Well, I said I didn't take part in the Black Friday hub bub. I lied. Sort of. DH volunteered to go to Wal-Mart at 4:00 am yesterday. He got four things that I wanted for Christmas gifts. Well, one thing was for me. They wer all good deals. Good enough to talk about here but not to go into too deeply because the recipients of those gifts ready my blog. (Yes, YOU, Mumsie).

DS and I ventured out late in the day - about 2:00. Wal-Mart still had pallets of a lot of the early morning specials left. I got a mini slow cooker for $4.24, but nothing else.

There is a Christmas parade in a neighboring town today. If we go i will squeeze in a visit to the Dollar Shop (lots of name brand good stuff for $1.00) and maybe the Salvation Army. Tomorrow, I am hosting a full blown Thanksgiving Dinner (although it is three days past Thanksgiving) for my family. The 18¢ turkey will be cooked.

Hint of the Day: Get your husband to go shoping early so you can sleep in. Just kidding. Take a chance and go shopping a bit later after the crowds have subsided and you still might get a deal or two.

Happy Turkey Day.

On my way to family outings today I had to stop at Walgreen's to pick up some cough syrup and Musinex for this nastly little case of Bronchitis that is plaguing me. Anyway, while DS looked at Christmas items, I looked through the Ad. I noticed Russell Stover's Boxed Chocolates were on sale for $3.99. They retail for $7.99. I had some $2.00 off coupons for the Sugar Free Chocolates. So, I got two boxes and checked out. The checker had trouble getting them to scan correctly, but she fixed it and was nice about it. (I hate snide comments about coupon usage.) I think it was beeping because I had bought the Sugar Free variety. The ad said, "Any $7.99 Boxed Chocolates." It didn't say you COULD get Sugar Free, but it also did not say that you could NOT get Sugar Free. Anyway, $16.00 worth of chocolates for my diabeic Step-Father for a total of $3.98. Oh crap - does he read this blog?

HInt of the Day: All varieties of an iem SHOULD be on sale, so don't be afraid to ask if it is on sale.

Thanksgiving is in two days, which means the "Black Friday" is the next day. Low priced merchandise, gift card give-aways, free items to the "first 500", Buy One Get One Free items, etc. Sounds like something I, the "Deal of the Day Diva" would be all over - right? Wrong. I do NOT go shopping the day after Thanskgiving. In fact, much of my Holiday shopping has been complete for months. I shop all year long buy checking the internet for sales and then add coupon codes of free shipping to make it a deal like no other. I have about $500.00 worth of brand new toys for Toys 4 Tots - and I didn't pay more that $5.29 for any of them. Most of them were at least $29.99 and I got them on Amazon this summer during their big toy sale. I paid $5.29 each for everything and got free shipping to boot. Why go out and fight the crowds, when the UPS man can bring it right to your door for LESS money???

Hint of the Day: If you do venture out on Firday, take some mace and a sharp pointed instrument to protect you from the other bargain hunters. "I found it FIRST!" Good Luck!

I bought my Thanksgiving turkey today. Dilon's had them for 50% off with a $10.00 purchase. Bought three bags of Lay's chips for $5.00 and got a free 12 pk. of Pepsi with a coupon. Also bought four cans of Mandarin Oranges on sale for $1.00 each - used a 50¢ off 2 can coupon that doubled bringing my cost to $2.00 for four cans. Let's see - that's $7.50. Also bought four jars of Vlassic pickles on sale for $2.00 each - used four 75¢ coupons that doubled up to $1.00 - making each jar $1.00 each. So, that's my $10.00 purchase requirement for the half price turkey. I found a nice fat 21 pound turkey for $10.18. When I got home, I received a trade for a form for a $10.00 refund on a turkey. Budweiser has great forms offering cash rebates with NO BEER PURCHASE requuired on every day purchaes like deli items, party items, turkey, poinsettia's, gift wrap, summer grilling items, etc. I just received a $20.00 check for chicken the other day.

So, final cost for my Thanks giving turkey? 18¢. How 'bout YOU?

I volunteered at school today working in the library at the Book Fair. DH was off work today so I suggested he volunteer too. We worked 2 hours each. We sold over $800.00 worth of books in two hours. For our time, Scholastic gave us each a $6.00 credit to spend on books. So, that is $12.00. They asked me to work a couple of hours in the morning too, so I will get another $6.00 credit. That doesn't sound like much, I know. But, that's $18.00 credit and that will get my son one very nice book for a Christmas present. He has his eye on a $20.00 book, but he knows I am too cheap to buy it. He will be thrilled when he finds it under the tree. And, it will only end up costing me $2.00!

Since I am working in the morning, I will be dressed and ready to hit the thrift in the next town over and then hit the double coupon store for a few Thanksgiving Dinner essentials. I need a bigger turkey now that I am hosting Thanksgiving. I stock up on a lot of items this time of year while they are on sale. I buy a lot of flour, sugar, nuts, almond bark, canned fruit (mandarin oranges specifically) and other baking supplies now while coupons are plentiful and the advertised prices are lower. I don't do a lot of baking, but getting flour and sugar cheap now allows me to be able to bake whenever I want to without having to go buy everything at once.

Stay tuned for my After Christmas shopping list - I buy SO much after Christmas to be used all year long. They practically give the stuff away - so I think of reasons to buy it all. For instance, we have been using Chrsitmas paper towels since last year when I found rolls of Mardi Gras Paper towels reduced to 12¢ a roll. That is 8 rolls for a dollar! I bought two cases!

Hint of the day: Stock up now while it's Cheap!

I stocked up on pop, chips and dip for the upcoming holiday festivities last week. Dillon's had a number of offers in their Ad using their Shopper's Card and the Pepsi/Frito Lay products had coupons on them too. Since some items counted on the receipt and were automatically deducted - I was able to use a coupon on top of those discounts.

An advertised special was buy two 24 packs of Pepsi Procducts and get three 2 lt. bottles of Pepsi Products FREE. The 24 pks. were $5.00 each so I spent $10.00. Then we found a coupon - Buy three Frito lay products and get a free 12 pk. The Chips were on sale for $2.00 each so I spent $6.00. And then I spotted a deal using my Shopper's Card to save $2.00 on a Tostino Dip when you buy two Tostino Products. Since I had bought two Tostino chips to meet the requirement for the free 12 pk. I used that coupon to deduct $2.00 on the dip which was on sale for $2.27. So, the dip cost us 27¢. And then I spotted one more coupon offering Buy One Dip, Get One Free. So, I got another dip for FREE. In the end, I spent $16.27 for two 24 packs of Pepsi, one 12 pk. of Mug Root Beer, three 2 lt. bottles of Pepsi, two bags of Tostino Gold Chips, one bag of Taco Doritoes and two jars of Tostino Cheese Dip. At regular price all of that would have cost $36.62. So, I saved over $20.00. I also picked up a rebate offering a $3.00 rebate on a Holiday Classic DVD (Frosty, Rudolph, etc) when you send in a receipt with Pepsi and Frito/Lay products on it. So, I have the receipt - now to find a cheap DVD!

They also had turkeys on sale for half price with a $10.00 purchase - since I spent that on the above mentioned items, I got a 13 pound turkey for $6.00.

Hint for the Day - Combine coupons, ad specials and shopper card specials to make a triple play and save BIG!

A quick hello to all my yardsalequeen friends!

I am headed out to a thrift sotre (*SHOCK*) then to a double coupon store with my coupons. DH is on vacation this week and he is following me around the house hopelessly lost. He wanted to help me match the socks earlier. Puleeze! GET OUT OF HERE! He finally went outside to trim back a flower bush that I requested be done about two weeks ago. He will do anything for anyone - you just have to ASK him to do it. He isn't the type to see that the vacuum should be run or the toilet scrubbed.

I hope he doesn't follow me around the thrift - I need my space. I will make him go search the Levi's for LEVI'S tags. That should ocuppy him and make him feel like he is "helping". If he finds a pair, I will owen him big time!

Hint of the Day: Keep your sanity when DH is around for nine straight days. (Okay - that is just a hint for me!)

On Sunday I went to Wal-Mart and they had all the halloween reduced to 10¢ each. Not a lot left, but lots of bags of litle plastic junky party favors - bags of 70 plastic rats, bugs, skeletons, tops, rings, etc. Seventy toys for 10¢. I bought $3.00 worth for next year's Halloween Carnival at school. That is 2100 prizes! This year I sent one bag of Tootsie Rolls that cost $4.88. Next year will be better.


I went back to Target Monday to look for more markdowns. The Halloween stuff was supposed to be reducted to 90%, but they had already pulled it and boxed it up for returns. DH was with me so we scrounged around in the candy aisle some more. Found three bags of Reese's and a bag of Kitkat's - scanned them and they were 21¢ each. We went down the other candy aisle which is the non-chocolate aisle (I had forgotten to go sown that aisle the other day!) to see what we could find. We found 12 bags of Starburst in different varieties and some Starburst Chew Pops - all for 21¢ a bag. So, we spent $3.15 and got $31.50 worth of candy. Now, don't think we eat candy all the time. I only buy it this time of year, plus I share it with my family. But, MOST of it goes into goodie bags for the kids at school for their Christmas and Valentine's Day Parties.

Hint of the day: Buy NOW for NEXT year.

I went to Target on a Halloween markdown hunt today. My couponing friends were reporting that all Halloween was 75% off today. So, I had to go see what I could find. I am always on a quest for candy for goodie bags at school. I went to the Halloween aisle and all I could find was candy corn. So, I went to the candy aisle and started looking around. First I looked at the Kit-Kat's. All of the bags looked the same, but three of them said "Fun Size" rather than "Snack Size". So, I went to the scanners and low and behold - the Snack Size were $2.24 and the Fun Size were 52¢. Score! I ended up finding 16 bags of name brand candy bars - Heath, Almond Joy, Take 5, Reese's, Buterfinger, KitKat, Snickers, Nestle Crunch, etc. all for 52¢ or less. I did buy one HUGE bag of Almond Joys for $1.09 which means that it was $4.36. (Those are for ME!) It will go to 90% off on Sunday and I will go back and hunt again.

Hint of the Day: Look in other areas of the store for items that are marked down, but out of place.

DH and I had a little "spat on Monday. So, he brought me home flowers on Tuesday. The only problem is that they were kind of withered up and the stems were kind of slimy. Then I noticed the yellow remnants of a REDUCED sticker on them. I found the recipt - $3.00 reduced flowers. I smell another "spat".

Hint of the Day: Don't buy your wife marked down flowers.