latest savings

Sorry if this is torture to some (most) of you, but I find saving money exciting and somewhat a challenge I have now placed on myself. I am learning the tricks of the trade. One big one is KNOW exactly what you are going for, and try not to get anything else extra. Also, you have to enjoy going to a lot of different stores, even if it means getting one or two things at each just to save save save! I went to Walgreens yesterday and bought a few things and this is what I paid for each after using coupons and in-store sales. Crest $2.29 - $1.50 off Walgreens coupon-75Cents manufature coupon...= .54Cents each! Deoderant $4.49 each. Walgreens special buy on get one free, plus $2.00 off when you buy 2 (I had 2 of these) so each deod cost me $1.00. Body spray $4.79..I had a buy one get one free coupon, and a $3.00 off when you buy 2 coupon and they let me use BOTH!! Love Walgreens for that fact. They let you stack coupons. So each spray cost roughly .90cents! Excedrin Migraine on sale for 2 for $5.00 and I had a coupon for $2.00 off and one for $1.00 off. So each box cost a dollar. Have you found any good deals this week?? I always keep extra of daily items on hand (I learned this from my mom years ago) That way you can only buy items when you have coupons AND they are on sale!!

I am in love......with coupons

I know, i know, this sounds really sad. But I have recently been hooked on coupons and saving money. I have a lot of new favorite blogs and websites that I check daily. They have awesome coupons, free samples, weekly deals, etc. I have recently joined some sites that ask your opinion on products or ask you to take a survey...and you can earn points towards a gift card. Anyway. Today is thursday. Okay. Well, it is one of my favorite days of the week now. It is the day I go to the grocery store, because as many of you local girls know, you save $10 on your $50 purchase at Shop and Save. The thing that I love now, is that the past 4 weeks, they let you do two separate $50 purchases, so you save 20 bucks without trying!!!!! Plus I always look at the weekly ad to see what is on sale and what I also have a coupon for. That equals almost getting some products for free!! It does take doing some homework, but well worth the effort! I also mark a "C" on my shopping list by the item i have a coupon for. I then arrange my coupons to the order the items are in the store. For example, bread is in the first aisle, so my bread coupon is first. It becomes a little cumbersome holding your coupons, pushing the cart, crossing off items from your list, and keeping a running total of money spent, but again well worth the effort! Today, in particular, was a good savings day. With the 2-$10 off automatic savings for spending 50 and 50, plus $34.36 in coupons, and $33.58 SRP (money saved just by shopping at Shop and Save, their daily low or in store sale prices for the week) I saved a grand total of $87.94!!!! I spent $121.40 and our weekly budget is 130.00, so now I am under budget :) I am sure this isn't exciting to anyone else out there, but I was so thrilled, that I had to write it down. Here is the actual receipts to prove my savings :) What good deals did you get this week? or what deals do you know about that you can share with us??


Oh yeah, one tip. If you do go to shop n save and split your order into 2, make sure you save all the items you have coupons for till the 2nd ring, otherwise if you just throw everything up on the line, your cashier may not take the time to sort which items you have coupons for and not. My sweet cashier today, told me "you did a great job" saving with all those coupons, but he also said he'll have to remember me in the future (I guess to avoid me) :)

For more savings fun head on over to SUPER SAVINGS SATURDAY where you can check out lots of other links to great sites where people are saving a ton of money too!!!

WHEW!!

WHEW!! What a night, day, evening, it was yesterday! I am tired to prove it! I worked the night shift on tuesday. I usually have a period of time where I get pretty tired and long for my bed around 3am at work. But this past night shift had me yearning for rest for a lot of the night. It is almost a feeling that you just want to scream, because your body is crying out to be at rest, but you must walk the long hallway of the hospital yet again to answer a call light, pass a pain pill, help with breastfeeding, check an IV, take a baby to the nursery, help someone who is throwing up, or needs another ice pack, or assess and weigh a baby, or give it a shot, or go answer yet another call light, or get a new admission settled in, or do all your computer charting on all the things you just did......sometimes, it seems endless. I know I was in more of a funk than usual, because the hospital had a 'Winterfest" for us at midnight, yes, midnight. We were like kids litteraly in a candy store. They had fruit with chocolate fountains flowing, so you could drench your healthy bite in lucious chocolate. They had these little dessert parfaits...to ...die..for. Then to top it off they had a Candy Buffet!! Probably about 50 different kinds of candy to choose from. I chose all things I thought the kids would love. So even though i didn't eat from the candy buffet, I DID have 2 choc covered strawberries and 2 mini parfaits.....THAT was what put me in the funk. It made me crabby and tired about an hour after eating it! Oh well. I survived, but just barely, i tell ya :)

Anyway....I got home from work, took the kids to school and then headed off to sleep, until it was time to get up and put a smile on (without much makeup) to run my monthly Club HOPE meeting with 45 young kids. Two words....1. Soda 2. tylenol Luckily, I got a second wind and it went well. We had a guest speaker for part of the meeting and she brought 2 dogs with her to show us some trainig tricks. After the meeting ended at 5:30 I headed straight to Heaven on Earth, I mean McDonalds, and grabbed yet another hugo soda. At this point I just had to keep going. If I sat for even a minute, it would be over. And we had an awesome night at church ahead of us yet. Our church is in the process of possibly having another local church join with us. So we were having a night of worship with the members of that church tonight (last night). All I can say is WOW!!!! It was the pick me up I needed!!! WHAT a night. We sang praise and worship songs for 2 hours!!! It was more like attending a concert, with the amazing band. Members from our worship team and theirs combining their talents. They also played all my favorite songs!!! I am hoping we can do that once a month from now on, it was that amazing!! We got home at 9pm and I got Brooke into jammies and bed, then I was off to the couch...I had to catch up on American Idol....I made it till around 10 after putting Chase to bed....then fell asleep. WHEW!! What a tiring 24 hours that was.

Use whatcha got!

As many of you know, we have been on a budget around here...really and truly on one for the first time ever!! As a result, that means that one of my favorite hobbies is gone......shopping. I love to go to places like Pier 1, Kirklands, Bed Bath & Beyond...really anywhere...to browse. In the past, the browsing always led to a purchase of some sort. Let's face it. Shopping gives us women a high of sorts, doesn't it?! Well, I can only go to the stores if I NEED something and have a SPECIFIC item in mind, with a coupon too. I know myself too well, and know that I am tempted to buy pretty stuff. So, what's a girl to do?? I now "shop" my own house. I have been sitting in each room of our house, and really taking a long look at how everything is arranged. In turn, I have found a need to change things around, just to "change things up a bit". Really, when you think about it, we love to buy something new, because we are tired of all of our stuff. But when you simply move furniture from one room to another, change out pictures in frames, paint frames a different color, maybe even CUT YOUR DRAPERIES and hang them on a rod you've had in your basement for years (yes, i just did this last week) the first pic is "before", you instantly have something "new" to look at, using your old stuff. I recently simply turned my kitchen table horizontally in the room, from vertically...and I love it that way. I also took the buffet table from the kitchen and moved it behind our desk in the living room. (Our desk faces out like in a real office setting. ) I love the buffet there, and it allowed me to move a lamp from the family room to place on it, instantly giving us a little sitting area to read in. Yesterday, we started the work of adding some scrap wood from our garage, onto our brick "mantle" to make it bigger and give it more of a presence. I have been thinking about doing that for about 6months now, and finally got around to doing it. Tomorrow I will paint it, and then post a pic. Organizing the closets last weekend felt good too. Again....free. What items can you move from room to room to give you a different look in your house? If you don't like it move it back, right?! Use this time inside, during these long winter months, to look around and get some of those things that have been on your mind done, once and for all. I promise, you will feel great!! Plus, once the weather turns warm, your attention will turn to the yard and flowers.....Let me know what you are thinking about moving around and post pics!!

Weekend of accomplishment

We had a good weekend. Other than church, we didn't actually go anywhere, but it still was a great weekend. On friday, we had our church home group over. We are studying the book Fearless. It is really an easy read, and so relates to our daily lives! Saturday, I got all kinds of wild hairs and decided to organize Brooke's and my closet. I have had the biggest mountain of laundry, that never seems to go anywhere, even after doing loads of it. So, Saturday was the day to conquer it, once and for all!! I also organized my closet in a way that, I can only fit 2loads of dirty laundry in the closet, so it won't happen again!! It feels so good to be better organized, even if you are the only one to appreciate it. Next, it was off to Brooke's closet. I had her old changing table in there for shelves, but after she had friends over to play, things were always a mess and no matter how many times I organized it, it would end up messy, and I would end up mad at her. So, out with the changing table. I planned on putting it to use in my closet, but the wire closet system already in there, made it not able to fit. She is sooo excited about her new closet. She even helped me to put everything away, so she will hopefully take responsibility for her stuff now. We (MIKE) brought up the dresser that i actually used growing up, from the basement, to put in her closet. We categorized the drawers, separated stuff accordingly, and even hung up her play costumes in the little door area. I used to play hide and seek in that little nook of the dresser :). She kept saying the rest of the weekend, "I'm gonna go play with my closet". How cute.

I also, FINALLY painted that darn potato bin! I think it was too cold to be painting outside yesterday, but I am tired of it being on my mind. It is done, for now. I still need to buy some more of the brown bins you see in the pic. Those are from our bathroom, but we will have to wait till the budget allows for more. I feel like i did it very half a&% , but, it looks okay, and Mike is happy to have a table to put his clock radio on. I like the extra lighting in that corner of the room too, it makes it look bigger.

Now, I am thinking of what else I can organize next. What are you up to? Have you done any fun organizational projects lately??