The Great Needs A New Title Shopping Blog

31 Days of Nothing - Week 4

2012-01-27T15:03:00.000-05:00

Checking in for Week 4:

This week was rough on me, with the grocery shopping. I bought ahead while I could get the stuff on sale so I won't have to pay full price later, but I haven't spent that much on groceries on sale or not in over two years!!

It makes me think I need to get back into the coupon shopping like I used to, but I'm not sure that's even possible.
Before, I could buy my Sunday papers for $1.00 each. No more.
Before, the coupons were higher value, like $1/1, now they're more like $1/2 or .25/1.
More of the stores put limits on the number of items you can buy. Since I drive 25 miles at the minimum, usually 40+ (one way), it doesn't benefit me to drive all that distance for one item.
If I wait until later in the week/sale when they tend to relax limits (except for those places with Cards) I don't know if there's going to be any stock left.
The stores have gotten so hateful with couponers, I never have any idea if I'm going to drive all that way and not even be allowed to use my coupons for whatever stupid reasons they can make up to not let me.

We had to go out of town for a cousin's funeral so that cost an extra tank of gas for my car.
My husband filled up Saturday night, then his truck all but broke down. He started having to drive our son's truck on Monday, which, of course, the gas tank was just about empty, so he filled it up.
Our son's been driving my car, not far, just around here to his school and volunteer fire station a couple of times, but he's not used to driving my car, so he has ended up sucking out nearly the whole tank of gas.
I think I'm going to have him fill it up next time, though.

$153.59 total spent on gas this week (uggghhhhhh)
$182.91 total spent on groceries (arrrggggghhhh)

$336.50 total cost this week (just for gas and food)

Shopping Day

2012-01-25T18:25:00.000-05:00

CVS is having a good deal on 12 pack Coke products this week. (Dr. Pepper was included here for a change! Yay!) Also there was Fresca, Fanta, and Sprite that I can recall.

They are on sale 4/$10, or $2.50 per 12 pack.
They're included in the buy $30, get a $10 Cashcard deal.
Buy (12) 12 packs for $30.00 (Some stores are limiting to 4 per transaction, just do three transactions)
Get back $10.00 CVS cashcard (giftcard)
This makes the final cost $1.67 per 12pack. Or about .14¢ per can. or a little over a penny an ounce.

(24) 12-packs

Food Lion still has 2ltr sodas at .63¢ after Brand Sale...
Not trying to get too technical with the mathematics, but if you figure there's 144ounces in a 12 pack of coke, it would take just a little over (2) 2ltrs to equal a 12pack (67.6 ounce * 2 + 8.8 = 144).
If you break down the cost per ounce of 2 ltr. and multiply by 144 ounces, it would cost $1.34 to buy the equivalent of a 12 pack.
Only a .33¢ difference per 12 pack, and I can take the cans and cash them in the recyclers for money.

I bought more at Food Lion than I probably would have if I had gone alone, but my son was with me and he kept encouraging me to "buy it while it's on sale".

We got to the store really early, before 9:00, and there was a whole bunch of stuff on mark down. I got milk for $2.27 (almost a dollar cheaper than I usually pay), ground beef, stew beef, and fish nuggets all marked down.

I stocked up on some more ketchup at .64¢ brand sale price, pound of bacon was $2.75, canned veggies were .44¢, cereal $1.54.
The canned fruit was on sale 4/$5.00, or $1.25 each, then $1.00 each after brand sale. (Got over to Kroger and found out I hadn't paid close enough attention to the 4-day sale, they had canned fruit for .88¢, Argh!)

The little mini pizzas were .54¢ each after brand sale, and the frozen beef & bean burritos were .25¢, so I stocked up on quite a few of those.

The Tostitos were on sale for $1.99 ($3.99 BOGO). The Walmart brand is a little cheaper at $1.68, but it was worth the extra few cents to not have to make a special trip into Walmart, and anyway I'm not even sure they are the same size bag. I need to check on that.

The Birdseye veggies were 10/$10, or $1.00 each. I had gotten a $1.50/2 coupon from the Blue Machine, which made them .50¢, or.25¢ each.

Then we went to Kroger for the 4-day and Mega sale.

They had Lay's chips for $1.99 mega sale price. Since we went mostly gluten-free, we eat a lot of chips, so I like stocking up on them when I can get them cheap.

I also got cans of Hormel chili, mega sale price .99¢. I probably should have waited and came home and seen if there was any coupons for them, but I got lazy and didn't want to mess with it. I was there, they were on sale, so I bought them.

Also got some Propel flavored water for .49¢ mega price.

The cheese is on 4-day sale for $1.48 a pack. About a dollar cheaper than Walmarts cheese regular price, so I stocked up with 10 packs. Well, stocked up for a little while. Wish I would put away like 50 of them. We use a lot of cheese.

The potatoes were $1.98/5 lbs for the 4-day sale. I got a couple of bags, but IIRC I think I've gotten 10lbs of taters for cheaper than $4 bucks at Ingles or IGA.
I like to stock up potatoes when they're cheap since I learned to french fry or dice them up and freeze them. I didn't think much about having NO freezer space until I got home and had to try to cram all the frozen stuff I bought from Food Lion in. I just barely fit the cheeses in, because they're bags and maneuverable I was able to cram them into cracks and bends between stuff. But there's no way, no how any freezer bags of french fried or diced taters are going in at this point. I need another freezer bad.

Bread was .98, same as Ingles here at home, and sugar was $2.48 for 4lbs. Walmart sells 5lb for $3.08, so that was within fractions of a penny being the same price.

Totals:

CVS:
$61.80 (24) 12-packs Coke
-20.00 Got back (2) $10.00 cashcards
= $41.80 cost

Food Lion:
$66.04 + 1.82 tax - $5.50 OYNO coupon = $62.36
Got back $9.00 OYNO
$22.08 + .66 tax - $9.00 OYNO coupon = $13.74
Got back $5.25 OYNO
Total cost $70.85

Kroger:
$61.82 + 1.85 tax = $63.67

Grand total $176.32

31 Days of Nothing - Week 3

2012-01-20T10:02:00.002-05:00

Time for the Friday check-in of how we did this week.

We did pretty good this week, spending mostly on groceries. I spent ahead stocking up on some things during the Food Lion sale, but that'll save me money in the future.

Otherwise J bought snuff, a bottle of oil for his truck, and spent a little less than $2 bucks grabbing a couple of Krystal burgers while working on the ambulance the other night. (He took leftovers with him but didn't get a break to be able to eat it, so he ate that for lunch while working at the urgent care the next day.)

No doctor visits, and no gas purchases needed - Yet.

Total cost this week $75.83.

There will be a gas purchase sometime today, though, as we're getting ready to be on our way 2.5 hours out of town to a funeral.

Food Lion

2012-01-15T18:26:00.000-05:00

Made it to the Food Lion Super Brand Sale today. Stocked up on some stuff we use while I could get it cheaper.

The way this sale works is, basically, they give you .25¢ per item back in the form of a catalina coupon. So if you buy (4) FL brand items, you get a $1.00 cat coupon. If you buy (40) items, you get a $10.00 cat coupon. (Any amount in between.)

We drink Soda. It just a fact of our life. We're gonna drink it if I have to pay full price or stock up while it's cheap.
The store brand 2ltr sofas are on sale (at my store) for .75 this week (.89 at other stores). After the Brand Deal they work out to .50¢ each, which is stock up price for me.
(The Colas were already all bought up, dang it.)

This particular store also sells individual canned soda in the deli dept for .33¢ each. After the Brand Deal they were .08¢ each.

*Beans reg .79¢....54¢ deal price (Beans at Walmart are reg. priced .68¢)
*Mustard/Ketchup Sale Price .88¢....63¢ deal price
*Hot Dog Chili sauce .75¢....50¢ deal price (this is regular price .50¢ at Walmart so not stock up deal)
*Vinegar reg. price .99¢....74¢ deal price (Walmart's reg price for the same size is .78¢, so a little bit of a deal.)
*Shredded Cheese sale price $2.39...$2.14 deal price

*On the Clearance shelf I found (17) cans of FL Pork'n'Beans marked .24¢ each, so they paid me .01¢ each to take these off their hands.
*Also on the clearance shelf was Salt marked .48¢, so .23¢ after deal

The Campbell's Tomato and Chicken Noodle soups are on sale for .60¢ each, which is a pretty good price on it's own. I had an IP coupon for $1.00/5, making my soups .40¢ each.

Was looking for deals on pizza crust, chili seasoning mix, and brown gravy mix but Walmart's reg price on these items are still cheaper than Food Lions even after the deal.

Also bought (4) cans of snuff for J.

Total spent $54.67

31 Days of Nothing - Week 2

2012-01-13T15:16:00.001-05:00

Time for the Friday check-in of how we did this week.

After our nice day of working out in the yard and getting some projects done around the house that didn't cost anything last week, my husband came back down with the same cold/virus we've been fighting for about two months. His turned into a sinus infection and cost a trip to the doctor and prescriptions:
$25.00 Co-pay
$39.00 Prescriptions

My youngest son is now sick again, so I expect he'll be costing us another co-pay and meds any day now.
What is going on? Why can't we get rid of this thing?

The next couple of days a couple of expenses popped up that I hadn't thought about, I don't really pay much attention to because they are auto-pays so I don't have to worry about making the payments. They are subscriptions to things like my webspace and a couple of online RPGs for the boys that were given as birthday gifts. So, none that I really want to cancel.

What I need to do is learn how to Blog for Money. I know a lot of people do it, and apparently make pretty good money at it. I know about signing up to be an Affiliate and putting ads on your blog, but I'm not much sure about the rest of it: pay-per-click, tweeting, facebooking, Blogher, and so on.

$21.14 total Online expenses

My total for groceries this week was $17.51:
~ $11.25 Ingles for (3) loaves of bread, jug of milk, (2) bananas, bag of corn chips, and (2) cans snuff
~ $2.98 buying Sure-jell to make blackberry jelly when my freezer went out (still no one has taste tested it yet to know if it's even any good or not)
~ $3.28 Ingles, another jug of milk

Filled up my car with gas $42.01.

Received $21.00 rebate from a True Value hardware deal I did a couple of months ago.

Total expenses (other than bills) this week $123.66

~*~

I figure I saved about $50 bucks this week (maybe more, including gas) by using this little trick: Not going shopping.

We got the painters drop cloths dyed a couple of days ago; they came out more of a chocolate-ice-cream brown than the milk-chocolate-candy-bar brown I was going for, but I thought I would hang them and look at them for a few days before I decided if I wanted to dye them darker or not. This lighter brown may be just fine.

So I was ready to go get my clip-hook-hangers and curtain rods.

And while I was out (doubling up on errands!) a local(ish) grocery store, Food Lion, is having a big Store Brand sale this week and I can stock up on some things cheap.

But not that many things, really, to make a 30 mile drive (one way) worth it. Then we figured out J wasn't getting a paycheck from the ambulance service last week (didn't work any shifts the week before Christmas, then we went out of town the week of Christmas)(He won't get one from the Urgent Care next week, either), I decided the curtains can wait.

Blackberry Jelly

2012-01-10T15:40:00.000-05:00

Last Thursday our upright freezer was going out. Turns out I had left more than butter and cream cheese in it.
The thing finally kicked the bucket and thawed everything that was left in it. (I had kinda thought it would keep the stuff at least cool for a little while with the door staying shut.) I ended up throwing away some cans of Pillsbury biscuits/sweet rolls, containers of noodles, a roll of sausage I had overlooked the other day (dagnabit!) and a gallon bag of cherries that didn't look too good.
But there were two gallon bags of blackberries that didn't look bad, so I decided to try to make emergency jelly out of them.

Since I have never made any jelly of any kind in my life, I called my Momma.
Mom says "I follow the instructions in the Sure-jell box".
She did say that she likes hers seedless, so she strains hers through a wire strainer basket thing. I don't have one of those....I tried using a little tea strainer thing but gah, I'da been at that all week. I thought I'd seen those before at the Dollar Tree, so I headed out to buy Sure-jell and a wire strainer.
Dollar Tree didn't have a wire strainer.

I started reading the directions from the Sure-jell package, and crushed my blackberries with a potato masher.

I thought I had read on a website somewhere that boiling the berries made the seeds separate easier, so I tried cooking the berries down, and then I mashed them through a plastic Tupperware strainer/sieve. When I did that, I only had 2.5 cups of juice. I needed 5 cups of stuff, so I had to add back in some of the pulp/seeds.

Yes I made an awful mess!

Continuing to read the Sure-jell instructions....uh, sort of. Well, why would they not put everything in order anyway? What was the purpose of putting "Measure exactly the amount of sugar...into a separate bowl" between add the berries to the pot and add the Sure-jell to the berries?

I added the (horrifying amount of) sugar to the berries, then the Sure-jell, then boiled.

If this stuff turns out anywhere even close to jelly/jam it'll be a freakin' miracle.

Ingles vs. Walmart

2012-01-09T20:30:00.000-05:00

We have (3) grocery stores in my town: Walmart, Ingles, and an IGA. Occasionally I can get a good deal at the IGA if they're having a special sale, but on everyday stuff, not so much.
I usually don't like Ingles because their coupon policy is stupid, and (I thought) they were more expensive than Walmart. But, I recalled that I once was able to buy bread about the same price as at Walmart, and anyway, even if I paid a few cents more it might be worth just to not give my business to my local Walmart.

So this evening I headed out for some milk and bread and I thought, I think I'll do one of those comparison shops. I'll buy what I need from Ingles, then go buy the same stuff from Walmart and see exactly how much the difference is.
Since Ingles is close to me (by maybe 1/4 mile), I went there first.

The bananas at Ingles were .54lb. A little more than Walmart I was thinking, but then again, maybe not.
They also had bags of a little bit overripe bananas for $1.49, I'm talking like 2 large bunches of Organic bananas I wish I had bought now, but I couldn't remember about freezing them. I know they are good for buying for making banana bread, but we don't eat much bread with our low gluten diet, and the sugar to make them costs too much to make the bread to give away.
I came home and read on the i-net that you can freeze them and use them later for smoothies, baking, and even as a substitute for ice cream.

Then I found bread marked .78¢ It seemed to be on sale for .98¢, regular priced $1.18. I'm sure it's not the freshest bread but as long as it's not crunchy hard we're okay with it. At that price I went ahead and got 3 loaves (I put two in the freezer).

Milk was the same price as at Walmart.

The cornchips were marked $1.28 as sale and regular price, which about .20¢ cheaper than Walmart, but they rang up $1.48 which is the same as Walmart, so generally the same price.
What I didn't know was that apparently Ingles has the rings-up-marked-price-or-it's-free policy. I felt kinda bitchy disputing over .20¢ but then when she came back and took off $1.48 instead of price adjusting to $1.28, I was pretty glad I'd spoken up!

J's snuff was .21¢ more per can than at Walmart, but I was figuring I saved that much on the bread (which I usually pay $1.00 at Walmart for), so that equalled out.

Having stocked up on bread and getting the corn chips free, I didn't even bother to go to Walmart afterwards.

Total spent $10.73 + .52 tax = $11.25

Paid For It Anyway

2012-01-07T20:13:00.001-05:00

We've all been fighting some kind of crud ever since before Thanksgiving. Ryan came down with it first: headaches, body aches, sinus congestion, cough. I thought it was the flu and rushed him to the doctor. Not a flu, just a viral thing, no antibiotics required.

Kevin came down with it the day after Thanksgiving. I treated him at home but after nearly a week he wasn't making progress, so off to the doctor. His had set up Bronchitis.

A few days later Ryan said he thought Kevin gave it back to him. Neither of them were really sick at that point, but just generally miserable, coughing and runny nose. Then two days before the school Christmas holidays Kevin came down with it again. The next day, I had it.

This, despite washing the clothes and bed covers in hot water (repeatedly) and Lysol and Clorox'ing and drinking lots of orange juice.

I got over mine quickly, like in two days, because of sleep. I always preach that sleep is the best medicine, because it's a fact it's worked for me repeatedly with various colds and infections over the years.

J came down with it around Christmas but was feeling better after a couple of days of medicine and rest in sunny, warm Florida. On our last day in Florida the weather was gorgeous, in the upper 70's, and we visited a nature preserve, walking the nature trails. That evening, J was congested and stuffed up again. We dosed him up and he seemed to shake it off a day or two later.

On Thursday our weather had turned off pretty nice around here, and J wanted to get outside and do some things. I asked him if thought he should do that. There were some inside projects he could have worked on instead, but he said he could do those when the weather was bad and he couldn't get outside.

Then he had work a 12-hour shift on the ambulance that night, and as he does when he pulls an all-nighter, came home Friday morning and went to bed. When he woke up that afternoon about 2:30, he was dog-ass-sick.

So Thursday's *Free* projects ended up costing us a $25.00 co-pay and $39.00 worth of prescriptions.

If you actually read all I wrote above, you may have noticed that I was the only one that didn't require a visit to the doctor or prescriptions.
Kevin missed a total of 7 days from school. Ryan does most of his schooling online (college) so he was lucky to have not missed any, but he did miss some of his volunteer fire department training and a good many emergency calls, for which they get paid $10.00 a run.
J hasn't missed any time from work (he's too stubborn to call out sick) but he's gone in sick and feeling miserable for more days than he should have.
Did I have a job, I would have only missed two days, and been back to feeling fine after.

If you think you can't afford or don't have time to rest and sleep to get over an illness, it can and probably will cost you somewhere else later.

31 Days of Nothing - Week 1

2012-01-06T13:35:00.000-05:00

Week 1 of the 31 Days of Nothing challenge went pretty well, I thought.

We started out the month with a $25.00 cash bonus from one of J's jobs. Even though it came from one of his jobs, since it was more of a bonus than income earned, I count it as - well, a bonus, or found money.

Day 1 - Spent $0.00

Day 2 - $8.54 Subway (J's dinner while working on ambulance)

Day 3 - $12.01 at Walmart for bottle of dye, milk, bread, and snuff (J's habit)
- $11.51 at Disc. Store for (4) painter's drop cloths
- $8.23 at USPS mailing a package of stuff to a friend

Day 4 - +$5.00 Any Hershey RR
- $4.59 at Walmart for bag of GV tortilla chips, (3) cans GV pinto beans, Reece's candy single
- .75 Coke machine

Day 5 - +$3.00 earnings from Pinecone Research for doing a survey
- $1.25 at Walmart for a loafa bread (needed another milk, too, but my son paid for it)

Day 6 - (Today) $50.01 gas (J's truck)
(J worked on the ambulance again last night but took dinner/snacks/drink with him, Yay J!)

All totaled (total spent minus 'found' money) the week cost $63.89.

2012-01-05T21:14:00.001-05:00

As part of the 31 Days of Nothing Challenge I'm trying to spend as little to nothing as possible this month. But we have a lot of work that needs to be done on our house that we're renovating, and finishing up the shed/barn/storage building we built out in the yard. And that gets costly, fast. Sad fact is, with Christmas just past, homeowners insurance due this month, and property taxes already past due, we just can't afford to do any big projects round the house right now.

So I sat down and wrote a list of things we could do that would make progress, but wouldn't cost anything to do, or at least not cost anything to do the prep work for a larger job.
For instance the enclosed upstairs front porch that I used as a storage room for years, I'm wanting to open back up into a front porch again. I cleaned everything out of the room and we tore up the old carpet and tore out the sheetrock ceiling. Now I'm working on removing 1970's paneling from the walls.

My house will never look like this, but this is the general idea of how it should resemble with the two front porches:

Today's weather was a big improvement over two days ago, when it barely got over the freezing mark. Today it was nearly 60*, which felt pretty warm in comparison. We were able to get outside and get some projects done.

J got the Roof Ridge put on the shed and I hauled scrap wood and tin and stuff out, raked the leaves that had gotten in there, and then we rearranged the stuff back inside more organized than it had been.

We turned the compost pile over and I picked up some fallen sticks and limbs from around the yard and put in the burn pile.

We got the Christmas tree out. It'd been undecorated for a few days but I thought J could take it out and right to his truck to take to the convenience center while he was carrying off the garbage today anyway. Turned out I wasn't ready to send it to the shredder yet. It's still such a pretty tree. We just propped it up in front of the shed for now.

There was one more chore that got added unexpectedly to the list that didn't cost us anything today, but probably will in the future - our big upright freezer is going out. The compressor is dying, it's making this terrible loud grinding noise. But lucky for the noise, instead of just going out, I got warning so I was able to start getting everything out before it went bad.
I still didn't get everything out. Even with our kitchen refrigerator freezer, two spare refrigerator freezers, and a small chest freezer I couldn't fit everything that was in that big upright freezer. I left butter and cream cheese in it. Hopefully I can get it relocated before the thing goes completely out.

Wahmart

2012-01-04T20:57:00.000-05:00

While I was organizing my coupon envelopes yesterday, I discovered a $5 off Any Hershey Product RR from Walgreens I had forgotten about. Expiration TODAY! Lucky me!

I bought the Reece's (74¢), (3) cans Pinto beans (68¢ each), and bag of Tostito chips ($1.68). 13¢ tax, and they paid me 41¢! Lucky me! (Although I wished I'd gotten another can of beans and just paid a few cents. We could always use beans for cheap. Wish I could add, too!)

(I didn't go to my local Wahmart, I drove out of town to another one, but I was having to go past it anyway on some other errands.)

Drop Cloth Curtains

2012-01-03T22:20:00.000-05:00

Wow, it got cold last night. And didn't warm up much today. Our temps dropped into the 20's last night, with Wind Chills in the teens. Our high all day was only 34*.
I am not a cold-weather person, so most of my big plans for getting some stuff done today didn't fly because I couldn't seem to get more than an inch away from my little ceramic heater.

Since my heater is under my desk, and my coupons are beside my desk, I sat in the floor and organized coupons; culling out the expireds and filing the loose ones (clipped, tearpads, blinkies, etc.) in alphabetical order, and got my Store Envelopes cleaned out of old stuff.

Later, when I had to go pick up my kid from school, I stopped in at a local discount store that has these painter's drop cloths for $2.69.
I bought some Dark Brown dye, and am going to try to make some curtains for my livingroom.

I saw this idea awhile back about using the drop cloths as outdoor curtains. At another site I can no longer locate someone had used stencils to customize the curtains. After finding the cloths so cheap, I thought I'd give it a try dying them and making curtains for my livingroom. If it doesn't turn out like I want for in there, I can always hang them on my back porch.

De-Cluttering

2012-01-02T18:57:00.000-05:00

It's not really a Resolution...or, it is, but one I made some time ago and am still working on - Decluttering my home and life.

I have a problem with Stuff. I'm not quite a Hoarder, I don't think, because I don't keep garbage or animal poop, but otherwise, I'm not very dang far from it.
Well, I say I don't keep garbage, but I will wash out glass jars and plastic containers to keep with an idea of re-using the items. Everybody knows plastic bowls makes dern good Redneck Tupperware.

Bowls

Drinking Cups

Leftovers/To-Go/Freezer

When I started couponing, I got a good deal on some Rubbermaid Storage bowls, so I finally parted with a good deal of my Redneck Tupperware, keeping only a few bowls to use for worms the guys dig out of our compost piles when they go fishing.

Otherwise, I have a lot Stuff. Too much Stuff. When I complain about it, people are like, "OMG, I know exactly what you mean!", but then I go to their house and I don't see what they mean. There's a basket of laundry on the stairs? A cup on the coffee table? I wish that was the extent of my problems.
Let's see, my house has {sort of} 13 rooms, including the bathrooms, old laundry/mudroom, new laundry room, and enclosed upstairs front porch. We are only able to use like half those rooms, because the others are full of my Stuff. The carport and backporch are in similar states. And the storage room attached to the carport.

I started wanting to declutter some when I watched the tv shows Clean House and the UK version, How Clean Is Your House?, but I think it was really the Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive shows that...mm, not so much scared me straight, as just made me want to change my ways.
I can't really explain it, but it was just like all of a sudden, I didn't care about the Stuff anymore. I didn't want it anymore.

So, easy...just get rid of it...right? Well, no, it hasn't been that easy, for some reason.
Some of it the reason is pretty clear: sentimentality. Which kinda ticks me off, because I'm not generally a really sentimental person.
And then there's the whole "I'm going to make such & such out of those", or "I might need that one day".
Oh and let's not forget, "I think I can sell that".
Yeah. No.

Apparently I was an out-and-out book hoarder, aka Bibliomaniac {n. An exaggerated preoccupation with the acquisition and ownership of books}. Correction, I still am. It's just that all my book aquisitions are digital now.
I am also a Digital Hoarder, saving photos and printables and everything else I see and like from the internet. I have 500GB space on my computer that I just had to relocate a bunch of files onto a 2TB external harddrive in order to be able to free up space on my PC.

I think I can live with Digital hoarding, though. It fills my needs of having stuff, yet takes up very little actual space, only virtual space.

While I was downloading books to make up for getting rid of my physical books, I ran across a few (a lot) of decluttering, home organization, clean up, self-help type books. Mostly they were the same, and involved buying plastic shoe boxes or other storage to be able to put your stuff in to organize it.
I'm not interested in buying more stuff, to organize my stuff. I need help gettting rid of my stuff.

This book, Stop Clutter from Stealing Your Life: Discover Why You Clutter and How You Can Stop by Mike Nelson was written by someone who honestly, you could tell, had a real cluttering/hoarding problem, and not just some BS unorganized messy house crap.

How many helpful-home-blogs did I read where they attempted to help people like me by advising, "Start small. Start with a closet, or a drawer."
Mike said, "...attacking something that I walk around or push aside everyday has more immediate impact than a drawer I won't see once it's closed. Our hoarding is an outward manifestation of our inward feelings. By leaving the visible clutter for later, we just keep reinforcing our feelings of powerlessness. So clear a spot of floor or a square of desk space and then stand back and admire it. Seeing wood or carpet is often a clutterer's first phase of recovery".

Know what's crazy? I don't have a clutter/hoarding problem inside my cabinets or drawers.

The book talks about the Traits of a Clutterer and quotes a psychologist who explains about the different types:
“There is no single cause. It would be easier to treat if there were one cause. You have addictive savers, similar to people who are addicted to alcohol or overeating. They do it to numb out bad feelings....Another type of clutterer is frugal. They have a strong rationale for everything they save.... [The third type] are people who have an enormous problem making decisions and they can’t
stay focused....The fourth type suffers from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.”
—Lynda Warren, San Bernadino psychologist,
in a 1994 Long Beach Press-Telegram interview

I am apparently the second and third types: frugal and I have a huge problem making decisions and staying focused (ADD).

It goes on to explain a lot of things as to why I collect/won't/can't get rid of Stuff, and how to work on the problem. It's helped me a lot already. The week before Christmas I went through several large boxes of the boys' old toys. I never thought I'd be able to part with their toys, but I did good at parting with at least half of it. I needed a little prodding at the end but finally gave in and let J take the rest of it to the Helping Hands thrift store for donation.

If you'd like to borrow the book I have it in PDF format (and can convert to other formats), send me your email at missi at bellsouth dot com.

Happy New Year, Shoppers!

2012-01-01T01:35:00.001-05:00

It's a New Year...time for new resolutions and all that. I don't really make resolutions, but I do enjoy a good challenge, and I think I've found one. Thanks, Paige of Cheap & Sweet for posting about this!

Sara at Learning the Frugal Life is doing a 31 Days of Nothing (no spending) challenge.

These are Sara's rules, but she says we can change them to suit our needs:

1. The ultimate goal is to spend NO money except for necessities. For my family I consider necessities to be gas for work and appointments, monthly prescription medications, groceries (although very minimal, more on this later) and our basic bills and utilities. Necessities may mean something different for your family.

2. There will be no consumerism. My hope is to stay out of the stores completely. No new clothes, books, or any other impulse buys. No shopping the deals!

3. Groceries. I am allowing $25 per week for grocery shopping or $100 per month. I really just want to stick with eating from the pantry and freezers as much as possible. We will need milk for the baby, as well as fresh produce so I am setting money aside for those things. We should be good on most other items because our freezers and pantry are very full. I usually budget $500 for the month.

4. Zero money spent on entertainment. No eating out, we will cook from scratch and eat at home each day. No money spent on movies or impromptu ice cream cones. We usually budget $150 each month for entertainment.

5. Allowance. Everyone is giving up their allowance for the month. There will be no money in our pockets tempting us to spend it.

6. My gas budget is up in the air right now. I need to actually keep track of what we are spending so I can get a more accurate number. For this month though, I want to just try and stay home as much as possible. Combine our errands so that we aren't making multiple trips each week.

7. Get back composting, recycling, and shutting off. Our compost bin has been missing so scraps have been being tossed in the trash which makes me crazy. We are great at recycling but the bins need to be cleaned up. My family has gotten extremely lazy about shutting off lights and unplugging items when not in use. This is going to be enforced more.

8. Cutting back on water usage. Our water bill has done nothing but climb. We use alot of water. Mainly because of long showers and children playing in the sinks. Showers will be timed and sink time monitored to make sure we aren't being wasteful.

~*~

This shouldn't be too hard starting out, since last month was a spendfest, there's not much really left to buy.
Thanks to my husband's hunting, the freezer is pretty well stocked at the moment, as is my Stockpile.
It's cold out, so I go out as little as possible, which saves us on gas.

We hardly ever spend money on entertainment anyway - other than our satellite tv and internet bills - so that shouldn't be a problem.
We did eat out quite a few times last month, but man, December is a whole nother thing. We're not usually eater-outers, so it won't be hard to go back to not eating out again, with the exception of J eating out at work.

They cook at the fire station, but when he works at the Urgent Care or on the Ambulance, cooking or carrying leftovers isn't as easy.
He's carried leftovers to the UC before, so maybe we can plan better for him to keep doing that, but as far as when he's on the ambulance it's not going to work at all. Sometimes they don't even get back to the Office for the whole shift. They have to grab a bite where and when they can and eat on the go.
So I guess that's going to have to be a necessity.

I just thought of another necessity - building supplies for our home renovations. I need to decide on what projects we'll be working on and budget out an amount for that.
I know there's at least a couple of projects we could work on that wouldn't cost anything, and a good many unfinished projects that we could finish with a little more supplies.

I would like to sell some stuff from around here to offset a little of what we do have to spend, but the problem is, nobody else seems to want it either.

~*~

Link up at Learning the Frugal Life and check back on Fridays to see how everyone is doing and share how you are doing, too.

Walgreens

2011-12-09T21:41:00.000-05:00

We had some errands to run in the county north of us, where I haven't been in awhile, but knew there was a good Wags store. It used to be a horrid store, but then the manager at the best Wags store I used to shop got moved up there. But then, you know the story, I stopped shopping, didn't hardly leave home, or my own town, for most of the summer.

So I go into this Wags, and the shelf is full, got to be nearly 20 or maybe more of the Wet lube stuff. Hmm, I think. I got two to start, until I see what else there was available and be able to figure my deals.
They had alot of eggs, too, like 8 or 10 dozen. The other stores I went to this week sold out early and fast.
Plenty, plenty of Pistacios, and Top Speed polish, although all the stores I was at this week had a lot of the polish.

Anyway, the Wet and eggs freaked me out, I was like, what is going on here?? So I saw the manager and chased him down and asked him, you know, what's the deal? Are there no more coupon shoppers here? Did you stop taking coupons? What? He looked at me like, WTH are you talking about, lady? so I held up the two boxes of Wet and said, these are free after register rewards but you have A LOT over there, like no one's even bought any.
So he says, well, we like to limit them to two.

Wow, really? He's limiting me on Friday? Even worse, he didn't even know the sale on the Wet hadn't started until Wednesday. He said he was surprised to hear that he had so much left because they usually come in on Sunday and get the deals. So he's limiting me on what he believes is like 5 days after the sale started. He thought someone - no, TEN someones - we're going to come and buy him out in one day?

I don't believe a whole lot of people knew about the starting Wednesday sale; if his shelf was still that full and over-full on a profit-earning item (even if it wasn't a mm, it's free lube!) on Friday, then they weren't coming on Saturday, either. They would have been all over that deal at 8:01 Wednesday morning, had they known about it. I'd be willing to bet he didn't sell a single nother box after I left.

The cashier was hater, trying to claim she wasn't. There was a lady in front of me buying some Revlon makeup. The cashier was so sweet to her butter wouldn't've melted in her mouth. She was all like, "Here, let's fix you up" and whooped out a Stunning Beauty booklet and scanned the Revlon coupon. Then when she gave her the receipt she was all like, now call this number and they're giving away this money. Mention Sherry, and give all 9's okay?
But then it as my turn, and her smile turned upside down.

She wasn't outright hateful, but she didn't have much to say. Then when I used my Children's Advil coupon from the Baby booklet, she had to call a Manager over to ask if she was supposed to keep the coupon or not. I said, it's not a manufacturer coupon....(meaning, it's no different from the coupon she just scanned from the Beauty book for the other lady, or the ones out of the sales ad). She cut me off saying she knew that, but "those coupon sites give out the coupon codes and people try to use them without having the coupon and then Corporate comes down us...blah blah blah".
WTF? I had the freakin booklet in my hand. I wasn't even using codes from "those coupon sites" she depises so much.
She said she uses coupons herself, but those sites, they make trouble for everybody.

What I gathered from all that was, she wants to be a couponer and be able to get the deals, but she can't, so she's pissed and jealous and takes it out on people like me that can.

I did like 4 transactions with no one coming up to check out, then I had one last deal with the eggs and candle warmer, no coupons, just paying with a couple of RRs. I had the eggs out on the counter and was reaching for the candle warmer and a lady comes up behind me to check out. The cashier says, "I have a customer, so we need to hurry this up".

So she didn't consider me a customer, even though I had just spent probably three times as much as the lady waiting behind me was going to spend on the two pieces of makeup she had in her hand.

The lady waiting to check out saw the Revlon coupon in my hand and asked me where I had gotten it. I told her "This nice lady right here gave it to me", talking about the cashier. I had asked her if she had any of the Revlon manufacturer coupons, and she gave me a Beauty booklet.

The cashier told the lady, "Yeah, we just got some more in. We had some before, and I had put them out there and those coupon people snatched 'em up by the handfuls. Like they wouldn't ever get another one!"

Nice. Real nice.

The candle warmer was $5.99. Walmart has them for $5.00, but I figured I'd pop the extra buck to be able to buy with RRs. I needed to spend them on something useful anyway. I bought this one for my son's fiance. She loves candles and scents.
I don't know about everyone else, but when I light a candle with fire, I can't smell the scent of the candle. But when I put the candle on the warmer and melt it, then it smells really good. I have a Glade gingerbread, or something like that, on mine now and when you walk into the kitchen it's like, Mmmm, whatcha cookin' Momma? Sorry, boys, it's a candle, not sweets.

I also got some more children's Advil, the infant drops. It took all week for me to figure out that even no longer on sale, I could still get these (practically) free, pay only sales tax.
The infant drops are regular priced $5.49, so with my $2.00 MQ and $2.00 Baby Booklet Q, they come out to $1.49 each, or $2.98 total.
The deal for Buy (2) any Advil, Robitussin, and (I forget the other one) get $3.00 RR is a monthly deal through December 31st, so I paid $2.98 + tax, and got back $3.00 RR.

This coming up week there is going to be a $2.00 IVC in the ad, so I assume the children's advil will be regular price, then use a $2 MQ and the in-ad IVC to get the same deal as above. I don't believe you can use both the in-ad IVC and the Baby Booklet coupons at the same time. I'll have to check on that, though.

Walgreens

2011-12-07T17:27:00.000-05:00

I thought about titling this post "Walgreens-Wake-Up-Call-Woman-What-The-Heck-Are-You-Doing?"

IIRC, I wasn't planning on getting back into this game. I only started going back to shopping the sales to be able to get good deals on stuff I need and use. If there happened to be a FARR or MM deal then I would get that deal, but only to the point that the money I paid for it, turned around and paid for the items that I was actually there for.
Apparently I lost my head when there was all the MM Black Friday deals.

I made profit, but then, instead of spending it on all the good deals there are this week, I became more concerned with rolling them, to the point I was rolling on just free stuff. Which of course isn't free, since it costs me tax.

Other than the (5) dozen of eggs I managed to get on Monday, I otherwise should have waited until today to shop. Today starts a 4-day sale with more items I was looking for and a MM deal.

At the first store I shopped, I started by rolling some older RRs into Top Speed nail polish, which was only FARR and Beauty Book coupon.
(This is a MM deal for others who've been able to find the Revlon tearpads. My stores rarely put out the coupons anymore, choosing to keep them behind the counter so they can pick and choose who they share them with. I asked my BA about them today and was told no, she didn't have any....well, she did, but they were only for the new items on the cases, not the stuff from back there. Since there was Top Speed nail polish in both locations I wanted to make sure it wasn't the coupon I was looking for, but she simply insisted it was not, and wouldn't bring one out.)

I was then going to roll my Top Speed RRs into a few more of the Optimum Care hair relaxer, and then roll those RRs into the Wet personal lubricant.
However, I was told they couldn't accept the Optimum Care coupons because they were "clearly copied from an original".

Long story short, a Manager, the BA, and some other employee who felt her input was valuable and neccessary insist that ALL IP coupons are a limit of one per computer.
Of course I attempted - why the hell I even bother, I don't know - they are always right - to explain to them that not all coupons are limited to one or two prints, and that these were printed from the manufacturer's website and I had not copied them.

Same with the Wet coupons. The Manager had the nerve to stand there in my face and tell me that "one of them was printed, the others are copies".

I lost my cool a little bit, but I didn't cuss (or at least I don't think I did. Her ass didn't go all up on her shoulders). I told her I would have to contact Corporate about this. She said "Go ahead", as if daring me.

After writing to both Walmart and Publix last week and getting ignored, I probably would have figured she was right about it: Go ahead, call 'em, they ain't gonna care.

But then the BA told me she had gotten in trouble for accepting the Optimum Care coupons I had used on Monday and that's BS. She didn't do anything wrong - I didn't do anything wrong. This asshole Manager is wrong, and everyone else is having to pay for her ignorance.

I will be heard this time.

Anyway, I left there, drove another nearly 30 miles away, and was able to do my deals at another store without any problems.

$5.99 Wet Lube = $5.99 RR
-1.00 IP
= $1.00 mm

99¢ Bumblebee canned chicken w/ in-ad IVC

3/$2 (66¢ each) Nice! or Walgreens snack nuts w/ in-ad IVC

$1.50/3 Nestle singles candy
- 75¢ IVC from Dec booklet = .75/3
- .79 B2G1 Tearpad
= +.04¢

$6.99 Optimum Care hair relaxer = $5.00 RR
- 2.00 PDF (no longer available)
= FARR

$3.99 Revlon Top Speed Nail Polish = $3.00 RR
- 1.00 Revlon Wags Q Simply Stunnning Beauty Book
= FARR

(Haven't done totals. Not sure I want to know.)

Tiny Treats

2011-12-05T23:20:00.001-05:00

Remember my tiny cake from a few posts ago?

I was spending some time on Pinterest earlier and ran across a picture for Elf Donuts. How cute, and how perfect to go with all the Elf-on-the-Shelfs everyone (but me) seems to have.

Made from Cheerios dipped in chocolate and sprinkles,
confectioners sugar, and cinnamon-sugar!

I had to check out the Site where the picture originally came from, and found even more Tiny Treats.

Oreo cookies and frosting!

Tiny pizza

Watermelon made from jello, mini-choc-chips in a lime half.

All these Tiny Treats and more came from a book by American Girl called Tiny Treats. I have got to get myself one of these books. Then I guess I'll have to bring my neices up to make tiny treats with me, because my boys just look at me like I'm a loonatic. They don't know what's wrong with normal sized food. Psshh, they don't know how to have fun.

Walgreens

2011-12-05T17:37:00.001-05:00

I went to Walgreens with $117.00 RRs I have to spend/roll this week, and no plan. Or, not much of a plan. Actually, not too bad of a plan - roll what I could, and buy what I need/use.

Remember the Halloween mellocreme candy and candy corn I stocked up on at Halloween? It's .50¢ for the larger bag and .35¢ for the smaller bags now. I got some more as fillers.

I thought there would be enough fillers with all the pork&beans, Tuf bags, eggs, and sugar I planned to get, but my RR amounts were low, like $1.50, $2.00, $2.75, so I kept having to add items, then I'd have to add another RR, and so on.

My Roll item was the Dark & Lovely hair relaxer. $6.99, get $5.00 RR. I had $2.00 IP coupons for the Optimum Care which made these FARR. The BA had $2.00 tearpad q's for the purple box, so I got some of those, too.

I had got a raincheck for the $10 personal blender during Black Friday and found it at another store today. So I spent (2) $5.00 RRs from the Dark & Lovely on it.

I also spent on my (2) boxes of Christmas photo cards at $8.70 each (after 33% savings code, before tax).

The Nestle Candy singles are 3/$1.50, and there's a .75/3 IVC in the Dec booklet, making it .75/3 cost.

I have tearpad coupons I found at Kroger many moons ago for Buy 2, Get 1 free.

The first store took off the limit of 79¢ as stated on the coupon, making mine free +

(Totals later)

Walmart

2011-12-05T17:14:00.001-05:00

I had to go to an out-of-my-town Walmart to do it, but I didn't have any problems being able to use my (4) $5 off Any Hershey Product Catalina coupons to get overage today.

I also used my last (4) $2.00 Crest Complete coupons. Boooo.

But got groceries I needed. Yayyyyy.

$.97 x (4) Crest Complete Travel size TP
$.74 x (4) Reese's/Hershey Candy bar
- 2.00 x (4) Crest Complete TP
- 5.00 x (4) Any Hershey Product
= $21.16 overage

$0.98 Hot Dog/Hamburger buns
$1.00 loafa bread
$1.68 corn chips and tortilla chips
$0.42 pizza crust mix
$1.48 chocolate milk syrup
$1.00 canned ham
$2.12 OJ
$0.88 hot dogs
$5.00 shrimp

= .04 + .99 tax = $1.03 oop

Photo Cards 33% off at Walgreens

2011-12-04T23:28:00.000-05:00

While we were all together at Thanksgiving I had a family picture taken so I could have some of these photo cards made for Christmas. I received several of these from my family last year and really enjoyed getting them, so I thought I might enjoy sending one of our own.

I've been with sick young'uns for the past couple of weeks and haven't paid much attention to photo deals, and I meant to order these last week, but I have trouble making decisions. There were sooooo many beautiful designs I couldn't make up my mind.

Since I plan on shopping Walgreens this week - since I have alot of RRs to spend/roll - I checked out their photo dept and found they have a code for 33% off photo cards this week.
A set of 20 4x8 photo cards is regularly $12.99, so with the code JOLLY33, I was able to get them for $8.70. That's .43/.44 per card, before tax, and I can pick them up in the store as early as tomorrow morning (since I ordered them at nearly 11:30pm tonight and they aren't open).

I compared with Walmart, which charges .44 each for 1-hour developing, so I got the same deal, and I can pay with RRs. Yay!

Cheap/Free Batteries, Free Gifts for Christmas

2011-12-04T21:16:00.000-05:00

(Post applies to 12/4/11 - 12/10/11 week)

Most of us deal shoppers print coupons, and have to buy ink for our printers every so often.
I used to buy my ink at Walmart because I thought it was cheaper, until I learned that even though all the cartridge sizes were the same, the amount of ink they held were not. I eventually figured out I was paying more in the end buying Walmarts cheaper inks, than the higher priced, but much longer lasting inks from Staples/Office Max.

I just bought a set of inks at Staples a couple of weeks ago. They cost me $71.13, and Staples gives me 10%, or $7.13, back in Rewards.

Used to I could spend these Rewards on other deals that earn Rewards, but now they deduct any Rewards you use, from the Rewards you earn, so they're no longer "rollable".
But if there are some good Free After Rewards deals, then you can always use your Rewards to buy ink or something else you use or need.

For instance, this week Staples has 16-packs of Durcacell AA and AAA batteries at $12.99 with 100% Rewards back (Rewards Members, limit 2, in-store only). So if you buy items at Staples anyway, you can use the Rewards back to purchase that item instead of cash, and this is like getting free batteries.

Today I was going through some papers and stuff from my desk and ran across my Staples and Office Max cards/log in info. I was fussing at myself a couple weeks ago for not checking to see if I had any Staples rewards before going to buy ink, so I decided to check on them all today.

Looking at my Office Max account, I was reminded that, being registered for a Teacher account (aren't we all teachers?) that I earn $10 Rewards for every $75.00 (in qualifying items) that I spend.
At Staples the other day, I spent a total of $95.25 before tax, buying ink and some SD cards that were on sale. All I earned was $7.13 Rewards.
But had it been Office Max, I would have earned $10 Rewards.

Also I saw where Office Max still gives $3 per ink cartridge brought back in for recycling, where Staples went down to $2.00.

I also compared ink prices, and found them to be a couple dollars cheaper at Office Max.

So now I'm seriously wondering why Staples has been my store of choice when I'm just running in to get ink, when there's an Office Max right across the street?

While I'm at the Office Max site, I see they also have a battery deal. They cost 1¢ after Rewards, but the purchase amount counts towards my $75 threshold for earning $10 Rewards.
The limit is 2 per item, which I understood to mean per SKU#, which would be like (2) 10 pack AA, (2) 10 pack AAA, (2) 20 pack AA, and (2) 20 pack AAA.

I also saw this 100% back on Tablet sleeves and bags deal (appears to be online only)!
This, people, is a goldmine of FREE Christmas presents.

There are some very nice *ahem, expensive* Tablet sleeves, backpacks, and bags to choose from. If you're looking for gifts like these anyway, you can't beat free.

The Tablet sleeves are $24.99 each, and are 11" sized for iPads, Netbooks, MacBook Air 11in, and Kindle DX..
Mine and Mom's Kindle Fires are 7.5" so these aren't really suitable for us. I have a cousin that has an iPad, though, so I can gift one to her (she lucked up because she wasn't on my shopping list previously, lol!).

My total before tax was $95.54, of which I'll get back $95.50 in Rewards, plus another $10.00 in Rewards for spending $75.00+.

Now, the rules are any Rewards I spend aren't applied to the $75.00 threshold, so when I use these Rewards to buy my ink and whatever, I won't earn another $10.00 Rewards.

But that's okay, because when I went to Staples to buy my ink last week, all I got is $7.13. No 1¢ batteries, no free iPad sleeves, no free $10.
(Okay, I could have gotten free batteries, and I likely will go and do that deal this week, too. Here's why.)

Black Friday & Chat Box

2011-11-29T21:59:00.000-05:00

Black Friday Drug Store Final Final Totals:
Walgreens: $63.22 profit
CVS: $16.90 profit
Rite Aid: $25.74 cost
Overall: $48.27 profit

@ Seda: You should also write a written complaint to WM corp. When these people get complained on, their Superiors have to give them a "coaching" which goes on their record, and can effect them when it comes time for raises and/or promotions. Maybe if we hit them in their pocketbook they will learn their job and stop being such a-holes.

@Loki: The short answer is no.

Gluten-free marked products are expensive. I don't know if it's special ingredients they use in them, or if it's because they know some people feel like they have to buy the stuff.

My oldest son was having the same gastro- problems we were, and decided to try to the gluten-free diet. They were going to the store looking for gluten-free marked items, not finding a whole lot, and spending alot more.

I didn't do that, but I should say right up front, we don't have Celiac, so we don't have to be quite as rigid in avoiding gluten.
Basically all I did was cut the majority of bread(s) and pasta from our meals.
When we got to realizing just exactly how much (flour) we were putting away everyday, holy cow, no wonder we were sick!

For breakfast we would have cereal, poptarts, pancakes/waffles, french/cinnamon toast, muffins, sweet rolls, biscuit/gravy, or toast.
Lunch was probably a sandwich, hot dog, hamburger, Hamburger Helper, canned pasta, or if leftovers from the night before, probably included a roll or biscuit.
Dinner was generally a meat and a couple sides, or a casserole/pasta dish, and always, always, some sort of bread: bun, roll, french bread, croissant or biscuit.
Then desserts/snacks: cake, cookies, crackers, muffins, sweet rolls, pie, cobbler, etc.

So now, for breakfast we'll generally have rice or corn cereal, oatmeal (some Celiac/gluten-sensitive people can't eat oatmeal but we are okay with it), eggs, ham/bacon/sausage, hashbrowns/home fries.
Every bit of that stuff I get on sale and deals. (I bought taters on sale and cut up and froze my own home fries (and french fries). I guess I could shred up my own hashbrowns to freeze, too.)

As far as lunch and dinner, I just made some changes in what we eat, but nothing special (or costly). For instance, when I eat tuna or egg salad I eat it with regular Lay's tater chips instead of bread. My husband eats corn tortillas sandwiches.
Where we used to eat hotdogs in a bun, now we'll just eat them with no bun, or with chili, or cut up with a can of pork-n-beans.
We eat hamburgers like steak: no bun. I even dip mine in A-1, but that may be a no-no to Celiac or more sensitive people.
Instead of BBQ on a bun, we eat it with Fritos corn chips, and instead of a french roll or Texas toast or saltines with Chili, we eat it with Tostitos chips or french fries or on a baked potater.
I started using oatmeal instead of toast in meatloaf. We're eating more veggies and rice.

For snacks/desserts we can eat chips, popcorn, chocolate candy (with no cookies or pretzel inside), ice cream, pudding, fruit.

So basically, instead of buying specialty gluten-free items, I just quit buying all the crap loaded with gluten.

Unless you need bread, cookies, cake, waffles/pancakes, spaghetti, mac 'n' cheese, etc., it still leaves a whole lot of choices.

I can't really think of anything we're eating that I have to buy especial, that doesn't go on sale and/or have a coupon at some point.
So we feel better, and it doesn't cost us anymore than usual.

And last, but not least, the answer to the What's Strange/Different About My Chocolate Cake? guesstion:

It's Tiny!

I baked them in a muffin pan, and cut little circles from cardboard covered with tin foil, frosted and piped and tossed some sprinkles on top.

I saw the idea a couple weeks ago while googling some Barbie/Play Scale ideas stuff and ran across this picture and thought, how freekin' cute is that??

Instructables: Miniature Edible Baking Scene

But when I fixed mine, I thought they looked more like something a kid made from an Easy Bake Oven :-(

Black&Blue Saturday Shopping

2011-11-26T15:13:00.046-05:00

LOL, I heard someone call it Black & Blue Saturday, after getting so beat up trying to get the Black Friday deals.
Not me, I kept my butt-ox home and out of the fray yesterday.

Today I went out to see what was left at the Drug Stores, and maybe a little "clean up duty". I was feeling kinda bad about buying all the MM and 'good' stuff from the sale on Thursday and leaving the rest, so I thought I'd go back and buy up the FARR leftovers.
I had also read that stores that sold the most on BF got bonuses, so I figured what the heck, I made a good profit, I'll blow some on tax buying free stuff to help them out. (Mainly 'my' store, but another store, for some reason I don't know, doesn't charge sales tax, so I could shop there all night and it not cost me a penny.)

The first Wags I stopped in (the no-tax store) had quite a bit of stuff left. I found out why pretty quickly. The Manager (or whoever he was) saw me loading stuff into my buggy and then I heard him telling another guy that since it was this late, they could let up on the limits 'some'. If 'they' were 'getting ridiculous' then say something, but otherwise, it would be okay to not limit the items.
Keeping in mind, this was like 6:00pm, dark and yucky outside, last night of the sale. And he's worried about someone 'getting ridiculous' while trying to spend money in his store???

Dude had probably 20 boxes of Culturelle and that Sam-E stuff, and like twice as many of those Energy strips. Plenty of Colgate, Scunci, toothbrushes, Dentek, Children's Advil. I could have raised his sales by several hundred dollars easily.
But I didn't want to 'get ridiculous', so I got three deals and took my money elsewhere.

Rite Aid

ETA: Final Total including tax $25.74 cost. Boooo! Not good.

CVS

ETA: Final Total including tax $10.79 profit.

Walgreens

Not pictured is 3 bottles of A&H deterg, because they are still at the store.

ETA: Final Total including tax was 6¢ profit, so I did just exactly the right amount of deals to make my 6 packages of toilet paper and 3 bottles of A&H laundry detergent Freeeee!

First Black Friday Deal

2011-11-25T14:22:00.078-05:00

We attempted to go to Walmart last night for the Black Friday deals starting at 10pm and to wait on the Electronics deals starting at midnight, but we saw the parking lot and it was like OMG! Are you kidding me?!

We have never seen our little WM/Strip shopping center parking lot that full. It was completely full, people parking on the curbs and in the grassy areas at the end of the lot. Majority of them that we saw were out-of-town tags.

Once we saw the situation, I drove straight on through and back home.

It worked out for the better anyway because to be honest we didn't really have the kind of money on hand I was planning to spend all at once. We did, but it would have put a hurting on us for several days.

Today I got online to check some sites and see what, if any deals there might be online, and just happened to be at the right place at the right time when this laptop came up on Amazon's Lightning deals.

This laptop is a Toshiba Satellite, which both J and Kevin already have, and theirs have been good ones for the years they've had them. It has 4GB RAM which can be upgraded to 8, and 640GB storage space! That's more than my desktop has :-( They'll never use all that space.

It popped up on the Lightning Deal for $399.99. I hesitated a few seconds (because I'm horribly indecisive) but I'm also fairly impulsive, so then I clicked to add it to my cart. That didn't mean I had to buy it. I had 15 minutes to make up my mind for sure. I called Ryan in here and he okayed it, so I popped for it.

It cost about $150 more than the WM one, but I think I got a better product for the money. This laptop goes for about $500 regularly.

Another good thing about it is I was able to pay with my Amazon Store credit card, which has a current 6-months-no-interest thing going on, so I'm able to put off paying for most of it until after the New Year. That helps this time of the year.

Thanksgiving/Black Friday

2011-11-24T20:46:00.058-05:00

Had a very enjoyable shop at a very well stocked Walgreens Thursday morning.

OOP: $7.83 + 22.01 TAX = $29.84

RRs Spent: $152.00

RRs Earnt: $245.00

Final Total: $63.16 PROFIT

Me and J stopped into the two CVS stores we were passing on the way home anyway to see what, if anything, was left. I hadn't planned any scenarios, and was too tired and full to try on the fly, so I told him, just pay cash and I'll worry about spending the rewards later.

The nice cashier attempted to help us divide up some of the items to roll the ECBs to save on oop, but it's hard to do right there like that. It was nice that she tried.

His and her cards

OOP: $29.33 + 3.12 tax = $32.45
ECBs Spent: $15.85
ECBs Earnt: $54.41
Final Total $6.11 profit

Not the greatest profit, but I would have been happy just paying tax for the FAECB Pepto.