Here are a few articles of interest for your Friday:

• From the Trenches: An Update on My War on Stuff at Get Rich Slowly
• 4 Couponing Mistakes You Don’t Realize You’re Making at Saving Tools
• Selling Stuff Online: Remember the Important Details and Avoid Sounding Like a Scammer with This Checklist at Lifehacker
• 10 Things You Should Do Immediately After Losing Your Wallet at Wise Bread

Viggle

Last week I discovered that I could get “paid” to watch TV. Yes, there’s an app for that. It’s called Viggle. It’s a phone app, available for iPhone and Android, that rewards you for watching TV. When you begin watching a show, you check in using the app. When the show is over, Viggle awards you points that can be redeemed for a variety of gift cards; or if you really save up, you can get things like an iPod, an AppleTV, or a Kindle Fire. I’m working towards a Kindle Fire.

Points to Watch

Checking in is pretty simple. The phone will listen to the program that you are watching, recognize the show, and check you in. Occasionally I have had problems getting it to recognize the show. If you are watching live, it’s no big deal. If the app tries to recognize the show twice and doesn’t figure it out, it gives you the option to select the show from the TV listings. But, if you are not watching the show live, you might be out of luck. If the episode is less than a week old, I keep trying, often it will eventually recognize the show. If you do watch your programs later on a DVR, I believe that the app will not recognize the show if you wait more than a week. I don’t know this for sure, but I haven’t been able to check into a USA program that I watch on Hulu. The show is added to Hulu  four weeks after it’s aired so this is probably why. It does however seem to recognize shows in syndications. I recently watched a couple of re-runs of “The Big Bang Theory” that were at least a couple of years old and Viggle recognized both of them. Viggle will award you a point for each minute you watch the show. If you watch with a DVR, you can earn all the points for a program by waiting thirty minutes or an hour before starting a new program.

Check-In Bonuses

Periodically, Viggle offers a check-in bonus for certain shows. This means extra points if you check-in to a program within 24 hours of it airing. These bonuses are usually 150-300 points per show. Checking in to these shows is a great way to rack up points.

Viggle Live

Another way to earn points is to play along with Viggle Live. Viggle Live is basically a trivia game. The questions are based on last week’s episode. Once you check in to a show, you can join the Viggle Live game and earn 15 – 25 points for each correct answer. The game is available through the episode and there are several minutes between questions. Not every show has a Viggle Live game, but so far, it seems that if a show has a game one week, it’s likely they will offer one the following week.

Watch Ads

You can also earn points by watching ads on your phone. These are usually promos for TV shows or movies. As near as I can tell, there are usually 2-3 ads available and they can be watched each time you check-in to a program.

I think Viggle is my new favorite app. Not only does it reward me for watching, but there are also a few useful additions to the app. Once you check in to a program, there are links to that show’s Facebook, IMDB, Wikipedia pages and more. If you are like me and often look up actors when you’re watching TV, “Where have I seen her before?” Then you’ll also enjoy that feature. I’m sure the goal of the app is to get you to watch more television and to watch it live. It does a pretty good job of that. I don’t think I’m necessarily watching more TV, I’m just watching more of it live. Like I mentioned, I’m trying to earn enough points for a Kindle Fire (375,000). I figure it will take about a year of serious TV watching to accomplish that. If you want to help you can sign up here and help me earn friend points.

Things were pretty quiet in the garden last week. I had hoped to get a lot done last weekend but it was hotter and steamier than I like, so I did less than I might have if the weather had been like today’s. Of course today I probably won’t be able to get outside. Here are a few photos:

The tomatoes are starting to bloom

The cucumber plants are starting to grow

Herb seeds (can’t remember which) are starting to peak through the dirt

Not very exciting, huh? Hopefully next week will be filled with photos of some progress. Are you growing a garden? How is it doing?

Next to movie theater popcorn, dried herbs may be one of the most marked up items you can purchase. Making your own dried herbs from fresh herbs is incredibly easy to do. If you’ve ever grown dill, you know that it can be quite prolific. It was taking over my parent’s garden. I cut a nice handful and put it in a bowl of water to soak for about 20 minutes. I rinsed it off and dried it off with some paper  towels.

Then I cut it off the stems and laid it out on a cake pan. I put it in the oven at 200° for 20 minutes. Once it was dried, I crushed the pieces with my hands.

The result did not fill much of a spice bottle, but considering the amount of dill in the garden and the cost to buy dill weed at the store, it was well worth the time and little effort to dry it myself. Do you dry your own herbs? Do you have any tips?

Here are a few articles of interest for your Friday:

• 25 Awesome, Useful Gifts at Wise Bread
• Mix Baking Soda and Water For a Cheap, Effective DIY Vegetable Scrub at Lifehacker
• The Best and Worst Things to Buy in May at Wise Bread
• 10 Snapshots You Should Keep in Your Phone’s Photo Album at Apartment Therapy
• Spring cleaning for my brain at Not Martha

Are you looking for a way to save some money? Here’s my tip for the week: Look over your subscriptions and cancel at least one of them. How many magazines to you subscribe to but never read? Do you watch enough movies to make Netflix worth it? What about Amazon Prime? Is it paying for itself? Do you still listen to Pandora? The thing about subscriptions is that once you’ve signed up, you’re not very likely to cancel. That’s how they make their money. And how you lose yours. I have been growing frustrated with the local newspaper. They keep adding days to my subscription for free. I realize some people would appreciate the extra papers but for me, it was just too much. I really only subscribe to the paper for the goodies in the Sunday paper. I only wanted to deal with the Sunday paper; all the extra paper was just becoming another chore. I pondered cancelling. I never read the paper first thing on Sunday morning and decided it would be just as easy to pick one up after church. And then I did the math, it would be cheaper too. So I cancelled. In addition to the savings, it has also saved me time and helped keep my frustration levels down.

At some point, some subscriptions become more of an obligation than a joy. I don’t know how many magazines I’ve subscribed to over the years that I felt obligated to read. They pile up on the coffee table and then I feel overwhelmed by the magazines I need to catch up on. We subscribe because it’s typically less expensive, but maybe making a trip to Barnes & Noble for our magazine fix might actually save us money. If we don’t miss the magazine, we won’t make the trip to purchase it. And if we find it’s worth driving to the store, we can resume the subscription.

If you can’t find a subscription to cancel, at least take them off auto renewal. Make yourself reevaluate the subscription’s worth each year. I have had an Evernote subscription for several years. I’ve used it a lot in the past but have been using Pinterest has gradually been replacing it. I have also found some other free or less expensive alternatives. Fortunately, my credit card company caused a forced evaluation on this subscription. Due to security concerns, Discover recently cancelled my old card and sent me a knew one. So every service set to auto-pay with that card failed. Evernote notified me to update my card, but I decided I didn’t use the service enough to justify the yearly fee, so I let it go.

How do you manage your subscriptions? Do you evaluate them or just continue to subscribe?

There was apparently some technical difficulties last week. I just discovered that my week one garden post didn’t go live last week. So this week will include weeks one and two.

I have decided that this is the year that I’m going to get my backyard in shape; and I plan to do it on a pretty slim budget. Not only do I intend to make things prettier, I plan to grow some vegetables and hopefully get into canning this summer. I have purchased a few plants but intend to do most of it on a budget by dividing plants and using seed.

Week One Photos:

 Tomato Plant

This past week, I purchased some small yellow tubs from the dollar store. I was originally looking for something to hold the outside dog toys. I thought these tubs would be perfect for a small herb garden on the back steps, so I bought 6 more. I moved the basil to one of them and then started seed in the rest, including: lettuce, cilantro, dill, parsley, and chives. Diego, my parrotlet, has been enjoying the basil.

Week Two Photos:

Spicy Globe Basil

Tomato

Lettuce from seed

Herb Planters (basil & dill plants – everything else from seed)

So far, everything is doing well. I hope to get some grass seed started soon. I also brought several plants back from my parent’s garden and plan on planting most of them in one of my flower beds. I originally planted some dill seed but the dill was starting to take over their garden so I took a start and planted it in the tub.

I learned this week that ONG will be replacing gas lines in my neighborhood. I’m concerned this might hamper my work in the yard. We’ll soon see. Do you have a garden? What are you growing in your garden?

I know spring has arrived when the ants begin appearing in my kitchen. I usually use ant spray a few times and they eventually stop invading the house. This year, after seeing a link to this recipe on Pinterest, I decided to try something new.

Ant Killer

• 1 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons boric acid
• 3 cups warm water

I combined the sugar and boric acid in a bowl and stirred in the warm water until everything was dissolved. I filled a small ramekin with cotton balls and poured the solution over the cotton balls, soaking them. I then left the bowl on the floor next to the door where the ants were trailing in. After leaving it there for a couple of days, I had a bunch of dead ants (see photo above). So far, I still see a few ants around, but it’s working as well or better than one round of spray.