I created this page so you can have a quick reference sheet of recommended tools. You can dive deeper through these and other topics on the website.
If you’re new to Mom Money Map, welcome! This is the best place to start. You can apply these tools for immediate results. Some of these are small wins, but over time can significantly add up.
If you’re a seasoned visitor, thanks for your time! I hope this page serves as a financial resource index you can always refer back to. This page might contain affiliate links. Check out the disclosure for more information.
Make and Save Money
Rakuten (formerly Ebates): Rakuten is great because you can get up to 40% for shopping online at over 2500 stores – many of which you would normally shop at like Amazon, eBay, Macy’s, Kohl’s, Walmart etc. It’s FREE to sign up. For U.S. residents, Rakuten will give you a welcome bonus of $10 after making your first online purchase of $25 or more. For Canadians, it’s a $5 welcome bonus for signing up. You can read more about how to use Rakuten here!
Dollar Dig: Similar to Ebates, Dollar Dig offers cash back for shopping at over 3250 stores including eBay, Aliexpress, Best Buy, Bed Bath and Beyond, Walmart and Target. It’s FREE to sign up! There’s a $2.50 welcome bonus just for signing up!
Checkout51: Checkout51 is an app that gives you cash back for your groceries! If you purchase any groceries on their list (which sometimes includes everyday essentials like bananas), you can snap a picture of your receipt on your app (they make it super easy). The approval takes roughly a few days and then cha-ching – you’ll get money in your Checkout51 account! Sign up for Checkout 51 – it’s FREE!
$5 meal plan: If you spend hours meal planning every week only to stress out some days and eat out, you might be interested in the $5 meal plan. For $5/month, they send you a weekly meal plan where every meal will cost approximately $2/person! They save you time and money so that you can focus on doing things you enjoy like hanging with your kid! They offer a 14 day FREE trial (approximately 40 recipes) – regular or gluten-free – that you can cancel at any time with no questions asked.
Amazon Prime: This membership has 2 great benefits: free 2 day shipping and free access to movies, TV shows, music and books. You no longer have to worry about last minute items. You can cancel your other movie, music and book subscription services. You can also get 20% off diapers and baby food when you have more than 5 subscriptions. Get the Amazon 30 day FREE trial here. You can cancel at anytime. No questions asked.
Swagbucks: This site offers you ways to earn gift cards and cash for searching the internet, shopping online, watching videos, playing games and taking surveys. Sign up is FREE.
If you want to earn a little bit of side cash quickly and easily each day, here’s a list of other legitimate survey companies I’ve tried and liked. Sign up is FREE: Survey Club, Survey Junkie (Only in U.S., Canada and Australia).
Great Canadian Rebates (only in Canada): Also similar to Ebates, this site offers cash back for shopping at over 500 stores including Amazon, Ebay, Hudson’s Bay, Expedia, Groupon, Hotels.com and Lowe’s. There’s also cash back for savings accounts and credit cards with no annual fee! Sign up here – it’s FREE.
Borrowell (only in Canada): Borrowell provides Canadians with free credit scores and reports. You can also get updated scores allowing you to monitor your financial well-being and better manage debt over time. This will not impact your credit score! Borrowell uses bank-level encryption to protect your data. Get your FREE credit score here.
Questrade (only in Canada): Questrade is a discount brokerage that provides Canadians with access to low cost investing for U.S. and Canadian stocks and options as well as forex trading. You can trade stocks for $4.95. Most ETFs are free to purchase. A good practice is to use small leftover cash from dividends to purchase ETFs because it’s free and you might as well have your cash continue working for you.
Books
(You can get 2 of the below books for FREE using Audible’s 30 day free trial! Even if you cancel within the free trial period, the books are yours to keep! Audible, an Amazon company, has the world’s largest selection of digital audiobooks. You can listen to a book anywhere and anytime. I love listening to audiobooks while I’m driving. You can always increase the speed of the narration. You get to listen to more books that way!)
Your Money or Your Life: This book is a step-by-step guide on how to reach early retirement. There are real success stories. It doesn’t just provide saving and investing money tips, it’s also focused on life philosophy. It changed my outlook on money and jobs. It gave me new goals in life – it was actually the catalyst for this blog. The 1992 original was recently updated for a 2018 book so it’s timely. Here’s my full review of Your Money or Your Life.
Rich Dad Poor Dad: The author discusses his 2 dads – his rich dad (his best friend’s father) and his poor dad (his biological father) – and their opposing philosophies in this book. His personal story and the ideas are thought-provoking and motivating. It makes you think differently about business and investing in real estate. There are a lot of lessons in this book. For example, while the poor and middle class work for money, the rich make money work for them. Here’s my full review of Rich Dad Poor Dad.
4 Hour Work Week: If you’re interested in entrepreneurship, this book has a lot of tips. If you like corporate life, there are some lessons about how to make yourself more efficient – eliminate clutter and busywork. Some of what’s mentioned is a bit outdated, but I think this book is still worth a read for the aspiring early retiree.
The Opposite of Spoiled: Mommy, are we rich? Are we poor? Finally, a book that not only examines how to answer the difficult questions, but shares best practices for raising financially literate children. New York Times personal finance columnist Ron Lieber covers all the fundamentals: allowance, the tooth fairy, chores, charity, savings, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, splurging, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. The book also deals with how to instill good values like patience, generosity and modesty through these money talks. If you have or are planning to have kids, The Opposite of Spoiled is a must-read. Here’s my review of the book.
Blog Resources
Siteground: When I was looking for web hosting companies for WordPress, I first came across Bluehost. It seemed that everyone was recommending them. Then I came across articles of bloggers who had difficulties with Bluehost from speed load time to customer service. That’s when I started noticing Siteground coming highly recommended. I haven’t had issues since. Sign up for as little as $3.95/month here.
Kadence: If you want to be able to customize your site, but you don’t know the first thing about coding, look into Kadence. It’s a drag and drop builder so you don’t need to code. You have access to 80+ themes or you can create your own site. If you have questions, you can contact their customer service team. This theme has a FREE version and it is known to be one of the fastest themes (It won’t slow down your site.).
Stencil: Stencil makes it easy and fast to create images for your website. There are over 2 mil royalty-free photos, 680 templates, 1 mil icons, tonnes of preloaded sizes or easily create your own etc. Starting and maintaining a website involves a lot of learning and time. I love using Stencil because it saves you so much time for the image creation part of the process.