Long Time But I'm Still Saving Money!!

Here's the picture from Thanksgiving but I don't think I'll have a picture of all the stuff from the Dec 21 & 22nd shopping! CVS was giving away the store! On the Thanksgiving Day shopping trips I bought all this for under $4 dollars! I got tons of candy for a Christmas gift that I was making for friends and family. The candy bars are for my MIL and there's also a baby's 1st Christmas ornament. A fish aquarium (really cool - I think Rain will love!) Lip stick, razor, Dove facial cleaner, cookies, contact cleaner, and 2 pretty purses with lotions attached. I think I did pretty good that day.

Then today (& yesterday) I bought tons of stuff for pennies on the dollars PLUS they gave me tons of ECB's back. An ECB is CVS money that you can use at CVS just like money, so if they have an item like they did this Sunday & Monday for LOreal make-up for 6.99 with an 6.99 ECB printing and I happen to have a $2 off coupon - it's like they are paying me to take their make-up off their hands!! I say sure, no problem. I got tons of stuff for next to nothing.

I hope you all have been reading up on how to do your deals and steals - workin' the system with either IHeartCVS.com or SouthernSavers.com (or even CouponMom.com). They are all great help in making CVS work for you. Just do a little reading and start out with small items and work your way up.

Normally CVS is an expensive little store but if you know how to shop there you can really make out!!

May you all have a blessed Christmas!

Huge Giveaway on The Centsible Sawyer

$500 Yes, you are reading that right, can you believe it?!?!?!? $500 Who couldn't use $500 dollars right about now? Even if Christmas wasn't just 2 weeks away - oh my gosh, it's only two weeks away folks!!

Anyways go on over and check out Denise's site - I'm not sure when it's over but prolly soon!! It's over on Monday the 15th so you have time!! She has some great ideas for helping you save money!

Cool (easy) rebate coming up!!

CVS will be having some really good deals the week of the 21st thru the 27th and if you can get two newspapers this weekend (& possibly for the next little bit at least) you can get work on getting something really cool: A bonus coupon book from P&G worth $120!! It has tons of coupons in the booklet they will send you - most are worth $1 and over. You have to buy $50 worth of products during a month and a half and there's lots of different products in the list of items that qualify as P&G products.

When I read the fine details I couldn't tell if you had to buy the $50 worth of P&G products all on one receipt (which wouldn't have been so great but somewhat doable at CVS) but I emailed them and they were very nice and emailed me back and said No, it doesn't have to be on one receipt!! So save those receipts dated from 12/14/2008 and 1/31/2009!!

Go to: http://www.pgeverydaysolutions.com/pgeds/en_US/jsp/EDS_Page.jsp?pageID=Year-of-Savings for all the details and a list of the products and the rebate form that you have to mail in with your receipt(s).

Some of their products that qualify:

• Febreze
• Old Spice
• Secret
• Charmin
• Luvs
• Pampers
• Puffs
• Duracell
• Camay
• Ivory
• Olay
• Zest
• CoverGirl
• Always
• Tampax
• Dawn
• Joy
• Head & Shoulders
• Pantene
• Herbal Essences
• Clairol
• Bounty
• Mr Clean
• Swiffer
• Cheer
• Era
• Gain
• Tide
• Gillette

Okay, I know that you are gonna go shopping sometime in the next week or two and I'm sure that most of the products on the list are things you usually buy anyways, so keep your receipts!

Have a blessed day - sorry I've been slack lately!!!

e-coupons I think I love you!!

Okay so yesterday I had to go up to Fort Wayne and I've been doing some shopping while I'm up there cas they have some stores up there that we don't have in our little ole hick town here. And I saw my first negative amount on the cash register!! Holy Cow that is an awesome site!!! It was minus 31 cents - I hadn't planned on a negative amount so wasn't prepared for it and I just grabbed DH's favorite candy bar to get back over to postive! I paid 23 cents!!

The only “bad” thing was is that the store I went to (Kroger/Scott) is split up into two different stores - the pharamacy stuff (shampoo, body soap/ wash) is in a different building so I could have gotten a way better deal but I’m not complaining!! For both "trips" I got:

• 2 Reddi Wips
• 2 GG Vegs
• 2 Cottenelle TPs
• block of cheese
• candy bar
• 2 Olay Ribbons body washes (the second "store") 55 cents

all this stuff for 78 cents!! (I could have gotten it all minus the candy for I think 24 cents, tax is sometimes hard to figure. )

this is the trip stash:

Go to SouthernSavers and she'll tell you all about Kroger stores and all about e-coupons that you "load" onto your Kroger card. You can totally save big time and "double dip" so to speak like I did. You get overage this way by using your paper coupons with the e-coupons. Have a blessed day!

Help for Couponing and Shopping!

This site has got lots of info and this link below has lots of different stores listed out for you - one may be near you!! It's a great resource for finding different blogs that will teach you how to get the best deal at your particular store. (Or you can click the image to go to the home page.)

My closest stores are: Marsh, Lances, Aldi's, & Wal-Mart. Oh and now we have a Meijers Store here in town - got love the competion for (against?) Wal-Mart!! - Meijers doubles coupons so I'll go there before I go to Wally World now! Meijers prices are in line with Wal-Marts. Also I go to Fort Wayne every once in a while, there's a Kroger up there and I can check Southern Savers for what deals to pick up while I'm there! Food for Free!! Gotta love that!

http://www.becentsable.net/Default.aspx?pageId=331691 - This has the "local" stores in the list (Aldi, Marsh, Kroger, Meijer, Fry's, Jewel-Osco, etc).

http://www.becentsable.net/Default.aspx?pageId=331690 - This has the "national" stores (CVS, Walmart, Target, etc) on this list.

Have a wonderful day!

My Fav's for Marsh:
http://bargainbriana.com/category/marsh/
http://ingoodcents.blogspot.com/search/label/Marsh

My Fav's for Meijer:
http://ingoodcents.blogspot.com/search/label/Meijer
http://bargainbriana.com/category/meijer/
http://www.thecheapsk8mom.com/search/label/Grocery%20Gathering

My Fav's for Kroger:
http://ingoodcents.blogspot.com/search/label/Kroger
http://www.southernsavers.com/category/kroger/
http://www.thriftyandchicmom.com/search/label/Kroger

My Fav's for WalMart:
http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/search/label/Walmart%20Deals
http://www.dealseekingmom.com/category/walmart-deals/

All around Fav's: http://www.thecheapsk8mom.com/

Free Stuff

Free Dr Pepper - call 1-888-DRPEPPER to request your coupon. Guns and Roses finally made their record. Only good (yesterday &) today and their website has been down for the last 2 days because of this free coupon! Call asap!!

Win a Free Ergo Baby Carrier Embroidered Organic Hands Free System. Submit your entry by midnight on December 15, 2008.

http://www.alongfortheride.biz/Win-a-Free-Organic-Embroidered-Ergo-Baby-Carrier-s/49.htm

Free Bertolli Sauce: http://www.condenet.com/promo/bertolli/sweeps/saucegiveaway/entry/long/

Black Friday Info Sites: tgiblackfriday.com, Black-Friday.net, BlackFridayCentral.com, or BlackFriday.Info.

Also I'm thinking of doing most of my Christmas shopping by way of the Internet and have been reading a lot about Ebates.com - go check it out if you do a lot of online shopping. Get money back for shopping online! And finally I read that Visa is doing some great deals too (free shipping & money off, etc): http://www.lifetakesvisa.com/

Happy Shopping! And get your free stuff now!!

Black Friday?

Well I never do Black Friday (http://www.black-friday.net/) but this year since I've gotten back into the whole coupon thing (btw, yes, I'm back from the black hole of cleaning up my computer - thanks for asking :-) I thought that I might do some Black Friday shopping - as long as I can save money in the long run, cas I really hate the early hours they always seem to have and I hate the crowds!!!!!! But it'd be worth it if I could get some good deals for Christmas and be almost done with my shopping all in one day... hmmm, something to think about.

I always try to keep a pretty tight hold on the wallet for Christmas but I've been hearing of some pretty good deals to be had, so I just might try it out this year. And last year one of my DD's best friends made out like a bandit on some great deals - I was sooo jealous.

Also I was reading MoneySavingMethods.com (http://moneysavingmethods.blogspot.com/2008/11/what-to-buy-for-christmas-gifts.html) and she has found out some of the places that will be closing up shop (Sharper Image, Linen and Things) after the new year for all you folks that like to buy gift cards and also for anyone that gets a gift card - check out her site to see how quickly you'll have to spend that card!! You don't want to waste your money or throw away someone else's money!!

Do you all know of some places that you'll be going to get your Christmas gifts this year? How are you going to be saving money this year as opposed to last year or are you one of the few that will be able to spend more this Christmas than last year?

I did find a couple cute ideas for some far away friends (I like to get unusual gifts that are small for shipping purposes):

• http://www.teroforma.com/istar.asp?a=6&id=00331!VTSOA - Stone Ice cubes (I know it sounds weird but oh so "cool" for that person that's hard to find a gift for!!)


• http://www.kingarthurflour.com/shop/detail.jsp?select=C78&byCategory=C1005&id=2339HZLNUT - Sonoma Syrup, yummy


• http://www.tazachocolate.com/thegoods.php - chocolate

Okay tell me some of your favs for mailing to far away friends and family! And don't forget to give me your ideas for Black Friday!!

There are nice people online!!

My computer was down for 2 days. I didn't know that Spybot wasn't uploading the newer version of the program itself when it did it's daily updates. If you use Spybot this is something to think about and change asap!! My computer has never crashed in the ten or so years I've been online and I've helped others when their machines have gotten all junked up with spyware or gotten virus' but when mine wouldn't let me log in I was stumped.

So I took out my old laptop and hit the search button :-) and found a great site that a guy named Dan (blindwolf8) has. He is such a nice guy! Here's his site if you ever have this logon/logoff problem, he's got the steps to fix it all laid out nice and neat! http://thinkinginpixels.com/quick-fixes/ Plus on top of it all he let me call him and bug him when I got stuck on a step - how nice is that?!? It took way, way longer to find the solution to the problem than to actually fix the problem but it's scary when you turn your machine on and it just hangs there and won't let you logon!

Why people waste their time making spyware and virus' is beyond me but thank you God there are still nice guys around that will take the time to help a complete stranger!!! He didn't know me from Jack! He's going to school for his masters and I think that he's into gaming... I hope he goes far cas he deserves it!

Have a wonderful day,

Christmas Ornament Exchange

So one of my favorite blog writers is having this really neat Ornament Exchange. I think it's a great idea to meet some other blog friends and to be able to send off and receive a cool new ornament for Christmas! If you want to join up, I think today is the last day to sign up!! Click on the banner to go to her site!

Apparently her husbands family does it and now her family is doing it. What a cool tradition. Plus you don't have to think too hard about what to buy for the Christmas exchange and you can put the whole Christmas buying up the store (& putting yourself in debt) on hold!!

My DD and I have been exchanging Christmas pins with each other since she was born (of course those first couple of years I got to pick out my own :-) but now we have quite a few. With DGD being here I wonder if she will continue our little tradition on? What's your family Christmas tradition?

Long Day - Gilead and Computer problems

Well last nite was the Gilead Ministries annual banquet and it was wonderful. We had a Christian ventriliquist (sp?), David Pendleton from Indy (& his beautiful wife Lynda came along too). He was really good and even had a little comparison between his puppets and our life without God. It was a great show! He is super nice and really good - so funny!! And we had almost 600 people there. One of our highest turnouts! I didn't yet hear today if the giving was one of the highest also but even if it wasn't, to God be the Glory cas our little ole town is not doing so great. I know lots of people are hurting in these tough times but apparently our town is one of the Forbes worst towns in the USA. (We've lost a lot of factories in the last ten yrs or so and are losing another one in the next few months.) So sad... But the city always seem to try so hard to help out Gilead. Our friends of Gilead really know that they are helping people when they really need it.

I didn't get down to the Gilead office today cas .... BOOHOO, I got my first virus ever in my main computer (almost 10 yrs online). I should have known that something was up (my Zone Alarm was acting hinky) and I did something really stupid - I did a reboot cas it was running slow and I had uploaded all the pix from the banquet before it crashed, so now no pictures til I figure out my machine!!! It's doing the login/logoff thing - not letting me get into the machine. I've started the process of searching the net for the fix. (I do have a laptop and can at least try and find the problem online with it but it is a hassle.)

I have spybot on it and apparently it's something that they have known about but haven't really told their users about... oh well live and learn! Plus I hate reading my email anywhere else but on my regular machine.... I may have to just bite the bullet tho with that! I'm 'jones' for my email!!

Hope your day is better than mine,

Rain Pictures!!

This is Rain with her big "sister" Kahlua. Don't they look cute!?! I can't believe that Kuie is bigger than Rain! Better late than never - I finally got a picture from DD of Rain in her Halloween outfit.

This is a picture of when Rain was just born - mom, dad and baby Rain's hands.

And this is just the cutest little one ever... thanks for letting me brag some more!!!

Have a blessed day,

Savings

So I've been couponing for about 6 or 7 months now and today earlier I was writing out the bills and checking over the check book. DH ask me how much is in it, I tell him. He ask me to repeat it cas he just can't believe that is what is still in the check book after writing all the bills. He asks me if I remembered to write the house payment, "Yes, dear." "That can't be right!" "It's right." It goes like this a few more times back and forth until he gets it that I've really been slashing the bills with this couponing thing. Like no more $200 at wally world every couple of weeks (sometimes once a month if we really streched it). Now-a-days I've been there maybe 3 times in the last 6 months & only spending maybe $10 bucks! and one time I just went with my DD when she was getting ready for her baby shower. But can you believe it? We haven't touched our stimulus checks yet. And all of our cc's are paid off and we have money in the bank. God is Good!!

Thinking

Note to self (found on web): Simply, until you fear God and weigh him most heavily in your life, you will remain an undisciplined fool.

Don't like to think of myself as a fool.... I want to Fear God - I want to have Him be the weight in my life. I find myself thinking of fluff - I am a fool.

---

I found this blog today: http://theologyforwomen.blogspot.com/ wow it's good stuff!!

Wanna Dance?

For all the political people out there, enjoy:

Now doesn't that make you wanna dance? And maybe... vote?

Wonderful Wednesday - Pictures

I just wanted to put in some new pictures of Rain - she's such a cutie and I also had some pictures of the trees changing colors. I found a couple that just were awesome looking.

Rain is sleeping so peacefully in mom's arms.


I remember holding DD this exact way when she was little and DD wanted a picture of Rain sleeping and I didn't want to use the flash so it's a bit dark but she's so cute!!

And my two little princess' - they are just so precious!!! I happen to catch this just at the right time! DD's best friend (awesome photographer) was over earlier in the evening and she took a bunch of pictures that I can't wait to see.

Okay - enough gushing!!! - now on to some pretty trees around town changing colors - this is the only thing that makes the coming of winter be somewhat okay in my mind!!!! (I don't know if you can click on the images to make them a bit bigger but they do look better bigger.)

The tree below - I took the picture cas it looked funny - like pompoms - the leaves changing color and then the next week I took another picture just to see the difference.

The next week's picture of the tree (very gloomy day). I wonder what it will look like next week?



Have a blessed day,

Just a lazy day & some thoughts

So I was supose to do stuff today.... and I didn't.

What I did do? I played on the net... and with Twitter. So I added it to the page. But really what's it going to do that I don't already do with the blog? And I don't expect to be arrested any time soon, so no exciting twitter to say that way but I did it. Just like I have a MySpace page and the blog and a couple other techie things that I "should" have. But sometimes it feels like information overload!!

I did just find another place that makes all these pages into one page (you have weidgets on the page so that you "save time" by just going to that one page). I don't know if that is a good idea or not - I'll check it out, you can too: http://www.netvibes.com/ It seems like it might be a good thing to try and keep all the different things together. We'll see!

By the way, I read a great saying earlier today on Kate McD's blog: “If one bad trauma can alter someone’s life forever, then why couldn’t one good experience do the same?” Isn't that awesome? But it's so sad that so many people don't take the time to try to do this. My pastor at my church - God's House - just finished up a series on getting dirty and it totally went with her posting. So many people don't want to get dirty with others "dirt" that we don't get involved in their lives and they lose out on everything and we lose out on a blessing. I've been trying to figure out where I need to get dirtier (is that a word? or am I just that bad of a speller? :-) and I haven't quite figured it out yet but it was super inspiring to read how Kate gets "dirty!"

Have a blessed day,

More Pictures of Rain

Little Rain looking up at Poppa. Rain's first car trip - she's going home from the hospital.
Tom holding little Rain (Dustin trying to get a little nap in the background.)
Okay that's all for now - hopefully soon I'll have a few more - boy I just can't get enough cute pictures of this little adorable bundle of joy!! But it's hard to take a picture when you can't stop holding her and loving on her!!!!
Have a blessed day!!

Wishing for Virginia Magazines

I coupon and I coupon a lot!! But I get great deals. Last night I bought tons of stuff (two packages of Huggie diapers for only .63 cents plus there was a package of Huggie wipes in that transaction too!!) but I'm wanting more of this certain type of coupon and I don't have it. One is called the Richmond Parents Monthly and the other is Fifty Plus.

I don't know anyone in the Virginia/ Central Virginia area including greater Richmond Charlottesville and Fredericksburg's areas so I was wondering if any of you have seen these magazines? Did you know that they had a little piece of gold in them? Check out my deals or check out a couple of the links to the left or right - you can save money like crazy too!

And if any of you happen to know where you can get your hands on these and would like to send me one (some) - let's talk, I can send you postage!

Herd Mentality

So every once in a while I hear a term or a word that strikes me and it repeats itself over & over during a certain timeframe. This past few days it's been Herd Mentality. I seem to see or hear or read it all over. I'm reading (slowly) Mere Christianity (first time - I know, I can't believe I haven't read it before either!) and I saw some nature show and I heard some news program talking about the economy - they all mentioned Herd Mentality. I just think it's weird.... Does this ever happen to you? Is it God telling me something? I have a feeling that I haven't been listening very well lately but I have been talking to Him a lot lately - thanking Him for the beautiful gift of Rain!

Have a blessed day!