National Doughnut Day-Friday June 1st

Krispy Kreme is celebrating National Doughnut Day by giving away one free doughnut per visiting patron. You can choose any variety of doughnut and no purchase is necessary. It is for one day only, Friday June 1st!


If you prefer Dunkin Donuts, they are offering a donut with the purchase of a beverage.

 Don't you think it is funny that one store spells it DONUT and one spells it DOUGHNUT? 

Save $70.00 at the gas tank next time you go

The potential for gas that is less than $1.50/gallon?  Read on....


Kroger has a new program now through September 30th.





For the whole story, click on their website. 

I know. That is ALOT of groceries. But thankfully, there's THIS through June 16th.

(How weird must people think I am, taking a picture of the poster while standing inside the store?) 

Get some gift cards!  Do you have a big purchase in front of you? Buying a new washer and dryer? Get a Lowe's gift card for $500 and Kroger multiplies it x4 getting you 2000 fuel points. That is $2.00 off at the tank/PER GALLON of gas. There is  a 35 gallon limit at the tank, so take a couple of cars when you go but don't turn off the tank until you reach 35 gallons.  That's $70.00 off at the tank.

But obviously, don't go buy a fridge that you don't need so you can get $70.00 off at the tank. P.L.E.A.S.E.

(Kroger gift cards don't apply.)

organizing children

My 9-year old nephew plays baseball. Watching him play sports is one of the huge joys and anxiety producers of my life. There is something to say about coaches. They can get a kid to do just about anything. (I learned the other day that that is partly because coaches just make you run at the end of practice if you haven't listened to them.)  Moms...try the running thing.

Anyway...this was hanging in the dugout the other day and I LOVED it.

The board is magnetized and those name plates just get moved around by the coaches. It tells the kids what position they play in the field for the upcoming inning, as well as lists their batting order. They have had a bunch of games this year and  yet I had never noticed this ingenious creation. It had always puzzled me as to why the boys hadn't been bombarding the coaches with questions. Everyone just seemed to know the deal, instinctively. Why I thought a bunch of 8-9 year old boys had good instincts was beyond me, but there was no other explanation, so I just went with it.

Nope. It was the magnetic board all along. Someone needed to hook the Little Rascals up with a  magnetic board and there would have been a lot less explosions.

Wednesday at Farm Fresh

Because I haven't seen you there, I don't think I have convinced you.

It bears repeating.

Farm Fresh doubles (up to) $1.00 coupons on Wednesdays.

                                              On sale for $2.00. I had a $75. coupon. It doubled.
                                                                      My price: $.50

                       $1.00 coupons doubled. Two tunas and two snack packs cost $.39/piece

This deal was buy one get one free. Cost was $2.79 for one and I had a dollar coupon. So two for $.79 (If I had two coupons,  I could have potentially made a profit of $1.21.)

 

There was a lot more great deals but I will spare you. There are so many ladies there with big binders of coupons. Secretly, I follow them around and watch what they put in their cart. I call them "binder girls" and they love it.

 

Today and tomorrow, Farm Fresh is doubling coupons up to $2.00.  Go directly to jail  Farm Fresh, don't pass go, don't collect $200.00

$.50 greeting cards

Greeting cards are an interesting thing. E-cards are becoming more and more popular. Those family style business cards that you attach to a gift are also on the rise.

Your birthday card could also be replaced by a Facebook message.

However, if you are still a fan of the traditional greeting card, Dollar Tree is the place to go.

They sell 2 cards for $1.00. Yes, $.50/card. You can’t beat it. 

“Most importantly, write your own personal message”. –Your mother

What do you like to buy at the Dollar Tree or other dollar stores?

The grammy goes to

We pack our lunches most everyday. This is the amount of Tupperware I removed from the dishwasher yesterday.

Exactly TWO people live in my house.

Ridiculous.

I passionately believe that this is the kind of thing for which they should give Grammys:

Done and done.

(Until it starts all over again tomorrow. )

P.S. If you feel like you need to save old Cool Whip containers etc when you are sending someone away with food from your home (very hospitable of you, by the way), just store those somewhere else. They just tend to clutter up your everyday Tupperware storage area.

A little thing you can do to help your favorite charity

I am guessing that if you are reading this blog you may have heard about the concept of an “envelope system”. It essentially means that you budget money at the beginning of the month and divide it into categories-Gas, Groceries, Restaurants etc and put those divisions into actual envelopes with those titles. When the cash in the "Grocery" envelope runs out for the month, you don't go to the grocery again until the next month. You eat what you have or you borrow (wisely) from another envelope. Very clear system of budgeting.

I love getting cash back on my credit card. Dave Ramsey says that studies show that you spend 12-18% more when using a credit card and the my cash back reward  of 1% doesn’t offset that spending. Erghhh…

One day, while my friend Rebecca was reading my blog, she was inspired to share with me a scenario where I can simulate an envelope system AND get credit card points.

Kroger has a program called “Kroger Cares.” YOUNG LIVES in Richmond VA, along with lots of other charities, is tied to this program.

1. You get a card from Kroger that is tied to your charity of choice. It looks and acts like a gift card.
2. Every time you use that card to pay for Kroger purchases, Kroger donates 5% of your purchase to your charity of choice.
3. The card can be loaded again and again and again with more money at customer service and serves as your way of paying for your groceries/gas each time you make a Kroger purchase.

 

 Here is my Kroger Cares Card.

Soooo…once a month I just use my CREDIT CARD to reload my card at customer service (getting the credit card points). Let’s say my grocery budget (the amount I would ideally put in an envelope) is $300/month. I load that amount to my Kroger Cares Card at the beginning of the  month and I can’t spend more than that each month because if I do, my Kroger Cares Card will run out of funds.

1. It keeps me from running over my grocery budget.
2. It still allows me to get cash back rewards by using my credit card.
3. Most importantly, YOUNG LIVES gets 5% of what I buy using that card.

If you live in Richmond and want to give to Young Lives, just let me know and I’ll have my friend Rebecca get you linked in.

More about the crime scene

I promised a few more pictures of our crime scene recently organized basement. I consider myself a semi-minimalist, always wanting to minimize more and so all of this still feels like a lot of stuff. But Christmas decorations and my husband's sporting equipment have to go somewhere.  Pictures from high school and college that I have meticulously organized in albums are important to save but don't need to jam up  the office bookshelves. Enter  "the Rubbermaid bin".   You will see evidence of the label maker in action. All in all...it's functional and that is all that matters. We didn't spend any money organizing the basement...just used bins we had. It is not magazine worthy but I am pretty sure Real Simple isn't calling this week to set up their next photo shoot.

That large black monstrosity is an old boiler no longer in use and was taking up a ton of space. I got a quote to see how much it would  cost to remove it and I can't remember exactly but I think it was like $3 million. So, my DAD built this awesome shelf above it that holds so much stuff. In general, dads rock.  Handy dads are the bomb.

   

There is just little part to finish. My laundry basket is being held hostage. These are items collected from the basement that need to be put away in my husbands closet/office.

But the basement.

Hallelujah.

The Crime Scene that yielded fifty bucks

I have been MIA lately and the action has been taking place in our basement. Getting married at the very end of 2011 meant merging two fully furnished homes into one. Not so easy peezy. Planning a wedding + going to work everyday = "put it in the basement until we have more time". We finally tackled the basement and it took more than a minute.

Here WAS just one little corner of the basement. You'd think it was a crime scene.

Those are Christmas Lights hanging  in the middle of the picture. The ROCKY box is our collection of Rocky movies. Nooooo....just some hiking boots. The rest...who knows. Miracle Grow next to some tape next to a gas tank next to a sewing machine. Good times.

But here is the "after" of that little corner of the world:

And yes, that filing cabinet WAS in the "before" picture.

Here is where I was trying to do laundry:

Opening the top of the washer presented a problem.

But now....



(Someone should vacuum that rug.) Pay no attention to our window treatments   packing paper on the window. It makes me feel better that the mean people will stay out.

Every bin is labeled. (More pictures to come). And we can find anything we need in 10 seconds. If you know me, you would be shocked to know the basement looked like this (Sorry, Kim D). Life just took over...like it does... but now we are back to the races. And the best part is that I found all these treasures from my husband's house that I would have eventually bought. Thing like:

-a pair of scissors for the butcher block

-a huge box of yard bags

-Febreeze

-awesome unused sponges

-etc etc

He also found $50.00. That should excite me a little more than the scissors, but somehow it doesn't.

Organize something in your house and I bet the event will save you some money. We found a bag of these metal plate things that you use to connect two boards. My husband bought them for $.97 a piece at Lowes. He still had the receipt. It was from 2005. I returned them but because the stock number had changed, they gave us the price they sell them for now....$1.11 for each.  I think there were 13. He made a $1.82 profit for holding onto those things for 7 years. I think that is a better return than the bank is paying on my money market.