your time, your email address, the email addresses of 5 friends, etc.
2. So what are some good freebie offers?
I’ve personally had fantastic results with manufacturer’s coupons at the grocery store, free magazine offers, offers from major brands like Walmart and Sam’s Club, and some clothing freebies. Samples also seem like a good bet, because it’s mutually beneficial for the advertiser and the recipient. The range of freebies offered across the net is much broader than what I’ve described, but these are the kinds of offers I’ve had success with in the past.
3. Are some freebies better than others?
Yes, not all freebies are created equal. Some freebies are very limited offers available in just a few states. Then there are freebies that are more like sweepstakes, where only the first 500 to sign-up receive a freebie and the rest just end up giving up some personal information. If you are a Buxr regular, you may have noticed we try to reject most of these offers during moderation.
4. What are some signs of scam freebie offers?
For me the biggest sign of a scam offer is site design. If the site design looks very simple and basic, almost like it was a template and somebody filled in the blanks, that is a major vote of no confidence. The second big indicator is advertising next to the freebie offer. Legitimate freebies are given away usually because they want you as a future customer or subscriber. Scammer sites are just trying to make a quick buck, hoping you’ll click on one of their ads. Finally, I think an “about page” and contact information are extremely important. If they want your information, and will not disclose their own… run for the hills. If you are pro-freebie hunter, you can always check the domain name registration using a service like whois. If they just registered the domain name for the site the day before, hit the back button on your browser.
5. How do I protect myself from spam offers?
If you are a real freebie fan you’ll want to get yourself a junk email address. This is a special email address you create solely for the purpose of signing up for freebies. If they ask for a phone number you can give them a free Google Voice number. Never give your Paypal address, social security number, credit card number, banking account or vital personal information under any circumstance. Your email, postal address, and phone number is all that you will ever need to score a great freebie.
Now that I’ve struck fear into the core of your freebie hunting soul, I want to say that finding freebies has been a real joy. To keep things simple I always stick to the motto “if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is..”. and that’s worked well for me thus far. With the right expectations and precautions, you too can score some great free stuff!
If you have any freebie hunting tips, please share them in the comments.
Photo credit to kimberlybrimhall at flickr
June 22nd, 2009
Printable coupons are hitting critical mass on the internet, and if you are just clipping coupons out of the Sunday paper, you maybe missing out on some great savings. Did you know that printable coupons are available for everything from electronics and clothing to fast food and amusement parks? Well we did , so as a service to you, our loyal Buxr readers, we are going to recommend some of our favorite printable coupon sites and give you some tips on detecting fraudulent printable coupons.
Not all printable coupons are legitimate
For one reason or another there are a lot of fraudulent printable coupon circulating the internet. Sometimes phony coupons are easy to detect, others can be quite tricky. Here are some things we look for to weed out the fakes:
1. Blurry images or a blurry copy of a printable coupon is a sure sign of a problem. Chances are these coupons are blurry to obfuscate some kind of alteration to the terms or they have simply been photocopied/scanned. Most retailers do not accept photocopied or scanned coupons, and often this is stated right on the coupon itself “void if copied.”
2. Remember that saying “always read the fine print?” Well, lack of terms such as expiration and redemption limits (aka fine print) could mean the printable coupon is bogus. Just like the coupons you get in the Sunday paper, online printable coupons typically contain the same details.
3. Look for a bar code on the coupon. Most legit printable coupons have a bar code.
4. Do not pay for printable coupons. If you stumble along a site that is asking you to pay for a printable coupon, hit the back button immediately. You should never have to pay to print!
5. The coupon is hosted on a 3rd party image hosting website. This is a tricky situation because some legitimate printable coupons are hosted on these sites, but you should pay very close attention to the details of the coupon. What I usually do is check with my friend Google, and see if there are other mentions of this particular coupon. After a quick search, I can usually find some user comments regarding the coupon to help me out.
6. If it’s too good to be true, it usually is. Remember to use common sense when inspecting any printable coupon. That buy 1 get 1 free Cadillac printable coupon is probably fake.
Finding Great Printable Coupons
So now that you know how to spot a phony, let’s go over a few of our favorite printable coupon sites.
1. Wow-Coupons.com
Wow Coupons is one of the first all-printable coupon sites that I found on the web. You will quickly notice that the Wow website design is fun and friendly. They have a cute animated coupon mascot that guides you through the site. It’s also easy to navigate so you can peruse coupons by categories such as retail, grocery, travel, rebates and restaurant. All of the coupons are presented clearly with merchant name, discount and expiration dates clearly stated. They’ve also launched a UK site, so that’s good news for those across the pond.
2. Coupons.com
Coupons.com is a great source for printable coupons, particularly grocery coupons. When you arrive at the printable coupons page, there is a pop-up that prompts you for your zip code, once you enter that you’ll get both local and national printable coupons. Most of the offers are grocery coupons, and just browsing the first page I found a few nice coupons like: $1 off Crystal Lite and $1 off Kraft Macaroni Cheese (you can tell I have sophisticated taste). They have about 11 more pages of printable coupons for my area. The one downside of Coupons.com is that you have to register and install a little piece of software to print the coupons.
3. SmartSource.com
Like Coupons.com, Smart Source carries tons of printable coupons for primarily groceries. And just like Coupons.com, you can enter your Zip Code to get local printable coupons. I’ve used it before and have gotten some great deals like a free 24oz Heinz Ketchup. Again, they require you to install special software to print the coupons but I’ve never had a problem with it.
4. Valpak.com
Even if you throw away those Valpak envelopes you get stuffed with coupons, you can still go to Valpak.com and find some great local printable coupons. Just entering my zip code, I found a coupon for Midas (Auto) $5 off $10 and $10 off $100. Not bad, and it’s easier to navigate a website than a pack of coupons stuffed with unwanted offers.
5. Google.com
OK I love search engines, and I think Google is a great way to find printable coupons. Simply enter the Merchant Name + Printable Coupon and you may find a printable coupon that works. A word of caution here, you never know what site could end up in the search results. So please take extra time to investigate the source and the printable coupon itself. One other cool thing I wanted to mention was that Google Maps lists some printable coupons offered by local business. You can go to this page and search for some in your area.
6. Buxr.com
You didn’t think I would skip over our site did you? Well, we always have fantastic printable coupons available from your favorite merchants. We tend to have more retail coupons than grocery coupons, but you can always count on it to be hot. And if that were not enough, we have moderators and a nice community that is standing by to check every offer. What could be better than that?
Let’s get printing!
I hope you’ve enjoyed these tips, and will save some money as a result. I always like to remind people that shopping should be enjoyable and also not to stress out over a few bucks. Your health is much more valuable than saving $2 off at Domino’s Pizza.
Happy printing,
Mike @ Buxr
Photo courtesy of Coupon Diva on Flickr
June 10th, 2009
Hello friends,
It’s been a hot month on Buxr, and it’s about to get hotter. Yep summer is almost here, the deals have been great, and the contest has been very active.
As you know every month we let Buxr members vote and pick the prize. This month, members voted overwhelmingly for $70 to each to the top 10 finishers, and Buxr Coffee Mugs to the top 20 finishers. So below is our longest list of winners ever!
Special note: In order for us to mail you a coffee mug, we obviously need your address. Please go login to your Buxr acct, and go to Payee Information and enter you mailing address. Please try to enter address information by June 5th, so we can mail the mugs out to you promptly.
Top 10 Winners receiving $70 and a Buxr Coffee Mug:
1st place: Chinnam 246 Points
2nd place: Solstice 224 Points
3rd place: Thebest 215 Points
4th place: Overaged 209 Points
5th place: Malik 195 Points
6th place: Arzkar 190 Points
7th place: K-Rock360 185 Points
8th place: emma123 183 Points
9th place: Kldpm 183 Points
10th place: Onkarkulkarni 158 Points
The remaining 10 winners will receive Buxr Coffee Mugs
11th place: Vinhdanh 144 Points
12th place: Steve_05 132 Points
13th place: Satyalkoganti 127 Points
14th place: jack69darin 125 Points
15th place: lprjohnny 125 Points
16th place: JackBauer 98 Points
17th place: Gooddeal 95 Points
18th place: Mr Cheap 87 Points
19th place: knight 69 Points
20th place: phunkeey 60 Points
Again, congratulations to our winners! And when you are sipping your morning coffee from one of our beautiful mugs, please think of us. Or better yet, please login leave a comment, start a discussion, or submit a deal!
Refer a friend contest results:
Not a bad month for our refer friend contest, we had 3 members refer 5 friends and win some easy cash. Here are winners who actually have friends
Bigger915 with 5 good friends wins $50
MacGyver with 5 good friends wins $50
K-Rock360 with 5 good friends wins $50
Congratulations to our winners, this contest means more to us than it does to you! Thanks again.
Site Updates
Yan has been working hard adding plenty of cool features to the site, but sometimes the coolest things are streamlined into the site and can go unnoticed.
1. We’ve added a “popular merchant coupons” module to the front page dashboard. This is a nice way of scanning what’s going on coupon wise with the site.
2. We’ve added a coupon search to the site, to make coupon hunting a little easier.
3. We’ve added an advanced search to the site, so now you can look up older deals in the archives. This can be useful for deal submissions.
4. We’ve removed our friend Taggy from the banner section of the site, and added some useful stats such as # of deals submitted today, number of discussions added this week, and amount of cash prizes awarded for the month.
5. And finally, we are adding support for OpenID! OpenID is a way to use one digital identity across the Internet. Even better news, since Google is an OpenID provider, you can login to Buxr or register using Gmail. Yan, has a nice forum post explaining the details here.
Again, thanks for all of your support this month. We have many more exciting announcements coming soon, so please stay tuned.
Cheers,
Mike @ Buxr.com
June 1st, 2009
Nothing like a good Summer vacation to get your mind off the economy, crummy job, or whatever daily grind you must go through. If you haven’t guessed by now we are bargain hunters at Buxr and love to save our money whenever we have to spend our money. I’m going to share with you some common sense tips along with some bargain hunting secrets to help you save and get the most out of your summer vacation.
Travel Tip #1: Plan your trip early
Planning your trip early is probably the easiest way to save money on your summer vacation. Not only will you be able to get the hotel you want but you’ll also be able to book a lot of the restaurants and attractions that fill-up for last minute travelers. And of course there is nothing worse than waiting until the last minute for air travel. Chances are you will end up paying more for your flight tickets, and get some of the worst possible seats. So try to do your best and plan your vacation early… your wallet will thank you.
Travel Tip #2: Book your ticket on weak demand travel days
Because of low airline traffic volume you can usually get your ticket slightly cheaper if you fly on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Saturday Afternoon. Also including a weekend in your travel plans can save you some additional cash.
Travel Tip #3: Book through a travel comparison site
There are tons of great travel sites on the web, so I’ll just go through a few of my favorite. I’ll start with Orbitz because I’m used to their interface, and I’ve had a reasonably good experience in the past. Orbitz will display offers from multiple airline and hotels in an easy to read matrix. Another great site is Kayak.com which offers tons of flights, and has an extra benefit of searching the airline’s websites too. Finally their is a similar site to Kayak called Mobissimo.com which also searches dozens of airlines and price comparison sites like Priceline, Orbitz, and Hotwire. Mobissimo and Kayak also offer nice comparison for hotels, cars, vacations and cruises.
Travel Tip #4: Call and haggle directly with the Hotel
This little trick worked during good economic times, and now with the downturn it should work even better. Pick up your phone the old fashioned way, and call the hotel and ask for a better price. Usually just asking nicely works wonders on getting a better price and even a better room. If that doesn’t work, call a few comparable hotels and write down the rates. Then call back your first choice, and mention that a similar hotel is offering an equivalent room at a lower rate. Tell the hotel agent that even though you are willing to stay at another hotel, you would love to get a similar rate at your “favorite” hotel. I’ve personally had some success with this system, and I’ve heard from friends that it’s worked for them as well. The system seems to work best on luxury hotels which are usually overpriced, and have more room to discount.
Travel Tip #5: Avoid internet and phone charges in your hotel
I often find that at least 50% of the hotels I visit do not have free internet access. To make matters worse I’m guilty of using the hotel internet connection when I travel. I do this simply because when you are running a couple of websites, you need a high speed connection or it takes forever to do your work. But if you are like most normal people on vacation you probably just want to check your email or catch up on the news. These days a lot of people carry around smartphones which allow you to do most of this directly on the phone. However if you decide to carry a laptop too, you can tether your smartphone to your laptop and harness your carrier’s broadband connection. Now a lot of wireless carriers like Verizon and AT&T offer special internet tethering plans which aren’t bad. Additionally, if you have a little bit of hacker in your blood, you can tether your phone for free.. Here is how to do it for the iPhone and Andriod phones. One other tip, try to use your cell phone as much as possible and avoid the hotel phone. Using the hotel phone is very expensive and unnecessary when you can use your cell phone (just watch the roaming charges).
Travel Tip #6: Use a travel agent
Here is news for some people, some travel agents still have pretty good deals. We recently booked a vacation to Disney during a peak travel time. We initially tried calling Disney and tried booking through them, but they had no availability. We ended up using a travel agent, who got us a decent deal when there were no other openings.
Travel Tip #7: Sign up for a hotel and airfare loyalty program
If you are organized and show some loyalty love to your favorite hotels and airlines they will throw you a bone occasionally with some great deals. I mention being organized because I often find myself not properly capitalizing on rewards programs even though I frequent some of the same hotels every year. Do your homework and make sure you sign up to any program which you are bound to frequent.
Travel Tip #8: Rent a home from an owner
We’ve done this a few times with some success and you get a great place. Check out sites like vrbo.com or homeaway.com, and you can find a nice rental home with all the amenities. The best part about renting a place, is that you get a lot more space and usually a good kitchen to save on eating out expenses. One word of warning, call or email the owner and ask a lot of questions about the property. If they are not responsive, I wouldn’t book with them. Some of the rental sites have some reviews which is also useful.
Travel Tip #9: Check out some helpful travel deal sites
There are some industry travel deal site that are pretty popular. My favorite is Travelzoo.com which compiles some great deals every week. Some flights are as low as $50 each way. Additionally there are sites like site59.com and airefarewatchdog.com which are pretty good.
Travel Tip #10: Travel when no one else wants too
Flying off season is one of the easiest ways to save money when traveling. Try to avoid peak travel periods to your favorite locations. Doing so will help avoid the crowds and save a few bucks. Also if you have time you can book your flight with a couple of stops. I try to avoid these myself, but you can get some great prices for your suffering.
Hope you’ve enjoyed these tips, and even more so, I hope they save you a few bucks. Remember a vacation should be relaxing and enjoyable. So don’t stress too much about anything.
Would love to hear your tips too!
May 25th, 2009
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