What is a monkeybox?

When I was a little girl, we had a pet monkey named Amanda. My Dad worked in the produce business, so each night he brought home that days culls in a big box - spotty cucumbers, pithy apples, limp celery, moldy oranges and the like. We called it a monkeybox. It was really just trash, but my Mom would take each piece of fruit and trim it, pare it and cut it up to make a beautiful fruit platter for Amanda. Even though it was deemed trash by one, it still had life left in it and was good for the purpose we needed it. That's how I live my life - thrifting, yard saling, looking for another's trash to be my treasure.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Big Amazon $5.29 Toy Sale

Amazon is having a huge toy sale with all prices at $5.29 right now. Plus many have free shipping too! Scroll through the different categories and look for any items that have the FREESHIPPING icon bleow them. I have ordered about 12 items this week. My most recent find was a $39.99 Imaginex Pirate Playset for $5.29. I will donate most of these at Christmas to our local Angel Tree. I will keep a few for summertime boredom busters for DS too.

I stumbled on another deal at Amazon this week, but it is now ended. It was only good for a few short hours. I got the Pixter Mulit-Media, an X-Games Video Rom, a Nickelodeon Video-Rom and a Magnetix Building set shippied to my house for a grand total of $26.86. The Pixter was $89.99 on sale for $49.99 with a $40.00 code plus the ROM's were on sale for $10.00 each. The prices have dropped on the ROM's so I just emailed Amazon and asked for a price adjustment. If you order something and find the price lower within 30 days, they will credit you the difference. Amazon ROCKS! I should be getting a refund of $15.28 making my grand total for all those items only $11.55. That is a DEAL! DS is playing with the Pixter right now and loves it. Yesterday was the last day of school (last day of Elementary School - Wah!) so it made a great gift for him.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/browse/-/14264441/ref=amb_right-1_171301801_1/103-5679489-6177414

Here's the link to take you right to the deals!

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

As I have said before, my son is my dealhunting buddy. He has been raised at thrift stores, yard sales and auctions. He knows if he wants Brand XYZ cereal, Mom needs to have a coupon or we aren't buying it. I know he's always with me, but I just hadn't ralized how much he was paying attention.

School is out for the summer on Friday so they are bringing home all their folders and papers. He brought home his Journal yesterday so I read it. He has his own "Deal of the Day" blog going! ONe entry said, "This wekeend we went to the moveis and out to eat for FREE". That was the weekend I had free Chick-fil-A sandwich coupons and free movie passes. He also wrote about finding his Gameboy for $1.00 at a yard sale. He also wrote a lengthy list of all the things we bought for $5.00 at the "all you can stuff in a box" sale at a local church. Another entry was about searching for misplaced bags of candy after Easter at Target - "We bought 27 bags of candy" he wrote. His teacher must think I am a looney bin!

So, watch what you do and how you do it - your kids ARE watching (and learning)!

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

25,000 FREE Books- Oh MY!

Recently on Freecycle I saw a post offering over 25,000 FREE books. They are out in a barn in a small town about 15 miles away. I've been pretty busy lately and haven't had time to go check it out. But, this weekend, DS and I drove out to see if anything was left.



*Signs on the highway marked the way to the FREE books.

Goodness! There are still thousands of boooks with boxes piled up 15 feet tall still full. Those are reserved and will be opened later after more of the original books have disappeared.



*Note - that is not my behind on the headless woman.

There were a lot of textbooks. I picked up four each of all the new unused textbooks I could find to list on Amazon this fall. We also found a new DVD, a box of filmstrips and cassette tapes and boxes of teacher's resource materials for the science books. I've only just started looking them up, but one of the science books goes for about $17.00, so that alone was worth the trip (I have four copies).



We ended up bringing home about 50 books. Found some books for myself and DS picked out some encyclopedias and some science books. It was just a lot of fun to see all those books and know you could have any and all that you wanted. DS is used to thrift store and yard sale prices, but FREE really intirgued him. And he does love books.

Monday, May 08, 2006

Little Deals Are Everywhere!

Last week at the grocery store I noticed that the ice cream is now in new flat looking containers. Then I noticed a shelf of the old round containers. Then I noticed the $1.00 price tags on them! Load 'em up! Luckily we have a big freezer and now have a lot of ice cream to last us through the rest of the year!

Saturday I found a deal on Photo Processing at Walgreens. They had a Cinco De Mayo special for five 5" x 7" prints for 5¢ each. I registered and downloaded my photos. They give you your first 20 prints for FREE. So, I ended up getting 20 free prints plus the five 5" x 7" prints for 25¢. Today I registed DH and he is getting 20 free prints too. I had them printed at my local Walgreen's and picked them up. This is a good deal for me since it is right down the street.

When we went to pick up the prints, DS hinted around and the candy bars. They are 59¢. I noticed three lonely chocolate bunnies sitting on a shelf for 12¢ each. So, he got a chocolate bunny instead of a cnady bar!

This morning I noticed a kid's table by the neighbor's trash. It was red with four legs that each looked like a pencil with eraser feet. It was very cute and like brand new. I gave it to my friend's six year old son for his room.

Went to IGA for milk this afternoon and noticed HUGE houseplants and ferns where on sale for $4.88. They had been $15.88 and I was too cheap to buy one at that price. But, hey for $4.88 - get in the cart!

So, that is my week of deals. Nothing huge or great - but little deals do add up!

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