Mrs. G's Coupon Corner

Loving this fall weather

2011-10-23T18:50:00.000-04:00

We are taking advantage of the beautiful high 50 degree weather we've had this weekend. We cleaned up landscaping, and have been cleaning out the house.

We made large trip to drop off at Goodwill the remaining items our younger siblings in college did not need. We had 2 tube tv's left, and we cannot dispose of them via the trash service in our area. You can pay the dump $10 per TV or our BestBuy had an ad that said you could drop off to be recycled (no charge) and they would give you $10 BestBuy gift card per TV. We did this because BestBuy is closer than the dump and I'd rather get $20 for both then pay $20 for both.

Making some Beef Stew for dinner, drinking some yummy apple cider, and making some of Pioneer Woman Cook's Apple Dumplings. I haven't made these in quite a while and my mouth is watering.

We've been doing well with our savings, but I felt that a few bills were creeping up higher than I like. Netflix went up, but DH and I determined to keep it and pay the extra $5. I called Directv and was able to get $12 cut down off that bill, which is how I justified to myself keeping both streaming and mailbox delivery netflix. Really it's just cheaper than DH ordering one or two movies on Directv instant delivery at $5.99-$7.99/each.

I have been traveling a ton for work. It's been great because DH and I decided to fly to see my family before Christmas this year and I was able to pay $5 total in fees to get his ticket using frequent flyer miles I've earned from work. My family has an extra car we will use for the week are there visiting. Work will be paying for my flight, I will be doing work 2 days and taking 3 days off as vacation.

I went through my food stockpile to rotate the items to ensure all items are used prior to expiration dates.
Also I think with things being so crazy at work and both of us working late, I'm going to start using the crock pot more (it makes sense with cold weather season approaching). Meal planning is also going to become the norm or me making meals day before to ensure we've got food. I also organized the freezer and determined what I need to cook. We're going to have 1 whole chicken per week if I can get away with it, or at least 3 per month til I can get rid of a few(we have 12), and a few turkeys.

DH and I set up our budget again and it looks like we will officially be living on 1 salary as of November, and it's the lower salary. The higher second salary will get put into savings. I have to do paperwork for DH to submit to have paycheck automatically deposited into our savings.
Meal Plan:
Mon-Beef Stew & cornbread
Tuesday-Roasted Chicken with mashed potatos and gravy
Wednesday- Grill steaks & peppers/onions with rice
Thursday- Chicken enchiladeas
Friday- Hamburgers
Saturday-Halloween party pizza

I scored awesome deal at CVS
Snickers candy 2/$5 but use $1 off CVS coupon and got 3 bags to use $1.50 off Q.
Paid with ECBs.
Total OOP $0.04

Gallon of milk for $2.49

Awesome Homemade Soap

2011-09-24T21:05:00.000-04:00

I found a great new handmade soap at a local fair when I was in Indiana. It's called Peas and Carrots Body Bars. It's amazing. I have a hard time finding soap I like but this is great for moisturizing.
They have several scents including an Axe Phoenix scent DH likes.

If anyone is interested you can reach them at peasandcarrotsbodybars@gmail.com or on Facebook at Peas and Carrots Body Bars

They do shipping and specialty packaging-they made bridal shower gifts fr a friend of mine

Ok now I'm back

2011-09-18T16:01:00.000-04:00

As I mentioned I got new job in July but I didnt realize I would be traveling nearly 2 months straight for couponing.

My store has ridiculously increased the cost for produce. Luckily we have had several farmers markets pop up so I started going there. I got grapes, pears, eggplant, onions, peppers for $6. Not bad for two weeks of produce forus. :)

Last week my cvs had milk for $2.19 gallon. Hosting football today but I will be checking the ads tonight.

New job, new outlook, new couponing goals

2011-06-20T15:00:00.000-04:00

I'm back and feeling much better. I feel extremely relieved since I got a new job. I start in July, and I got a week off with the 4th holiday. I am very excited and feeling much less stress.

I am planning to jump back into couponing full force, rebates, and back onto the GC thread to follow the deals with all the lovely ladies.

The summer is very busy it seems for us, but I've set aside 1 hour twice per week for meal planning and coupons. Much of my planning can actually be done while cooking dinner since I'm already in the kitchen but just in case I get sidetracked I've set aside an hour on Sundays and on Wednesdays. :)

I feel refreshed after my break.

taking a coupon and blog break til maybe mid to late may

2011-04-18T13:04:00.000-04:00

I just need a bit of a break. I'll be back but I'm a little burnt out.

Hope all is well with everyone. I'm spending most of my energy focusing on job hunt.

Happy couponing to all!

I've been very busy

2011-03-30T23:36:00.000-04:00

Things have been a little busy at our house lately. I have been job searching in the evenings, and filling out rebates.
The job search is looking good, I'm limiting myself to companies that have multiple offices throughout the US so I can transfer when DH's transfer occurrs without any issues.

I did a few deals this week.

Wags
Red baron pizza is $2.50 I got 2, and used 2 $1 off Q's so I paid $3 total.

CVS
I did the pepsi 12 pk deals and the axe deals for the extra bucks to roll expiring bucks.

I did get a good deal at my local giant eagle on sargento cheese-on sale for $2/each, I had $.75 qs that doubled so it was $.50/each per bag of cheese.

CH CH CHANGES!

2011-03-08T16:10:00.001-05:00

My goal was to imitate that song.....but I don't know any lines other than ch....ch...ch...changes
This is one of the many reasons according to DH I should not sing.

Moving on!

I'm going to make an effort to post twice a week but for the next week and a half there may be some major changes going on personally because of that issue I posted a few weeks ago I've decided to look for a new job. I'm looking at a big change-so I'm doing some searching in my free time and a little less hounding. This change will be for the better and I'm glad I decided to make it. I feel relief....and less tense

Money Saving Efforts

2011-03-04T19:38:00.000-05:00

Well my friend Precious decided to stop blogging so the Money Saving Challenge is not still going on as a collective group however I will be continuing my own efforts.
A friend from a previous job came over for lunch-and opened my fridge. I wanted to take a pic to go with this post but I can't find the cord that connects to download the photos.....it's on my list of things to find this weekend I have a general idea where it could be.

She saw a drawer with lunch meat/cold cuts/ some hot dogs. Bread/buns.
1 drawer with fruit and veggies-oranges, onions, red pepper, grapes.
A small drawer with yoplait individual yogurts, a shelf of juice/milk/Brita water filter and some wine.
2 full shelves of small tupperware containers......her reaction...."WHOA LEFTOVER CRAZY! Why don't you just throw them away now like everyone else so it makes cleaning out the fridge quicker"
When we have leftovers I put each item in a small space saving tupperware because we don't waste leftovers anymore-I use everything in a different meal or dish. If we have peas and carrots I store them and use in stir fry or stew or soup that same week.

For example this week on Tuesday I put clearanced top roand 2lb beef roast in our crock pot-I paid $3 for this roast. I cooked it on low with some onions in there for about 5.5 hrs while I was at work. Tuesday night we had roast beef, mashed potatoes, and carrots for dinner. Wednesday at lunch we both had roast beef and cheese sandwichs with mustard. Today I lunchtime I decided I needed to use a few more things up in my fridge. So I pulled tupperwares and showed Sue how to make leftovers into something else. DH gets bored with the same meal, but I took the leftover pcs of the beef roast chopped them into small squares, a leftover half sweet onion, small tupperware 1/2c. onion, another partial leftover maybe 1/4 c carrots, a half a red pepper. I made some fried rice and it was instant dinner. :) We got 3 meals for 2 out of that $3 roast. That's $0.50 per person/meal for the protein portion.....I can live with that.

We used to throw away tons of money after one meal, then we used more garbage bags because we took the trash out more often. It was crazy. We've cut back like crazy now we only have 2 bags if we have people over.....1 per week if it's just us. :)

I'm trying to concentrate more on rebates, drugstore chain sales, couponing, and keeping the bills down. So far for the winter I've gotten 3 months of electric bills(our heat is electric) and I budget 150-180 in winter months since we live in such a cold area....I've been please our bill has been $46-$85. We have had some rather nice warm periods each month...they are short and sporadic but I take advatage of the few 50 degree days we get and I air out the house.....I love fresh air. With gas prices going up I'm pleased my bank rewards program added gas station gift cards for reasonable amount of points. I got DH and I each a $50 gas gift card for our local speedway.

Prayers for a friend with a loss

2011-03-02T15:59:00.000-05:00

So I finally get caught up on my reading (I've been caught up for a few days couponing/rebates/freebies) and I see some sad news.

My friend Precious had a loss in her family. Keeping you & your loved ones in my thoughts and prayers.

Busy coupon/hounding few days

2011-03-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

It's been too long since I posted. We got hammered with snow last Thursday night....up to my knees and my flight got cancelled so I had to drive but the upside was Maryland/DC area had beautiful weather over the weekend and a friend & I shared hotel-she's getting into couponing. Very exciting! Now I have a new buddy to trade with. Granted she is in Toldeo and I am in Cleveland, but that's ok. We see each other every other month.

Money Saving Challenge-
I participated in Swagbucks birthday celebration and got enough for 2 more Amazon $5 gift cards so I redeemed those. Also I'm making sure to review all bills that come in with a fine tooth comb. Directv keeps charging me for something we do not have......it's very irritating to have it removed monthly from my bill. 3rd month in a row I have to call. I try to be patient with the individual but its difficult because of my faults is my lack of patience......it's just a virtue I do not have.

Borders is closing several stores and they have huge clearance! Honestly I have no idea how they made money in the small suburb town I live in. They had 2 Borders, 1 Barnes and Noble, 1 Half priced book, and 3 large libraries. They are only closing 1 store but it's got some great deals.

I have been heavy couponing lately on certain deals. I also took advantage of ordering a few Groupons. My couponing friend showed me the light with Groupons, Living Social, and Restaurants.com certificates so I'll be keeping my eyes out for those. It was a wonderful trade off-I taught her about swagbucks, mypoints, and ebates.

This week we are meal planning/ cleaning out and continuing to try to organize.
I 've got a stack of books I need to take to half priced books to sell back.

And the Yoplait winner is.....

2011-02-24T09:03:00.000-05:00

Pubbler!

I hope you enjoy your prize pack and free cup coupon. I've entered your info into MyBlogSpark to receive your prize pack soon.

Thank you to everyone for sharing your favorite flavors with me.

Now I need to scramble to pack....surprise work trip...yay headed south where it's warmer!

CVS 20% off order coupon!

2011-02-23T09:42:00.000-05:00

I'm kind of excited about CVS shopping pass deal I found.
Basically CVS has set up a twitter account and giving out a shopping pass to their followers via email on 2/28.
Right now they are at 18K followers, if they get to 20K by 11:59pm on 2/25 everyone gets emailed a 20% off order coupon.....Can you imagine how much we couponers could do with that kind of a discount? I'm excited! If they get to 25K followers on twitter they will mail out a 25% off Coupon.

http://open.cvs.com/enroll/social/signup.cfm

Yoplait Prize Pack Giveaway

2011-02-22T08:49:00.002-05:00

Let me start off by saying-I love Yoplait yogurt....I eat it 2 or 3 times a week with fruit for breakfast. My favorite is strawberry-I like the taste, it helps with my sweet tooth sometimes, & I'm not a big fan of dairy so it helps me get calcium in my diet, one six oz cup has 50% your daily value.
So I was pretty excited to hear from MyBlogSpark that I was invited to participate in a Yoplait giveaway.
I received VIP Coupon for a free sample of Yoplait Original yogurt, a pretty red medium sized duffel/gym bag, speed rope, cool glass funky water bottle and sport towel. For me this was perfect because I needed a new gym bag. (I like to do photos but we cannot find my camera cord anywhere :( sorry guys). Now 1 lucky reader will win the same prize pack for their own use.
So just leave me a message: What is your favorite yogurt flavor? Giveaway will end at 9am EST Thursday 2/24. Please leave your First name, Last initial, and state you are from. Winner will be annouced on Thursday at 9:15AM EST. I understand some people may not want their comments shared so I am turning on "comment approval" if you don't want it to be viewed by everyone please simply include-do not share my info. I will not post your info but you will still be included in the giveaway. Good luck everyone-I'll be using the Random# generator to choose the winner so everyone has equal chance.
In addition, they provided a coupon link to download a printable coupon for $0.75 off 4 towards the purchase of Yoplait Original yogurt today!

Also if you have a Facebook account Yoplait has a page, if you like it you can get coupon for free cup as part of the "Million Cup Giveaway"

The prize pack, coupon, and data were provided by MyBlogSpark.

Nothing cheers me up better than couponing!

2011-02-19T19:13:00.001-05:00

I went to the grocery store today and found clearance meat, and was able to use coupons with the markdowns to get free meat! I filled 90% of my cart. I was so excited.

I stopped near the beer aisle....honestly there was a lady giving welches juice samples and coupons out and that is why I stopped. But while in line for the juice sample I got a rebate for miller lite that I greatly surprised me. I got a rebate if you buy 1 9pk or larger and $100 worth of groceries you get $25 back via mail in rebate. The beer was on sale for $8.99 and DH will drink it. So I was excited because it's based off subtotal. I ended up paying in total $48 for 90 Items (65 of them were meat items), and I'll get $25 back. WOOHOO.

Scored pretty well at CVS
Thereaflu 24pk caplets
$6.49/each.
Bought 2, used $3/2 Q, and a $5/2 CVS red machine.
Total $12.98-$8 in Q's and sending in for rebate at $6.49 refund. This makes both free and profit of $1.51.

I had a few UPs that were going to expire at RA
So I got 1 Dove deoderant on sale $2-$2 Q=Free
Valentine's clearance Reese's candy bag=used UPs, then paid $0.04 in cash :)

My mail brought me tons of coupons, free samples, and a MyBlogSpark giveaway from Yoplait!
I'll be posting about that tomorrow and putting the giveaway up as well. They even gave me a link to a printable yoplait coupon-I love any discount/free item I can get :) And it just so happens we eat this yogurt on the time......DH doesn't realize it's healthy for him since I buy the cheesecake/pie flavors. :) SHHH!!! Don't tell him.

Lack of respect....

2011-02-18T12:56:00.000-05:00

I have been noticing a lot of lack of respect for other people lately....and it seems to be everywhere I look.
This week along I've seen name calling, swearing and shoving at the grocery store & CVS. I saw people flipping each other off in the parking lot at the bank....sadly it was both moms with small kids in the car.....nice example.

And I went into work today to find my office literally trashed. I was out on a customer visit yesterday afternoon and apparently the president of the company decided that after 2 yrs of me having a poster on the inside of door covering window looking into my office he didn't like it and rips it down in 3 pcs (I probably only paid $5 for it, but I brought it back from Italy on a college trip as a souvenier and cannot replace it.). It covers a dingy window I'm not allowed to clean because of union maintenance dept but they don't clean it and after a yr I was so disgusted my boss said I could cover it on inside. He ripped framed photos off the walls and tipped over my bookshelf. I realize it's his company but it's my personal property and well it's downright rude. He's a 55 yr old men having a temper tantrum. My boss said he thought it was intentionally directed at me......that he was just upset. I went to HR they said nothing can be done, he is the owner and it's private company so he can do what he wants. I was actually told "If you don't like it quit".

I called DH-I want to quit...but I'm afraid it will look bad to quit and then go somewhere else for 15 months only to move to NC.

I just wish there was more respect for other people in general.

Valentine's Day!

2011-02-14T14:42:00.000-05:00

Valentine's Day I will admit is a completely commercial holiday, but I love it....mainly because there is so much pink. DH and I have a strict no flowers policy on Valentine's Day-he buys me roses all the time. So we go out to dinner and do other things. He got me very pretty earrings and took me shopping for dressy boots. Macy's has dress boots 50%-75% off and they are letting you combine Q's and President's Day sale discounts (goes until 2/22). So I was happy.

Anyone looking for a lovely movie night for free with their loved ones? Redbox has a code tonight only-Free movie. Code is BEMINE. Enjoy!

I also got a free $10 OYNO Q today while in line at G. Eagle the lady who earned it turned who nose up at it and was snotty to me when I offered it to her (I assumed she bought the special items just to get the $10 off Q because that is how I think). She was snippy....so long story short 1) I got to keep the Q and felt like I got good karma....I used it to buy 2 weeks of veggies/fruit which was $10.05 (I paid $0.05 then found a quarter in parking lot....I'm positive $0.20 for the day). YAY! 2). I was reminded not everyone coupons or has a nice attitude. Oh well my gain!!! WOOHOO.

Ocean Spray is giving away free samples everyday on Facebook-they are gone for today but they will be back tomorrow. :)

GRRR :(

2011-02-10T10:36:00.001-05:00

Today has just been a no good very bad day....and it's not even lunch
I woke up stubbed my toe, fell on ice in the driveway, and went at 745 to pick up DH's car from the dealer because it was making a weird jerky feeling because of transmission. We get there and it's not ready....so I'm a irked because I am supposed to be at work at 8 and now I have to drop DH at work even though we called the night before and were told car would be ready at 745 for pickup. So I was late to work, then broke my cell, and tripped in our cafeteria over a lose tile.

I swear I shouldn't have gotten out of bed today.

The only upside is my friend Lisa over at Easy Frugal Living had a contest and I found out I won a prize pack. Yummy I love cheerios.

I'm going to drown my sorrows with homemade choc chippers and milk tonight. At least I have all the ingredients in my fridge/pantry to make the good kind of cookies with butter!

Free P&G samples quarterly

2011-02-07T11:51:00.000-05:00

I was speaking with a coworker today and then a lightbulb went off.

How many people realize they can get free samples/coupons from P&G quarterly not just when you sign up on their site the one time. I realize it's February so I wanted to post this reminder while there is still one more month in the quarter. Anyone who hasn't go ahead and request your coupons and free samples at their website
http://www.pgeverydaysolutions.com/pgeds/index.jsp

Enjoy!

Super Bowl Weekend!!

2011-02-04T09:43:00.000-05:00

I'm excited! I love the superbowl every year, not just because of the sales, rebates and coupons either. We just love football. I have been lucky enough to cheer for my team twice in the past few years when they have made it (Go Indy!! WOO!) Unfortunately DH's team is in CLE and well....it's just sad. But We like the Packers a great deal so we're cheering for them.

I'm decorating the house in green! I'm very excited for this weekend, I have football helmet shaped sugar cookies I made. I have yellow chip bowls, and I have green and yellow paper plates I got on sale lasr yr after st pattys day at target clearance for $0.04/ pk of 30. I'm excited!!!

GO Packers!!!

January Numbers/Budget/Money Saving Challenge

2011-02-03T16:44:00.001-05:00

It's been a busy week with close of month on Monday so I've been a bit busy at work. I have reviewed our January numbers, and decided it has been a pretty great stockpile month but there is always room for improvement.

I just got a few beer rebates so I am going through my receipts (thank goodness I save them all) to fill them out and send them in tomorrow. :)

I am redoing our taxes to double check my numbers.

We are having everyone over to our house for the SuperBowl.
I will be using stockpiled soda from cvs/riteaid/wags and those bogo dixie plates from RiteAid so far I got 4 pks which is more than enough for us. We have decided amongst the wives to do a potluck for the food. The guys love to munch on cheese and pepperoni so someone is bringing that, someone is bringing a beef/cheese dip with tostitos, someone is bringing brownies. I got the chips and will be using for my rebates. We have chicken wings we got on sale so we will make them in the oven, and we will get pizza. :)

Money Saving Challenge

2011-02-01T11:47:00.001-05:00

Well I am grateful I got back in one piece.....I got my car back and the Ford dealer was nice enough to fix the transmission recall issue from last August.....my car has gone to my dealer several times and they never said a word about it and we never got the letter. There was a pretty bad ice storm that hit Indy right after I left....I got home to CLE by 6pm.....no snow, precipitation or moisture of any kind and then out of no where overnight we got 11 inches overnight.....crazy!!!!

I'll be hounding a bit after work I've got to get my deals at CVS, Wags, and RA. I'll post all of them when I'm done. I've also got to meal plan tonight. I made a nifty household binder over the weekend....postit had some wonderful coupons at their website and I used them to help me get organized.
Went to RA
Got 2 Dixie plates bogo ($3.99-$3/2 Video values Q)=$0.99 for both. Got raincheck for size I wanted.
1 Tilex mold/mildew cleaner $2 sale price-$1 internet printable Q=$1, paid with expiring ups. :)

I got a $3 rebate check from RiteAid for month of January so I will be going to deposit that today and DH got a bonus so I used it to put in savings.

They don't sell pealed barley in bags at my stores so I went to Kroger while I was home I got 4 bags for $0.49/each. I was excited, usually it's $1.29/each.

So far Meal Plan
Tuesday: Stir Fry with Carrots, onions, beef, egg, and peas.
Wednesday: Chicken Parmesan and garlic bread
Thursday: Beef stew with cornbread
Friday: Pizza with DH's family
Saturday: Homemade chicken Pot pie with fluffy rolls
Sunday: SuperBowl fun snacks!
I'm going for warm hot foods since it's so cold and icy here....and easy to make because I am just tired this weekend. For lunches we eat leftovers from the night before.
On the fun side I spent some time sewing with my mom-I can hem pants now :) Woohoo!
I also found some supersoft chenile yarn I've had as leftovers from a scarf and 2 skeins isn't much so I used my new knitting needles and a very basic pattern to make a green table runner for my coffee table.

Out of towner

2011-01-29T17:11:00.000-05:00

I went out of town to visit my folks and I'm excited to take advantage of their Kroger to get the big deal on the frugal coupon ladies have been talking about.

DH and his best friend are having a relaxing weekend at our house, which I believe is merely their way of saying they are going to watch movies I don't like, eat fast food, and drink beer all weekend. Hopefully DH brings in my newspaper so it doesn't get all soggy sunday in the snow.

I am spending the weekend crafting with my mom. I brought my craft hat box home(decorative hat box I got on clearance several years ago from JoAnn Fabrics) I keep yarn, various crochet hooks, knitting needles and the 4 scarves I have started over the years. I decided to use up a pretty chenille yarn I have and turn it into a scarf either for myself or for a gift for someone next year at Christmas. We shall see how long before I lose interest and put it back into the box. :) I also got a sewing box to keep all my buttons, thread, etc in. Now I won't be searching everywhere for a button anymore.

Nothing annoys/frustrates/even frightens me more than driving long distance home at 5am in a snowstorm (yesterday I had early morning business meeting halfway between my house and my parent so I decided to go to celebrate Mom's bday as a surprise after my mtg). Well I left at 5am had my mtg at 9am and of course the service engine light comes on DH's car. I was frustrated because I didn't know if it was safe to drive I call and they tell me since it's not making weird noises it's ok to drive home. The dealer in my parents area got it in first thing today at 8am when they opened. Turns out it's a cam shaft timing issue....well the guy says "maybe you could make it home without throwing the belt and messing up the engine" MAYBE?????!!!!

So I tell him I need to get it replaced before I return home Monday. Glad I got a day off planned ahead of time, but this means I won't be using it to clean out and organize things at my house like initially thought because they thought they were going to be able to complete it today. I also asked for new wipes and an oil change while I was there so I could cancel my initially scheduled visit at home for next week. Well it was taking too long and they can't complete it today. I think because I chose to be picked up rather than sit in waiting room they didn't work on mine first. So I made it clear that I was extremely disappointed since he originally commited to being completed today. The repair on the cam shaft was covered under warranty, but the wipers and oil change were going to cost $39 for both. He gave me those for free for the inconvience, I doubt the Ford dealer would have if I hadn't asked what they were going to do. I was merely hoping for $5 off my total cost. If you don't ask the answer is always no.

Wonderful evening Money saving challenge

2011-01-26T21:50:00.000-05:00

DH had a boys night so I went to barnes and noble with my nook and read for free for an hour than I went to the grocery store with my coupons.
Clorox wipes: 4/$10, buy 4 get $4 off instant=4/$6 or $1.50 each, then used 4 coupons for $.50 off doubled to $1=$0.50 each so I bought 4 since this is rock bottom in our area and it's been flu season. I also got 1 dozen grocery store brand eggs for $1. I love cherry picking.

Now by request for Precious my Sunny Day Casserole recipe
*Warning this is from my 1980 cookbook and we have adapted it slightly*
1 jar processed cheese spread (I changed this to shredded kraft cheese because I get that free with Qs often)
3/4 c. milk. Mix together in large bowl. Then add 4 cups partially cooked diced potatos, 2 cups diced ham, and 1 pk frozen mixed veggies, 1/2 c. chopped onion. Put in casserole dish, sprinkle 1 c. cracker crumbs on top and bake uncovered for 45 mins at 350 degrees. Then sprinkle with cheese bake til melted and serve warm. I usually make brown rice and serve with it. I have also used broken crackers before as topper.

Money Saving Challenge

2011-01-23T11:03:00.000-05:00

I went to CVS last night
Got 12 pk Bounty papertowels, this put me over my P&G limit so I could get $10 ECB
1 bottle Tilex $2, used $1 off internet printable Q=$1, this is a great price for my area

Lately I've still been feeling a little sick, so I'm trying not to push myself too much so I do not relapse.
Friday night we used a Groupon at a local restaurant and had dinner with 2 friends, it was a wonderful deal. We got cocktails and apps and meals for 4 adults for less than $60 total. :) I love a good del.

We did our monthly budget review together and decided we will be tightening our belts. DH has been eating out at lunch a lot with his best friend. I can feed both of them at lunch cheaper than 1 lunch out. So they are both coming home 4 days a week (the 5th is a company lunch so it's free).

I have cancelled our movie channels-they went up from $8 to $24, we don't watch them often. We have DVR/Netflix/and over 900 dvds in our collection. We don't need the movie channels we can watch one of ours. DH balked slightly but when I showed him he agreed he'd rather have the $ to spend on buying a movie or going to theater.

For entertainment since it has been cold and snowy I have been watching tv that I have DVR'd, reading a great deal,and starting to craft a bit. My book club at the local library changed it's time and type. Now it is a combo quilting/book club discussion at 10am on Tuesdays. Well since I work and do not/cannot sew this doesn't fit for me and there were no others within 20 miles. Next best thing which I believe I like even better-I joined Goodreads online. I found 2 book clubs with my interests and a group that trades "LendMe" ebooks for the Nook. I'm enjoying it immensely. During a cleaning/organizing/purging session in one bedroom I found a decorative hat box filled with my yarn and crochet hooks. I decided to make a few things to keep me busy, so I found ravelry.com to be a wonderful resource. I am working on learning to knit but I'm not very good yet. My mom has also decided that it's probably time I learn to sew as well. When I was a kid I remember the curtains she made lasting longer than the ones I just had to have from walmart....that ended up fraying after a few washes. I know I hear from everyone it is definitely cheaper to make things yourself so I'm going to make that a goal to work on this year-learning to sew. When we decorate a home I know there will be many windows to get coverings for. We shall see how well it goes. I'm wondering if this is a skill that has just skipped my generation for the most part? My mother and grandmother between the two of them could repair, alter, or make just about anything when I was a kid. They didn't buy throw blankets, they made them. Most people I know my age just go buy new........ My mother has decided I will no longer be a part of my lost generation she is passing on her skills to me. I'm also looking forward to the quality time with mom

A little Money Saving challenge update

2011-01-19T19:52:00.000-05:00

Rite Aid
2 pks of 45 Dixie paper plates (Bogo sale) $3.99 -$3/2 video values coupon (great deal $0.45/each)
2 Ricola cough drops $1.50/each, $1/2 Q, got back $1UP reward. Currently this is best deal in my area, we needed some since I have been sick.
I used 1 UP reward to pay.
Total out of pocket= $2.43 (subtotal was $1.99, tax was .44).

CVS
We finally started to run low on tp, DH will only use charmin so doing the free deal at riteaid for generic brand wasn't an option.

I bought 2 big packs at cvs for $9.99/each, -$1.50 (2 Qs)
1 dawn for $0.97-$.50 Q= $0.47
1 pk puffs tissues with lotion=$0.99-$0.25 Q (again we needed because of sickness and DH is picky)
4 boxes of raisin bran @ $1.79/each, my grocery store sells for $4/each so this was great deal to stock up for DH.

Grocery store deals
5 Green Giant boxed veggies-sale $1 each, 2 Qs doubles to total of $2.20=$2.80 for 5
3 Campbell's soups $1/each, $1 off Q= $2 total for 3
3 Ragu $2/each-$1.25/3 Q=3.50 total after doubles.
Bananas $0.49/lb got 2 pounds
Blistex chapstick $1-.50 Q doubled=Free
Got 1 discounted meat.
Total was $14.41 for 14 items.
Saved $19.45

DH made a stop for me
2 45 pks of Glad forceflex for $5.99/each- two $3 Qs.=$2.99/each.
5 Oranges for $2
This was great deal for trashbags for us. The $3 Q was an Internet printable, not sure if it's still available.
I'm still trying to update the monthly budget-but I know we're still under for groceries.

Got our electric bill-budget for winter months=$150, bill this month was $95. YAY :)

Meal Planning

2011-01-17T22:05:00.000-05:00

Monday- Homemade chicken and noodles because I was still feeling a bit under the weather-@ about 75%
Tuesday- Enchilladas
Wednesday-Sunny Day casserole
Thursday- Beef Stroganoff
Friday-Dinner out for a friend's bday (we got a coupon from groupon)
Saturday- Homemade spaghetti and meatballs (I got a kitchenaid pasta maker....love it)
Sunday- Salmon with risotto and greek cheesy triangles.

Down and out....uggg

2011-01-15T21:00:00.000-05:00

It takes a lot to make me miss a work day for being sick. My work calls sick days "discretionary" you can break them down into 1 hour incremements if you need and use however you want, sick or not no questions asked. I save mine for nice weather......well I'm definitely down an out. I had to go home 1 hour early Thursday, couldn't get out of bed on Friday I slept for about 18 hrs total between all my naps. Today I slept 14 hours between all my naps. So needless to say no hounding for me lately. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. DH was kind enough to go to RiteAid to do the pasta deal for me. And we got all the UP rewards we were supposed to. I wrote it all out for him.

Definitely feeling lucky: He's taken care of me all weekend-he came home twice friday to check on me, has made dinner, done the household chores and even has been bringing me food on breakfast trays. He was kind enough to set up entertainment too-he put a table near the bed with my books, dvds in player, drinks and soft snacks. I then woke up to more meds, tissues, and the vaporizer. He is so sweet......he knows I was bummed at missing our planned ski trip this weekend so he says we'll go after work one night this week when I feel better.

RiteAid trip was not spectacular

2011-01-11T14:34:00.000-05:00

From the deal standpoint....RiteAid was kind of a bust for me.

I got 4 chunky soups (which I did for work) 4/$5. I had $1 off 2 Q. =$4. I had $3 in Video Rewards or whatever they call them so it ended up getting me 4/$1 and I got back 1Up+ or whatever it's called for another purchase. The rumor was that Riteaid was spitting out UPs 1 per can....so I would have gotten 4 other Ups as a part of a monthly deal. However my store told me after that it was doing that but it was glitch that was fixed early that morning. :( But I still needed the soup and it was still cheaper then the store....maybe it was an ok deal.

I got Britta 3pk filters- $14.99/sale, used $5 Q, paid $9.99 and has $3 riteaid rebate.=$6.99. Not too shabby a price.

Nothing to brag about....but in an effort to keep myself accountable I'm keeping track on here and in my budget. Oh well....you win some and lose some.

A few more deals this week

2011-01-10T13:44:00.000-05:00

Wags- Walgreens gave me my $3 back from where they did not scan the in store circular on my saturday evening purchase. While in the store I picked up a few things.
2 dozen eggs, $0.99/each used $0.55/2 Q from smartsource website. =$1.43 for both
4 reach toothbrushes $1.79/each, used $2 off in store q, used 2 bogo free coupons, and used $2/2 Q printed off coupons.com. These ended up free and the overage went toward my eggs. I ended up paying $0.14 OOP (Out of Pocket).

CVS- Wanted to do Dove Candy bar deal (got CRT Q for $0.50 off 1 Dove bar, on sale $0.89 get $0.89 ECB) and one more round of Diet mt. dew 12 pks buy $20 get $10 back. They only had 2 left though and I had a $10 ECB to use. So I grabbed 3 more finish gel packs at $0.75/each after $2.25 coupon. It was the perfect filler for me since I've already completed the deal twice......so now I got 17 boxes of dish tabs this week and used all those coupons. They gave me a rainck for the other 4 cases of Diet Mt. Dew and the tip they are expecting a wednesday evening delivery. I will go back Wednesday evening.

I wasn't going to go to RiteAid this week, but with all the talk on the grocery thread about the deals on Campbell's Soup and how many of my coupon friends are at RiteAid gold status and get 20% wellness discount....I want that and we need soup. So I'll be venturing over to get the soup deal after work. I will post my progress (I'm not very close to the Gold level yet with my UP+ card).

Saving Monday & Meal Planning 2011

2011-01-09T20:17:00.000-05:00

Well today there was an accident and my old cheapie walmart $19 mdf board bookshelf fell over and broke.....well unfortunately it took out the hall light switch with it..... We fixed it for $.80 cents and 10 mins of DH's time. Thank you Home depot! But what about my bookshelf? Well I picked the 30 books I plan to read and those I need to return from my sister and put them in our tv stand in our bedroom. The rest will go into rubbermaid tubs since apparently our move south according to DH's company is January 2012 (I guess they didn't get started like they thought on the new building....it's now supposed to start in April or May this year). I have my Nook ereader anyway....and the library I'll be fine with the books stored.

For any new readers out there.....I am a cookbook addict....well any book...but I do collect cookbooks....(the old kind that your grandma's church put together.....those have the best recipes in my opinion). I like to read cookbook for inspiration and because those my great grandma left me when she passed have random notes throughout the pages. So I spent tonight looking through cookbooks (luckily my dad made me a beautiful cookbook bookshelf that is kept near the kitchen and within reach while cooking....it was not harmed in the previously mentioned bookshelf incident). Looking through cookbooks always makes me want to meal plan. I recently went through the freezer and my pantry to see what I have in stock. I was very pleased with how few items I am actually short. I'll picking up the must haves this week and waiting for sales on the others.
Meal Plan:
Monday- BBQ pulled pork sandwich, cornbread muffins and spicy honey carrots
Tuesday-Scallops Charleston with my dad's fav side dish (barley, onion, mushrooms, and chicken broth in a casserole dish).
Wednesday- Pork Tenderloin with Red Pepper Sauce.
Thursday-Beef Stroganoff served over egg noodles (No yolks....they always have a sale once a month in my area).
Friday- Hawaiian Roni
Saturday- Whole roasted lemon/garlic chicken, homemade pasta, and cheesy garlic rolls.
Sunday- Penne a la Betsy from Pioneer Woman (love her site and I was lucky to get her cookbook for super cheap. They did special hardcover holiday pack of it at Barnes and Noble, it went 50% off and I'm a member so I got 10% off, then I had 25% off coupon so I used that too....yes total was 85% off....I paid less than my cup of coffee I bought at the starbucks.) I religiously use her site but I like having some of the same recipes in a book......and my mom has borrowed it a few times.....

Rinse and Repeats

2011-01-09T12:51:00.000-05:00

I will be honest I have mixed feelings about rinse and repeating deals more than once. I don't know why but I feel like I should give others the opportunity to get the deal too, and not clear a shelf. I personally get frustrated when on first day of the sale the items are all gone and I'm there fairly early. So I went in to my CVS today wanting to do the finish/electrosal tabs deal on DH's card because I had extra coupons, and wanted to roll it into more soda for DH. I went to the area where they store it and saw only 5 boxes (and this was the shelf completely full because there is not a large area to store them in that section). So I grabbed an assistant manager, and explained that I needed 7 to do the deal and told her the shelf was full but there are only 5. I don't want to clear the whole shelf can I order some for the friday delivery or do you have more in back? She told me they had 6 cases in back but were not allowed the floor space, so they've just been refilling the shelf with 5 more every time. I asked if she could just get 7 from the back for me so I could leave the shelf in tact. She was awesome and said meet me at the register in 5 minutes :) So I did the deal again without making any of my fellow couponers suffer.....I know there are 2 others at least in my area because I see them from time to time.

Money Saving Challenge 2011 January

2011-01-08T22:21:00.001-05:00

CVS- Wonderful deals. My CVS activates the Sunday deals starting at 4:55pm Saturdays.....I asked my favorite store manager once why 4:55 it sounds like a weird time.....he responded he likes the number 55. That got a chuckle out of me. So I went in tonight and there is a new young kid behind the counter he's about 19. He smiles and he see mes carrying my favorite reuseable grocery bag (I got it from Sam a few years ago it's got our local nfl team colors and it's made from plastic grocery bags check out her blog if you haven't already). So cute and very well known at my local stores, everyone comments. Well apparently my local store manager told the new guy to watch for the girl with that bag. He says "Hey are you "Mrs G" I looked around for my mother in law.....I'm still not used to my new last name and the workers I know at this store usually call me AJ. I tell him yes I am. He says hey the manager left you something behind the counter he said you'd be in between 8pm-10pm. The cashier starts hauling 6 diet mt. dew 12 packs and 7 boxes of finish gel packs onto the counter. I grinned so big my face hurt. The cashier asked me if there would be anything else. I told him no thank you I was ready to check out. I was blown away by the thoughtfulness of the manager to set aside what he knew I would be in to get.....and apparently I'm very predictable if he knew what time I would be in too. Probably fastest trip to cvs ever for me.
I did 2 transactions since I was only person in the store.
Transaction#1
7 boxes finish gel 20 pack $3, used 7 $2.25 Qs.
Total came to $6.57 (this includes the $1.32 tax). I paid cash and a few expiring ecbs.

Transaction 2
6 12pks at $3.33/each, buy $20 get $10 ECB.
I paid with ecbs from previous transaction and $3 ecb that were going to expire from a december deal.

Wags- My wags closes at midnight and used to make their employees stay after close to tag and then turn deals on for 7am open. They realized it was easier to change the sales tags over during evening shift.
I got 3 ALL detergent for $3.49, used three $1 off Qs paid $2.49/each and got to use up $5 in RRs that were going to expire. Please note the $1 off All coupon expires tomorrow on 1/9! Act quickly.ETA looks like they forgot to scan my $3 in store coupon for the slim fast......grrr I'll be going in tomorrow to get my $3 back. But I need floss and toothpaste for this week's deal.

Free EBook download Debt Free for Life by David Bach

2011-01-05T10:46:00.000-05:00

Many people use January as a time to start to get finances in order, make it a goal to get out of debt.
David Bach has written a new book called Debt Free for Life. For today only there is a free download.

I like different finance books because sometimes there are different tips or perspectives that I can apply to my own situation. And I like FREE! I wasn't compensated for this post and I haven't read the book yet, but my theory is if it's free it's worth it for me to look into. If I don't like it I can delete. :)

FOR TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2011, ONLY: TO DOWNLOAD DAVID'S NEW BOOK, 'DEBT FREE FOR LIFE,' FOR FREE, CLICK HERE for free ebook.

Giant Eagle Weekly until 1/5(Hurry) Catalinas $ off Next Purchase

2011-01-04T12:03:00.000-05:00

Weekly items through 1/5/11 Better Hurry!

Yoplait Yogurt $2 off next purchase when 20 6oz light or thick and creamy version are bought coupons are available for yoplait.
Organic Giant Eagle Nature's basket Buy $10 in participating products get $2off next purchase I have not seen any coupoons for this store brand.

Nature's Basket Organic Pasta 10-16oz size
Nature's Basket Organic Pasta Sauce 25 oz
Nature's Basket Organic Salsa 16oz
Nature's Basket Organic Granola 12oz
Nature's Basket Organic Tortilla Chips 8 oz

Buy Any 4 Partcipating products get $5 off next order (Coupons in P&G flier from 12/26).

Cascade® Powder or Gel — 75 oz.
Cascade® Action Packs — 16 or 20 ct.
Swiffer® Dry or Wet Cloths — 12 or 16 ct..
Swiffer® Duster Kit
Mr. Clean® Liquid or Bath Spray— 32 or 40 oz.
Febreze® Set and Refresh or Air Effects— 9.7 oz.
Dawn® Dish Liquid — 19 or 24 oz.

Retirement is Important

2011-01-03T11:57:00.000-05:00

If I've learned one thing over the many years from Precious over at Frugal Makes Cents it's that planning for retirement has to start young. My DH and I are 25 and don't have friends that talk about IRA's and maxing out your yearly contributions. So we talk to each other about different topics, do individual research and then we discuss at the dinner table.

Our way is not the "RIGHT" way or perfect for anyone else. I'm merely sharing my thoughts on the topic.
We have 3 different methods:

Sharebuilders/For fun- We have been buying stocks together via sharebuilder in a for fun type of capacity. We haven't sold any over the past few years but we've seen an 8% growth so far in our purchases.

DH's company does stock options instead of a 401K and quarterly cash bonuses.

We take the stock
We take the quarterly cash bonus and I set aside $100 per month into a Roth IRA in his name to max out the annual contribution limit. You can deposit $5K without penalties for 2010 (I believe you have until April 1 to do this as well). A Roth account uses after tax dollars, but you do not pay taxes on the earnings if you do not cash in early. Since we are just starting out our tax bracket is much lower than we expect it to be when we reach retirement age, and we are looking forward to reaping those benefits in the future. We have found we like mutual funds that are target date based (these become more conservative as the target date approaches......we can afford to go after more aggressive funds when we are younger with bounceback time).

My company has pretax 401K and a 6% match and Quarterly cash bonuses.

For the first 9 months of 2010 we deposited 6% into my account to get the 6% company match.
For the last 3 months we upped it to 10% just because we had extra money in the budget and thought we should shuffle it toward retirement.
I check the box for my quarterly bonus to have retirement deductions as well since we count that as free money in our budget and usually put them into the savings accounts.
My company annouced today that as an added bonus for 2010 they will take the total employee contribution for 2010 and will add a 25% of that total into our retirement accounts as a kicker for a good year.
While the added 25% retirement bonus contribution hasn't completely cleared yet I decided to review our 401K's. So far we have enough money saved for 2 years worth at our current salaries.

I realize this is no where near enough but it's a good feeling to see some progress. I suggest others who may not have planned yet start to look toward the future.....it can't hurt. There is something out there for everyone even if it's just CD's and bonds if you are afraid of the stock market.

DH and I are trying to evaluate every purchase we make now so that we can live worry free in the future. I find the different money articles on MSN, Yahoo, CNN, etc a little overwhelming when they talk all gloom and doom if you don't have 1 million dollars saved for retirement you will have to go back to work etc. DH and I have expenses of about $35,000 per year but that includes rent, student loans, and a car payment. When we retire we will have a house and it will be paid off or we will not retire. As far as cars- we have 2 cars now with 1 payment, we will most likely only have 1 car during retirement it is less insurance, licensing fees, and upkeep.

As always email me if you have questions.

First Shopping Trip of the Year Money Saving Challenge

2011-01-02T20:56:00.000-05:00

CVS
Sometimes you don't have coupons but there are things that you need and it's better to use your "free" money than real money. At CVS the "free" money are the extra bucks you get for certain promotional deals.

I had $8.50 in extra care bucks and DH was out of soda. He was going to pay $5.99 per 12 pack. I bought 3 12 packs for $10 and two 2 liters of Diet Mt Dew at $0.88/each. I had to pay $4 out of pocket it was very nice.

I will take this out of our monthly budget for January.
Budget per month
Rent $850
Water $25
Electric $100 avg/ month some are higher/some are lower
TV $60
Auto Loan $397
Car Insurance $126
Gasoline $200
Internet $49
Student Loans: $383
Entertainment $30
Savings Acct $1,000
Grocery $160- $4 cvs balance $154.
Bars $50- $15 balance $35
Fast Food $50
Restaurants $100
Other payments $550
IRA $100

2011-Fresh Start

2011-01-02T17:50:00.000-05:00

Happy 2011 to all!
I always try to look at a new year as a fresh start and a beginning rather than the start of the end of my beloved football season..... :( I have decided for the new year to add my coupon email address to the toolbar on the left for anyone who wants to contact me to ask questions or request a specific topic for discussions. Also any giveaways I participate in.....that email will be given to the winners as notification.
I have also decided to rejoing the Grocery Challenge from WIRR even though it's not on msn anymore.

I finally got through our stacks and stacks of mail I had held at the post office while we were out of town. I was so surprised and excited to see a soggy envelope from my friend Cassie (WVUgirl). Unfortunately since it appears to have gotten wet in the mail your return address was not attainable beyond Baltimore. :) If you read this can you email me? At CouponGreenGirl@gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you and get your address so I can return the favor. Thanks again for the coupons.....your wonderful memory astounds me.
Resolutions/Goals:

This year my focus is cleaning out our condo because we are supposed to move according to DH's work within a year. Get organized (we still have wedding gifts from a few years ago in boxes)
Eat out of my stocked freezer (we have a wonderful standup freezer we hounded several years ago), we got great meat deals and need to clean it out.
Budget and stick to it
Participate in rebates actively
Continue to coupon/stockpile but try to avoid the midsummer burnout that usually hits me
Try to nail down a schedule for housecleaning that works so I do not stress and do all in one day.
Blog 2-3 times a week at a minimum
Continue to build retirement

After Christmas fun

2010-12-26T19:07:00.002-05:00

My favorite things after Christmas are clearance and leftovers. Both give me a warm fuzzy. I realize my massive score days on the 90% off aisle are gone because in these economic times most people scoop at 30 or 50% off and my carts of stuff for pennies are gone. Luckily....in 2007 during the days of 90%off aisles, I got enough ribbon, bows, a gift tags to keep us stocked until at least 2013 based off DH's estimate. I think it will last longer.
Even thought our car was packed, I made DH stop on our way home from my parents to get wrapping paper and our Christmas cards. I got 5 rolls and Christmas cards for next year for $8 dollars. Good stop in my opinion.

I will be off running errands tomorrow and I'd like to get DH and I cute stockings and stocking holders. I am not willing to pay full price so I limit myself to after christmas leftovers. We shall see if anything strikes my fancy. I looked halfheartedly last year and didn't get any.

We made it safely back to Ohio and survived unloading the car. This week I have errands, laundry, 2 days of work, DH family Christmas and a few desserts to make. Hoping to be productive tomorrow and sleep in/have an inside cleaning day Tuesday since it is supposed to storm.

Happy Holidays

2010-12-25T07:47:00.002-05:00

Merry Christmas to all!

Enjoying the wonderful food smells coming from the kitchen. Good to be home in Indy with the fam. Last Christmas was my first Christmas away and it was rough.

Enjoying holiday laughs, watching Christmas movies with my sister and of course....my fav cookies!!!!

I'll be back in action next week. Keep your eyes peeled for those after Christmas sales.

This year DH and I would like to get stockinga and stocking hangers.....I'll be on the lookout for cute ones.

Goodbye Joseph Beth Books :(

2010-12-21T11:39:00.002-05:00

I love books & I love bookstores of all kinds. The weird ones with old books and a funny smell, the quirky mom and pops, the mass chains (borders and barnes noble) and the smaller chains like jospeh beths. Unfortunately Joseph Beths (chain of about 9 stores in the midwest) will be closing 7 out of 9 stores (only the Lexington KY and the Cincinatti, OH stores will remain open). The founder is in bankruptcy. Upside everything was 50% off and all the beautiful tables and bookshelves were for sale. I got a $500 oak book shelf for only $70. That's cheaper than the fake wood ones we usually buy that fall aparat after a few years. I also bought several books for it.

I was talking to a few folks while in line-it was funny because we all shared memories about the place. It was the kind of place I went to study in the lounge area during finals in undergrad. They had great coffee and comfy places to sit. Someone pulled out their Iphone and started to play that song.... "Nananananana Goodbye"

Walgreens and Grocery store G. Eagle trip

2010-12-17T13:42:00.002-05:00

I saved some money and some time today. I had to go to work to serve the 3am holiday lunch for the hourly employees so I got to go home early. At 4 am I went to grocery store and walgreens
Wags:
4 Degree deoderant-$1.99/each.....I had no coupons and this is my rockbottom price so I had to get some.
4 Buy one get one 50% Sensodynce toothpaste, used 4 $1 off coupons
$20.02 total oop

I got 10 free boxes of Betty crocker instant potatos today, 1o/$10 sale, I had 10 .55 coupons that doubled and I got to keep the overage.
We had Snuggle 80ct on sale $3.50, used $3 catalina coupon found left by someone on laundry aisle. I also got 1 4o ct snuggle dryer sheets, on sale $2, used $.75 coupon doubled. I paid $1 for total of 120ct dryer sheets. Lesson here is keep your eyes peeled since some people leave coupons next to products on the shelf.

Money Saving Challenge 2010

2010-12-15T11:15:00.002-05:00

Well DH and I have been sharing his vehicle for the past few days and I must say I really enjoy being driven to work. We are very lucky to be able to do this since we work so close together. It just so happens that I had a week where I had no customer visits. He took my car in to get a new tire put on it today.

Last night I made my mom's fabulous fudge recipe.....my coworkers are bouncing off the walls from the sugar injection and I ate too much and gave myself a tummy ache.....not my brightest moment. Tonight I'm going to do some Christmas cookie baking to take some treats home with me to Indy.

Last night I went to RiteAid-
They were putting up the signs for a 3 day sale so they let me take advantage tonight. I got the big 23oz kelloggs raisin bran crunch normal cost $4.79 at $1.50 each. I bought 2 boxes(the deal was 2 for $5, get $2 up back and since the coupon wouldn't print until today they gave me the discount price. I was very excited. I alos bought candy canes on sale for my snowman candy cane holder I keep at work.

G. Eagle grocery
I bought a half gallon of milk to get us through until our little minivacation. When we are out of town for 10+days I try to clean out the fridge as much as possible. So it works perfect that we leave friday and trash day is Thursday. I'm trying to eat leftovers this week and make smaller meals so our fridge is empty. :) The half gallon price was more expensive but I don't want to waste so I paid a little more per oz obviously for our ideal size. I will eat cereal for breakfast on Friday to use up the leftovers if possible.
I also needed marshmellows for my fudge. I went to the store and they were charging far too high a price for the little marshmellows. So I compared the price on the marshmellow fluff. They had a slae on Jet Puff brand 7 oz jars for $1.50. I knew I would need a second jar for additional holiday bakeing....but they had fluffernutter brand 16 oz jar for $2 so I went ahead and got the larger jar for cheaper. :) Gotta watch your price per oz.

I hope everyone is enjoying all the baking sales!

All about state of mind

2010-12-13T20:52:00.002-05:00

Today I am extremely grateful for my frugal state of mind. 4 years ago what happened tonight would have had me running for my credit card, crying, having a nervous break down, or all of the above.
There is an awful snow storm right now in my area. I live 4 minutes from home but it took me about 45 minutes. Unfortunately right before I got to my condo there was something sharp in the road I didn't/couldn't see becaues of all the snow(road hadn't been plowed in a few hours) and I hit it with my front tire.....I was right outside my complex and I heard the hissing noise start.....I knew I had to get home and let DH deal with it because on a snowy, icy night, in the middle of a very curvy road is a very dangerous place to stop. DH was grateful I just kept going. And then I spent the next 15 minutes in the garage just watching it deflate.....This is why I keep buffer money now and have that ability thanks to our frugal efforts and couponing. DH will drive me to work tomorrow(he was planning to do so anyway since the weather is supposed to be even worse).
DH will go to one of our tire places tomorrow to buy a new one and have it put on there so they recycle the "bad" one properly.

Grateful I wasn't far from home and that we are prepared for these types of incidents.
I can't preach to other people enough-emergency fund, buffer, slush fund, mad money, whatever you want to call it.....you need one. I hope everyone is prepared for what my older relatives are claiming will be a cold and heavy snowfall filled winter....based off persimmon seeds this fall......this is the first year I was there when they cut it at the reunion so I'm interested to see if the old wive's tale is true.

Such a bad poster

2010-12-08T17:01:00.002-05:00

Ironic I've already broken my personal goal of trying to post twice a week. LOL.

Well since my last post work has been a little busy but I have been able to rearrange a few things to my benefit. Last week I needed to have a customer meeting about halfway to my parents house(3 hours away) and I hadn't been home since September and really just missed them. So I rescheduled the meeting work paid for my gas so I got to go home for the weekend last week. That was nice. I have to go in at 3am to serve the managers lunch to the hourly employees on the 17th and instead of driving home after sleeping for 2 hours and driving back I talked my boss in to letting me just stay and work til 11am and go home for the day. Saving gas and time (I'm cranky if I only get back into deep sleep for a short period like 2 hrs). Granted it's 5 minutes from work to home but still it's gas saved.

I need to go through the grocery ad tonight and go through the pharmacy ads so I can make one trip tonight to use coupons and get best prices. I am going to scan carefully and only get required items. I have several trips so we want to make sure we are not wasting food.

Money Saving Challenge 2011

2010-11-30T16:40:00.002-05:00

DH and I have been talking about money, budget, and goals the past few weeks......usually we do this in the car on our trips to see family friends. I think we've decided on a few things:
Usually instead of big bday gifts we go on one 3 or 4 day trip to a new city we haven't visited together or may have gone for work but didn't sightsee. However this year we have specific things we want to do and pay cash for our new goals.

Try to cut our pointless spending and fun spending to live on 1 salary and bank the other.
Attend best friends Jamaica wedding in May(instead of bday trip, 4 days 3 nights 2 are travel days).
Pay off more of our 1 car payment by making additional payments
Do more rebates, surveys, and swagbucks towards gifts. Stick to the gift budget for all holidays/events.
Cook/Grill at home more

CyberMonday......

2010-11-28T22:07:00.002-05:00

I've never been a big Cyber Monday, usually I'm swamped with work from time off the previous week. This year will be no exception but I will look at the emails I have received from BlackFriday.net (that's the website I've been a fan of for a few years now). If there is something appealing I will get it.

I need to get a large item of some kind for my little sister, a larger gift item for my dad, and we have DH's brother in law left to buy for. My mother in law is buying him an Xbox but he made it clear at Thanksgiving he wanted nothing associated with xbox from us.....but gave us zero ideas. So I'm hoping he thinks about it more and picks games, controllers, battery packs, or some kind of headset thingy. Otherwise he is getting a $40 giftcard to the place of my choice because he's angered me at several family weddings lately with his crude behavior and has yet to apologize.

Trying to remember to keep the holiday spirit and I behaved well at thanksgiving even though he was rude to me and behaved in a crass manner. My mother always said you can't choose family, but you can choose to move. There was also something in there about how you react to their behavior....be the bigger person.....yadda yadda I raised you with manners.......she says it so eloquently everytime I need to vent about his latest crazy behavior I wish I could remember......shout out to you MamaLlama if you're reading this leave the saying in the comments. :)

Keeping my fingers crossed there are some decent deals or something that gives me a good idea. Otherwise poor dad is getting a nice bottle of scotch and giant picture of me. :P

Black Friday how I love thee....

2010-11-26T16:24:00.002-05:00

I have been black friday shopping for about 11 years(I started at 14....and I am still young enough to admit my actual age to strangers....don't get me wrong DH will get a lot of use out of the #2 and #5 candle we bought this year because we'll just keep celebrating anniversary of my 25th bday :) ). Even though this was something I always do with mom and sister, I was home and away from them this holiday, keeping tradition made me less homesick.

So late last night we got home from my in laws and realised there was a 3rd football game(YAY JETS). So we stay up to watch. I took a 1 hr nap, DH woke me at 11:50pm. I then went to walmart while everyone else remained at our house to eat leftovers and clean out my fridge. The line at walmart was outrageous but I got the dvds I needed. I must give credit to Walmart staff-they had my store organized for excessive lines by cordoning it off, they were passing out water bottles and OJ for free and they let me check out in lawn and garden where there was no wait. :)

I got to Target at 2:15 (opened at 4) I was #175 in line but they ran out of the buy $100 get $10 deal per their store manager. Check out was easy though and I stopped at the coffee shop on my way out to get a pick me up. I am disappointed to say there was nearly a riot because many people waited in their cars despite the unseasonable warm 50 degree weather and tried to cut in line. This happened at this store last year with lots of injuries so they opened only 1 door this year, then as people tried to sneak in they had to create a shopping cart wall and the police had to start arresting some people. I was disappointed as my fellow shoppers who I'd spent the last few hours joking with ended up getting violent and vulgar......gone was their holiday spirit. I still had fun though. As I exited there were over 500 people in line.....the fire marshall had to control flow into the store....most people were fighting over 5 tvs....ironically one of them was damaged in the scuffle and an arrest for destruction of property was made. Then I went to Dicks Sporting goods in the same plaza, it was 4:15, they opened at 5. There were only 4 others waiting and we had to help a few of the young female workers to pull the heavy door open so she could get in to start her shift. I was pleasently surprised(after the crazy Target scene) to see the gentlemen helping her. The kind employees open the doors at 4:30 and proceeded to assist people with all purchases. I was back in the car by 4:35am and all smiles I got DH's sister a jersey for holiday. I headed to Macys got some great deals on pans, a casserole dish, and sweaters for DH. I ran over to Home Depot at 5:30 (they opened at 5) and the kind workers loaded 2 rigid shop vacs in my car and I got a great deal on duracell double AA batteries. 30 pk for $5 so I got 2. All in all I finished 90% of my christmas shopping and I've spent only 50% of the christmas budget. That's a pretty good feeling.

I hope everyone is having a safe and enjoyable holiday weekend.

Attention all Bakers!!!!

2010-11-23T17:01:00.001-05:00

I got cheap flour at Target. I just wanted to give a shout out to all those stockpilers and big bakers, 5lb bag of gold medal flour for $1.50 at Target this week.

It's $4.49 at my grocery store.

I bought 3 and skipped all the way to the car....well almost skipped I was carrying 15 extra pounds.......

Cheap Frozen Pizza

2010-11-22T21:45:00.002-05:00

Walgreens has Red Baron pizza on $2.50, there is $1 coupon, makes it $1.50/each normal cost at my grocery is $4.99/each. DH loves these for random snacks so I stocked up on 4.
I will go back another day with 4 more coupons to stock up our freezer. :) I love a good deal.

CVS
Has free Excedrin Migraine- $.99 for 8ct get $.99 ecb. I used $1 off any excedrin coupon so that was great.

RiteAid
$4.99 for Nyquil, get $2 UP rewards. I used $1 off Q and paid with UPrewards. I'm trying to stock up for winter on the dayquil and nyquil gelcaps.

Money Saving Challenge

2010-11-17T21:43:00.002-05:00

I went grocery shopping today and got some great deals
I'll just give you the highlights-Total Check $143 (before coupons), $58.14 after coupons with tax.
I got 3 turkeys(14 lbs, 12 lbs, 19 lbs.) sale at my local store for Thanksgiving, I'm not hosting but we'll eat them with others over later so into the freezer they go.
Great deal on canned dole pineapple, on sale for $1 I had several catalina coupons for $1 off 1
Gotta love free.
I got a Free International Delight liquid flavor creamers. 3/$5 buy 3 get $2 off instantly. I had 3 $0.55 Qs that doubled so I had $0.30 coupon overage that went toward other items.

Also today I went through all of our reward cards on our checking account, our Amex credit cards, and the survey sites I use to start claiming gift cards and rewards.
I got 3 $25 Amazon gift cards, 1 $10 Amazon gift card, 2 $10 Barnes and Noble giftcards, & $100 deposit into our savings account from our checking rewards. I also claimed a $5 Amazon gift card for swagbucks.. I'll be using the $90 Amazon dollars along with other Amazon giftcards I've accumulated from Swagbucks to use towards Christmas gifts.

I love shopping on Black Friday-I plan out exactly what the prices are, what items I need and for whom. I look at the cost versus the location. There is no point in driving 5 miles to a different store to save $0.10 if the same item is slightly higher at home depot which is right next door to target for example. I also plan based off store opening. I lump the stores I am visiting by when they open as well to save time and gas. I have a 20 minute rule-into store, through checkout and back in the car 20 mins or less so I know exactly where the items are before I enter the store. My favorite website is blackfriday.net for info on prereleased ads.

Wishing everyone a safe, happy hounding season. Please don't be rude to store employees give a smile!

Money saving Challenge November woohoo

2010-11-15T10:33:00.003-05:00

November & December are when all the baking deals happen at the store so I try to stock up. We're also doing weightloss efforts so I'm trying to cook healthy and stock up where I can because we all know prices will be going up and package size will be going down. I'm trying to find a store near me that actually sells barley for a few recipes I have. Otherwise I'll just buy a few bags when I visit my family next.

Christmas gifts and Black Friday.
My family is notoriously hard to shop for but I've been stashing a few things and planning with future sales.
DH-stashed season of a favorite TV program and some comfy sleep pants with a local sport teams on them.
Mom- Atari game from Amazon with free giftcards(Thanks swagbucks!)
Dad- No idea.....he's so hard to shop for.
Sis-Stashed a collection of james dean movies on dvd. Will need a few more things for her(black friday $3 DVDs at target probably)
Father in law-Black friday shop vac at Lowes for $29 and a gift card. He'll be doing home impovements this winter.
Mother in law-Wii games-Will need to find some deals probably Black Friday
Sister inlaw#1-Coffee grinder-I believe there is one at Macys black friday very cheap
Sister in law#2-No ideas yet

2010-10-23T21:56:00.002-04:00

Slowly getting back in the swing of things coupon wise.
We have some fabulous friends-while we were out of town 2 of them completely stocked our stand up freezer with meat and veggies so we'd come back to full food. They got milk, eggs, oj for the fridge too. So nice of them to clean out expired stuff and restock for us. I'm feeling beyond blessed. But I'm also out of sorts because I need to reorganize it-I have no idea what all is out there. I keep meat separated by shelf so I'll be working on that tomorrow.

I went to CVS and bought DH the Schick Hydro used coupon and got back $5 ECBs.
I got neosporin with some ecbs=we were just out.
I bought 2 tide at $5.49 used $1 off Q, 1 All at $4.99 used $1 off Q got $1 ECB and bought 2 Wisk for $8.49 had bogo free raincheck and two $3 off Qs that was a good deal. We were really low on detergent after all the laundry I had to do when we got back from vacation.

Still looking into coupon clipping sites. I think I'm actually going to only buy single clipped coupons unless I need a majority of the coupons in the insert.

Island Photos-It was beautiful

2010-10-21T21:08:00.002-04:00

Back! and Tan :)

2010-10-20T13:47:00.003-04:00

I'm back from Saint Lucia (West Indies)

I've got a mountain of mail, laundry, and stuff to go through. Our 2 week vacation ended up being 2.5 weeks because American Airlines basically stranded us. Luckily I overpacked so we had extra clean clothes.....I cannot say the same for some of our fellow passengers.....everyone was pretty irrate about the way things were handled by that airline. G and I learned a very important lesson-we were very happy we got travel insurance since we were international and we'll always check number of flights in and out of location from now on.

We were desparate near the end and checking boats, helicopters, and private planes to get us to at least puerto rico to get back to the US.

I need to get back into couponing and clean out all my expired coupons. I do not have time to recycle our newspaper anymore and we don't read it so I think I will cancel our subscription and just use one of the coupon insert services to buy coupons when I see specific inserts I need. If anyone has a specific one they'd like to recommend leave a note.

Fall is in the air and I'm loving it! I will post a few photos of the island later tonight. We have dinner with the in laws so it will probably be later. I missed everyone! And will definitely be trying to catch up on other online friends blogs to see what is up :)

I've been a bad poster.

2010-09-19T13:59:00.004-04:00

Boy oh boy we've been busy. DH and I are trying to clean out the condo to get rid of our needless items. We've been giving away items to some of the college students we know and donating the rest. We're trying to clean out our extra bedroom-a friend on a 4 week rotation at the major hospital system will be staying in there for a short period of time. Also looking forward to our vacation. i've started to shop for Christmas. I just need some ideas for his side. :)

Food we're still trying to eat down the stockpile so I'm trying to limit the purchases on various things. My recipes are getting odder as I try to substitute to use up the various food items we have. :) I'm going to have to take a break until maybe mid October-I've got a massive project at work and then we go on vacation.

Happy Hounding to All! Go outside and enjoy the wonderful fall weather!! It's beautiful out

surveys- love making money!

2010-08-20T11:38:00.002-04:00

Very pleased I've gotten on the survey train this year. That was mostly due to encouragement from following a blog by a friend named Precious-link is on the right if you're interested.

I just got $45 in Amazon gift cards applied to my account because I have been doing surveys while watching tv once a week. :) More money towards gifts this year at the holidays.

The Meeting-

2010-08-20T11:29:00.003-04:00

I am a young woman in my mid twenties and a business professional. I'm a planner and a little OCD but it's part of my charm. That being said I plan my time to make sure I'm making the best possible use of it in my home life (couponing, cooking, social events, cleaning) & work life (getting projects done etc).

I believe that the 2 biggest time wasters in the work environment today are:
1) THE MEETING
2) EMAIL

Example- I have to host a meeting to make sure everyone else is doing their job(basically babysitting). I then have to send an EMAIL to summarize our meeting basically stating I told person X to do their job, and I have to schedule another meeting to find out if person X did their job. (Babysitting person X to find out if they did their job since the last meeting)

I'm not sure if I just reached a mental breaking or what yesterday afternoon, but I started laughing hysterically in my office and realized that I am spending 28-32 work hours a week in meetings or sending emails about meetings. That means at best I spend 12 hours a week doing my job.

My workplace has just created the "sub meeting" for new customer launches. That means in between the "babysitting meetings" with the entire group I'm supposed to have sub meetings to find out where each person is with ordering parts, scheduling production, etc. It just gets funnier. I feel like I work in an episode of the Office or Seinfeld. With less cake and parties

I know that things change over time and many people say that my generation has a sense of entitlement which I think just boils down to laziness honestly. But I find it hilarious that I am babysitting people at work because I am in charge of the project and I'm supposed to monitor them. It is comical to me...... It's sad that this is what the workplace has become.

My goal tonights is to coupon

2010-08-18T14:34:00.001-04:00

I need to actually open our sunday paper....and it's wednesday. Such a shame this week is getting away from me.
DH and I are planning on grilling chicken, steamed carrots, broccoli, and cauliflower for dinner tonight. I'm going to coupon and clean while he does dishes and the trash.

Goal #2 hit the gym for 2 hours minimum I need to work off some work stress with some cardio or I won't be able to sleep very well tonight.

Meal Plan Monday

2010-08-09T13:42:00.002-04:00

Meal Plan Monday...my how I've missed you. It's been awhile...and I'm just sick of making excuses.
Last night during our 6 hour drive home I was thinking how long its been and how crazy the next few weeks will be. So I made a decision I'm going to try to get back into doing this since I'm trying to eat healthier. We got home at 8:30pm, we unloaded the car and I went to the gym at 9pm....while on the stairmaster I made a few decisions- 1 )I hate the stairmaster...a lot, but it helps me trim down......2) I hate the movie Double Jeopardy......it just annoys me and I'm not sure why.(It was playing at the gym, this isn't an AJ random thought out of thin air). 3) I wanted a banana....well I really wanted a cookie but I know that's a bad idea. So after my workout I went to the store at 11pm(yea it was great because it was empty! normal people were asleep). I got chicken, salad fixings, and a few individually packaged hamburgers and steaks that were on clearance.

I got home and I immediately turned on the oven. I put the chicken breasts in and some tilapia with lemon juice. I washed, chopped, and prepped all the veggies. I made the salad and put it in large tupperware for the week. I need to eat super healthy to get things done. Got cleaned up while the food baked. Then put it away for quick low cal lunch :) before I went to bed.

Monday- Tilapia and salad with a peach, Dinner: Baked chicken with salad & banana
Tuesday- Baked chicken with Salad & peach, Dinner: Broccoli, chicken, veggy stirfry.
Wednesday- Baked Chicken with Salad & banana. Dinner: Steak for DH Chicken for me with broccoli
Thursday-Baked tilapia, salad, and strawberries. Dinner: I will have chicken & DH will have burgers with broccoli, potatos and onions.
Friday-Dinner with my family visiting...thinking I will make lasagna and salad.

money saving

2010-08-07T11:49:00.002-04:00

CVS-
BOGO kraft parmesan cheese in shaker
Fusion razor $9.99 -$4 Q get $5 ecb back. I was pleased.

Money saving-
I turned in some swagbucks for 2 $5 Amazon gift cards.
I cashed in some Speedy rewards points at Speedway and got 2 $10 giftcards-that helped with the gas for the trip home to see the family.

Fruit-
We went to the local orchard this morning. I love this time of year because there is an abundance of apples, free stone peaches, and plums. It was delicious. I got about 30 small plums, 20 free stone red gold peaches, and 8 pounds of apples. I love that the orchard is local and so cheap. They have try me fruits next to each to see if you like that type of apple or peach. :) We spent $7.50. Yummy.

Few shopping stops

2010-08-05T23:37:00.004-04:00

I did a few deals today, I needed bananas for tomorrow for my breakfast and work snack. So I got 2 for $0.39 I was pleased.

Walgreens- I bought some kellogs cereal-used $1.25 off 2 coupon, frosted flakes and raisin bran. It was 2/$5 and get $2 RR back.

I swung over to Rite Aid
I bought some sensodyne for $4.99.
I bought 2 herbal essence shampoos and it was 2 for $5 get $2 in UP rewards for next purchase. I used a bogo coupon so paid $0.75 each after the UP rewards.

I have to make it over to CVS tomorrow morning because we're going home for my sisters birthday tomorrow. It will be a well deserved relaxing weekend.

Listerine....I'm excited

2010-07-26T10:15:00.004-04:00

DH and I and my parents/sister all use tons of Listerine. I think its because mom was a dental assistant for years. Walgreens has a pretty good deal. $1.99 for the 500ml after in-ad coupon (Limit 3). I have $1 off 1 coupons and several $3 off 3 coupons that don't expire until January 2011. I'll be stocking up. I have a few RRs to burn. :) Little sister will be so excited. $0.99/each is pretty good for me even before the RRs. So my out of pocket will be pretty low.

Also DH's mother has a bday coming up. She told us several months ago she wanted all the kids to go in on 1 gift. She wanted a wii. So since I'm the couponer I took it upon myself to watch for best deal. Thankfully the price dropped to $199 from $249-and now Best Buy is offering a deal where you get a controller, a knunchuck, wii sport, and wii sports resort(this game is the extra adder) & wii motion plus(also adder) from the normal wii bundle. All this for $199. I will be using that because we have $30 in best buy rewards certificate coupons & we have $12.83 remaining on a giftcard. Target is also offering a deal where if you buy 2 games you can get a $20 giftcard. We'll be getting her 2 games from there. We decided to split it 3 ways. I talked it over with DH's sisters and we decided they'd give us a $100 each. (The total will come to $300 even and since I'm using our rewards coupons and part of a giftcard that is considered part of our payment). If I can find a 10% off coupon from being a silver rewards members that will come off the top for everyone. Our remaining contribution will only be about $50 (out of gift savings account).

I'll be buying giftcards from our grocery to get the gas discount. Every little bit helps.

Financial clutter

2010-07-21T12:48:00.003-04:00

Since I am switching banks-I signed up yesterday Fifth Third and started switching my bill payments over. I was going through files, and the pile of unopened mail DH "forgot" to give me.(I think he misplaced it). I found 2 furniture store credit cards and 1 other credit card company new cards in the mail.....apparently 3 accounts I thought I closed were still open because our previously destroyed cards had expired so they sent new ones.
As part of my switchover I was setting up my bills to be paid online from the bank account I decided to close out those unused accounts. We don't need them obviously, and it's not going to hurt our credit much since we're not looking for loans anytime soon. I'd rather not have to deal with them.

Tonight I'm tackling- All financial files. I want to clean out the filing cabinet, review retirement funds, savings account info etc. I think I want to change my filing system to categories rather than names of places in alphabetical order.

Banks and Weekend updates

2010-07-19T10:13:00.002-04:00

Thanks guys for the comments about the banks.
DH and I went and talked to every bank in our area to get info about their rewards program, to look at what types of plans were offered and to see if we got any particularly good or bad service vibes from them. I narrowed it down to PNC (previously national city), US Bank (DH had them in college-liked them but no branches by our house, now they built 2 new ones near us), and Fifth Third bank. DH made me remove PNC simply because Pittsburgh is in the name & he's a die hard Browns fan.....I didn't argue it was pointless. What made the decision for us is Fifth Third is the only bank that is near us in Ohio and also in North Carolina, and our 1 car loan is through them. So we're going in at lunch today to set up, we have things set up on autopay with Chase we'd like to let clear and we have direct deposit from work we have to get new checks to use to set up direct deposit. So my goal is 8/2 no more Chase. You can bet I already called corporate to give them an earful and let them know I'm leaving and file a complaint about the branch manager. They offered me a $20 Visa gift card as if that makes up for anything.

This weekend we went home to visit my family. My parents got tickets to a country singer who was performing at our local county fair, Billy Currington. I am not a country fan but my family is and so is DH. I attended because I'm a fan of Elephant Ears and Lemon Shake up lemonade. We had great seats, unfortunately it rained on us like crazy before the show(it was outdoors), they confiscated umbrellas....which I think was mean. So we were soaked through he played 3 songs then a lightning storm started so he cancelled.....needless to say it was an interesting evening. My mom was teasing me I should go buy a tshirt of his for $30 to put over my wet clothes. I informed her the cost was more than I was willing to pay. She retorted with "But you spent $5 on an elephant ear" I replied there's a difference between cost and value. I was willing to pay $5 for an elephant ear because I haven't had one in 4 years and I really really wanted one. So it's value was much higher to me than a concert tshirt that wasn't ever going to be worn except for the 10 minute walk to the car. I still think I made the correct choice......hmmm yummy elephant ear........craving one just thinking about it. :)

Banking customer service- WOW moment

2010-07-16T10:25:00.002-04:00

I am thinking about switching banks. I got a phone call from Chase yesterday(our checking bank). I missed the call so I called back so I know this is actually my bank branch. They informed me they were withdrawing $200. I said excuse me? what are you talking about. They informed me they incorrectly processed a deposit/withdrawl that I made April 1st. I deposited a $5 rebate check, and withdrew $200 cash. The assistant manager informs me they processed it as a $205 check instead of withdrawing the money, so they would be withdrawing it now. Now I refuse to agree to anything unless I can see written proof-the statement for that month shows only a $5 deposit, not a $205 deposit. So I asked her to please send me documented proof in writing so that I could see. I think this is a completely legit question. She started to yell at me that I should just believe her I shouldn't need proof (HELLO RED FLAG #1). The fact that it took nearly 4 months to notice is kind of a big deal to me. (RED FLAG #2). The fact that the assistant branch manager is yelling at me and talking to me as if I'm a criminal because they made an error is definitely Red flag #3, it's not my fault they did something wrong in their computer. My problem is I have a receipt from the transaction showing they deducted the $200 they claim they didn't. So I am seriously thinking of switching. We've been with this bank for 5 years and previously had a car loan through them. But I've never had such poor customer service in my life. I would never dream of yelling at someone for asking for documentation.

Cheap Fruit & random thoughts

2010-07-09T16:01:00.003-04:00

Nothing too exciting going on here-lots of community backlash because of the LeBron James speech-if you're a basketball fan you know what I'm talking about. Personally I'm just sick of the news, radio, and newspapers talking about it nonstop. Hopefully it will stop soon.

I'm not doing too well with my cleanout/ purge goals.....unfortunately some work craziness, some friend drama(I feel like a referee with their arguing lately), trying to keep up with book club, and all of our summer leagues. I'm still awful at bowling but I'm having fun....I got some fun socks for $0.50 when I was home visiting in Indiana(They have bowling pins on them). Maybe they will make me do better. But I'm still sticking with my 110-120 per game scores.

G. Eagle has some great bogo fruit
I got 2 packs of Raspberries, 2 packs of blueberries, 2 packs of strawberries for $4 total. I found a coupon just sitting in my fruit department said- $3 off any produce purchase. I was excited. Blackberries are also included in the sale but after my long weekend home in Indy with all the blackberry jam, pie, and ice cream we made I don't want to see anymore blackberries at our house for awhile. :) G. Eagle also has milk for $1.98 a gallon this week so I'm happy. I realized recently we've been working hard to clean out my freezer so we've barely bought any meat/frozen veggies/frozen pizza in a while. It's really cut my grocery trips and bill to almost $20 a month the past few months which is why I haven't been posting too many deals. Our freezer is starting to get lower so I'll be watching for more meat deals.

I'll be hitting up CVS, Wags, and RiteAid tonight or tomorrow for the following deals:
CVS-Tide is $5.97 get $1 ECB I also have $1 coupon, Hefy trash bags $6.99 get $2 ecb back(limit 2) and I have $1 off coupons, and Fusion Razor-$9.97 (use $4 coupon from P&G) get $5 ECB back. I'll pay with my extra bucks and I have a $10 off $30 coupon from the coupon machine in store.
Wags- Off bug spray is $3.99, and you get RRs back. I have a $1 off coupon in my purse my mother in law gave me. Not sure about everybody else but my area the mosquitos are crazy this year....starting to feel like a big itchy pin cushion or maybe a mosquito slurpy because they keep biting me.

RiteAid has Listerine for $3.99, I have some UP rewards (or are they call Plus rewards not real clear on that one yet). I have several $1 off Listerine coupons that don't expire until 2011, but I may as well use them. We love Listerine, my parents, DH's parents, and my sister all use it so I whenever I can get it free or super cheap I stock up for everyone.

New Construction-They are building some kind of store down the street from my house. It looks from the outside like it could be a grocery store but there is no sign yet. I'd love a grocery store even if we're going to be here less than a year. G. Eagle needs some competition on prices. :)

Money saving challenege

2010-07-02T14:58:00.002-04:00

So I had 2.5 days off Thursday-Monday so I decided it was time to take a trip home to Indy....spend some time out on the farm so to speak. DH had to work so no fun for him, but he and his guys friends are going to Vegas for a 4 day trip (Saturday-Tuesday). We had miles to use, a friend had comped rooms so I said go have fun with the boys.

I have been craving blackberry jelly roll. So I went to the grocery store last week....the cheapest blackberry jam was $5.99/8 oz bottle. I was like whoa! I don't think so. Low and behold I get home and the blackberry bushes we planted 3 yrs ago for $0.99/each now are giving off several cups of fruit a week. My mom and I picked for about an hour we got 9 cups of berries. :) We made a pie and decided to make some jam......so since we had all the ingredients required thought it was a good cheap alternative. :). She works at a greenhouse so I get a discount when I buy plants/flowers there. At the end of the season a few years ago I bought 3 strawberry plants for $0.49. They've expanded like crazy and this year I got 5 gallons of frozen strawberries to take back with me for smoothies. My parents froze about half of them for me. :) I feel special.

My sister and I finally got photos taken for my mom for her belated mother's day gift. We got them done at a photo place that does same day printing-Mom was thrilled.

Customer service is it gone?

2010-07-02T14:50:00.004-04:00

I'm curious about how others feel about this:
I was a waitress throughout college, an avid couponer, question asker, and deal seeker post college. DH, 2 of our friends, and I went to a sushi place called Lure. It's a local store-they have a large sign advertising happy hour half priced drinks on their website and on their patio. We went in had drinks during happy hour then decided to stay. The customer service was horrible-it took 45 minutes for my glass of water to arrive(their were 9 members of wait staff on the patio and 12 guests (4 were my party, 1 table of 4, and 2 tables of two people) so obviously not overwhelmingly busy....strike 1. Strike 2 I asked the manager when our bill arrived why the drink prices were more than expected....he yelled at me for asking a question(hmmm strike 2), then he informs me that because we were paying our check at 7:30 we didn't get any happy hour drink prices despite all of our drinks were ordered at 6pm and happy hour ended at 7pm. Strike 3. I paid the bill, took the managers name and I've made several calls to the owner. To me this is false advertising and there was no reason the manager should yell at me for asking a question about my bill. I'm diligent enough that I will write in to the local paper to make sure this rude event doesn't happen again.

Am I expecting to much?

Great weekend/Busy week/Money Saving

2010-06-23T09:55:00.004-04:00

Well it's been a very busy past few days. DH's birthday was last Friday, and the power went out at work that afternoon so I got to go home 2 hours early. I took full advantage and used that time to do most of my prep work for his Saturday surprise party. I made beer bread, spinach and artichoke dip, and homemade salsa. DH came home and we went out to dinner and then to a few wine bars and sports bars in our area with friends. Unfortuantely I didn't get enough done Friday afternoon so I had to get up at 7AM on only 4 hours of sleep to make the cupcakes, the nacho cheese dips, buffalo chicken dip, & marinated chicken. Luckily DH slept late. We had a surprise party for him at a boat dock- I took advantage of him sleeping late and met a few friends to go set up and drop off food/beer/sode and of course games to be played while we bbq. The BBQ was a success the party lasted from noon until 1am. Needless to say DH was so pleased, and I literally fell asleep the second I got home.

I'm doing awful at bowling, DH forgot to tell me we're celebrating father's day with his family tonight, and it's Wednesday so I need to go to the grocery store to get the last of the deals for this week. I have a feeling it's going to be a very long day. I still have so many things to get done.....including bills, couponing for the 3 pharmacies to get this week's deals, I've got to get back to meal planning,and of course fill out a few beer rebates and mail in.

Somehow we did something right-Our electric bill for May 2008 was $150, May 2009 was $145, May 2010- $62.50. June appears to be about the same based off current useage.

Water bill- We budget $20-$22 is average for us. I've had more laundry lately since DH is in 2 volleyball leagues and we're just working out more. But somehow I'm doing something right because it's been $15-$17 the past 2 months.

Cable-Time Warner was really sticking it to us with our bill. We negotiated a 1.5 yrs ago a contract for 2 yr discount. Well they started trying to add fees, and other charges and increase our bill for service. It went up to $110 over 1 month from $54. Since we prepay I off course called, and the customer service was poor and so rude to the point of yelling at me and saying mean things(merely because I was calmly asking questions about my bill). I ended up switchign to DirecTV (they just resided our condo and put wires in for their service). It turned out we got more channels and it was cheaper, plus they offered a 1 yr rebate. I quickly cancelled Time Warner. We are now saving $12 a month or $144 a year. Plus we're adding NFL Sunday ticket for football season so I'll be able to watch all my Indianapolis Colts games. I'm thrilled!

Deals, steals, and a screw up

2010-06-16T10:22:00.003-04:00

I've been getting great deals lately on razors.
Last week at CVS I did the Fusion and the Hydro men's razor deals-used $9 total in coupons and got back $9 in ECBs. Last night I went in to CVS to do the deal again because they have it again this week- except my extra bucks didn't print for the Fusion....well that's weird I thought as I walked out. I read over the receipt while DH drove us to bowling league(my average is 125 I'm pretty excited), it said that I had met the deal already-my purchase Saturday applied to this week. So I'm going to return the razor. I just wasnt paying close enough attention and forgot my store turns on their deals early sometimes on Saturday. The Hydro has a rebate to make it free. So I've sent that in already. You can only do it once. Thanks to my little sister for sending me the rebate info....then I was able to confirm it because I saw it on Sam's blog also (I like to confirm rebates just to make sure they are legit and I'm not giving bad info).

I'll be going to RiteAid to get the new wellness plus card they offer and a fusion razor-they are on sale and offering a $5 rebate.

We've been saving money on electricity because we only use our AC a few days a month so far-the weather has been very poor in our area cold and rainy, so we just open the screen door and windows for circulation.

Extra freebies-ways to help the bottom line

2010-06-06T21:54:00.003-04:00

So at the beginning of this year I thought I'd try a few things differently in regards to our frugal living. I admit that most of these ideas I borrowed from my online/blogging friends who've got more experience. So thanks to several people like Sarah, Pubbler, Precious at Frugal Makes Cents and Couponing Grad Student's blog suggestions I've started doing the following:

SurveyHead surveys -I deposit everytime I get $25 into Amazon
Swagbucks-I get points for searching & deposit $5 Amazon gift cards monthly
ERewards-I take surveys dollars add up, for Borders Bucks and Continenatal air miles
ZoomPoints-I take surveys for points-(New so I haven't cashed out yet)
Be Heard Surveys-I just earned $1o check in the mail
Johnson & Johnson Friends- I got $20 cash in the mail.
Kraft is having me test ketchup & they're paying me. We love ketchup in summer
Ebates-I get a percentage of every purchase online back in a quarterly check
My Points- I click through emails and get 5 points for each. I use them to get gas station, drugstores, and department store gift cards.

BlogSpark & Social Spark are also sites I'm trying that allow you to review products and post the information to your readers. Such as that Yoplait Greek Yogurt I talked about earlier this year.
DH and I started talking about what I've done, how long it takes, and how much I've earned. I'd say I spend maybe 10 minutes a day doing surveys and the other extra money makers I mentioned above, usually during commercials while watching evening TV or making dinner. That's about 2.5 days per year. DH's reaction as he did the math in his head was that's crazy. Then I showed him all the money we've saved, giftcards we've gotten etc and he was amazed. Needless to say it's actually more than we've spent at the grocery store this who year. His reaction was pure silence....then he made the comment technically we're in the positive in the grocery world this year if we counted my earnings. Now most of my earnings go towards gift items we need we'll buy off Amazon or other household items.

Money Saving Challenge

2010-06-04T13:50:00.002-04:00

DH and I these last few nights have been eating in, grilling on the patio etc. That's quite the money saver compared to going out as often as some of our friends who don't cook.
Entertainment this weekend is a big money saver for us:

Tonight we're going out to Stir Crazy it's a stir fry chinese type restaurant we have a gift card for with some friends. We picked the restaurant last week and it was a pleasent surprise at work today to find out I'd won a giftcard :)

My college roommate is coming in to town to visit with us and she and I are making her wedding invitations at our house and we'll be staying in watching chic flicks while we work. We're going to go for a morning run at a local metropark by my house.
Saturday night-
DH and I are meeting up with some friends to go to the drive in. They let you bring your cooler in no charge as long as you clean up after yourself. You get a double feature for $20/car (4 people 2 movies=$2.50 each). I'm pretty excited I love the drive in and think its sad that so many have closed.
Sunday DH and I are having volleyball practice with his sisters and their significant others. We're in a league together-we had our first game last night and it was awful. Disorganized, no communication then the siblings started arguing....I felt like a referee or the mother of small children.....which in hindsight is pretty comical.
We will probably be going bowling also on Sunday afternoon-we get 10 free games a week each because of the league we're in. DH is basically trying to teach me form....as opposed to my way which is just walk up and throw it and hope the pins fall down. :) But I'm just happy to be sharing in something DH loves.

Time to make the donuts! FREE!!!

2010-06-03T11:06:00.002-04:00

My mom loves that phrase! Anyway- Tomorrow is National Donut Day.
Krispy Kreme is giving away free donuts all day
Dunkin Donuts is giving away a free donut with purchase of a drink.....

Of course I found out after I got to work and I was so busy I didn't get food or coffee til 10:30, wish I'd gotten up a bit earlier :) I'll be getting some later though for tomorrow.

Grocery totals after 5 months 2010

2010-05-28T16:07:00.002-04:00

Total budget for 2 $1,000.00
Total shelf Cost:$2,846.12
Coupon savings:$2,093.51

Total Items:600

Actual spent: $752.61

Total Rebates:$295.36
I like to subtract rebates from my actual spent to see exactly how much actual cash was spent from checking on grocery/household items.

Total for 5 months =$457.25 or divided by 5 months = $ 91.45/month or $45.73 per person per month. I pleased with this. Of course there is always room for improvement.

Great deals

2010-05-25T14:06:00.002-04:00

This past weekend I found some great deals.
We got a $10 off any purchase Kohls coupon in the mail so I got a pretty tank top for work, it was $9.99 so I ended up paying a little bit of tax(but I found a quarter in the parking lot so I ended up $.08 positive). :)

Walgreens-
Gallon of skim milk $1.99

CVS (last Saturday)
2 Herbal Essence $2.99, used 2 $1 off coupons= $1.99/each.
1 Dove chocolate bar(free coupon from the red coupon machine)
I paid with extra bucks and I received $4 back in ECBs plus $1 ECB for my bag tag

Giant Eagle
We love KC masterpiece bbq sauce, and several good coupon sent me several.
It's been on sale for $1 at my store and I used $0.50 off 1, which doubles to $1=Free
I've gotten 6 bottles so far. I'll grab 4 or 5 more before the sale ends Wednesday night. It just depends how many coupons I have left.
Also I got a great deal on moneymaker solo cups thanks to a great tip for my friend Cassie.
This will definitley help with tailgaiting, the surprise party we're throwing, and a few showers I'm hosting and those I'm helping with this summer. Gotta save those pennies where you can!

I'll be posting my coupon savings/grocery budget YTD totals as soon as I find my darn flash drive....I swear it's grown legs and walked off.

One more great find-Barnes and Noble has been offering 1 free ebook code for a popular recently released title every monday they put the flyers out in their stores they will do it next week and June 7th. They have the flyers out all week. Sunday they gave me last week's and this weeks. It's great even if you don't have an ereader but want to read it on your laptop you can easily download the B&N reader on your laptop(I have friends who bought small netbooks instead of ereaders). Enjoy the freebies.

Playing with the numbers

2010-05-24T10:18:00.003-04:00

This is more of an observation I had this weekend. Budgeting is a lot harder for us to keep on track. We do better than most of our friends with budgeting, and much better than we did in college. We live below our income but we are not saving as much as we could be. And for some reason that irks me, I'm not really sure why it irks me either. My personality is very much a planner, organizer, & worrier. DH has me paranoid about how much a house is going to cost and moving. And I feel like we may never be as prepared as we'd like.

I guess part of it is I also don't say no, and force him to buckle down. Minor example-He wanted to go to olive garden with our friends and then to a movie Saturday night so I agreed....I used a coupon but it still was a $50 night out. These nights out happen more often in the summer time, and I think he's trying to spend more time with everyone because we'll be moving away. Example #2- At the grocery store DH really wanted a loaf of white wonderbread. I never buy it because it's $3.19. I make it at home in the breadmaker or buy the $0.99 store brand bread. He rarely asks for food items, I planned for $200/per month we should have spent $1,000 so far as of the end of May and we're well below that for the year (We've been eating out of the freezer mostly). I'll post our exact grocery totals later tonight. So since we are extremely under the food budget I of course said yes because well it's just a loaf a bread and sometimes it's nice to treat him.

I basically realized this weekend I don't say no so I don't have anyone to blame but myself. I run all the household finances and when he asks I feel guilty telling him no because he doesn't ask very often. We talked about it while we grilled hotdogs last night and enjoyed the patio. We're going to try to bring him in more of the finances and do them together sort of a bills/ checking account/savings account date night. He's got the I don't care attitude about money as long as when he goes to the atm he can get $20 he's happy. So we both agree he needs to work on changing that mind set.

Lesson learned

2010-05-21T00:41:00.002-04:00

Check dates. It was late last night DH wanted to OJ and we were out. I went to the store they had several bottles of his favorite 12-15 or so. I checked out and as I walked out I noticed the Minute maid expired 4/12. Wait what? Yes that was my reaction. I turned around and was totally grossed out as I got my fav manager and showed him most of the bottles had that expiration, there were 2 that were due to expire 5/22 and 1 expiring in June. I took the June. He took all the others off the shelf but I was wondering as I drove home-How many other people bought it without noticing? Or worse what if people got sick? DH only checks milk expirations.

Freebie in the mail

2010-05-19T17:56:00.003-04:00

I got this lovely box wtih 2 free Kraft coupons, a Kraft rebate several packs of Wheat Thins, and Maxwell carmel vanilla coffee mixes. I've had these mixes before a coworker got several at her other job. It's yummy.

Meal Plan-
Monday we were out of town
Tuesday we had hamburger helper and broccoli
Wednesday- Donatos pizza (free coupon from new store opening)
Thursday-Grilled Chicken with mashed potatoes
Friday- Lasagna and homemade garlic bread
Saturday night- Couples night we're doing a potluck game night.
Sunday Leftovers day.

Great Vacation & Frugal

2010-05-19T12:28:00.004-04:00

Before this vacation I'd never been to our Washington DC. Boy I didn't know what I was missing out on. We spent 4 days there, and it was amazing. We flew into Baltimore and used points I had with Avis to get a free rental for a few days. I used Hilton points for our hotel. Instead of paying for expensive parking we took the Metro downtown and walked to site see. We visited all of the major monuments and several of the Smithsonian musuems. When we have kids we definitely want to take them to see the Natural History Museum and the National Zoo. I loved it but I'm basically a big kid. It was great free entertainment. I really enjoyed the atmosphere, everyone was walking outside and we did the same thing. We walked over 30 miles, and I dropped a pants size. Which is great news for me! Above is a photo of my favorite monument the Lincoln Memorial :)

Meal Plan

2010-05-12T22:21:00.002-04:00

Meal Plan for the week....even though I'm tardy

Monday we had scallops, whole wheat pasta, and penne
Tuesday grilled steaks, broccoli, and mashed potatoes (still have 2 steaks leftover)
Wednesday DH took me on a date dinner/movie. Tons of leftovers
Thursday and Friday we have to clean out the fridge and eat all these leftovers. Luckily we come home for lunch. :)
Saturday/Sunday/Monday we're going on a long weekend vacation to DC :) Excited for the free musuems !! YAY

It's actually been a good few weeks, I've spent very little money at the grocery store. We've been making due and cleaning out our fridge. WOOHOO!

Great Birthday gift

2010-05-07T15:46:00.002-04:00

DH went through my coupon binder and found my Best Buy Rewards certificate coupons and took them(We get them via email for using our Rewards card when we go to Best Buy). He got me a Nook Ereader by Barnes and Noble, at Best Buy. He went to our grocery bought gift cards-so we get gas perks, used my coupons to by the ereader. I've got to give him some couponing credit-he checked the Barnes and Noble store to see if we could use our member discount on the unit-since the answer was no he purchased it at Best Buy because we can get rewards points towards more $5 or $10 off coupons. I was quite surprised and very pleased when he told me his money savings methods. :) He's learning. I am a big reader and this is the best gift he could have gotten me(he wants me to stop buying books til we move or part with some of mine). I don't want to part with any, I have donated many to the local library that I do not read anymore but not the ones I want to keep. Great compromise-it makes my traveling so much easier (I used to take 3-5 books whenever I went somewhere because I didn't know how my mood would be). Battery life is great too. I played with it on our whole ride home to my parents house last night. Most of the classics I love to read are free as ebooks because they are considered public domain. :) I love FREE. I'm out of town to celebrate my birthday and mother's day with my mom. It's cold here but it's great to be with family! Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there!

A Walgreens card in the works?

2010-05-06T11:13:00.003-04:00

I was talking to my store manager this morning and she said that Walgreens is testing out a card for savings programs similar to CVS card. Unfortunatley Ohio is not a test area....but I'm sure some of the bloggers in MO or VA will be sharing their thoughts on it. I'll be keeping my ear out and told the store manager to keep me posted if it goes live. She thinks I'll hear in the coupon community before she does. And she's probably right, couponers stick together! :)

Money Saving Challenge birthday edition

2010-05-06T09:54:00.003-04:00

Well I really needed milk and Special K cereal. The sale ended at midnight on the 5th (this is also my birthday). We had bowling league, we went out to dinner, and we went out drinking. I love margaritas...and I love teasing DH that my birthday is a holiday.....even if it's not an American holiday. We went out after bowling with the guys on our team to a mexican restaurant. I had a bogo free coupon so DH and I only had to pay for 1 of our 2 meals plus our drinks. So I got yummy enchilladas, DH got a chimmichanga(I'm sure I spelled this wrong). When it was time to pay they gave me a free birthday meal coupon and a bogo coupon. I asked if I could use them both that day. They said yes. So Our bill for 4 people before alcohol was $42(prior to tip including taxes). I had a bogo coupon, they gave me a bogo coupon, and 1 birthday free meal. Out the door before tip not including our liquor we paid $8 for 4 meals. Some people may find this odd but to each their own. When I got the coupons I asked the 3 guys if they cared if I tried to use them-DH is used to my extreme couponing but the others only knew stories.....they responded well ok all the restaurant can say is No go ahead and try. So I took our bill up with the coupons and she said $8 for the food. So she gave me my new bill split up for the liquor by person. We all agreed to split the $8 so it was $2 per person plus alcohol(about $10/each for the night plus we left our awesome waitress a great tip). YAY!!!!

I was a bit tipsy digging through my purse for chapstick and see my list that I need Special K cereal and milk-I have coupons and see the sale ends that night. So at 11:50 DH stopped on the way home went in got my 4 boxes of special K(on sale he used coupons, and got $2 off next order back), and he got 2 gallons of milk for $1.98. I was so pleased. He saved me a bundle because he got the big boxes which are usually $5.99 in my area for 1.75/each. :) Very excited!

April Receipt totals

2010-05-06T09:49:00.002-04:00

Budget was $200
Total Items: 37 (I told you I really didn't hound much at all!)
Total Shelf cost: $178.38
Total Savings=$68.87
Paid $9.11 with free CVS gift card
Amount paid out of pocket=$100.40

Looking over my receipt I bought a few freebies, some coffee beans, means, fruit, milk, and some candy treats for DH after Easter. I need to get back on the hounding wagon to save us some serious dough but as I said it's been busy.....not a sufficient excuse but oh well.

May will be better.

April Month Recap

2010-05-02T23:12:00.003-04:00

Wow I've been neglectful....shame on me! Let's do a quick recap of the month of April
I realized Friday that I had not posted, that I had barely gone to the grocery store or pharmacies this month and I wanted a few things. We've had some crazy busy weekends in the month and we're required to have our flower beds at the condo weeded, and "nicely landscaped" prior to May 1 (the beautification committee walks around and issues fines.....of about $50 for non compliance) thankfully we rent so we're not permanently bound by these rules. We went to Home Depot and got mulch and weed barrier. They had large bags(covers 2 cubic ft) 5 for $10. We bought 10 bags, weeded, laid down weed barrier and the mulch. I decided to plant in my flower pots and set them on top of the mulch and trimmed the bushes. I used my flower pots because our condo is next on the list to have the siding removed, old cable wires removed, and new more energy efficient siding put on. I wish they were more specific about nicely landscaped definition and I hope the workman don't mess up our hard work too much.

Friday DH and I worked so hard I didn't want to heat up the house so we grilled. Since we were out of town many days in April and mostly ate from the freezer when home I got nice large marinated Delmonico steaks for DH and I on the grill with asparagus, onions, and a splash of balsalmic vinegar. It was delicious. I've been using down our stockpile and researching North Carolina a bit. Some exciting rebate news for the future-NC is a no alcohol purchase necessary state so I'll be taking advantage of more rebates!

We've been working to reduce our electric bill so despite some very cold nights throughout the month we've just used blankets and dropped our bill about $30. DH replaced our shower head with a water conservation style that is also a handle you can remove. We've reduced our water bill about $6 (not much but conisdering our bill was normally $23-$24, it's 25% reduction.)

May is going to be a busy month- My birthday is the 5th(DH is getting me the Nook ereader I am very excited and he's very thoughtful), Mother's day is the 9th(we'll be venturing to my parents home I got my mom The Blind Side on sale $12 at Target and my sister and I are having professional photos taken for her), we've got a small vacation to Washington DC(everything was cheaper prepaid and we're visiting monuments and musuems that are free and great enterntainment and get to see my best friend), DH's 2 sister's birthdays. This ends up becoming a very busy and usually expensive month. For DH's sister's I planned ahead-I used Amazon giftcards earned free from Swagbucks to get 2 cookbook/wine pairing books for 1 sister, and an ipod speaker system for the other. Both birthday gifts cost us $3 in shipping. In hindsight I could have waited until I got my Amazon gift cards credited tomorrow and paid $0-but I was afraid to wait on shipping.

Time for a makeover!

2010-04-24T09:37:00.002-04:00

It was time for a bit of a makeover. I'm off to a wedding today. We did a few things to save money the past few days-I got our card for the wedding at CVS during their American greetings special buy $15 get $3 ECB and receipt coupon had printed for $3 off 4 cards so it was a good deal.

I claimed another $5 Amazon giftcard from Swagbucks. If you don't know what Swagbucks is, feel free to ask questions-it's an easy way to earn free giftcards-I've earned about $200 in Amazon gift cards in 5 months. I'd be more than happy to explain it or assist you in learning. My swidget is in the sidebar to the side.

I made omlets with ham and onions today(we had ham for dinner one night last week so I chopped up leftovers). Great easy breakfast.

I'll be back tomorrow to hunt down the deals.

Pretty Flowers

2010-04-21T17:46:00.000-04:00

Coupon Friend Goodbyes are Rough

2010-04-21T15:23:00.000-04:00

We have many single men in our friend group- DH's childhood friends. One of them found a wonderful lady and they got engaged. In the year they dated she and I became very good friends, and I even converted her to my "coupon craziness" as DH calls it. Well the couple got engaged, and they'll be in southern California. Which is going to be great for DH and I to visit and we just received 2 free airline tickets in the mail from American Express but I will miss venturing to the stores together and hunting down deals :)

But she'll be sending some different value coupons my way since she'll be getting them in a different region. So that's pretty much the only upside.

Also DH found my camera cord and he brought me beautiful roses. I'll be posting photos of both when I get home :)

ETA- This is the bookshelf for cookbooks I made with my Dad for free out of his scrap wood since I refused to pay the prices at the furniture stores. I talked about it several posts again at the beginning of March (original post here).

Sometimes you win and sometimes you don't

2010-04-19T10:37:00.000-04:00

For me it was a don't kind of week. Because I was out of town I was really thrown off with my couponing and my schedule all together. I went to RiteAid to get the fusion razor deal....except that deal was the week before and I missed it because I was out of town.....that was Duh moment #1
Duh moment #2 : I bought the Olay quench free at CVS via extra bucks. I had the receipt just in time for the Olay free rebate. So that was Friday well Saturday DH spilled coffee in the car and grabbed that receipt to mop it up not looking at what it was. Then he threw it away with the napkins. I found out Sunday night when I started looking for it and asking him. It was really my own fault, but I guess that means no money maker for me. My mom recently bought some Olay quench so she's looking for her receipt, but if she finds it I'll send it in under her name and address so she gets the money back....because well she spent the money not me. Unless she has 2 receipts :) then I'm golden!

Duh moment # 3 I took the previous weeks grocery ad to the store.

So you win some you lose some. Normally I do all my couponing on Sundays but we had a going away party for a couple we're friends with moving to Tempe, AZ. So looks like we'll be using some frequent flyer miles to visit them out there probably end of Dec or Jan 11 depending on her work schedule(she's a contract nurse). She's been working out there for a few weeks and they deliver tons of coupon booklets free to her house! She brought them all home in her suitcase for me. Now that's friendship! Her husband was in Maine for work for 2 weeks(he's a bridge inspector) so he brought me tons of coupons and some pretty great outdoor pictures. I've never gone to Maine-I think I'll put that on our list for US vacation spots. I think it would be beautiful in the fall with all the colors.

Tonight I will coupon, go through clean out all my old ads, coupons, flyers, rebates, and make the lists for this week. And I need to Meal plan. We're going out Thursday (DH's team placed second in their bowling league so there is a dinner and he won $50). I'm pretty excited about that. Because when we get surprise wins like that we either put it towards fun money or into savings towards vacations. It's like an unexpected bonus :)

Money Saving Challenge

2010-04-14T09:54:00.000-04:00

Well we're back from our very long weekend of funeral stuff. Longest drive ever 12 hours each way. Yesterday was an exhausting day to keep my eyes open at work. Thankfully my very kind father paid for our hotel room because he had enough points with holiday inn priority club. So my parents got a suite and we had a hotel room connected so the only upside was spending quality time with my immediate family.

DH and I didn't have to pay for anything except gas so that was also nice.

Last night I ran our laundry through on cold and line dried most of it.

I broiled pork chops and made a pasta and broccoli side dish. It was easy and threw it all in the oven so I could just try to crash on the couch. Unfortunately this week we have dinner plans out for various events we have to be at Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday, and Sunday. DH actually says to me why don't we go out to dinner at that little mom and pop deli I like tomorrow. I looked at him like he had 2 heads and told him we were eating out enought his week so we would be saving some money. We just had a budget discussion on our 12 hour drive.....how quickly he seems to forget. And how quickly he seems to want to spend that extra paycheck we get this month since it's a 5 Friday month. Looks like we'll be having yet another talk tonight about budgets.

Tonight I will be going through my Sunday paper, coupons, and ads to get the sales match ups. There is also a big sale at Yankee candle and I need some candles for a gift(I got a coupon for $10 off $25 so it's perfect). I also need to go through all my outstanding rebates to make sure I've got everything I need to send in when I go to the post office tomorrow.

Happy Hounding to all!

So much for hounding this weekend

2010-04-09T21:18:00.001-04:00

DH and I were at the grocery store tonight when we got a phone call from my parents. My great grandmother passed away so we're headed back home for this weekend for wake/funeral arrangements. She had a very long full life and I believe she's in a better place. But we're going to have to alter our weekend plans so I won't be posting this weekend or hounding like I wanted to. I'll see you all again hopefully Tuesday I'll be back home.

Budgeting...

2010-04-09T17:15:00.001-04:00

DH and I have tried several different ways to track our budgeting. We've tried tools online such as Mint, SimpliFi, a notebook, and a simple excel spreadsheet log. None of these really fit my needs, nor do I really like any of them. So this weekend I've decided I'll use my excel skills to creat a new one.

I'd like to have one place to track the following:
Income vs. Spending breakdown
Savings/Investments with interest rates etc. Breakdown of monthly payments and transfers

Credit cards-balances, min payment, actual payment, interest rate. Input formulas so it will automatically tell me when it will be paid off. (With an area to indicate extra payments).

Bills-breakdown by type in a pie chart so it's easy to see biggest costs

Spending-breakdown by type in a pie chart so it's easy to see the biggest leaks month to month

I'd like to incorporate my coupon/savings/rebate spreadsheet and track my income from rebates, surveys etc.

The idea is to have a master front page that is a quick way to show all these things at once at a glance. I'll be working on this project this weekend.

Almost an Oopsie

2010-04-09T17:06:00.000-04:00

I started to clear out the receipts in my purse and noticed I had $6 ECBs about to expire today in the bottom of my purse. I stopped buy to grab a few things:
2 bottles H& S shampoo $4.99/each (get $1 ECB back per bottle).
1 bag of sour patch jelly beans on clearance $1.25
2 pks dentene gum 1.29/each
Used bogo shampoo coupon, $1 off 2 gum, $1 off 1 on shampoo
Total cost was $0.82 before tax. I paid with a free giftcard. Got back $2 ECBs.

I got back my quarterly extra bucks today too, $7 :) Yay!

I couldn't find my listerine coupon when I got there.....I'm sure it's somewhere on my coupon desk because I know I saw it this morning. I'll be going back there for the Listerine and a gallon of milk(will pay with ECBs and free giftcard).

I love free stuff.

March totals

2010-04-05T15:34:00.000-04:00

Total items: 176
Total Dollar value of items:$458.72
Total coupon savings: $216.99
Total paid out of pocket: $230.06 (Yep I went over budget but I was under budget about $60 from the previous 2 months so technically I'm still under $30 for the year so far).

I'm pretty happy with the deals we got. I'll be focussing on more baking items for the summer months. :)

Money Saving Challege

2010-04-04T22:43:00.000-04:00

DH has convinced me to join a bowling league....and I'm awful. But I'm great for team spirit :)
We went bowling today so I could get a little better hopefully. I've been using Tropicana Rewards (I get the codes off the lids when we get juice, log them online and save the points for coupons.). I used 1 point(1 code) to get a coupon for 50% off 4 games. That saved me $8 dollars at the alley. :) I'm pretty pleased. They have lots of different things you can claim your rewards for. If you drink Tropicana and haven't signed up for this, it's worth looking into. Swing over to www.tropicana.com.

I got a rebate check back from www.freeshipping.com for flowers I sent to my mom through Proflowers( It was a free 30 day no fee trial and I cancelled before it charged anything). $13 back.

Have a great evening all

Kroger trip

2010-04-03T22:55:00.001-04:00

I've been out of town in Indiana for a nice long holiday weekend, and ventured to Kroger. I got eggs for $1 a dozen, I was pretty pleased. They were doing a big purge on their wine because they were changing their displays and what wines they carry. So about 60% of the bottles were marked down to less than $5(originally priced $15-$24). And they were still giving the 1o% case discount. I was pretty excited my mom and I both stocked up on our favs so I got 12 bottles for around $18 total. I was very pleased. DH and I will be stocked for quite a while :).

I hope everyone has a great holiday weekend and I'll be back posting on Monday.

Money Saving Challenge

2010-03-30T14:24:00.000-04:00

Everyone goofs once in a while when shopping with coupons-me I screwed up and grabbed the wrong popcorn last week. I grabbed 2 boxes of kettle corn orville redenbacher was bogo. I meant to grab regualr popcorn. I just wasn't paying attention. The sale was bogo and I was calculating which coupons to use to get both boxes FREE. I didn't realize til we had friends over for a movie night and popped 2 bags. (3 bags per box). So I took the unopened box to the store and exchanged it. I bought 2 wedding shower bags last Saturday for gifts I had-unfortunately the boxes were two big so I returned them to CVS, at which point I noticed they rang up $4 each instead of the $1.49 I thought they were so I'm glad I returned them (I paid with giftcard so no actual cash was spent from our checking account).

I got a $15 rebate check in the mail from the coors light/superbowl rebate.
I got $11.49 back from the Schick Try Me free razor (It was in the paper, I didn't find it online expired March 7th).

A friend of mine named Cassie gave me a great heads up about Ziploc bags (she must have known I was running low :) ). Giant Eagle has buy 3 get $4 Catalina off your next purchase. Sale price is $2.49. They double coupons (there were $0.55 coupons in February 2/21 I believe, that will double to $1.10 off) You will pay 1.39 each out of pocket, but if you factor in the Catalina it's like getting them all for $0.17. I have 1 catalina from a different deal a few weeks ago I need to roll. :) Normally I would buy 6-9 to get $12 in catalinas back, but I think since we'll be moving next year I'll just buy 3. :) There will always be other deals. And I can use this towards my 3rd SC Johnson $5 rebate which makes this a money maker.

DH has started playing in a few amateur bowling tournaments. He's won money than he's spent on entry fees total so I'm ok with it plus he's really having fun. He uses the winning money towards other entry fees, fun money, bowling league fees so they don't come out of my budget. Well he wants a new bowling ball. Which apparently can cost $150-$200. Well DH was just going to go buy one-however when I went with him to the bowling alley one night last week I noticed an itty bitty sign(I mean really small) behind the counter "members who participated in a specific tournament just need to bring a copy of registration slip to the proshop to get a discount on any item (75% off)". I just called the manager because DH wants to get this tonight and yes it applies for bowling ball as long as we have the paperwork. DH usually throws stuff away but I managed to find it sitting balled up on his desk. :) Yay for a discount I'm hoping it's less than $50.

Good deal at Wags

2010-03-27T16:41:00.000-04:00

I got a pretty good deal on Snuggle 80 ct dryer sheets. $3.99-$3 coupon= $0.99.
All $3.99 -$2=$1.99

Not a bad deal :)

Mega Swag Bucks Friday

2010-03-26T14:51:00.000-04:00

Did you get your swagbucks today? I did! It's Mega Swag Bucks day and Swagbucks. com has started issuing more than just swagbucks in units of 10, you can search and win 11-19 also now. It's been a pretty good day for me so far I've early 34 swagbucks. :) Love working towards those free giftcards.

Don't know what swagbucks is? Feel free to scroll to the swidget at the bottom of the page to sign up. If you've got questions, need help, or are confused let me know. I'll be glad to help you out! So far I've redeemed my swagbucks for $80 in Amazon giftcards just in the past 3.5 months. I haven't done any offers or bought anything, I've spent $0 dollars.

The winner is!

2010-03-25T18:53:00.000-04:00

We have several great entries(most of which I couldn't publish because of email privacy requests since I originally thought the email could be edited out) Laure is our giveaway winner! The winner has been emailed. Thank you all for your participation.