It's no secret that I enjoy the freebie things in life. Although I am on a freebie freeze at the moment due to some address changes coming up, and lord knows I don't want to miss out on anything because it was sent to my old address. People often ask me how I do it. What are my "secrets"? Well today I wanted to share with you my top 5 favorite places to scope out freebies to review.

Remember not everything that you get for free is "free". There is often a little work involved when you get some of the better freebies. These things include writing reviews, promoting on social media, hosting parties, and just all around letting people know about this product. If you are cool with that then you are already one step in the right direction. These are not in any particular order. They are all great sites!

One
Crowdtap - Crowdtap is a Social Influence Marketing platform. What that means is brands ask you questions both about their products and your every day lives to gain research for marketing their products. You have 2 actions: Quickhits and Missions/Challenges. The Quickhits are short questions you can click your answer to where the Missions/Challenges are asking you to do something. All free samples and parties come out of these. I have gotten some great products to sample and review through this site. Bonus to this site is getting entered into drawings every month for gift certificates. I paid for Christmas last year on Amazon gift cards alone last year from this site.

Two
Influenster - You all know how much I love Influenster. This is a site where you can go and review, ask, and answer questions about products. You connect all of your social media accounts to give you an influence "reach". The higher your reach the more chances you get at receiving VoxBoxes. These are boxes full of full size products. You have all kinds of badges you can unlock by doing tasks. Again the more involved you are the better chance you have at getting into another campaign. Check out my VoxBox reviews here,  here and here.

Three
BzzAgent - This is such a fun site. It is survey based so you need to keep them up to date to keep your "bzzscore" high. The higher your score the better chances you have of being invited into a campaign. I have gotten lots of food items as well as beauty items from this site. I am currently in a campaign for Cashew Milk and a new Electric Razor. Lots of great stuff to be had here! Stay on top of those surveys and you will be "bzzing" in no time!

Four
House Party -  If you like to host parties and you want to try out new products, this is the site for you. I have been on the site since January of 2013 and just wrapped up my 5th party with them. There is no real science to how you get picked for a party but I feel like if you do everything you are asked to do you have a better chance. When you are chosen to be a host you receive a party pack filled with goodies for you and your guests. Things I have received in these packs to help you plan your party are: decorations, recipes, games, T-shirts, and samples.

Five
Social media - Believe it or not, social media is one of the easiest ways to get free samples. Most of the time when you request a sample this way there is no obligation to do anything once you receive it. I have a separate Facebook page dedicated to just freebies. I have "liked" hundreds of brand pages because this is where the samples come from.  Here they will announce when they are giving away stuff and how you get get it.

So there you have it guys! Get yourself set up with these sites and you will be on your way to freebie heaven! Have a great Friday!

Everything around us is built up with science. There are millions of molecules buzzing around us at all times. Our body is made up of molecules, and the biggest element is H2O. Water, for all you folks who don't use the scientific part of your brain. Because of this, it is super important to keep our bodies hydrated. Today I wanted to talk about the benefits of water and why you should be drinking more.

As a society, water is often passed over for sugary and caffeinated drinks. What we don't think about is the drinks we are choosing in place of water can often make us dehydrated and sluggish. Water is needed to help flush the body of toxins, and when it's not present we aren't getting everything moving. During the day we should all be consuming half of our body weight in ounces of water. For example, if you weigh 140 pounds, you should be drinking 70 ounces of water a day or roughly 8.5 cups of water.

This sounds harder then it is. What I have done to maintain my water intake daily, is purchased a fun water bottle that has the ounces marked on it. I drink four 20oz bottles of water a day. It goes a lot quicker then I thought. I drink one 20 ounce bottle before I go to work. I refill 2 more times at work and then drink the last 20 ounces after work once I get home.

I have been doing this now for a few weeks. The changes I have noticed are amazing! I have been having a lot of trouble with acne on my face and back. My face and back are FINALLY clearing up. I notice my skin looking brighter and I look more awake. I am not as hungry so I am not snacking as often in between meals. The bloat I have been feeling is going away. So many benefits come out of drinking water.

Do you drink enough?

Are you new to your area? Looking to meet new people? Tired of the same things day in and day out? Why not try attending local events? What better way to meet people in your community then to attend something local? I wish I would of taken my own advice 2 years ago when I was moping around with nothing to do weekend after weekend. Sure I had my co-workers but sometimes it's nice to spend time with people who don't know what you do day in and day out at work.

Over the past 4 days I have attended 3 fun events. Most of them were free and were a great opportunity to meet new people. I was able to find all of these events on the Facebook Events page. I clicked on "Events Near Me" and it listed everything going on in my city and in cities nearby. Once you find something that interests you, you can "join" so it will be added to your Facebook calendar and will be reminded the day of so you don't miss it.

To give you an idea of some of the fun things you can find, I want to share with you the 3 events I attended and how they are fueling me to attend even  more in the future!

Thursday
I attended a trunk show at a local beauty bar. Avanti Boutique teamed up with Miel Beauty Bar to offer some beautiful spring dresses, jewelry, beauty products, and wine! Who doesn't like a good night of fashion, beauty and wine? Speaking of wine, Redhead Wine was featured and it was created by a local women. It was a wonderful sweet red wine. I really enjoyed it and can't wait to purchase my own bottle! Make sure you check out their sites!

Friday
Red is my new favorite! The Red Event that is. This was a fundraising event put on by the Hangar Aces to raise money for the local arts and especially the Hangar Theater. The Hangar Aces are a group of young professionals (Ages 21-39) who put on events to help raise awareness of the arts as well as offer social and networking events for young professionals. The event was so much fun! Everyone comes dressed in red and there was music, wine, beer, raffles for fabulous gift baskets, and lots of networking! I wore my favorite red wedges (and paid for it later) and had a great time mingling and drinking wine.

Sunday
There's no party like a tea party! A local community center put on an afternoon tea fundraiser. It was fancy! So pretty and such a great time with friends. We may have been the youngest ones there but it was great. The tea sandwiches were great and each round of tea was a new tea to try. Totally going to this again next year cause who can pass up mini everything and tea?


So how was your weekend?

We made it to Friday. It couldn't have come fast enough! Today I want to talk about 5 things from this week that I have been working on. I am so excited about where this blog is headed.

One
I am so exited for my new venture on my blog. If you read my post last Sunday I rambled on about my ideas. I am working on building a relationship with my local community. This is so exciting for me because I live in such a diverse and fun little city. So much to offer and so much inspiration comes out of where I live. Stay tuned for my weekly features on local spots.

Two
Speaking of working with local businesses I decided yesterday to debut my first review post about a local pub and eatery. I think it went well. I was so happy to see the response from the owners on social media as well as the traffic the post created.

Three
Now that I am working on becoming a part of my community I am looking for events to attend, volunteer positions, and classes. I am particularly pysched (does anyone still use this word?) about this because if you recall my February goal was to meet new people, and this is a great way to accomplish that.

Four
Speaking of goals, I wrapped up March goals but never talked about my April goals. My plans changed a little with my move and such so that changed my goals. I have decided to make April all about finding a hobby that makes me happy. What that lead me to was this new page (pun intended lol) on my blog. I have not been this excited for a new project in a long time. I am finally taking the steps I need to make this blog my happy place. I am so excited for it and what you will all think!

Five
Tonight I am volunteering at my first event! It is to support local theater, which I love. It is called the Red Event and I will be helping out with my new friend Nikki. So excited for this because it gets me out on a Friday night and the group I am volunteering with is a young professional group so I can meet some new peeps my age! I look forward to writing all about it next week. I really hope you all have a fantastic weekend ahead! Spring has sprung ya'll!

Hey all. I mentioned on Sunday that I was going to start bringing some local posts to my blog each week. I want to connect with my community and to give potential visitors a taste of what they can expect if they visit the Finger Lake region in New York. I wanted to go ahead and get that started this week as I visited a new to me restaurant over the weekend that was AH-MAZ-ING.

Red's Place, a unique dining pub has it all. A bar. Great menu. Great help. Me and R decided to catch a late lunch when we were shopping on the Commons on Sunday. It was 2pm and the weather was perfect so we were not able to get a table outside, but the interior was enough to make us forget all about the tables outside. The light fixtures are made of mason jars, and the wood on the bar from an old barn. There is a mural of NYC on the wall and the table tops were beautiful.


Being it was a warm day, we both decided to go with one of the many beers they had on tap. They have a nice beer list, including seasonal and local beers. We were brought our beers and 2 mason jars of water. I don't know about you, but mason jars are the way to my heart. They are so versatile and you can dress them up or down.


After a few minutes of deciding on a meal, we decided to try a few items and share them. We ended up with 3 Rosebuds (chinese five spiced bbq pulled short rib sliders with coleslaw), A Wild Thing Flatbread (wild mushrooms, rosemary, prosciutto and fontina) and a basket of steak fries. We mostly wanted fries because of the cute little basket they came in.



The food came really quickly and I have to admit it was gone just as fast. Everything was really good. The pulled bbq was tender with flavor and the flatbread was soft and crunchy in all the right places. The french fries were what any french fry tastes like to me. Nothing fancy, but hit the spot!

While R paid the bill I hit the bathroom. I have to say it is one of the nicest restaurant bathrooms I have been in a long time. Very clean and a full on changing table for mothers who need to tend to an infant. That gets a gold star in my book!

Overall we enjoyed out experience. The food was good. The place was clean. The staff were great. For both of us to eat our bill was just under $40. I would say that is just above average for Ithaca. 

If you would like to visit Red's Place they are located at:
107 N. Aurora Street ("Restaurant Row")
Ithaca, NY 14850

You can check out their menu here -----> Red's Place Menu

Stay tuned for more local posts! If you are in central NY and would like to work with me, please send me an email! I would love to work with you!