About the Author: Stacy Garrels

Posted on by

Stacy Garrels [ She / Her / Hers] is a Contributing Editor for Upromise, mom of 2 kids with Minnesota college savings plans, and deal aficionado.

Big into finding the best deals at local shops and online, Stacy shakes all the “pennies” out of the digital “couch cushion”. She’s been in the dollar trenches and has the CV to back it up:

  • Has made $20,000 (and counting) flipping used clothes and used furniture online on resale sites and apps including Craigslist, Kidizen, Poshmark, Mercari, and Facebook Marketplace.
  • Once made over $2,000 selling kids clothes on Facebook BST in a purge-style online sale.
  • Has had gigs au pairing, teaching English, tutoring, copywriting, and bar-keeping in France, Switzerland, and North Dakota.
  • Has made dozens of epic Target hauls where she saved 70%+ on cartfuls of groceries, toiletries, and cleaning supplies.
  • Snagged $1,000 in free baby diapers, free baby furniture, free baby formula, and other free baby gear.
  • Tried over 50 different loyalty sites, rewards programs, and cash app back apps – earning a ton of Target and Amazon gift cards along the way.
  • Suffered some truly tragic Clairol home dye-jobs.  
  •  Was once forced by Target Store Security to leave a supermarket for trying to redeem too many (300+) coupons. (The clerk got frazzled and flashed her lights. A glaring security dude showed up.)
  • Won an awesome mountain bike in a local pizzeria business card drawing when she was 10 years old.

Stacy graduated from a small liberal arts college in Moorhead, Minnesota. Her rants and writings have been featured on InboxDollars.com, Medium, Upromise, Swagbucks, Reddit threads, social media posts, and random comment sections of HuffPost, NYT, The Cut, and The Onion. 

On Upromise, Stacy writes about ways families and students can prepare for, and save for, college and higher learning. Her aim is to make saving for college less intimidating and more accessible, because every penny helps and it’s never too early, too late, or too hard to get started. She also writes about all things baby and family related, K-12 trends, shopping deals, and SEO content for the Upromise cash back portal.

Outside of Upromise, Stacy writes about bargains, bargain hunting, the mom life, and general life absurdities in her blog Write One True Sentence. She explores Buy Sell Trade groups and popular BST brands like Boden Kids (Mini Boden and Baby Boden), Hanna Andersson, Alice + Ames, and Lulu + Roo. She also writes a series of SHEIN kids review, about the history of Carter’s, CBD gifts, and the importance of doing things badly.

When not writing, Stacy can be found downing copious amounts of black coffee and decaf Americanos, back-seat politicking, thrifting, sewing crooked quilts, or discovering new parks and playgrounds with her husband and kids.

She lives in Minneapolis, MN with her husband, 3-year-old daughter, 1-year-old son, dog Wolfgang, and cat Katie. If the Cohen Brothers still lived in their childhood home, Joel, Ethan, and Stacy would totally be Neighbor BFF’s.

Article Archives