$hopping $marter...

One of the goals I had for this year was to become a bit smarter with money. A bit late in the game for 2010 I know, but I just found out about these two websites and thought I'd share :)
This first one is very cool. You may remember Stephen Paletta from Oprah's "Big Give"? Well, he was the winner and Oprah gave him a big fat check for a million dollars to do something good with.

Anyway - turns out he did! He has started a site called GiveBack.org (http://www.giveback.org/) and it’s a really easy way to organize and manage your charitable giving. You can use the new website to do your regular online shopping and up to 15% of what you spend automatically gets donated to your selected charities. Or you can simply make a direct donation. At the end of the year, you get one statement for taxes and 100% of your donation goes to the charity. The site is in beta now and I tested it out - I was able to sign up, pick a charity and donate all in about 10 minutes! My chosen charity was Women for Women International (http://www.womenforwomen.org/) who provide women survivors of war,  with the tools and resources to move from crisis and poverty to stability and self-sufficiency, thereby promoting viable civil societies. My sponsor "sister" this year has been Ekreme from Kosovo and I got my first real, live letter in Kosovan (thankfully they include a translation :)) from her this week telling me how much she has learned and enjoyed the program - how amazing!

And my second discovery is...Ebates!! (Click here) I was totally oblivious to this super-cool site on which you can earn cash back while you are doing your regular shopping online. Basically you log in to your Ebates account before you select your merchant (Ebay, Barnes and Noble, Sephora, Sears, and most of everyone else you can think of) and they either track your order automaticlly or give you a coupon code to give you cash back. I just bought some stuff today and managed to get a 10% discount, 8% cash back and a free shipping deal at B&N - all without leaving my couch! You get the cash each quarter in a check through the mail.

Anyway, instead of claiming a New Year's Resolution victory on the 'Spending Smarter' front for 2010, I've decided to add it to the 2011 list instead. That way I can be 'ahead of the game' for once and take advantage of the fact that we're spending the end of 2010 in Charleston which was voted one of the best places for shopping in America on the CNN list I saw the other day...shhh...don't tell Mike...:)