Our new retaining wall has been poured and is curing as we speak — complete with handprints of The Daughter, The Son, and myself.  Today’s labor cost me $100 plus a few slices of pie and two glasses of milk ;-)

After all the cement was mixed and the wall poured, we ended up with three extra bags of Quikrete which I’ve already returned — for an $11.65 credit at The Home Depot.

The Daughter went with me on my errand-run.  After the quick return to The Home Depot, we stopped in Old Navy to see if she could exchange her Gap gift cards or use them at Old Navy.  I was surprised and disappointed to hear that Gap gift cards cannot be used at Old Navy.  [We also checked at Gap and they said the same thing.  I told The Daughter that I’d buy the cards from her — either flat out for cash or in the form of an Old Navy gift card.]

I had printed out my 25% coupon for Barnes & Noble that expired today only to find out that my local store didn’t have the book I wanted in stock.  I gave the coupon to The Daughter who bought herself a book using a gift card.  My cost: $0.00.  But I did make a purchase, though.  I bought a $25 gift card to be used for the unwrapping game we play during the family Christmas party.

Our next destination was the Qwest kiosk but we first stopped into a kitchen store where I spent $9.16 on a new slotted metal spatula (our old one completely fell apart a few weeks ago) and a set of two tiny whisks (great for mixing my oil & vinegar salad dressing).  A few stores down we popped into Crabtree & Evelyn for some soap.  I spent $25.95 and bought 6 bars of soap — three each of Aloe and La Source triple milled boxed bars.

We did make our stop at the Qwest kiosk but there was no charge — I had them swap our third cell phone account from a little Kyocera phone we had for the kids to a Motorola flip-phone that I’d gotten from a friend.  The Husband hates the Kyocera and can’t figure out how to use it.  I have a Motorola almost identical to the free one and mine is a work-horse if there ever was one.  I’ve dropped it and sat on it and carried it every day for what must be close to 6 years and it’s still going strong.  I’m hoping that The Husband will adapt better to the Motorola and therefore carry with him.  Our schedules are too busy and complicated to have him running around without a cell phone.  My cost:  $0.00.

Our final stop was Target.  I returned a picture frame for a $19.34 credit.  Then we did a little grocery shopping — a few essentials we needed for tonight’s dinner and breakfast, etc.  We spent $29.39 on:

• a gallon of 2% Horizon milk — $5.99
• 1/2 gallon of Horizon chocolate milk — $3.99
• 2 boxes of Kashi Cinnamon Harvest cereal — $3.39 (this is an excellent non-sale price)
• package of english muffins — $1.87
• Digiorno pizza — $4.99
• Digiorno “ultimate” pizza — $5.99
• Advil “pocket pack” — $1.99 (at The Daughter’s request, perfect size for her backpack, she’ll have to refill it from my über Advil bottle when it’s empty)

My final purchase of the day was a “Cyber Monday” sale item.  Best Buy’s Cyber Monday actually started today.  I found the sale quite by accident — I was curious about what kind of sales I might find on-line tomorrow so I thought I’d look for previews tonight.  I knew that one of the Christmas gifts we’d be giving The Daughter was a digital camera and I knew which model I wanted — a Canon Powershot Digital ELPH SD1000.  For the past few weeks I’ve just been watching prices and waiting.  When I visited Best Buy’s site tonight and saw that camera on sale for $179.99 plus a free 2GB PNY memory card, I showed it to The Husband and we took the plunge.  I made the purchase on-line but will pick the camera up from the store locally tomorrow.  This saves me from having to pay shipping charges.  Until tonight, the best price I’d seen was $199.99.  I paid $179.99 but after I applied $65 worth of gift cards I’d purchased from The Son, my final price was $114.99.

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