Very inexpensive Christmas cards

Vistaprint.com is running a deal right now for 100 free postcards. If you're happy with their designs and just want to add your own text, your entire order will be about $6-7 (shipping to arrive in about 3 weeks).

If you want to upload your own image, that's an additional $2.49. (Tip from someone who learned the hard way - if you want to do more than one image, make a composite of your own images in photoshop or gimp or paint first - one uploaded composite image is $2.50 instead of $2.50 for EACH image. I corrected it - but it took a lot of extra time.)

You can leave the back blank, fill half of it and leave room for mailing addresses and a stamp, for fill it up all the way. If you do any of the above in black and white - it's free.

If you're sending it as a postcard, you're done. Check out and pay for shipping.

If you'd rather send it as a card, you can add 100 envelopes to your order for about $3.50 (you can get the fancy ones for $30, but that wouldn't be a budget tip from me, now would it?)

Our total for 100 postcards (7 photos on the front, our Christmas letter on the back) and envelopes - plus slow shipping: under $14.

These added to the 30 that I got through Kodak's Million Thanks $15 credit (I paid about $5 with overage and shipping) will completely cover our Christmas mailing list.

And if you're smarter than I am, you can do all this through Ebates and save just a little bit more with 6% cash back! I forgot about that until I was done loading the card... for the second time... and decided my time was worth it to skip the deal this time.

Restaurant.com

We recently tried buying some gift certificates here on the same kind of sale they're running right now. It turned out to be a really good deal!

Right now at Restaurant.com, you can get you certificates at 80% OFF using the code TREATS when you check out. That's a $25 certificate for $2! ($25 certificates are usually for $25 off $35 or more, not including alcohol.) These big sales make their site a bit slow, so make sure to bring your patience with you!

I'm off to see if I can find a treat for our family! Don't forget to shop through Ebates for 15% of your purchase price right back in your wallet at Restaurant.com!

Have you heard about Ebates?

I recently learned about Ebates from another blogger. You can sign up for Ebates by clicking on these links and filling out the form on their site. When you sign up for Ebates and make your first purchase, you get an additional $5 bonus in your account. By signing up through one of the Ebates links on this post, you are also helping me by adding $5 to my account when you make your first purchase. You get a certain percentage of your purchase back (anywhere from 1-25%, based on the retailer)! There is no fee to join, and it's really a simple concept.

Say for instance you're looking for a new book for your nephew for his birthday:
1) You go to Ebates
2) Select your favorite online book seller from the list of available stores
3) Continue to make your online purchase as you normally would.

It's that simple. Within a day or two, you'll receive an email from Ebates saying that your account has been credited $X.XX for your purchase at [for instance] Barnes and Noble. When you accumulate $5.01 in your account, not counting sign up and referral bonuses, they send you a Big Fat Check. Or you can choose to have the money sent to paypal - or sent to your friend or favorite charity.

It's a great way to make a little extra money doing the things you do every day - without any extra effort other than a few clicks of the mouse. I've used Ebates for my first purchase already... what are you waiting for?