No U-turn

On Friday on my way home from work, I stopped by the thrift store to see what it had for sale. I go to two different thrift stores on a regular basis, one on each side of town, but they are run by the same company. So I decided to stop off at the store that I frequent less often. I picked up a few books and a cute pair of pants for my daughter but did not really see to much of interest.

Returning home, I had to go back in the opposite direction needed to make a u-turn. I saw the no u-turn sign, and I admit that I have illegally made a u-turn in the past at this intersection. Argh, well I had a little time, so I decided to go to the thrift store located on that side of the street. I have been to this store several times before and have not really found anything. But I decided, why not give it a try. I looked around a bit at the kids clothes but did not rummage through them piece by piece as I do at the other stores.

I decided to head out and as I did I spied a "princess dress" hanging on a rack with other Halloween like costumes. Well behind the larger sized princess dress I saw a Snow White dress (the Disney Store version). Upon closer inspection, I noticed that it was the perfect size for my daughter to wear right now! Of course I picked it up and also picked up the larger princess dress, which was a Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. As I headed to the cashier to pay for my purchases I saw a bag full of princess goodies such as colored pencils, stickers, and notebooks.

When I got to the register the woman in line in front of me told me it was 1/2 clothes day so each piece of clothing was fifty cents. She was not sure if my costumes were part of the deal but either way I knew I had found myself a bargain. Each dress retails for $49.50 on the web-site so no matter what I paid for them it would be cheaper than buying them retail!

The cashier rings up my purchases, $2.00 for the stickers and fifty cents each for the dresses. So for three dollars I have a Snow White costume for my daughter and a few treats for our next road trip. I'm not sure what I will do with the other costume, but it was too good to pass up.

So I guess the moral of the story is to follow the road signs and to remember that thrift stores run off of donations so you never know what you will find!

Survey Says...

At the beginning of the summer, I signed up with several on-line survey companies. They send me daily emails and I fill out surveys on-line and I earn credit towards gift cards and sometimes cash. For one of the companies I earn money towards my daughter's U Promise account.

My hope was to earn enough money to be able to purchase all of my Christmas gifts using the gift cards I earned. Well it has not been as easy as I had hoped. I have been slowly earning points, but often spend a lot of time filing out a survey only to be told that I do not qualify for the survey.

I have however been able to test products at home and fill out surveys, seen alternate endings to movies, and also seen new advertising for products. I have already slowed down or stopped surveys from specific companies because I never seem to qualify and have found others that were "more effective."

Several weeks ago, a friend of mine introduced me to Swag bucks. This web-site is a search engine and by using this web-site to search for things, I earn "Swag bucks" which I can redeem for "swag" such as gift cards, and music, clothing, etc. If I were to refer someone to this site and they began using it, I would earn Swag bucks when they did. But I have not been able to find anyone to sign up. I guess it sounds to good to be true. In some ways it is, you earn points towards merchandise for nothing. I guess they benefit from my searches somehow, but in the meantime, I am earning Swag bucks so I can help myself towards having a free Christmas.

Rain Check Please

Ok, I admit it, I am probably the lady you do not want to get behind in line at the grocery store. I bring my own bags, have tons of coupons, and almost always have a rain check to redeem. I love to get rain checks, if it is on sale and the store does not have the item, then I will get a rain check for my next visit.

I only go to the grocery store once a week, period, I do not go back during the same sale week. So when the Customer Service Person tells me that a truck is coming in that night or the next day and the item should be available, it makes no difference to me. I shop once a week, I do not go back to pick up something I missed. That can be a very costly trip to the store! Once I did go back to the store to get some milk for the baby and stupidly took my husband in with me- several pastries, doughnuts, and $35 later, I came out with the milk and several bags of groceries. ( I realize I probably got off easy too!)

A lot of the time, I find that the particular item I am looking for is not in stock for several weeks. My store honors its' rain checks for 30 days and if the item does not get restocked during that time, they will gladly extend the life of my rain check.

On August 4th, I got a rain check for Quorn Veggie Crumbles ("fake" hamburger meat) on sale for $3.99. They have not had it since then. This week when I went to the store they did have it and luckily I had 3 coupons as well! So I bought 5 packages and asked for my rain check back since technically, it is for 10 packages. The cashier told me they could not do it, I explained that the store commonly does this and has done it for me in the past.

So of course we involve the shift supervisor who comes and tells me that the cashiers have been getting in trouble for giving back rain checks and that the managers no longer allow this. So I said, "What if you give me another rain check instead? You can keep the old one and give me a new one to use the next time I come."

The Shift supervisor agreed, that would solve the problem of the cashier needing the rain check in her drawer and still allowing me to pick up more items for the rain check price in the future.

Except, the theory was flawed on their part, technically the rain check is for 10 items, I bought 5 and asked that I get the original rain check back so I could buy 5 more later. Instead they gave me a brand new rain check which technically is for 10 more at the sale price.

I did not purposely try to confuse the shift manager, I really did just want to get 5 more later. But I will use the rain check to my advantage and get 10 the next time. Besides 5 + 5 = 15 right?

20 Cents An Ounce

My husband and I took in a MLB baseball game the other night. Before the game started it was pretty hot and we were feeling pretty dehydrated, we needed some water and fast! So we purchased a 20 ounce bottle of water from the vendor for $4.00!

Because it was so hot, we ended up buying four bottles of water for a total of $16.00. Now I understand that MLB needs to pay for salaries and new stadiums, but on really hot days, you'd think they would offer water for less to help keep the fans hydrated. Ok, I'd like to think that they would consider it.

I saw that a few fans had brought in bags of food as well as coolers. Believe me, if I had known that both were acceptable, I would have definitely brought in a cooler full of water and snacks!! We had traveled quite a distance to the game and I had packed sandwiches for the trip, so I had a soft cooler with me. For that price, I probably could have bought a cooler!

I did the math and figured that we paid 20 cents an ounce for the water. It sounds a lot better than saying we spent $16.oo on four bottles of water!

Know Me, Know Thy Coupons

Yesterday I went to the grocery store for my weekly shopping trip. I had spent the evening before planning my trip and pulling coupons. The store was having a buy 10 -- save $5 promotion. I had used information from other blogs as to which items were included in this sale. Some of the information was not the same, but I managed to find other items to save money on.

One of the items that was on sale, that I did not know about was Fruity Cherios. Both of my kids (that's the toddler and the hubby) love these and they NEVER go on sale. The fact that there was not a single box left is evidence that they never go on sale!

I went to customer service to get a rain check for the cereal. I had written down all of the information for the rain check and delivered it to the employee. In order to get the special price, you have to buy 10, so I told the employee that I would buy 10 and that she could write that on the rain check. She told me there was no need to do that because she trusted me and knew that I would buy all 10 and "have coupons for every box I bought."

So I guess the people who work at the store where I shop regularly know me and know my coupons.

Toddler Bed Part II

After the fiasco of the toddler bed a few weeks ago, my daughter would climb out of the crib everyday after her nap or while I was trying to get her to nap. So while on vacation, the hubby and I agreed we would bite the bullet and bring out the toddler bed for good and take apart the crib. (with much sadness on our part acknowledging that our baby is not a baby)

This morning we disassembled the crib and brought the toddler bed into my daughter's room. She was very excited and climbed all over it and jumped on the bed. We decided to take her to the park as we do most Sunday mornings and she told us that she wanted to take a nap in the big girl bed. This was a good sign.

After lunch, I took her to her room to prepare for the nap. Climbing in and out, half in- half out, sitting, laying down, laying on her back with her legs on the wall, and other types of constant movement occurred while I sat nearby in the chair reading. After 45 minutes, I stepped in and applied the "mom techniques" that are known to put her to sleep. Five minutes later she was asleep!

She slept for 2 hours and woke up cranky so I did a little cuddling and she fell back asleep for another 1.5 hours. Could it be she is so tired from vacation or is the toddler bed just magical? I'm going with magical!

Pringles Argh!

We had a great vacation and managed to eat within most of our budget. We did run into a snag when we arrived at the Beach. It was about 1 pm and we decided to head on and not stop for lunch since we were so close to the final destination. I thought that there was a restaurant on the island and we could grab lunch there. Well, I was wrong, no restaurant, we had to go back over the one lane bridge. The traffic was heavy and with a hungry toddler we needed to act fast.

We decided to stop at the Market on the island to grab something for lunch. This is the only market or place to buy food on the entire island (with the exception of the ice cream store). I should have known what we were in for! We got three sandwiches and a couple other things as well as a can of $3.50 can of Pringles !! Our quick trip to the Market set us back $42! Convenience costs! In comparison we went to the grocery store the next day and shopped off of my list and got groceries for $75!

Stockpiler's Nightmare

Today I began packing for our trip to the beach. We are renting a house with the rest of my family. So we will be cooking all three meals and have to bring all of our essentials with us. Space in the car is a concern so I have to be careful as to what I pack, I can't bring everything so I will need to shop at the grocery store in the area when I arrive... this is the stockpiler's nightmare.

What exactly is the nightmare? Going to a grocery store without doing any research, having to buy things not on sale and also without a coupon. But even more of a nightmare is forgetting something and having to buy something at the store that I have stockpiled at home. For instance, my husband forgot to bring his toothbrush on our recent trip to New York. Of course I have about 5 toothbrushes at home that were purchased for next to nothing! Argh, so I headed over to Duane Reede and purchase him a store brand toothbrush for $14.50, ok maybe it was more like $2.79, but it really irked me!

So maybe I will try do some research and see what the local grocery store has on sale and do my coupon match-ups before I go to the store. But maybe, just maybe I will just go and grin and bear it and share the cost of groceries with my sister and mom. At least I can convince myself that the actual cost for groceries is less when split three ways!

But I know for sure that I am packing a toothbrush for the hubby! :)

The new bed

Today I tried to introduce the toddler bed to my 2 1/2 year old daughter. I should have known that it probably was not the best day to try it out since our adventure at the park was so trying. There was some crying and a little defiance but a little fun as well.

So I should not have been surprised when I brought out the "big girl" bed and her eyes lit up. Little did I know that she was thinking, "my own bed to jump on." Yes, the decision to let her jump and play in mommy and daddy's bed has backfired on us. I tried to get her to lay down in the bed or even just stay in the bed neither worked. My patience was already thin from the park adventure so I decided to take the bed away and try later.

I put her in the crib and went to take a shower. I got out of the shower and heard a strange noise from her room. I opened the door to find her playing OUTSIDE of the crib. Argh. Daddy to the rescue..

I guess we will try the bed again on another day.

Failed Contest

Well, I only made it one week in the contest. It would have been a lot easier to do if it was not in the middle of summer and vacations. Not only did we take a trip to DC for a baseball game and eat 2 meals out- we went to NYC for a few days. This made it impossible to stay on budget.

I am still trying to save money in other ways and use my coupons and sale match-ups each week in planning. This past week, chicken breasts were on sale so I stocked up. I bought 10 packages of chicken ranging from 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 lbs. I then spent the next few days cooking all of the chicken except two packages. I froze the breasts in baggies. The cooked chicken is in the process of being diced and frozen for future meals. It is time consuming and I really don't love chopping chicken, but it does save me a lot of time when cooking during the week. I should have enough chicken to last me through the end of the year or close. So the fact that I have bought almost all of my chicken for the year, means I will be saving a lot on money in groceries each week, since I will not be buying any meat.

I may pick up a few packages of Quorn veggie crumbles for beef recipes. Which, by the way they have been running coupons for $1.25 off- so I will be stocking up and searching for those coupons since it is a product I know I will use. I may even consider purchasing them, because a)my family loves this products and b)this product almost never goes on sale and c)it's a great coupon.

I used 1/2 bag of the Quorn veggie crumbles for dinner tonight. We had Chilli Mac skillet. This is a very easy meal and all of the ingredients are all things I have stockpiled: can of pinto beans, can of tomatos, a can of tomato sauce, 1/2 bag of Quorn veggie crumbles, and of course cheese!