Plink - Earn Points for Dining and Shopping Offline

Plink is really simple to setup, and even easier to use. Plink allows you to earn points for dining out and shopping offline. You don't need any special rewards card either, because Plink integrates with your current credit card or debit card. The way this happens, is when you register with Plink you supply the login credentials to your credit cards website. They use the same level of encryption that banks use to ensure that your information is secure. Then once a day, your transaction history can be pulled from your credit card, and if you have shopped at any of the qualified places you get points. It's completely transparent to the user.

You can only have a maximum of 5 vendors selected at a time to receive rewards from, though you start out with only 3 slots. You unlock one slot by inviting a friend to the program, and you unlock one slot the first time you make a qualifying purchase. Each vendor has two different tiers of rewards, which I lay out below. Here's how to understand the formatting I will use: X points/Y dollars means you get X amount of points if you spent Y or more dollars.

Restaurants

• Red Robin - (150/$15 or 400/$40)
• Outback Steakhouse - (200/$20 or 600/$60)
• Quiznos - (100/$10 or 250/$25)
• Taco Bell - (70/$5 or 150/$15)
• Arby's - (70/$5 or 150/$15)
• Buger King - (70/$5 or 150/$15)
• Dunkin' Donuts - (70/$5 or 150/$15)

Theaters

• Edwards Theatres - (150/$15 or 400/$40)
• United Artists Theatres - (150/$15 or 400/$40)
• Regal Cinemas - (150/$15 or 400/$40)

Other

• 7 - Eleven - (100/$10 or 250/$25)
• 1-800-Flowers.com - (350/$35 or 600/$60)

You can cash out after you accumulate 500 points with a $5 giftcard to Amazon, Tango, Walmart, Kohls, Facebook, or donate $5 to the Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy victims. You can cash out 1,000 for a $10 card to Barnes and Noble, Macy's, Overstock.com, or Zappos. American Eagle cards start at 2,500 points for $25.

Make Your Own Laundry Detergent and Save

I want this site to be as much about ways to save money as it is to earn money. This is the first guide in what will hopefully be many more to come. Me and Julie have been using our homemade laundry detergent for years now. It's extremely cheap and it works just as well as commercial detergents. To give you an idea of just how much cheaper, here is some math. I'll compare it to Tide.

• 5 gallon bucket with lid: $1.17
• Washing soda: $3.24
• Borax: $4.39
• Fels-Naptha bar: $0.97

Total cost: $9.77 + $0.73 tax = $10.50

We're already saving money compared to buying a single bottle of Tide, which is $12.87 after tax. The Tide is 64oz and says it lasts for 100 loads. One serving of our homemade detergent makes 10 gallons (1280oz) which is 20 times the amount of the tide, so it should last for 2,000 loads. Twenty bottles of Tide will cost you $257.40 after tax. After you use all 10 gallons up, to make more all you'll need to do is buy another 97 cent Fels-Naptha bar.

Here's how you can make some yourself. It only takes about 15 minutes to do,
Ingredients:

1. 4 Cups - hot tap water
2. 1 Fels-Naptha soap bar
3. 1 Cup - Washing Soda (must be sodium carbonate)
4. ½ Cup Borax

Directions:

1. Grate bar of soap and add to saucepan with water. Stir continually over medium-low heat until soap dissolves and is melted.
2. Fill a 5 gallon bucket half full of hot tap water. Add melted soap, washing soda and Borax. Stir well until all powder is dissolved. Fill bucket to top with more hot water. Stir, cover and let sit overnight to thicken.
3. Stir and fill a used, clean, laundry soap dispenser half full with hot water and then fill rest of way with the soap. Shake before each use. (will gel)
4. Optional: You can add 10-15 drops of essential oil per 2 gallons. Add once soap has cooled. Ideas: lavender, rosemary, tea tree oil.

• Works well in traditional or HE machines.
• Low sudsing. It is the ingredients in the soap, not the suds, that does the cleaning.
• Clumping and geling of the detergent is normal. Stir before putting in dispenser, and shake before each use.
• Use 1 capful of detergent for a normal sized load.