$100 July Giveaway!

FINALLY, I have gotten around to posting the qualifications for the $100 July Gift Card Giveaway! As each month, please pick your top 3 gift cards from my list, in case I don't have your top choice available. Click here to see all my cards available.

To begin, it will again only be open to loyal readers again. So, if you aren't already subscribed to my RSS Feed or an Email subscription, make sure to go to the upper right hand corner of my blog and sign up. I will have a keyword posted that only subscribed readers can see in their feeds/emails.

To enter:

1. You need to check your credit score. Yes, it is true. Time to check and see how you are doing! To do that, click here to sign up for a free trial of Freecreditreport.com. You must sign up thru this link to qualify and email me the email address you use to sign up, so I can verify.

2. Email me the keyword from the bottom of my Feed or Email update. Make sure to email me from the email address you signed up for Freecreditreport.com the same day you sign up.

3. I will send an email back confirming you have been entered.

4. Mark on your email calendar, your planner and your cell phone calendar to cancel your free credit report 5 days from when you sign up, if you don't want to continue on with the credit monitoring program. Call 1-877-481-6826. You will not be charged anything for your credit report, as long as you cancel. I have done it many times.

5. Don't forget to look thru your credit report to make sure everything is accurate.


I signed up for my Freecreditreport.com today and checked my credit score. And, I am sure some of you have heard me go on about the importance of credit scores before, and to make sure you check them AT LEAST 3 times a year.

I, myself, check mine more than that. Why? Because I do so many online offers, buy so much through the internet, and want to make sure my credit does NOT get destroyed by someone stealing my identity.

And, guess what? Just two weeks ago, right before we left for vacation, someone stole our credit card number and charged $1,000 on it.

Here is my theory...although I guess Chase will be the one to work it out.

It was on our fairly new Chase Freedom Credit Card, which I do NOT use online. Because we earn top rewards on Restaurants, Department Stores, and Hair Salons...that is pretty much all we use it on.

And, the day before the number was stolen, my husband went to lunch with a co worker and paid for it on the credit card, of course( we want to earn that extra 3% ). Well, the young man working there took my husbands credit card and went to cash him out.

Although I hate to accuse someone without proof, my theory is he took the card, but wrote our number, and expiration down while he was cashing my husband out. Why do I think this? Because we hadn't used the card much before that, we BOTH still have our cards in our possession AND we don't use it online.

Which means, that young man was the only one that had access to it, unless it was someone within Chase Bank. Or, I guess someone from a week before could have written it down, too. But, needless to say, they tried to purchase something for a College Sports store online for just over $1,000.

Luckily, Chase thought the activity suspicious, and put a hold on the charge until they could get confirmation from us. But, unfortunately, it embarrassed my husband when he went to check out at the dentist the next day ( yes, he had to get a cap...ugh..expensive ) and the card got declined. Better to be embarrassed then have someone stealing products on our credit card.

Anyway, because of that, it was time to check the credit report again and ensure it was indeed someone just stealing our credit card number and not anything worse. All is well, thankfully!

But, due to that fun adventure in our home, I decided it was time to push the issue an ensure you all checked your credit score!

With that said, good luck to everyone in the July raffle! I will announce the $100 Gift Card winner the first week of August...