One Utama Shopping Centre e-Duit Raya Promotion

I was in One Utama Shopping Centre and saw a sign saying that for every RM20 of e-Duit Raya purchased online through their online store OneShop, they would match it and give another RM20. This promotion was, however, only for the first 200 online transactions.

I decided to try my luck and purchased RM20 e-duit raya and guess what --- a few minutes after I received my e-Duit Raya gift card in my email, I received another email telling me that I was given a RM20 e-Duit Raya rebate also via an online gift card!

It basically means that I got my RM20 e-Duit Raya gift card purchase matched with another RM20 e-Duit Raya! Woohooo!!! I'm a happy bunny as that means more shopping money for me!

The e-Duit Raya, when redeemed, will be transferred into my existing OneCard account which can be used as a debit card when shopping in any of the participating shops (and there are many) in One Utama Shopping Centre.

Takeaway of the day: It pays to read the signages, sometimes :)

Free Cetaphil Sample

Look what arrived in the mail  a few weeks ago. This is a product that I like and it's one that I don't mind having a sample of :)

The Body Shop Love Gloss in Sweet Peach Review

I got this as a freebie from the Body Shop somewhere in November last year in exchange for writing a review for one of their products on their facebook page.

Yup, I got it and somehow, didn't open the packaging till today because somehow, the color seemed too blah and far from exciting to me.

Well, I finally got around to opening the packaging today as I needed a clear lip gloss to go on top of my lipstick and wow, it made me wonder what  took me so long to open it! It smells of peaches!!! I just adore the smell!

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The Body Shop Love Lip Gloss in 17 Sweet Peach

Normal Retail Price: RM 49.00 (I got mine FREE!!!)
7.5 ml / 0.25 fl oz
Made in Thailand
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Mc D's Breakfast Day

My Mc D's free Egg Mc Muffin. I decided to give the Latte a go since I was given coupon for it. Not being a coffee person, all that caffeine left me jittery for most of the morning!

Body Shop Sakura Shower Gel Freebie

My 60 ml Sakura Shower Gel Freebie

I'd just collected my Body Shop freebie yesterday. Thank you Body Shop! :)

Frappe' Coffee Review

Frappe' Coffee has just opened in Dataran Sunway in Kota Damansara recently and I was lucky enough to sample their Iced Frappe Latte as they were giving out free coffees. I must say that I was pleasantly surprised since the coffee was rather good and their baristas were super nice which made stopping by their outlet after a long day at work certainly worth my while :)

Thumbs up for the Frappe Coffee team!

Earth Hour with Starbucks

I was down at the local Starbucks during Earth Hour.

Just me and my Mocha Frappuccino during Earth Hour....ahhh, such pure bliss!!!

Starbucks was giving away complimentary Frappuccinos during Earth Hour today. All you had to do was check in on FourSquare and flash the orange Earth Hour promo screen at the barista in order to be entitled to the free drink.

It was fairly quiet down in the local Starbucks, just the way I like it :) (hey, I got there early and I didn't even have to wait in line to be served!) and I got to enjoy Earth Hour and my free grande Mocha Frap in peace :)

Thanks for the free drink Starbucks!

Starbucks 2012 Planner

At 23:00 tonight, I finally redeemed my free Starbucks 2012 planner from the Mid Valley outlet :) It comes tissue wrapped and presented in a nice black box.

I Will Teach You to be Rich by Ramit Sethi

To be honest, I had absolutely NO idea who Ramit Sethi was when I purchased this book. I only discovered that he's big in the US when I visited his website and youtube and found a bunch of his video clips which were aired on TV in the US.

This is a book which I stumbled upon in the last Big Bad Wolf Warehouse sale. I'm really glad I purchased it.

Okay, the title of the book is kinda corny, but the RICH in the title has more to do about having enough $$$ to lead a rich life doing what you love instead to being RICH in just the monetary sense.

This personal finance book explains in simple terms many things I didn't know before reading the book --- the difference between mutual funds, index funds, lifecycle funds, stocks and bonds, the importance of diversification, asset allocation, dollar cost averaging, etc.

He also offers a lot of common sense advice (but as you and I both know, common sense is not so common anymore) such as why you should have a credit card (it's not all bad, as many people think), the importance of having your investment portfolio diversified and typical asset allocations by age.

He even gives you a script for what to say when you call up your credit card company to negotiate with them for a late fee waiver (note: this is only if you've been paying your bills on time and have missed a due date once and not for repeat offenders!).

He also asks, "How you're going to spend your next $100?" --- now that's a question that forces me to think about how I've been spending my money and how I would like to change my spending habits to include my plans for my future.

I particularly loved the way all the information was presented in the book which made it enjoyable to read and not dry like most of the other personal finance books out there. This is a must have personal finance book if you're clueless.

Here's the first chapter of this book which is entitled Optimize Your Credit Cards (click on the link) which you can download FREE!!! My guess is that you'll be hooked once you've read the first chapter and will want to purchase the book.

Free Annual Fee Credit Cards

Remember my earlier post about the Maybankard 2 credit cards (click on the link if you haven't read it --- What do you mean you haven't read it yet??? Just kidding!) which are free from annual fees and which, at the moment, are offering the lowest APR (annual percentage rate --- fancy term for what is otherwise known as yearly interest rate)? Well, I just received a phone call yesterday afternoon informing me that my credit cards are ready for collection.

Now I'm going to cancel my annual fee card credit card and that saves me RM180 a year (yes, that's the insane amount of money I have been paying my bank for generating business for them by using my credit card!!!).

What have you done to reduce your expenses?

a great bargain site

i love bargain hunting and am always looking out for a good deal.

WeBUY is great group buying website that lets you enjoy services and experiences without having to spend too much money. In fact the prices offered on the site are 50% - 90% off the normal retail prices.

The bargains include restaurants, fashion, hotels, spas, travel packages, go karting lessons, entertainment, etc.

There is a time limit for each bargain offered (there is a clock on the page below the bargain which will tell you how much time is left for you to act to buy the bargain). When you see something you like, just click on the "buy" button. The bargain will only be activated if the minimum numbers of buyers is reached.

Buyers will only be charged if the deal is activated. You will not be charged for deals that aren't activated due to insufficient responses from other buyers.

I just purchased a full set of high tea with pastry lunch which comes with a further RM5 voucher for the next visit at The Tea Republic for only RM11 (yup, hard to believe considering that it is located in the Bangsar Shopping Centre).

I've never been to The Tea Republic and I figured that RM11 is a small price to pay to sample the food, atmosphere and services offered there.

WeBuy is currently running The RM203,000 WeBUY Community Giveaway Project  where every person matters as they are offering cash giveaways to be credited into your cash wallets if the number people who buy the deal (which is on 100% discount --- yes, it costs you ABSOLUTELY NOTHING --- it's FREE!!!). This system is based on breaking a number of tiers in order to activate the cash giveaways as more and more people "buy" the deal.

At the present moment as I'm writing, 1572 people have bought the deal which means that the RM5 tier has already been unlocked. As more and more people buy the deal, more money monetary tiers will be unlocked resulting in more money in our respective cash wallets. The number of people targetted to sign up for the deal is 10, 000 which will unlock the maximum tier which will get us all RM20 credited in our cash wallets. There are still 57 days 16 hours 29 minutes and 13 seconds to go as I write this post.

Do yourself a favour and sign up today!

Nitro PDF Reader

have you ever had to fill out a form you got online that was in PDF format?  what i've been doing in the past was printing out the PDF file and then filling the form in by hand which was a hassle since i didn't have the full blown Adobe PDF program.

i just discovered this really cool program, Nitro PDF Reader, that allows you to do a lot of things that Adobe's PDF Reader doesn't.

The Nitro PDF reader allows you to not only read PDF files but also to fill in forms (i really need that), use your own handwritten signature on those forms (so you no longer have to print out the forms and then have to sign on them with a pen the old fashioned way), allows you to make notes on PDF documents, highlight points as you read and even make notes on them!  these are not only great as collaboration tools but also great studying tools for students (i know i would have appreciated having a program like this when i was doing my masters).

it also lets you convert files of other formats into PDF (according to the website, you can convert from 300 different formats).  it also allows you to copy information from a PDF document and place it onto any other document.

it's compatible with Adobe PDF and best of all, it's FREE!!!  :)