Dillon's is the only store that I can regularly find Louis Rich hot dogs. They are now made by Oscar Mayer and are made of all turkey. They are normally $2.49 and are sometimes on sale buy One Get One Free. Well, this week they are in the 4th of July ad for $1.00. I had four coupons for 55¢ of two packages which Dillon's doubles - so I paid $4.00 for eight packages of hot dogs that would have normally cost $20.00. HOT DOG!
They also have big bags of fully cooked shrimp on sale buy one get TWO free. They are normally $9.99 a bag, but that makes them $3.33 a bag this week. I bought six bags for $20.00. Normally, that same $20.00 would only get you two bags. Shrimp with tais sauce is a nice cool refreshing dinner with summertime garden tomatoes and some fresh garden corn.
I went thrifting this morning too. But, I am at the library for the summer reading program for DS and haven't yet unloaded the car to remember what I bought. I do know I bought some nice blue thumbprint glassses in two sizes - eight of each size. So, $4.00 for 16 glasses. Glass is a pain to ship, but it the price is right, it is worthh it. If the price isn't right - I'll use them on my Thanksgiving table! I also got a vintage Razorback belt and buckle for 55¢ and a vintage razorback glass for $1.00. I sold a 1960's Razorback glass for $55.00 once and the winner turned out to by my Fed-Ex Man. So, he picked it up and I didn't even have to ship it!
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Prizes, Cheap Stuff and A Good Samaritan
My local TV station has a photography contest called "Seasonal Snapshots". I entered this photo of my son at the park for the "Spring Snapshot" contest. They showed it during the news one night and I got a letter from the Meterologist. I also won a nice umbrella with the TV station logo on it and a one-time use camera. The camera was $9.99 at the fanchy-schmany camera shop. We went today to pick up my prizes. The news anchor herself handed me my stuff! I'm in the running now to win a $1,000.00 DVD camcorder and man, would I LOVE to win that. This is the third time I have won a prize for sending in pictures.We went to Hobby Lobby again today to look at the 80% off stuff. We found two really pretty handblown glass lamps complete with shades. They were $99.99 each, but we paid only $19.99 each for them. I also got a beautiful coblat blue gas lamp for my bathroom vanity. It was $34.99 and I got it for $6.99. I bought a lamp shaped like a purse for my grnadmother for Christmas too. It was $24.99 and I paid $4.99. So, I got $260.00 worth of lamps for $52.00. I could have never brought myself to pay $200.00 for lamps. And, if by some strange reason I DID - Dh would kill me. Yard sale lamps are a tough buy for me because you still have to go buy a shade 9 times out of 10, so it isn't very often that it is a good deal. So, these were the deal for me.
We went to Deals to get AA batteries - the cheap ones are 16 for $1.00. They were out - darn them. They are great for all DH's cheapo toys and Plug-n-Play video games. They did have Blue Bunny Caramel Chocolate Somethingoranother ice cream for $1.00. We bought four and brought them home to the freezer. DH put them in the freezer and then announced that he didn't have his wallet. He mentally retraced his steps and the only time he had used it was right down the street to buy a fountain drink. He called and they had it under the counter. So, whoever turned that in - THANK YOU! I have done a lot of good deeds - returning birth certificates, checks floating acros the Wal-Mart parking lot, returning unmailed credit card checks, etc. So, I am glad I did all that and someone was nice enough to return it.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
I was looking around my yard today and I realized how cheaply I had gotten everything out there! I have four of those great old metal lawn chairs from the 1950's - the old indestructible kind. I paid $2.00 each for them at a yard sale and paid a guy $5.00 to deliver them. I have an old metal table that I scrounged out of the neighbors trash heap. I painted it and it looks fine. I have a nice teak garden bench that used to be outside Wal-Mart as the smoking section for the employees. They got picnic tables and threw the bench out. The manager was on the way to the cram-a-lot and DH joked he'd like to have it - so he gave it to him. We recently bought four new patio dining chairs on sale at Lowe's for $22.50 each. I had a $10.00 off coupon and a $50.00 gift card, so I only paid $38.00 out of pocket for four nice chairs. I have an array of old crap - er, I mean, treasures, adorning and decoarting the fence too. Old enamel washtubs, rusty well pulls, an old window frame, etc. that have all come from garage sales, trash heaps, etc. Even our nice wooden storage building was at his parents house and a cousin helped tow it over here for free.
Of course, the inside of the house is just as bad. Sometimes during a boring sitcom I will look at all my furniture or things on the wall and try to figure up what it all cost. I do that with my clothes too - "Gee, I am wearing $1.75 worth of clothes". I hope I don't LOOK like it!
I even do this at mealtime - tonight I have a turkey ham in the oven, fired potatoes and graden tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The turkey ham was $2.25 and we will eat about half of it. Ten pounds of potatoes were $1.66 and we are eating about 2 pounds of those. The veggies were from a coworkers garden. So, dinner is going to cost about $1.50 for all three of us. Oh yes, I made a 68¢ box of brownies today too.
I think I have a sickness......
Does anyone else do this??????
Of course, the inside of the house is just as bad. Sometimes during a boring sitcom I will look at all my furniture or things on the wall and try to figure up what it all cost. I do that with my clothes too - "Gee, I am wearing $1.75 worth of clothes". I hope I don't LOOK like it!
I even do this at mealtime - tonight I have a turkey ham in the oven, fired potatoes and graden tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. The turkey ham was $2.25 and we will eat about half of it. Ten pounds of potatoes were $1.66 and we are eating about 2 pounds of those. The veggies were from a coworkers garden. So, dinner is going to cost about $1.50 for all three of us. Oh yes, I made a 68¢ box of brownies today too.
I think I have a sickness......
Does anyone else do this??????
Friday, June 23, 2006
My Deals Today - June 23rd
Went to Hobby Lobby and they had four aisles of Home Decor marked 1/2 price. As I was looking through it - the girl working on the aisle came and whispered to me that everything was going to 80% off and she would mark it for me if I wanted anything. Great! No signs - no other pushy shoppers. I got $325.00 worth of stuff for $64.50. Pretty much wiped out the Christmas gift list! :D
Went to Target and spotted boxes of single Mr. Clean Magic Erasers on the bottom of a Clearance shelf. I decided to price check one and it was 24¢! I knew I had a form for a free "Cars" Beach Towel with the purchase of six P&G Products. So, I bought six and sent DS though the line with six for separate receipts so I can send one to a friend out of state as a surprise. So, 12 Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and two beach towels for a total of $2.88. Plus, I SWEAR by Magic Erasers. They will clean anything. The shower, the floor, shoes, book covers, etc. Love THEM!
I frequent a couponing/refunding site where people often sell things inexpensively. I bought a scrapbooking goodie box for $6.50. I got it today - shipped Priority for $4.05. It came in a nice plastic compartment box and is full of all sorts of charms, bottle caps, edgers, die cuts, brads, buttons, etc. Probably about $45.00 worth of stuff if I went and bought it. The lady just wanted to make a little money and clear out her stock. It's nice to have a little bit of everything so I don't have to go buy lots of different things.
Went to Target and spotted boxes of single Mr. Clean Magic Erasers on the bottom of a Clearance shelf. I decided to price check one and it was 24¢! I knew I had a form for a free "Cars" Beach Towel with the purchase of six P&G Products. So, I bought six and sent DS though the line with six for separate receipts so I can send one to a friend out of state as a surprise. So, 12 Mr. Clean Magic Erasers and two beach towels for a total of $2.88. Plus, I SWEAR by Magic Erasers. They will clean anything. The shower, the floor, shoes, book covers, etc. Love THEM!
I frequent a couponing/refunding site where people often sell things inexpensively. I bought a scrapbooking goodie box for $6.50. I got it today - shipped Priority for $4.05. It came in a nice plastic compartment box and is full of all sorts of charms, bottle caps, edgers, die cuts, brads, buttons, etc. Probably about $45.00 worth of stuff if I went and bought it. The lady just wanted to make a little money and clear out her stock. It's nice to have a little bit of everything so I don't have to go buy lots of different things.
At Last, Some Privacy!
We have a pool in our side yard. It's just one of those bright blue eyesore swimming pools with the inflatable ring on top. It's 12' wide and 3.5' deep. Just something to splash around in and stay cool. We put it in the side yard this year which seemed like a good idea at the time until I realized that everyone could see us in the pool and even more disturbing - climbing up the ladder all wet and unattractive. So, I decided we needed a privacy fence. We have never had a fence because we like to sit out and see what everyone else is doing in their yards and on the streets (like climbing out of THEIR pools!). I got the idea to have a fence put up across the front and back of our side yard only. I asked my Dad if he knew a handyman and he set me up with a guy yesterday. I was surprised when this 72 year old man showed up, but he was strong as a horse and did the entire project (including two trips to Lowe's to buy the supplies) in only 6 hours. It looks great and he only charged me $120.00 labor. I paid him extra since he picked everything up and drove about an hour to get to my house. The supplies cost about $300.00. So, for $450.00 I have my privacy fence. The real kicker is that my Dad sold some land last week and gave me $500.00 for no reason. So, I actually got a free fence and $50.00 left to spend. Now I get to plant and do landscaping around the fence. When we were at Lowe's yesterday I bought a pink and a purple Hydrangea on sale from $14.88 to $6.00. I also like to hang old stuff on the fence - old architectural items, finnials and old rusty farm implements, etc. Guess that means I MUST hit some yard sales for more STUFF.
Our local pizza place always had pizzas - Buy One, Get Two Free. We'd go get three large pizza's and all three of us would eat twice, plus lunch for DS a couple of times and it would only cost about $16.00. Now they are going from "Quantity to Quality". One Medium Pizza will be $9.99. Guess, we will have to find a new pizza place.
Went to one of my thrifts on Wednesday. Actual, I went to the Salvation Army too, but left empty handed. (Although DS bought a giant stuffed Walrus for $1.00, because, quote, "I don't have one!" - he is bound and determined to have a pratically life size animal of every kind.) At the thrift I bought this neat old litle table thingy. It is from India and all hand carved. It has three round shelves on it, but you can flatten it up to store it away. They were using it for display space, but I noticed a tag on it. DH liked it and he normally just snoozes his way through the thrifts. Anyway, since he liked it too, I looked at the price expecting it to be $20.00 at least. It was only $6.00. Not sure what I'll do - keep or sell. I do like it so I will probably keep it for awhile. I also got a puzzle mat to work puzzles on then roll it up until you do it again for $1.00 and a set of 4 Chips Ahoy coffee cups from the 1980's for $2.00. The cups say "16 chips in every cookie." I think now they say like a 1,000 chips in every bag or something.
I'm off to some sales and thrifts this morning before the real heat kicks in. Wish me luck!
Our local pizza place always had pizzas - Buy One, Get Two Free. We'd go get three large pizza's and all three of us would eat twice, plus lunch for DS a couple of times and it would only cost about $16.00. Now they are going from "Quantity to Quality". One Medium Pizza will be $9.99. Guess, we will have to find a new pizza place.
Went to one of my thrifts on Wednesday. Actual, I went to the Salvation Army too, but left empty handed. (Although DS bought a giant stuffed Walrus for $1.00, because, quote, "I don't have one!" - he is bound and determined to have a pratically life size animal of every kind.) At the thrift I bought this neat old litle table thingy. It is from India and all hand carved. It has three round shelves on it, but you can flatten it up to store it away. They were using it for display space, but I noticed a tag on it. DH liked it and he normally just snoozes his way through the thrifts. Anyway, since he liked it too, I looked at the price expecting it to be $20.00 at least. It was only $6.00. Not sure what I'll do - keep or sell. I do like it so I will probably keep it for awhile. I also got a puzzle mat to work puzzles on then roll it up until you do it again for $1.00 and a set of 4 Chips Ahoy coffee cups from the 1980's for $2.00. The cups say "16 chips in every cookie." I think now they say like a 1,000 chips in every bag or something.
I'm off to some sales and thrifts this morning before the real heat kicks in. Wish me luck!
Monday, June 12, 2006
My Walgreen's Trip
DS is out of school and DH went back to work today (Yippee!) so I can get back to my thrifting and couponing. Whew. We went to Walgreen's today. I bought six packages of Stayfree Maxipads and four bags of Hershey's Chocolates. I knew the deal I was getting, but didn't really think about WHAT I was buying until this cute guy behind me in line gave my purchases a once over and then he shrunk back away from me like I was some Psycho PMS'ing chocolate eating maniac! The Stayfree's were on sale for $1.74 and Walgreen's has a rebate - Buy $10.00 worth of Stayfree, get a $10.00 Gift Card. So, free maxipads. And the Hershey's Chocolate has a rebate on it - Buy $10.00 worth and get a $5.00 rebate. So, I got 6 Maxipads and four bags of choclates for $5.00. I also bought four toothbrushes that are about $3.99 each on sale for $2.50 and I had $2.00 coupons. I also used three of the FREE Rolaids coupons from the Sunday inserts that were about to expire. I bought three blank video tapes to record DS's movies and porgrams when I force him to go outside or swim or to the library or some other equally horrifying thing and he has to miss them. In the end, I spent $27.00, but I will get back $15.00 in cash and gift cards. Not bad.
We ate lunch at Chik-fil-A. Love that chicken! I noticed my sandwich felt really heavy when I took it out of the bag. They had put two giant breasts on it and it was HUGE. And it was delicious! ;o)
We went to the Salvation Army and I bought a new unopened 750 piece puzzle for me and DS to work on this summer. He bought a beanie baby and a book called Frindle for $2.25.
We also went to the Home Depot and bought a room air conditioner. We have a geothermal unit and when the long hot days of summer kick in and it is in the high 90's day after day, we have problems keeping out living room cool. It faces the evening sun and the kitchen is right beside it so if I use the burners or oven, it helps heat it up too. Even running the dryer all day makes extra heat. I decided to get a small unit and put it in the front window to help keep that one room cooler and help the main unit to not have to work so hard. We had it plugged in for about an hour and we were under a blanket. Think it is going to work! It cost $129.00, but I think it will save us money in the long run if our main unit doesn't have to work quite so hard. And, if it doesn't save us money - who cares! I HATE the heat! ;o)
Once again, HI SOPHIESMOM! ;o)
We ate lunch at Chik-fil-A. Love that chicken! I noticed my sandwich felt really heavy when I took it out of the bag. They had put two giant breasts on it and it was HUGE. And it was delicious! ;o)
We went to the Salvation Army and I bought a new unopened 750 piece puzzle for me and DS to work on this summer. He bought a beanie baby and a book called Frindle for $2.25.
We also went to the Home Depot and bought a room air conditioner. We have a geothermal unit and when the long hot days of summer kick in and it is in the high 90's day after day, we have problems keeping out living room cool. It faces the evening sun and the kitchen is right beside it so if I use the burners or oven, it helps heat it up too. Even running the dryer all day makes extra heat. I decided to get a small unit and put it in the front window to help keep that one room cooler and help the main unit to not have to work so hard. We had it plugged in for about an hour and we were under a blanket. Think it is going to work! It cost $129.00, but I think it will save us money in the long run if our main unit doesn't have to work quite so hard. And, if it doesn't save us money - who cares! I HATE the heat! ;o)
Once again, HI SOPHIESMOM! ;o)
Sunday, June 04, 2006
DH is on Vacation for TWO WEEKS
But, it's gone suprisingly well. One week down, one week to go. Of course, nothing has gotten done around the house - not my regular work or any of the long laundry list of chores I had hoped to get done. Time to hire a handy man!
Last week was the Walmart Shareholders meeting. Wendesday night we went to the big free concert and saw Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts. Thursday and Friday we went to the big Vendor Fair and brought home tons of free stuff. They wer handing out free clear backpacks and then you walked around and filled them up with freebies. usually they give out a lot of trial size items, but this year we got a lot of full sized items like 3 36 oz. bottles of Softsoap Body Wash, full size Colgate Toothpase, 24 (yes, 24!) full size Speed Stick Deodorants and countless other things. We ended up with nine back packs and six of them were full of freebies. We were there when they were closing down and they got really generous getting rid of the last of the loot. The Colgate people handed me six bags of stuff at once. The Little Debbie guy gave DS a life size standee of Ken Schrader -the racecar driver. The Keebler guy knew DH so he handed us a Playstation game under the counter that he only had a few of for certain people.
My favorite yearly yard sale was this weekend. These people live in KS, but travel back here several times a year to have a huge sale. They go to a lot of auctions and sell on ebay and sell the rest of the sstuff at this sale. They have so much and they price things at 25¢ to 50¢. They usually have about 20 boxes of stuff priced at $1.00 a box. Mix and mathc or a whole box for $1.00. I always pick through and make up a box or tow but someday I will have a truck and just buy all twenty boxes and sort it at home! (Oh, the crazy dreams I have!) I bought one box of material for $1.00 for some old ticking on top. Underneath the ticking I found a bunch of old tablecloths, napkins, table runners, sun bonnets, handmade potholders, etc. A good deal at $1.00. I got a clump of lucite grapes for $2.00. That buy will pay for everything else I bought that day.
We did break down and buy DS a Playstation 2. He's never had a video game system, so this is all new to us. PS2 seemed like the practical choice because the games are easier to store and you can readily rent them. We bought him one game and the Keebler guy gave him another one. I ordered two on Amazon today for $5.29 with free shipping. So, he will have four games to keep him busy for awhile.
Last week was the Walmart Shareholders meeting. Wendesday night we went to the big free concert and saw Carrie Underwood and Rascal Flatts. Thursday and Friday we went to the big Vendor Fair and brought home tons of free stuff. They wer handing out free clear backpacks and then you walked around and filled them up with freebies. usually they give out a lot of trial size items, but this year we got a lot of full sized items like 3 36 oz. bottles of Softsoap Body Wash, full size Colgate Toothpase, 24 (yes, 24!) full size Speed Stick Deodorants and countless other things. We ended up with nine back packs and six of them were full of freebies. We were there when they were closing down and they got really generous getting rid of the last of the loot. The Colgate people handed me six bags of stuff at once. The Little Debbie guy gave DS a life size standee of Ken Schrader -the racecar driver. The Keebler guy knew DH so he handed us a Playstation game under the counter that he only had a few of for certain people.
My favorite yearly yard sale was this weekend. These people live in KS, but travel back here several times a year to have a huge sale. They go to a lot of auctions and sell on ebay and sell the rest of the sstuff at this sale. They have so much and they price things at 25¢ to 50¢. They usually have about 20 boxes of stuff priced at $1.00 a box. Mix and mathc or a whole box for $1.00. I always pick through and make up a box or tow but someday I will have a truck and just buy all twenty boxes and sort it at home! (Oh, the crazy dreams I have!) I bought one box of material for $1.00 for some old ticking on top. Underneath the ticking I found a bunch of old tablecloths, napkins, table runners, sun bonnets, handmade potholders, etc. A good deal at $1.00. I got a clump of lucite grapes for $2.00. That buy will pay for everything else I bought that day.
We did break down and buy DS a Playstation 2. He's never had a video game system, so this is all new to us. PS2 seemed like the practical choice because the games are easier to store and you can readily rent them. We bought him one game and the Keebler guy gave him another one. I ordered two on Amazon today for $5.29 with free shipping. So, he will have four games to keep him busy for awhile.