Price-Matching

So I'm considering a new venture in the world of coupon and money saving. The problem I've run into of late is that I just don't have the time to go to a number of stores. But if the good prices are scattered at different stores--how do I manage to keep our costs down (especially now as it seems like every time I go to the grocery store, the prices have gone up)? The only solution I have come up with so far is price matching.

Here are my conundrums with this concept:

1. I have to go to Walmart. Not my favorite place to shop at regularly.
2. Walmart doesn't have the good meat sales that some of the other stores do, so I'm definitely still going to have to go to at least one other major food store (not counting the health food store or CVS--where I'm pretty sure I would still save more money at no matter how much Walmart price matches).
3. I'm nervous about it just because WM isn't always known for its friendly customer service when it comes to coupons and such. I'm hoping to not have a bad experience, but I'm also trying to mentally prepare myself for it.
4. Do I really want to support Walmart's business so exclusively over other stores?

Potential solutions: There are times when going to Walmart is pretty much a must. Certain items I know they carry whereas I could search for them in other stores and may or may not get them. And other items I know that they are absolutely cheaper at Walmart. Plus we get our dog food there, so that's a trip once a month (no upset doggy tummies by changing their food, thank you very much). So perhaps just do this the one time a month or so that I already know I have to go?

Not sure.

Bah! This grocery shopping thing is frustrating.

Daybook - March 4

Outside my window...it was brilliant sunshine. I have the windows and doors open to let in the warm(er) air. However, it is now getting darker and darker and a chill is beginning to make itself known (unwelcome visitor that it is), and so the predicted rainstorms/potential snow storms might be on their way.

I am thinking...that I need to take a basic math class. I had planned out our meals for this week. But somehow I managed to double-calculate in the same package of chicken breasts and then miscalculated how many eggs I would need for the week, with the end result that Blueberry and I had to go shopping (again) today because I couldn't make dinner or do other baking until I got a few more ingredients.

I am thankful for...getting our taxes done and the pretty, pretty moneys that the government is oh so kindly returning to my bank account soon. I'm hoping that Turbo Tax is accurate in the sums they presented as my current lack of math ability might not allow me to catch any errors.

From the learning rooms...[or in our case--the learning brain]...Blueberry has been clapping her feet together (little monkey that she is) and seems to be slowly grasping the concept of waving bye-bye. Which is absolutely adorable. And, no, I'm not a doting, proud mother. I don't know what you're talking about. Completely unbiased perspective here!

From the kitchen...comes somtam, kowneow, and satay (green papaya salad, sticky rice, and grilled chicken with coconut milk) for dinner tonight. And for tomorrow, a devil's food cake. The problem with growing older is that if you want a birthday cake, you tend to have to make it yourself. Oh well, it looks yummy. Given that I apparently can no longer do math and added substantially more butter than was actually needed, we'll hope that it comes out yummy (thanks for the fractions help, Hillery!). Any suggestions on what to do with a 1/2 cup blend of butter, white sugar, and brown sugar?

I am wearing...jeans and a gray nursing sweatshirt. And shoes and socks for some odd reason. Why do I still have my shoes on?

I am creating...my birthday cake! With peanut-butter frosting. Because that just sounded luscious.

I am going...to update Blueberry's baby book this weekend. I will. I will. I will! I'm finding that even at only 6 months the moments are slipping together so quickly, and I don't want to lose them before I've written down much of what I want to remember.

I am reading.. . through L'Engle's major fiction books still (with a number of dives into some of her journals as well).

Yes, dear, I will start Atlas Shrugged as soon as I finish these.

I am hoping...that my soreness from working out diminishes soon. We're trying out the P90x workouts. Oh my. That program deserves the reputation it has. Kicked my tail very thoroughly. And, for the sake of honesty, there are certain types of push-ups of which I can do a grand total of one. I feel pathetic.

I am hearing...the train in the distance. Other than that, just the clacking of keyboards. Oh! And that was my cake timer. Be back in a little while...

Around the house...Things have been going really smoothly. I've been proud of myself this week. Working with the FlyLady system (sort of) and I feel like my days have become more productive and less stressful simultaneously. Still don't have enough hours in the week, but that's ok. The major stuff is getting done, and that's what is most important.

One of my favorite things...downy, blond, baby hair. With a slight suggestion of curls coming(oh please, oh please, oh please get my ringlets!).

A few plans for the rest of the week: have a "I'm still 29 celebration", go to church, have some friends over for dinner tonight and a game of Agricola, church, and next week--packing!

Here is picture (or more) for thought I am sharing...

This is one of my favorite pictures of Blueberry so far. That look just cracks me up--little charmer that she is. For the rest in the series, go check out her other adorable Valentine's Day pictures at My Life in Scraps. I'm so pleased with how they came out!


Want to join in? Go check out The Simple Woman's Daybook.

Hmmm..

1 package of socks containing three pairs of socks.

When unfolded: 3 slightly different lengths of socks.

I'm confused.

Oh well, at least I'm just chopping the toes off any ways to make Blueberry more leggings!

Life as I Know It

Blueberry turned 2 months on Monday. That seems really old. I think it’s mostly because I'm having to transition from saying how many weeks old she is to saying how many months. MONTHS!

She celebrated her two month birthday by having a growth spurt and eating like she was a starving wee beastie for over a day. Every 1 to 1.5 hours--the desperate wail of, "I'm dying; feed me now!" Monday she and I never made it out of our PJs, too busy eating and napping (growth spurts are exhausting work—for me and for her). Sadly, she had just had three lovely days with one four hour stretch of sleeping at night. All gone now. I’m praying she'll go back to that schedule again as I was quite enjoying a little extra bit of sleep. Granted, I missed the extra snoozing the first night as Chris and I were talking instead of sleeping, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

Chris and I celebrated her two month birthday (ok, maybe we weren't celebrating her birthday in particular, but the timing was in the general vicinity) by going out on a date. Just the two of us. Alone. Away from her. Shocking, I know. Her babysitters reported she did very well (thank you Kristy), so that was comforting.

Any ways...As of today, life as I have known it for the last 10 years is officially over. I know, I know. Blueberry's appearance changed everything already, but we've taken it one step further. I am no longer a working/career woman (not that I ever really thought of myself as a career woman, but I guess that’s the classification I fell into). I am going to be a stay at home mum. Or at least a part-time, work from home one. Mostly. I am picking up a shift at my old dance studio (very excited about that!) and the rest of the ins and outs of our future financial situation is still being worked out, but one way or the other, I’m not returning to the regular work force. It’s a weird feeling that’s going to take some getting used to. And knowing, more clearly, how we’re going to make this happen will be comforting.

But in the meantime, I relish the decision and the realization that daycare will not be in my baby’s future.

Now to figure out how to go about this new life….

Stamps

Just a friendly reminder that US stamp prices are going up (again!) in a few days. If you send out much mail, you might want to invest in some "Forever" stamps so that you don't have to pay quite as much for awhile.

Shopping Blogs and such

I haven’t done a shopping blog for awhile, so since I was rather proud of this week’s CVS trip, I decided to go ahead and do one. Plus, one of the reasons I haven’t done a shopping blog for awhile is that I hadn’t really been doing a whole lot of deal shopping. I was a little busy (because it does take some time and planning) and feeling somewhat unmotivated. And that’s okay. When you have a good stock of supplies, it doesn’t hurt too much when you’re unmotivated for awhile because you’re still not having to pay full price for items. Such a comforting thought!

While at first glance the deals at CVS this week did not appear that amazing, with a little delving into the facts and figures of it all, I totally wound up scoring :)

Money-maker! Buy 1 Irish Spring Body Wash at $4.99 - $.75 coupon = $4.24 - get $4.99 in ECBs . Final cost: $.75 profit!

Money-maker! Buy 1 Colgate Max Whitening Toothpaste at $2.99 - $1.00 coupon = $1.99 - get $2.99 in ECBs. Final cost: $1 profit.

Candy: Yes, I know I don’t eat much sugar any more. And I know that all of these have soy in them making them a double-avoider for me. However, my husband does eat chocolate (in small amounts) and so this is for him. Because I love him and have to keep him happy, don’t you know.
Buy 6 bags of Hershey’s Kisses: $1.88 each = $11.28
Buy 4 other bags of candy for $1.25 each = $5
Total: $16.28
Use two $1.50/3 coupons for the Kisses
Pay $13.28
Get back $5 in ECBs
Final Cost: $.83 per bag!

Bic Soleil System* Buy 1 at $6.99 - $2.00 coupon = $4.99 get $3 in ECBs
Final Cost: $1.99

*Random side note here. I’ve realized that as long as deals such as this occur, buying razor refills are a thing of the past for me. Because stores so rarely run deals on refills but nearly always runs the coupons and deals on new razors, buying refills no longer saves me money. Part of me finds this sad as it feels somewhat wasteful. But when I’m not paying $8+ for a box of refills, the sadness somewhat dissipates.

Band-Aids:
Buy 1 box at $3.29
Buy a second box at $4.49
Use two $1 off coupons
Total: $6.48
Get $3 in ECBs
Final cost: $3.48

Right Guard deodorant: Buy 2 at $2.99 each, use $1/2 coupon = $4.98, get back $4 in ECBs. Final cost: $.98 for two!

Dove (not the chocolate): the deal on this one was spend $15 on various Dove products and get $5 in ECBs. Now, for those of you who are actually reading this and wondering why in the world I post these deals, this is why.

What I thought I did was buy $45 in Dove products, used $12.25 in coupons, and receive $15 in ECBs making my total for each of 9 products, $1.97.

However, my math was off (always check your receipts!), and so what I actually did was buy $38 in Dove products, used $12.25 in coupons, and received $10 in ECBs making my total for each of the 9 products $1.75. A good deal, yes. But nearly $.32 each more per product expensive than if I had bought the 11 products needed to get the extra $5 in ECBs. And, to think of it a different way, nearly $.77 per product more expensive than if I hadn’t bought the extra two items that bumped me from $31 to $38.

But I think I’ll live. This time. Maybe. I might wind up going back and fixing it. Or maybe not. I’ll decide later. Just let this be a lesson to you – checking receipts is a good thing. And that is one of the reasons I do these posts; it forces me to recalculate and check what I bought.

Grand Totals?
$83.01 of products
- $10 off $50 CVS coupon
- $22 in coupons
- $23.99 in ECBs
Total out of pocket: $27.02 (before tax)
Get back $32.98 in ECBs!

A New Love Found

When we went to Texas for Christmas this year, as we were driving through (and getting lost in) Dallas, I noticed a store I had never seen before. It was as if the heavens had opened and a ray of light shone down upon the magnificent building, drawing my eye to it's delightful name. OK, maybe it was just the neon light of the store name brightening up the dark evening (Texas apparently doesn't believe in street lights), but either way, it definitely drew my attention. And birthed in me a rather extreme desire to see inside the store. The Container Store.


The name alone was enough to send shivers of delightful anticipation down my spine. A store full of containers. The Store full of containers. How much more heavenly can you get when you're an organizational manic?


However, as we had yet several more hours of driving before we reached our destination, I had to simply look wistfully out the window as the store of my dreams slowly faded away behind us as we sped on our way. Sighing for my lost true love of a store yet helpless to act, I resigned myself to "maybe someday."


And then we arrived at our destination. And Chris and I went out to do some shopping/exploring. And behold my delight when not only did the town we were in have The Container Store, but my darling husband (despite being slightly sick and very stuffy) was more than happy to let his container-crazed wife go inside!

Normally such a highly anticipated, longed for event would end in disaster. Because, after all, people's imaginations tend to have expectations higher than reality actually affords. At least in my experience. But not there. Not at my beloved store.


Row upon row, shelf upon shelf, was filled with ingenious containers to satisfy even my before unknown ideas for storage and organization. Such inspiration to be found, such selection of shades and materials to please even the most picky of individuals was found at The Container Store.


And so I confess to it, a new love in my life. A store which will, no-doubt, become a regular stopping place for me on future visits to my wonderful aunt- and uncle-in-law. (Although my frugal side secretly will admit that it's a good thing we don't have one of those stores in our town. The temptation might prove to be too great!)

Shopping Notes

This week I went a’CVSing and Walgreening and was delighted by what I saw.

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CVS I didn’t buy a lot; however, there were a couple of deals I did want to partake in. I shall only describe the best one though…which was rather amazing (thanks to Money Saving Mom for helping detail how to make this one work).

Duracell batteries were on sale for $3.00 per pack. Add to that the tear-off coupons CVS was offering for $5 off 2 packs. So, I paid $18 for 6 packs, Subtracted $15 in coupons and I wound up paying $3 oop! And, I got back $5 in ECBs!

I will admit, there are times when following through on all the couponing and planning can get a little tiring. And there are weeks when I just don’t do it. However, deals like are a nice boost to my determination to follow through on doing this.

If I had just gone and bought those six sets of batteries without coupons or sales, I would have paid $31.74. And instead, I got paid $2! That’s good enough motivation for me.

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Walgreens: This was an interesting shop for me. Walgreens has a nice deal going on right now where if you spend $25 (after coupons, etc), you can get $5 back in Register Rewards. I know some people will not only figure out the best deals, etc but also then do a whole bunch of transactions to get every possible penny of savings out of it. Most of the time I can’t be bothered. It takes extra time to do it that way (planning and shopping), and I really don’t have it in me. Today; however, I did three transactions (I’ve found one girl who is normally working at lunch time during the week; she’s super sweet, very efficient and helpful, and she works at the makeup counter as opposed to the main checkout, so I feel less bad taking my time with purchases because there’s rarely anyone else in line behind me).

Transaction One: Theraflu
Theraflu is, nicely enough, GLUTEN FREE! I’ve discovered through research that what I used to take for cold/sore throats I can’t take anymore. But this should work. Any ways, Theraflu was on sale (and very timely with my current cold) for $3.99 a pack. I bought three, used three $2/1 off coupons, and wound up with a total of $5.97. I did this as a separate transaction because I have to mail this in for a rebate at which point I will get back an additional $2 (maybe $4) making my total per just over $1 each. If I get the $4, it’ll make it $.65 each!

Transaction Two:
In addition to the previously mentioned deal (spend $25 get $5 back), there is also a current offer that if you buy $25 in certain Walgreen health related items, you’ll get $10 back in rebate.
So, as Ibuprofin doesn’t really seem to have much in the way of coupons (that I’ve experienced thus far at least) and we were totally out, I went ahead and bought several packs of Ibuprofin, band-aids (filler), and several bags of cough drops (on sale for the charming price of $.39 each!). I hit my $25 mark, so my final cost (with the $5 RR and the $10 rebate) was $10!

Transaction Three: Some highlights – once again getting $5 back in RR on my total.

• Sure Deodorant (deodorant has become one of those things – like toothpaste – that I just don’t like to pay hardly anything for any more because so often I can buy it for free or near free). $2.99 - $1.50 Walgreens coupon - $1.00 reg. coupon = $.49! (This actually should have been $.09; however, I didn’t realize you needed to buy two and I only had the extra coupon for one – still a decent deal though).
• Arm & Hammer Detergent: on sale for $1.99 (usually $6.99) plus I had an additional $1/1 coupon. $.04 a load; I approve!
• Ryan foil wrap: on sale for $.99 each plus I had a $1/1 coupon = FREE!
• Gift tape: $2/2 (they were actually sets of three each) and I’ll get $2 back in rebate! So, FREE!
• Schick Quattro Razor – on sale for $6.99 plus the Easy Saver book had a $3/1 coupon and I had a $4/1 coupon, so once again, FREE!

And, with the soon to come rebate and the current Register Rewards I now have, I'm feeling a bit happier shopping at WG again. I really don't find them as convenient as CVS because their system is a little more difficult to use and highly in favor of the store over the customer. When I don't have any money on my gift card or no register rewards, its makes me not want to shop there as much. However, they do often have better deals than CVS, so it's all a delicate balancing act!

Shoppings - keeping up on "free money"

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a shopping update. However, I was pretty pleased with the results of this week’s shopping expeditions, so I just couldn’t resist sharing!

CVS:
While CVS had several really good deals this week, none of it were things I was really interested in. However, I had a dilemma, I had $14 worth of ECBs that I didn’t want to just expire nor did I want to have to start over with zero ECBs. While it builds up quickly, it does require spending a little more to get the ECBs built back up. It’s the sneaky trick of CVS to keep you coming back! A trick I’m okay with though.

My solution: They were doing a deal on L’Oreal moisturizer. Buy a moisturizer for $15.99 get $15.99 ECBs back. I figured I could spend my $14 ECBs and pay $2 oop and earn $15.99 back and come out basically even (while then establishing more ECBs for future shopping). However, CVS has this great little machine that you can scan your card at and it’ll pop out extra coupons, etc (and your quarterly ECB rewards). So, I scanned my card and what should come out? A $2 coupon off of the any L’Oreal product! Perfect! I was getting $15.99 back in ECBs after spending only $13.99!

And then, just because I could, I did a quick browse down some of their sale aisles, and found the last of the fall stuff on sale. All for 75% off! Long story short, I wound up buying 5 really pretty fall decorations (including a really nice wreath) for $6.95. Spent $7.42 oop (including tax) and got $15.99 back in ECBs.

I’m very cautious about my fall and winter decoration spending and try to only buy a few things each year (at most – generally I limit it to 1 sometimes 2 items). However, to get five lovely fall pieces for $6.95, I call a fair deal.

Walgreens:
Check Mix was on sale here for $.99 plus I had a $.60 coupon, so I grabbed a bag of that for $.39 (even though Chris is also trying to get away from a lot of the processed foods, we go to a lot of things that ask us to bring a snack or something…so super cheap chips, etc are always a must buy!).

Puffs was also on sale for $.99 per box

And then the best price was Almay mascara. This was one of the FAR items for the month. But what made it even better was that I had a coupon for $1.00. So, I paid $5.99 for the item but will get back $6.99!

Total: $9.96 - $1.60 coupons = $8.91 (with tax). I paid for most of that with the last of my gift card and then paid the last $3.29 oop.

Again, like CVS, to really keep the balance going on paying minimal out of pocket, you have to sometimes spend a little more than you might have otherwise to reap the future benefits.

Menu Planning

One of the big things I've been working on in my menu planning is to be really conscious of using up food before it goes bad. I will admit, over the years of learning to keep house, I've had a bad habit of letting certain things expire or go bad before we eat them up. Leftovers, not so much. However, certain condiments or even fruits and vegetables...yeah, those went bad a lot. I think a much of the problem stemmed from really not being fully aware of what is in the fridge at all times. I was always good about cleaning it out (i.e. tossing the bad stuff), but not so much about the planning ahead to make sure it doesn't go bad before we eat it!

Any ways, long story short, as I'm planning, one of the first things I do is check to see what we have and what needs using up. Rather than determining what we might want to eat first and then seeing if we have the ingredients, I'm starting at the opposite end and determining what ingredients I have and then determining what I can make from them. It's really helping the budget out with only having to buy one thing to fill in a gap rather than buying 5 things so we can eat whatever meal it is that sounded good. And it's forcing me to increase my cooking repertoire looking for recipes that use the ingredients I have! (For those veterans of you out there who are much better at this sort of things than I am, shake your head all your like, but I'm figuring it out!)

A secondary goal of mine is working on stretching food.

Nearly two months ago now, as I began seriously working on the whole menuing thing, I started trying to incorporate a "meatless meal" into our week. Why? Because it's cheaper! And I think it's good for the body as well. Besides, I never have time to cook breakfasts, and as so many of those are meatless, it just fits in really well.

The other thing I've been doing is seeing how I can stretch the meat at meals where we do cook meat. For example, if the recipe calls for 1 pound of hamburger, I'm seeing if I can use 3/4 of a pound (add more filler to make up the difference) and using the other 1/4 of a pound in something else that doesn't call for as much meat. Actually, because (continuing my example of hamburger) packets often contain a little bit more than a pound of meat, setting some of it aside for a second meal really doesn't effect the amount of meat in the current meal.

I've come to realize that when I cook, I tend to use whatever is in the packet (I know, I know, the stores just love me!). I guess it's that whole convenience thing. Rather than thinking, "hey there's an extra 3 ounces of meat in this packet, why I don't I brown it all, set aside some of it for a meal tomorrow that calls for meat, and then make the rest of whatever meal I'm making today"...I instead just use the whole packet.

Any ways, those are some of the habits I'm focusing on as I really try to develop good menuing skills.

So, this week, I was going to give you a glimpse of my dinner menus for the past week. Telling other people my plans tends to make me a little more conscious of actually following through on said plans! Although since I've already followed through on these plans, I don't know the logic on that. Oh well!


Sunday: I made roast chicken with green beans and baked potatoes (made in the crockpot! How? Very simple. Wash them, poke holes into them, rub them in olive oil and salt, wrap them individually in foil, and cook for 4 to 6 hours on high in the crockpot. Very little mess and they come out fantastic!).

Sunday afternoon, I stripped the rest of the meat off the bones, and boiled the bones for broth (some to be made into soup and some to be frozen to be used in a soup at a later point)

Monday: Scrambled eggs and toast. Yummy! I love breakfast for dinner!

Tuesday: Chicken Enchiladas (made with the chicken from the roast on Sunday) and Mexican rice (made my own; turned out pretty good...well...other than the whole burning the bottom of the rice thing...have to work on that!).

Wednesday: Pork chops and Apples and broccoli and mashed potatoes. A new recipe for me (developed by the whole menu planning thing of looking in my fridge and going, "My brother just gave me a ton of apples - what do I do with them?" (and as of yet not being brave enough to try making gluten free apple pie...something to attempt in the nearish future I believe). I will post this recipe (well, my version of this recipe) sometime soon.

Thursday: Leftover day. Because Chris leaves for class at 5:30, I've designated this leftover day every week.

Friday: Mexican Omelet (this requires ground hamburger - or in my case - ground turkey). I made stuffed peppers on Saturday and set aside some of the turkey to use in this. Tasty recipe from my Mum which I had never actually made until just recently.

Saturday: white chili with corn bread

Sunday: roast beef and baked potatoes (I bought a big bag of potatoes the other day - got to use it up!) This will be for Chris with the plan of freezing some for a later time, but it will also translate into lunches for the week for him. Sadly, beef and I are truly not getting along very well, so I will not be partaking. However, I'm a sucker for Poor Man's Pasta, so I think I'll make that do! Besides, I bought the roast awhile back - prior to realizing my bodies new aversion to beef - and it really needs eating up. We're supposed to have a guest this weekend, but I'm not sure if that's going to pan out or not. I think I'll go ahead with the roast regardless.

Shoppings and Month End

So after September's budget upset, October has proved to be a much better month. Most successful, actually! To recap, having learned a lot of the fun rules of this shopping game I've been playing, my next goal has been to start the harder task of seriously reducing our monthly budget (food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, eating out, etc. There are still some things that I have a seperate allotment for [clothes, dog related stuff, and such], but our basic month to month expenses are all counted in that total).

I've shrunk our monthly budget down to $60 a week. While I would ultimately like to get my total down a little bit from there, I honestly don't know how much more that will be possible because of the price of all of the fun and far more expensive gluten free products for which I see few deals. Regardless, I've shrunk our budget down by over $100, so that's good. I'm going to leave it at $60 a week for now and see how it goes for a few months before making further budgetary slashes.

Admittedly, not having the option of eating out that much is really helping matters (sad but true...and I'm actually beginning to cringe a lot at the price of eating out...). As is the fact that I seem to finally be getting into a really good rhythym of menu planning. Even on the weeks where I plan a menu and then end up not following it some days, it's still helping me to focus a lot more on really thinking through what we have, planning out ahead of time (setting meat out to thaw before getting home from work), and those sorts of things.

Now, for the sake of full disclosure, I will admit I went over my budget by $10.00 and so had to pull that $10.00 from the gas budget; however, as our gas prices went down to (prepare yourself.........) $1.98 this week (screams of shock, doors slamming as people run to pack their bags and move here...), I think we'll survive.

So, why the $10.00 extra dollars? Well, here's the story.

I started this week with $55.43 left to spend for the month. Having determined the week's budget and checked to see what essentials we were running low on, we went to WalMart/Aldi's and picked up the basics for a grand total of $36.29 (that included stocking up on a couple of items which were on a really good sale).

Walgreens not really having much to interest me this week, the only other place I hit was CVS. They did have a couple of really good deals:

• Laundry Detergent on sale for $5.99 B1G1 plus with a $1.00 coupon = $4.99 (making my total about $0.07 a load).
• Bic razor was on sale for $4.99. I had a $2.00 off coupon and received $4.00 back in ECBs. Talk about getting your money's worth!

CVS is also running a really good deal on medical related stuff this week. Basically, spend $20 get $10 back in ECBs. Well, I didn't need a whole lot; however, Chris has wanted to try this disgusting sounding thing out called a Neti Pot (it's supposed to help with clearing your nose out, click here to see a rather disturbing demonstration! He has horrible allergy and sinus problems, so if it works, great. But I still say it looks disgusting.), and there were some eye drops that I needed. I figured this would be a good and relatively inexpensive way to let him try out the nose pot.

So, the Netti pot cost $11 and the eye drops were $9.00 (name brand) minus a $2.00 coupon that happened to be on the pot (love those) and a $3.00 coupon for the solution, I totaled $15.00 with $10.00 back in ECBs.

Now, I also had a $10/$50 coupon that I got for CVS last week (they've been doing a lot of the $/$$ coupons lately - love them!), so I decided this would be a good chance to buy the popcorn maker I really have wanted to get. Since all regular microwave popcorn seems to be covered in things I really need to avoid and buying organic microwave popcorn is ridiculously expensive, buying a popcorn maker to just air pop my own seems the cheapest solution (yes, I could do it even cheaper on a stove with oil, but I prefer the taste of air-popped). So, I snagged my popcorn maker.

End result, my total was $55.98. Minus $18.00 in coupons and $9.00 in ECBs, I spent $28.98 oop thus going over my budget by $10.00 (but getting back $15 in ECBs). $10 for a good pocorn maker - an acceptable price!

And I'm feeling pretty confident about being able to really make this whole smaller budget concept work!

My Points - online money maker

Since June, I've been playing with a new way to earn some easy money online. It's called MyPoints. What you can do through MyPoints is earn points that eventually earn you gift cards to places. No money out of your pocket (unless you so choose) and yet you get money back! How?

Well, there's basically three ways to get points:

1. MyPoints sends you emails daily (about 5 or so a day), you open them, read the ad, and click through at the bottom (for the paranoid - as in myself - I checked this out before signing up and couldn't find any reports of virus problems or anything like that). You don't have to sign up for anything and it automatically credits you 5 points per email. Now, if you should decide to follow through on the offered ad, then you can earn more points. There's been a couple of free offers that I signed up for out of curiosity, but nothing else.

NOTE: I would highly recommend you open up a junk mail account if you decide to try this - particularly if you actually take up some of the offers. I've heard that if you don't ever sign up for anything, the junk mail isn't too bad...but I wouldn't trust it!

2. You can shop online at tons of stores through MyPoints. And every dollar you spend at the store, you get points for. For example, I bought a book the other day through MyPoints. The book cost me $8.00 and I earned 16 MyPoints. Not an amazing amount, but hey, every bit counts!

There are other sites that I'm also looking into that do a similar thing; however, I went with MyPoints first as it really is one of the least complicated (at least thus far - more reports on other sites to come).

3. I believe there is a credit card you can sign up for with MyPoints and earn points for all your purchases through the credit card. Please note, I have not signed up for this card (I'm very loyal to my American Express!) and really can't attest to anything about this angle of MyPoints.

[Also (just have to say this!), I highly recommend that you do not sign up for any kind of credit card unless you know you can handle a credit card. While Chris and I do put just about everything on our cards, our bill also gets completely paid off every month (we use the card to build up frequent flyer miles - very important in my world!). I know of too many people who cannot handle the freedom of a credit card and wind up getting into debt by its existance (and yes, I do speak of personal - if minorish - experience in this matter). OK, off my soap box!]

So, since June, I've earned 2649 points. This was with no work on my part other than clicking through emails. I've received a $10 Borders gift card back for 1400 of those points and am close to being able to get another gift card (there are tons of options and price ranges for what is available - just depends on how patient you are in letting the points build up!).

I went ahead and got the Borders card just to check out if this works, and it seems to be just fine! Next time I'm going to try to save up points for longer and get a higher gift card. I've considered using this as a resource for buying gifts for people or buying household stuff that we need/want but don't necessarily always have extra money for (like new sheets or towels or pillows...you get the idea!). Or just on whatever. It's still up in the research phase.

Any ways, if you're looking for a money idea, I highly recommend this one.

Oh, and do me a favor (pretty, pretty, please)...if you're thinking of signing up, leave me a message (don't worry I won't post it) here with your name and email address. I can then refer you through my MyPoints account. For every person I refer who signs up with MyPoints I earn 250 points! So help me out folks! Share the MyPoints!

Free Taco!

Taco Bell is giving away a free taco to anyone who requests one from 2 to 6 pm tonight! See the details below or go to the website.

Finally, something good to do with baseball!

Getting back into the swing of things.

So once again I apologize for my sporadic appearances of late. Think I’m finally getting back into updating my dear little blogging world. And so to celebrate, I thought I’d do a shopping post!

You may (or may not) remember near the end of August where I talked about wanting to try to start focusing on really cutting down on our shopping budget now that I’ve gotten the hang of this whole couponing game. Well, September was a bit of a disaster. I stayed within my old budget (not my new, aimed for budget); however, really cutting back was not much of an option as all sorts of things that I haven’t been planning for kind of blew my smaller budgeting dreams to bits. Another lesson in the necessity of planning ahead.

However, this month, I’ve done much better, and actually am quite excited to see how well I can make this work for the rest of the month! I will give a full report next week, and I’m hopeful that it will be at least close to what I want to see.

Shopping this week was very interesting. Because I spent some extra money last week, I really only had about $15 to work with. Fortunately, we’re well stocked up food-wise, and it happened to coincide with a not-so great deals week (at least nothing that I couldn’t live without) at Dillons or other places, so I’ve actually managed to stay (mostly) within budget.

Went to three places: CVS, Walgreens, and Akins (one of the health food stores here in town of which I have become a regular customer).

CVS: While there weren’t a whole lot of deals I wanted to take advantage of this week, the ones I did tackle were very nice. I was working very hard on disciplining myself and staying within my budget limit (which basically was about $1 out of pocket this week!); however, I unexpectedly ran across a really good deal on an electric razor (which Chris has desperately been needing a new one of), so I had to cut out a couple of things and go over my budget a little bit to secure the razor. In the long run though, it’s a cheaper deal by buying the razor now than it would have been if I’d waited until his razor actually died and I was forced to pay full price!

Always Infinity Pads. $4.99 minus $2.00 coupon making my total $2.99 and then I got $1.00 in ECBs back (bought two sets of these)
MaxFresh toothpaste - $2.99 - $1.00 coupon = $1.99 with $2 in ECBs (essentially making it free!)
Quattro for Women razor $9.99 - $2.00 coupon - $7.99 with $3.00 ECBs
Another good deal that I wound up not getting because I wanted the razor for Chris was Listerine Agent Cool for $4.99 - $1.00 coupon = $3.99 with $3 in ECBs. As we weren’t in desperate need of Listerine, I decided to pass on this deal so that I would have less to pay out of pocket at the end.

End result:
My total was $32.95.
Take off $5.00 because of a simply charming $5.00 off $30 total coupon that printed out for me!
Subtract $7.00 in coupons.
TOTAL: $20.95.
I then paid out $14.00 in ECBs leaving me with a total of $7.43 out of pocket! Like I said, a little bit over my $1.00 budget, but worth it in the long run. And besides, I got back $7.00 in ECBs for next time.


Walgreens: Just a few items here; however, I didn’t actually spend anything oop because I’ve got a gift card with my rebates on it from last month. If you get your rebates put on a gift card rather than as a check, Walgreens will throw on an additional 10% to your total. Not a lot, but hey, every penny counts, right!

Drano (desperately needed) - $4.99 with $1.00 rebate
Lysol toilet bowl cleaner – B1G1, so I bought two, paid $2.79 – two $0.50 coupons = $1.79 or $0.90 each!


Akins: This is where my shopping costs go up quite a bit. I bought sesame oil (I like this for a lot of my cooking as regular vegetable oil tends to be full of soy and other scariness and this oil really doesn’t leave much additional flavor unlike olive oil). The second item I didn’t actually need but wanted to try and since I was being scatterbrained this morning and completely left without a lunch, I decided this was a good day to try it. Annie’s brand (organic type stuff) has recently come out with a microwave-dinner mac’n’cheese that’s gluten free. So I tried it. Pretty good. I’m not a big fan of microwave meals; however, the occasional quick meal is a necessity, so it’s nice to know I’ve got at least one option to fall back on that can be bought in a store!

Getting Mail

Getting mail has been and probably always will be one of my favorite things in the world. There is an unmatchable feeling of ancitipation when it comes to opening up a mail box, seeing pieces of mail laying there, wondering who they come from, what is in them...it's just fun!

I think some of this pleasure has been instilled in me by my parents. Opening the mail was always a sacred time in our house. Every afternoon (just about) my parents would settle down with a cup of a tea, a cookie, and open the mail together. My mum also has always written me. Growing up it was little notes in random places - the lunch box, my bag, when I went to Uzbekistan as a young teen for two months, she even wrote me enough letters that I could open up one every day I was there! And somehow she actually managed to actually send me a couple of letters while I was there (miracle of miracles). Since I moved out of the house, I've always received mail from her - random jokes, articles she thinks I might enjoy, cards, and of course letters.

End result, I love mail!

Sadly, however, the art of snail mail is dying. Slowly but surely it is becoming an obsolete concept of the past. Letters are all in the form of emails and it seems less and less do I find interesting things in the mailbox. And while I do enjoy receiving emails from people, they lack a certain level of charm that snail mail had.


However, recently my love of getting mail has taken a whole new turn and has become very exciting again.

Since I started this whole frugal journey, I've discovered a whole new world of mail to be had. How? Because there is so much free stuff out there that you can sign up for, it results in an almost constant deluge of fascinating mail. Last week alone I got a cookie from Kashi, a whole pile of coupons from P&G for doing a survey for them, sample feminine products (I've gotten a ton of these the last few months - and of course the best stuff always comes with coupons as well), my mypoints reward (more about that in a later post) of a $10 Borders gift cards, several other random coupons for things, and a mini Betty Crocker chocolate dessert.

This week on Monday I got more feminine products plus coupons from another company, a trial face wash that smells amazing (grapefruit - yummy!), and two very cute, mini bottles of calcium pills from Nature Made.

Delightful!

Not quite as personal as a letter, but still fun to find and open.

Shopping Fun at CVS

CVSing outdid itself this week.


In a summary, I spent $7.08 (including tax) out of pocket. But, I got back $14 worth of ECBs (talk about doubling your money)! Total before coupons et all...$50.95 (before tax)!


Quick Breakdown for those interested:

• Dawn Detergent: on sale for $0.99 each - $.25 coupon = $0.74 each


• Old Spice Deoderant: on sale 2/$5 - $1/2 coupon = 2/$4


• Sunsilk gell and mouse: on sale 2/$7 - 2/$1.50 coupons = 2/$4 and I got $2.00 ECBs back making it $1 each.


• Gillette Fusion Power Razor: on sale for $9.99 - $4.coupon = $4.99 and I got $5 in ECBs (this was advertised as $4.99, but hey, I'll take an extra penny!) making it FREE!


• Colgate Total: on sale at 2/$5 - $1.00 off CVS coupon that printed for me and another $1/1 coupon = 2/$3 with $2.00 ECBs making it $0.50 each.


• (My favorite today) Post-Its were on sale at 2/$5. I had three $3/2 coupons which brought each set of 2 down to $1.00 each. Plus, I got $5 in ECBs back ostensibly making each post-it pack $0.16 each!


• And I got a couple of other items to remain undisclosed due to gift-giving probability. Well, one is a definite present the other has really good gift-giving potential and definite other uses potential. Plus, buying this item brought my total to just over $50 which meant I could use my lovely $10 off of $50 CVS coupon.


• Plus, I spent $17 of ECBs from prior shopping trips.

Just a note for those newer to playing the CVS game. If you have a coupon for x amount of dollars off of x dollar amount of purchases (for example, my $10 off of $50 worth of items coupon today) always give that coupon to the cashier FIRST. Unlike Walgreens which annoying requires that you can only use one of those coupons AFTER all coupons have been applied, CVS let's you use it whenever. So by giving that coupon first, you don't have to buy as much to make the coupon worth something.

You Know You're a coupon addict when...

You go shopping, are putting the food away, spy two coupons on your cans of organic Del Monte (GF) tomato sauce, and stop the entire putting-away process just so you can rip those coupons off the cans and stash them in your coupon binder! And it makes you smile.

Frugal Shopping Thoughts

So the last few months my main goal (in terms of shopping/money) has been to get used to this new shopping stuff as well as build up our stock pile of supplies.

I've learned how to cut/organize coupons efficiently.

I've learned how to figure out the best sales and what's worth buying (although that's still a lesson in progress).

I've learned some valuable lessons and rules regarding couponing/frugal shopping (I need to update my rules list I posted before as I've come up with some more since then).

I'm working on trying to plan meals a week in advance and actually follow through on the menu (this has proved to be challenging somewhat, especially when I I hit a gluten-attack and wind up exhausted and cranky and in pain).

As September gets closer, I've been thinking about how to tackle the next month.

(side note - A very wise person told us before we got married that a great budgeting technique is to always be one month ahead of yourself in pay checks. In other words, all of the pay checks we receive in August get put in the bank and not a penny is touched until September 1. Then at the beginning of the month we have our entire month's budget already in hand and we go from there - as opposed to living from pay check to pay check. I don't remember where it was we picked up this concept, but it has been amazingly helpful. Any ways, so when I look at finances and stuff, it's very easy for me to plan a month in advance because I'm not theoretically projecting what we will have in the bank, I know what we have!).

So, in September while obviously continuing the rest of the above techniques (especially the meal-planning because I can't escape people talking about how that is the best way of saving money on food), I'm going to try adding another step to my shopping.

Currently I have a monthly amount of money set aside for groceries etc. I want to break that down into a weekly amount (slightly smaller than what our current budget would allow weekly) and see how I do on that.

It's going to require really thinking through what I'm buying every week, but I think it will be good in the end. And I think that's going to be the real way to start cutting down on our actual grocery budget.

A tricky part is that everyone I've read on this stuff is emphatic about only using cash. And while I do see the benefits of that (forcing you to limit your spending, etc), we use a credit card because of frequent flyer miles (the card get paid in full every month - never again do I want to experience the agony of paying off credit card debt!). And in my family situation (being spread out all over the world), frequent flyer miles are an essential part of life. So I'm going to have to work on being really disciplined on still paying with our card but only allowing x amount per week.

Oh the fun and joys of frugality!

The CVS Happy Dance

Even though I didn't "coupon" this week, I still went CVSing because I had coupons that were applicable and there were some happy deals.

• Edge Shaving Gell 2/$4 combined with two $.75 coupons = 2/$2.50


• 2 packs of Stayfree Maxi Pads $4.50 each minus two $1.00 coupons = 2/$7.00 plus I got $5.00 back in ECBs.


• 1 packet of Kotex pads - $1.39 minus $1.00 coupon = $.39 and I got $1.49 back in ECBs! (I think the pads were priced wrong in that store, but hey, I earned $1.10 so I'm not complaining!)


• 1 box of Playtex Tampons $4.99 minus one $1.00 coupon = $3.99 with $3.00 back in ECBS.

Total before coupons = 19.38

Total after coupons = $13.88

Paid $5.00 out in ECBs, so my total out of pocket = $8.88

And I got $9.49 in ECBS for next time. So theoretically, I just got paid to go shopping :)

A Laugh

I'm in pain. Serious pain. But for once it has nothing to do with food.

Nope, this time we went tubing for five hours down a river. And despite putting on multiple doses of sunscreen, I still managed to fry my legs really, really badly. Currently I can't bend my knees because the skin hurts too bad!

So I'm not doing a whole lot of anything currently (you know it's bad when I don't want to go out and get a newspaper for couponing just because I don't want to bend my knees!).

In the meantime, just for laughs, for all the crazy couponers out there, here's a post your husband (and you) will get a kick out of!