Earth Day Giveaway: $50 SmartyPig Gift Card
Roll that phrase over your tongue a few times, because it sounds good: Earth Day Giveaway! (Don’t you love it when things rhyme?)
I have a $50 gift card for SmartyPig.com. What’s SmartyPig? It’s basically just a high yield savings account, but with some great features. SmartyPig allows you to set a savings goal, and receive help in reaching it. Friends and family can contribute to your SmartyPig account to help you reach your goal. There are no fees to open an account or withdraw your money. And SmartyPig is paying an interest rate of 4.30% currently - a really competitive rate!
So, I have this gift card. And you can have it. I’d use it for myself, but… it’s Earth Day. And I feel like giving something good to my readers, since you guys have helped propel me in my quest to live a frugal, financially savvy lifestyle. I’m sorry that I only have one of these to give away, but if this goes well, I’ll consider finding more things to give away!
All you have to do to enter to win the gift card is leave a comment on this post, joining the discussion about what you did on Earth Day. You can leave as many comments as you like (so feel free to have whole conversations in the comments!), but each person is limited to one entry. Please be sure to use a valid email address when you leave a comment, because that’s how I’ll contact the winner.
I’ll assign each commenter a number, and then use Randomizer.org to pick the winning number. To give some time for the conversation to brew, you have between now and 11:59:59 PM, April 30th, to join the discussion.
I know that people get a little hyped up about environmental issues (from both sides of the debate!), so please keep things civil and don’t mock anyone else’s viewpoint. If a comment is out of line, I’ll delete it or mark it as spam, and the commenter will be disqualified. This and all other aspects of the giveaway are left to my discretion.
I’ll kick things off by telling you guys what I did on Earth Day: I strapped on some latex gloves and I dug through trash! Today I helped out with my campus’ “waste audit” - where we took all the trash from one day from one floor of a building, and went through all of the things that could have been recycled, but weren’t. It was a dirty job, but it was fun, and I got to talk with some pretty awesome people while doing it. (They also gave me some free ice cream!)
Left to right: Bottles and cans that we pulled out, paper that we pulled out, the rest of the trash
What did you do for Earth Day?
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I have’nt done anything for today, but I plan on using “green” cleaning products to clean the house!
Comment by Lesha — April 22, 2008 @ 5:49 pm
It is a very generous gesture of you, Stephanie. That card is a very good idea for saving and gathering gifts.
About celebrating Earth Day, I was busy with meetings most of the day, but I remembered to bring home the plastic containers of my drinks to recycle =)
I also wrote an entry in my blog at the Democrat and Chronicle website Rochester about celebrating Earth Day and applying the 3 R’s: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.
Every little effort counts…!
Comment by Kelly — April 22, 2008 @ 8:39 pm
In my environmental governance class, I pretended to be Bono and tried to help design a new global environmental governance mechanism… we’re still working on it.
Comment by Sam Jackson — April 22, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
Today I hung my laundry on the clothesline, used CFL bulbs, and recycled paper. But I do that pretty much every day.
Comment by Nine Circles — April 23, 2008 @ 12:43 am
I didn’t do anything special in honor of Earth Day, but I did avoid using electricity needlessly, walked instead of drove while running a couple of errands, and put my newspaper in the recycling bin instead of the trash.
Comment by E.C. — April 23, 2008 @ 12:51 am
I voted in the Pennsylvania primary. That should count for an Earth Day activity.
Comment by Kristen — April 23, 2008 @ 11:11 am
I yelled at a friend for not recycling. Okay, not really yelling.
I was taking out the recycling while talking to her on the cell. I asked her if she recycles. The answer was no. I explained to her that recycling is very important. Mother earth will thank her.
Comment by Давид — April 23, 2008 @ 11:53 am
I walked to the grocery store, line dried clothes and ate leftovers for lunch.
I have been line drying clothes for a month and a half now.
I did the math and i saved $13 last month.
Next, I am going to attempt to make my own laundry detergent.
Comment by tonya — April 23, 2008 @ 2:55 pm
In honor of Earth Day we are working very hard at teaching our sons to turn off needless lights in the house…for some reason, that’s a hard concept for my 13-year old! LOL! We also are converting to reusable grocery bags and continue to hone our recycling skills. I think it is essential to teach our children to respect the Earth and its resources…and the best way to do that is through our example!
Comment by Terri Fisher — April 23, 2008 @ 4:33 pm
Hey, great post, and thanks for recycling all those cans and bottles. I have a lot of trouble walking down the streets and seeing cans everywhere. People look at me weird when I stop and pick them up. Anyways, I work for a company that tracks and manages gift cards and I rolled a blog about earth day on savvywallet.com. The smartypig.com is great idea! Thanks for sharing it. Anyways. my green thing is: my car. I drive a 1982 MBZ 300TD that runs on veggieoil. Been running it since January. It’s the way to go. As the John Butler Trio would say “Treat ya’ mama with respect.” Peace
Comment by Austin Chu — April 23, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
I rode my bike to and from the gym. I am trying to make that my main mode of transport.
Comment by Gypsie — April 23, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
My 14 month old son and I went out and bought all Earth friendly products, we re-cycled stuff that could be re-cycled and used the least amount of energy as possible in honor of Mother Earth!
Comment by Kristinia — April 23, 2008 @ 5:31 pm
I don’t remember if I did it on Earth day itself, but I recycle regularly.
Comment by Don — April 23, 2008 @ 5:43 pm
I didn’t use my computer all day in order to conserve power. It was quite satisfying.
Comment by Phillip — April 23, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
I cleaned my room and recycled all the paper and plastic that I threw away. :^)
Comment by Grigory — April 23, 2008 @ 11:28 pm
Earth Day…um…nada…I stayed home with my hubby.
Comment by Deborah — April 24, 2008 @ 4:11 am
I am making a year long (or indefinate) pledge to reduce my energy usage at home. Turning off lights and computer etc., using CFL bulbs, and stuff like that. The first month I did it my bill did show my usage was a bit lower so it worked!!! Thanks for the contest! Gail in Cincinnati
Comment by Gail — April 24, 2008 @ 10:48 am
I walked to and from work.
Comment by Rudy — April 24, 2008 @ 1:11 pm
I always car pool with my husband and am switching to re-usable bags instead of plastic bags.
Comment by mi — April 24, 2008 @ 2:01 pm
On Earth Day my daughter was sick and needed to be taken to the doctor. I spent most of the day sitting in a doctor’s office, waiting at the pharmacy (one less trip and less gas usage), as well as giving breathing treatments.
I also gassed up the car. I’ve been hyper-miling lately (trying to get better gas mileage than the Estimated Mile/Gallon for my car). the good news is that it’s working. I went 60% further on the same tank of gas than before hyper-miling.
It’s a win/win: less gas used and fewer dollars spent.
Comment by Kathryn — April 24, 2008 @ 4:04 pm
Due to some personal medical issues the past 3 days, I didn’t do anything special on Earth Day itself. But today, I signed up my house for green power. I’m starting with the smallest program, but I figure it’s better than nothing. And if enough people pick the small program, it will send a message to the electric company that green energy is in demand.
Comment by michelle — April 24, 2008 @ 7:16 pm
I went through an energy audit and read up on more ways to be frugal and “green”. I already practice Simple Living, but there’s always more one can do.
Comment by Meari — April 25, 2008 @ 12:11 pm
On Earth Day i spent the day hounding business for donations to a non profit event i’m planning to raise money for Child S.H.A.R.E (they place kids in good foster care homes and beat the states adoption rates by double)
and it was pretty successful.
I have wienerznitzel, CPK, Trader Joes and maybe Islands doing food… woot woot
Comment by Amanda — April 25, 2008 @ 12:24 pm
Wow, that is reallyl cool of you to offer the smartypig gift card. Since it has started to get nice outside I have completely eliminated the use of my car to get to school. The walk takes about 45 min but I really like the exercise and it gives me time to myself.
Comment by Marilyn — April 25, 2008 @ 12:50 pm
I finally went to the recycling center to take all of my plastic and mountain of cardboard stuff!
Comment by Lisa — April 25, 2008 @ 11:34 pm
We had plans to buy plants for our yard, but the weather was so bad there was no way we could have planted them. Hopefully we will get to plant some more oxygen makers in the near future, but for now our Earth Day was pretty boring.
We did turn off our TV for the day though.
Comment by Aimee — April 27, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
Today I put a bunch of stuff in my recycling bin instead of the garbage.
Comment by Ilissa H. — April 29, 2008 @ 12:28 am
Well, even if I don’t win, I have to thank you for letting me know about SmartyPig. That is a GOOD savings rate.
Comment by Pieter — April 29, 2008 @ 10:30 pm
Oh, and for Earth Day, I worked. And watched the PA results come in - I think the best route to a green Earth is through a free market, so I was really pleased to see 130,000 votes for Ron Paul.
Comment by Pieter — April 29, 2008 @ 10:31 pm
No earth day stories from me, but just one question… how come the card is red? can’t we get a green sharpie, and fix that up? It is earth day afterall :).
Comment by Myfinancebutler — May 9, 2008 @ 5:20 pm