Finally – my dream has come true. A friend has decided to open her ING account, and get herself $25 sweet, sweet dollars. Which means, I get $25 dollars too. And, it means that she can now refer people and also get $25! Also – I just found out that if you refer $10 people, you get a $50 bonus. The more people you refer, the more money you get.
AND – THEY MADE US A WIDGET FOR OUR BLOG! It’s kind of exciting.
But – I can’t get it to work.
Dammit.
Yeah yeah, so I’m still thinking about the green. No, not weed Mom.
Money.
There are lots of great sites about money out there, especially ones on how to save it (and how to spend it, obvi). We try to read them often, especially the ones that are written really well and in a conversational tone, like Moneyville and Give Me Back My Five Bucks.
We’re even debating cutting out really non-important spending, like buying wine just to have with our dinners of Hamburger Helper and frozen Ristorante pizzas (when they’re on sale), just to save more money so we can hopefully buy a house sooner.
I recently signed up for an ING Direct account. Because He referred me, as an existing customer, we both got $25, just for signing it. That’s $50 between the two of us! Pretty awesome. (Note – if you need people to “refer” you to get an account, just ask us – it’s a free $25 for you if you do, and you don’t have to have a set amount of money to begin with to put in, nor does it charge you anything. And, you get free cheques for signing up) I was checking it out the other day, and I also noticed that if you have your pay from work direct deposited into that account, they’ll give you $100. Not bad, not bad at all.
Do you know of any other great money blogs, or tips that save you money?
Well friends, we have a winner! That’s right, our Steamy Steam Whistle contest has drawn to a close, with lucky winner @bunkerton taking home the Steam Whistle prize pack of two tickets for a tour of Steam Whistle, a bottle opener, a Steam Whistle iPod cover, and any extra Easter chocolate we have.
This brainy winner won with his haiku below:
Here is a haiku
Of Mike Burns’s love for beer
Steamwhistle is great
Love it Mike Burns, just love it. Leave us a comment as to how you’d like your prize delivered, or email us at hishersandtheirsblog@gmail.com, if you’re going to you know, send us personal deets and stuff. Like your credit card number.
SPEAKING OF CREDIT CARDS – guess who’s credit card got used for a fraudulent charge? Mine. It blows. I called Scotiabank and they’re “looking into it” for me. Gee, thanks. However, on a secondary call to them, they let me know that they had neglected to tell me it could take 90 days, and I would have to pay the fraud fee and they would refund it. Whaaaat. It hardly seems fair. And the Scotiabank rep hung up on me. I was so mad, steam came out of my ears. Which reminded me to write this post.
If you stole someone’s credit card info, I would also advise not buying something called “Hotfile” with it. They’re bound to notice. Do something simple, like buy groceries at Loblaws or something.
If you punked someone’s card, what’s the first thing you’d buy with it?
Oh HI friends! Today we have something super sweet and spicy for you – a giveaway!
Now, when we say “win this shiz,” we mean win some of this shiz. He kept the shirt – suckas! BUT, here is what you could win:
Congratulations to me! Yesterday I found out that I won a contest on The Indie Machine and totally won a Steam Whistle prize pack. It was awesome. I signed up for the contest in early April, so I had totally forgotten about it when they emailed me.
That’s how He and I found ourselves heading down to the brewery last night for our special tour. I also won this sweet prize pack below:
The tour itself was great. Both He and I had already had the tour twice, but it’s still interesting because the different tour guides tell you different facts about the beer, the brewery, and the owners. If you haven’t been on the tour and are in the Toronto area, it’s definitely worth checking out. Plus, you get a beer – oh yeahhhhh. Spoiler Alert – keep your eyes peeeeeeled, ‘cus this week we’re having a contest where you can win your very own Steam Whistle tour prize pack! Whoop whoop!
One of my favorite parts of Steam Whistle that I haven’t experienced on the other tours I’ve been on, is their photobooth. You take a beer in, the camera snaps, and you chug like an animal. However, cans don’t work too well:
As part of the prize pack, we also got to hang around for the Unsigned Series show. On Friday night’s, they will sometimes have bands down to the brewery to play. You pay $5 and get to see three (usually) awesome bands, and drink some beer – it’s not a bad deal. Two of our friends who work at the brewery were also around that night, so it was nice to see them as well.
The bands playing tonight were Freedom or Death, The Darcy’s, and Wildlife. Having not really heard of any of these bands before (at least me), I was excited to check them out. I spent the afternoon at work listening to Wildlife on headphones, and I was really into their sound. I listened to The Darcys while getting ready, and they were… okay.
Freedom or Death opened the show, and He was into them. I was not. Nothing against the band, just not my preference of music. The crowd seemed to really be digging them though – I was surprised at how many people came out, it was a really decent sized crowd. The Darcys were next, and they were pretty good. We didn’t end up staying for Wildlife, but they were the band we were both most eager to see. Oh well, we’ll always have their Myspace.
If we hadn’t won the prize pack though, we would have been at the Free Whiskey show at the Silver Dollar, which is hopefully where you were if you weren’t at Steamy Steamwhistle. I cannot stress how awesome this band is, and not just because they’re friends of ours. Keep an eye on their tour page and go see them when they come to Toronto again – in fact, we’ll go with you and make a date out of it. They’re playing TO May 28th and June 5th – so go! go! go!
The week before last I noticed the Toronto Metro was having these ads for Nivea telling you to keep them and keep your eyes peeled for the future. Well folks, the future is here, and it is smooth and creamy.
I highly advise you to head over to 361 Queen Street West. They’re giving away free samples like it’s their job, except that it is their job, and they should all get promotions because they’re doing it extremely well. The store is only there until April 5th so you had better go now. You actually don’t even need the newspaper cut out either.
He and I both went down today and get a buttload of free samples. Not just those ones that are a one-time use in the little packets either – retail sized stuff. It was intense. They were throwing them at us, it was totally awesome.
While you’re there, you can also get a free skin care analysis. Rather than just asking if you’re skin is dry vs. oily, this one they actually use face tool things and measure your skin’s hydration levels, oil levels, and take a really disgusting close-up of your skin that makes your baby face look more like a planet up close.
You can also check out the retro Nivea posters and cases the creams used to come in. It’s funny, you take a product like face cream or whatever, and it’s not all that interesting, but when you add in all the retro stuff and check out the history, it gets more interesting than face cream should.
Go check it out!
Man, free stuff rules!
This week has also been full of amazing things on the house. It makes me feel like a celebrity. I also like to think it’s because we have a blog. I also know it’s not because we have a blog.
Monday night some people from the tech group at my work asked if I wanted to join them that night at C-Lounge. A DJ manager had invited them there as a gesture of goodwill I think, since they often work with some of his DJ’s on events – super nice of the dude. Man, even their website is too cool for me. Their bathrooms have hairspray in them! Even MY bathroom doesn’t have hairspray in it!
They were offered bottle service, but since it was a Monday night, they were wanted to ensure a good group of people were able to come out to show their appreciate and support. He and I decided, what the hell, we love free stuff, and we love DJ’s, so we made a night of it.
Before the show, we hit up Poppin’ Fresh at Czehoski’s for some good times and good chips.
It was good to see Fred and jam to some beats before hitting up the C-Lounge – all in all, a sweet-ass night where we felt like celebs – Toronto celebs!
Second City
So the title of this blog post originally had Comedy Bar instead of Second City, which I thought made the C-Section part a lot funnier. But I just realized the show was at Second City, not Comedy Bar. Dammit.
Tuesday night, still reeling from the generosity of Isaiah (the DJ manager), my friend Carly Heffernan invited me to head over to Second City for free tickets and free drinks to check out the new show, This Party’s A Riot! Done and done.
He and I were amazed that the show had free drinks. I think it was maybe like a friends + family kind of night or something? I’m not sure, but I’m not complaining.
Anyway, we thought the show was phenom, really funny. Some of our favorite cast members were back from the other show we saw at Second City, and we were glad to see them. The one guy, Kris Siddiqi, is just fantastic… well, they all are, but I really like his style. Inessa is back too – you can see my friend Mary’s interview with her on her blog here actually.
The show has lots of great parts – you should check it out. The reviews are mixed: NOW Magazine doesn’t seem a fan, Toronto Star digs but sounds like your mom is writing it kind of, National Post seems on the fence. I was really pleased that the Post mentions the “other office scene” though – it was my fave.
Anyway, base your own thoughts, but we thought it was a slaaaaaam dunk.
Then again, we WERE drinking for free.
hishersandtheirs 