Wanchai Ferry Contest

Are you ready for the chance to win dinner for two? Actually I could probably eat the whole thing by myself, but that's just me. I have been given the opportunity to give away a dinner for two and super cool tea set by Wanchai Ferry through MyBlogSpark. Have you had a craving for Chinese food but did not feel like leaving the house for it? I know I have. MyBlogSpark gave me a sample of the new Beef and Broccoli dinner, and has also given me a prize pack of Wanchai Ferry Chinese dinner to give away to one of my lucky readers. The prize also comes with a super cute tea set that includes two mugs, two containers of green tea, and two tea strainers. I loved everything about it! It was my first time trying this brand so I didn't really know what to expect. It really is comparable to restaurant quality! Plus the best thing about it was that I didn't have to leave my house to go pick it up.

Wanchai Ferry has three new entrees soon to be widely available: Beef and Broccoli, Kung Pao Chicken, and Szechuan Style Chicken. The winner of this contest will get a V.I.P. coupon and a tea set to drink with the meal to really get the full Asian experience.

Rules: (sorry, I need to have just a couple) You must be 18 or older to enter and you can be from the U.S. or somewhere international. No multiple email address submissions please, I'm going by the honor system here. And I cannot ship to p.o. boxes, so sorry! You may enter this contest daily.

I will randomly select a winner using an online randomizer and will post the winner on the blog, and send an email. The winner must respond within 2 business days or I will select a runner up.

The contest starts today (July 1) and will run until July 25th at 12:00 a.m. eastern time. I will announce the winner sometime during the next week. Here is how you enter. It will be super quick and easy and the more entries you put in, the better your chance to win. First things first, you must do all of the following:

1.) Sign up for my blog (counts for one entry for new sign-ups only!). If you are already signed up to receive emails then move on to the next step. You must do steps 2 and three if you are old subscribers. New subscribers may also do these steps to earn additional entries.

Then:

2.) Post a comment under this post telling why you would like to win, or what Asian meal you would also like to see as part of the Wanchai Ferry lineup.

Then:

3.) I will send two or three offers per week to your email that I think you might be interested in. Read these offers if you choose, and select ones that you are interested in by signing up with your email, or following the instructions in the email that I send (hey, I'm not a mind reader so if you are not interested feel free to skip it). I am able to track these sign ups and each sign up will count as two entries into the contest. You can earn as many entries as you wish! Sign up for one opportunity in the emails that I send, or sign up for them all. Each time you sign up to a new offer, you will earn two entries.

In addition to the opportunities listed above you can earn more entries by doing these other things. Just send me a link via email to let me know that you've done them so I can add your additional entries to the drawing. Oh, did I mention that if you do each of these things you will earn two entries for each? My email address is mysteryshoppingteacher@yahoo.com. Here are things you can do in addition to the first three steps listed above:

- Tweet about this on twitter (send me a link of the post)

- Become a follower of my blog with google friend connect

- Mention this on contest on your blog or website (send me a link)

- Post about this on your facebook page (you got it, send me a link)

- Get a friend to sign up! Just send me an email telling me which friend's email address was used to sign up and voila- two more entries for you.

I am looking forward to a great turn-out! Spread the word to earn extra entries. And if you get a friend to sign up, you could always split the prize. If you are interested, there is also a high-value coupon for Wanchai Ferry available. By clicking here you can get a coupon for $1.60 off. Have fun! There are lots of chances to win!

Who's going to see Eclipse?

I rarely write a post about a random thing that has nothing to do with freebies or mysteryshopping...actually I can't really think of any other time...Do you love the Twilight saga as much as I do? I have read the books and seen both movies so far. I can't wait for Eclipse! We will have to get a baby sitter and go see it in the theater. There should be some awesome fight scenes. Who else is going to see it? Came across a contest where you can win four movie tickets and a copy of the book. Click here if you are interested, or click the banner. For those who have not read the book this is your chance to do so before you watch the movie.

In other news I will be coming out with a contest of my own soon. You will not want to miss out on that! If you have not subscribed to my blog yet, you will want to do so.

Hotel Mystery Shops

It's summer time again and time for me to catch up on some mystery shops. I love this time of year!! This is the great thing about a teacher schedule that makes all of the stress of beginning and end of the year worth it. So right to the good stuff now: I have come across an awesome site that lets you mystery shop hotels! I had known about hotel shops for a couple of years but had not had the opportunity to do one myself. Finally, last week I went out of town about four hours away from my house to Alabama. We had only planned to stay in a hotel for one night, so it occurred that we could stay for free instead of having to pay. You can't really beat that can you?

I read up on the requirements and signed up for the hotel shop. The payment will cover the cost of the room, and even pay $20. Woo hoo! Just like any other shop there are certain requirements. The actual requirements start with making the reservation and ends with check-out. The total time requirement to conduct the shop for me was about an hour I would guess. It took probably an additional hour to an hour and a half to complete the questionnaire about the shop. So for 2 1/2 hours of work, I got to stay in a hotel for free plus got $20.

Added bonus: The hotel also had breakfast. I guess it is called the continental breakfast- but don't quote me on that. It had the hot waffle maker, muffins, bagels, toast, cereal, juice, etc. Did I mention that at the service desk there were free cookies? I could hardly remember the things I needed to be observing when I saw those out of the corner of my eye. They were good too. mmm cookies. Oh, where was I? Ah yes, the hotel shop. We ended up checking in at around 8:00 p.m. and left at 7:45 a.m. Not requirements of the shop, we just hadda get a move on.

So check out hotel shops to get reimbursed for a mini vacay. From what I've seen you only get to stay one night per hotel, but what's to stop you from going from one hotel to another? In my opinion it's worth consideration. Say you take a little three night vacation in Orlando. You can get reservations at three different hotels for each night of your stay within a close proximity of each other. Here's a tip to get good hotels: before you sign up at a specific hotel do a search of that hotel on google or yahoo to see what past guests think about it. That way you don't end up at some roach motel in a bad neighborhood or something. Now for the link to the mystery shopping company that I used click here to fill out an application. Has anyone else ever done a hotel shop? What other companies are out there for hotel shops?

Free movie rentals

If you are like me you love being able to rent movies for free. There are trials to Netflix and Blockbuster where you are able to make a list of the movies you want to rent and they are shipped to your home with a postage paid envelope. When you finish the movie, however long it takes, you send it back. I love these trials! Lately we have been watching season one of Fringe, since we missed about half of the first season we have had a marathon going at our house thanks to Blockbuster. There are many different shows available to rent, and the dvds are sent to you in the order that they aired. Once your trial is over you can continue and get charged a reasonable fee, or you can cancel before the trial ends to avoid a charge. Click here for a chance to win a year of Netflix rentals.

If you have already done the Netflix and Blockbuster trials and you want something more, try Redbox. I like Redbox because I have rented probably 10-15 movies for free. I never pay to rent movies anymore. Every now and then Redbox will come out with a code and when you go to a Redbox, you can pick out one free one night rental per credit card with the code. *Hint, hint* You can get one free rental for each promo code on each credit or debit card. Hopefully you got that hint. As long as you return the movie the next day before 9:00, you don't have to pay anything. If you are late then you have to pay one dollar per day, so even if you end up being one day late you are only out a dollar. Anyway, in the spirit of sharing, here is a new promo code for March: RBXLUV4U
Let me know how it works out for you. I know I will probably be renting about 8 free movies from Redbox over the next couple of weeks. Yay Redbox!

A yummy and inexpensive breakfast- Free coupon!

The new year is off to a great start and since I’ve had some changes over the past year, I have resolved to start eating breakfast. I had a baby in November, so during the time that I was pregnant, I ate breakfast daily. Now that I am the mother of an almost three month old, I really have to start the day off with breakfast! I have to start the day off right so I have the energy to get up and do what I need. Lately I have been really into General Mills cereals. Myblogspark gave me some coupons to try out a couple of boxes. I have tried Honey Nut Cheerios and Cinnamon Toast Crunch so far and I love them both!

General Mills is also in the process of producing cereals that are lower in sugar than traditional cereals. They are working on getting grams of sugar under single digits for each serving. As a teacher I think this is great for children. There is nothing worse than a child scarfing down a bowl of sugary cereal before school, especially if it happens to be the day of an important test. These cereals are also an excellent source of whole grain, and we could all use more of those in our diets. I appreciate the effort that the company is making to make a healthier product for children.

I also like that breakfast doesn't have to be an expensive meal. When you compare the cost for a bowl of cereal to the cost of just about anything else, cereal is a bargain! For a coupon for a dollar off of a box of General Mills cereals, click here. Enjoy!

Winner of Breakfast giveaway

Hello everyone, I'm just doing a quick post to announce the winner of the breakfast giveaway. Drumroll please.... Rasheeda! I have notified the winner via email and will get her goodies out to her in a snap. I love giving things away! How fun! I have a runner up in mind, too, in case I don't hear back from this winner. I plan on hosting another giveaway in the very near future, probably just after the holidays. Stick around for your chance to win some more good stuff!

Breakfast giveaway

Who doesn't like freebies? Here is your chance to grab something good. I recently tried out some Pillsbury Honey Butter Biscuits for free. I received two coupons for a free can of the biscuits as well as a butter dish and butter knife...the butter was my addition. The biscuits are flaky and sweet and make the perfect breakfast! You can't go wrong with these yummy biscuits, especially when you have the chance to get them for free. These coupons are valid only in the United States so for my readers from other countries, I apologize but these will not work for you. Here's the best part: myblogspark and Pillsbury have given me a prize pack to give away to one of my readers. Here is how you enter:

1. Subscribe to my blog with a valid email address. Make sure that you activate your subscription with the follow-up email. Sometimes the activation email goes to your spam folder so make sure to check there! If you already subscribe to my blog you are automatically entered.


2. If you want an additional opportunity to win, tweet about this on twitter and email me a link. My address is mysteryshoppingteacher@yahoo.com.

Number two is optional. You can do number one and number two (and have two chances to win) or you can just do number one (and have one chance to win). You must sign up for a subscription to be entered into the drawing.

Tell your friends about this and maybe one of you will win! I will draw one name to win this awesome breakfast pack on Sunday, December 20th. I will contact the winner via email to get a mailing address to ship the package. Thank you readers!

Jewelry auction site

I just wanted to share this site with my readers because I don't think a lot of people know about it. There is huge potential here to make cash on ebay with this site if you are into that kind of thing. I just shop occasionally on here to purchase things for myself and inexpensive gifts for others.

This site is an auction site that starts off with all auctions starting at $1.oo! I have to be careful that I don't get addicted to this site, especially during time when I'm off from work and have more free time to be online and buy things! You can get real gold, silver, and even platinum jewelry for a fraction of the price that you would pay in a jewelry store. You should always check this site before you spend your hard earned cash in a jewelry store. I haven't bought jewelry from a jewelry store since I've discovered this site.

Click here to sign up and start bidding. You might be able to buy some inexpensive but nice gifts to stock up. Check it out!

Yummy dinner shop for two + bonus

Hi there mystery shoppers! I don't know about you but to me, getting a free dinner for two is awesome. I got to eat at one of my favorite BBQ places with my husband for free. This shop usually becomes available about 0nce a month for me. However, sometimes they are reveal shops and I don't do reveal shops here because I live here and I want to remain anonymous in my small town!

Here was what we had to do. I say we, but I was the one doing the shop and my husband was just reaping the benefits! We had to order a meal off of the favorites menu and get two drinks. We went online ahead of time to look at the favorites menu to pick out what we would want so we would know when we got to the restaurant. The only catch was that we weren't allowed to order fried food (except french fries), because fried food takes longer to prepare and would not give an accurate food prep time. I ordered sliced porks, french fries, and green beans. My husband ordered sliced beef, french fries, and green beans. We just happened to want similar meals on this night! There were many more options.

Some of the things I had to check were the names of the hostess and waitress, what the salad bar looked like, if the bathroom was clean, if the waitress mentioned the special barbeque sauces, how long it took to get our drinks and food after ordering them, and a few other things. I find it is easier to make sure that I don't forget things if I take notes, especially for longer questionnaires.

We were in an out in about 45 minutes from beginning to end. The total time to do the shop and enter the report was about an hour and 15 minutes. Plus, we got enough pay to cover our meal and the tip. Oh, and did I mention earlier that I got paid a 20 dollar bonus to do the shop? No I don't think I did... but YES I got $40 bucks total for that shop. The shop normally only pays $20, but for me they paid 100 percent more. It pays to learn how to get more money for shops. To learn more about how I do that, click here and check out my book. You won't be sorry! You can make your money back from one shop once you know how to get more money to do the shops you are going to do anyway. Here is the link of the company to sign up with for the BBQ joint mystery shops, plus many others I'm sure. This company pays via paypal and boy are they fast! Happy shopping!