Sweet Frog Vs. Yapple

There's a Martin's grocery store about a mile from my house. Directly across the street from Martin's is a Kroger. Directly to the left  of Martin's is another grocery store called Ellwood Thompson's. And just to round out the compass, a Fresh Market is currently being built behind the Martins. Yes. Four grocery stores in a 3 block radius. Wonder who will bite the dust first. I have a thought but will keep it to myself.

So, it only makes sense that in this same little section of town, the yogurt stores followed suit. Sweet Frog was built first and people come in droves. Pretty intimidating competition you would think...but apparently not for Yapple. They came to town a few months ago and moved in TWO doors down from the Sweet Frog. I rolled my house at the arrogance.

Until last Monday.

Last Monday, I was yelling "Whoo whoo Yapple!!!!"   I didn't eat at Yapple. I didn't even walk in it. But now, Sweet Frog has this sign hanging on the front of their store.  (Side bar-I make absolutely NO point if the following sign is on the store front of all  Sweet Frogs. I kind of don't think it is because it is not on their website; however, I've been wrong before.)

They have a deal EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. Obviously, I thank Yapple for that.

I took that picture on a Monday afternoon when I walked into town to buy a birthday present for a friend. Little did I know that later that night, our friends Johnny and Joyce would surprise with a knock at the door and we would eventually end up at Sweet Frog. It was about 8pm that night and when we arrived, there was a Sweet Frog worker outside the store encouraging customers to spin a wheel to win certain prices. (Sorry no camera with me to show you). We all won something but my husband won a coupon for a free yogurt! Pair that with Double Punch Monday and we were set. (Did I mention that was dinner?)

I hope someone else builds another yogurt store in Carytown.

This week at the store

Periodically, Kroger has a a sale that turns out to be  worthwhile if you have some coupons to sweeten the deal. Kroger pre-selects items that you should buy in increments of ten (10). If you buy these selected items in increments of 10, you save $5.00 at checkout. ($.50 an item). I didn't take a picture of all my items because I was in a hurry to put lots of it in the refrigerator, but here is a sampling.

If I would have paid full price, it would have cost $23.72.  With coupons and the sale I paid $5.04.

Here's the breakdown:

The popcorn was $1.49 if you buy 10 of the participating items. But, I had coupons for $1.00 off two boxes, so each box was $.99
The freezer bags were $.99 if you buy 10 of the participating items. Again, I had a coupon for $1.00 off two, so each box was $.49
The zone bars were $1.00 each but I had coupons for each valued at $.55 so I paid $.45 for those.
The good and natural bars were free. The coupons were for free bars. The coupon credit was for $1.29 each but the bars were on sale for $.89. So, I made a  $.40 credit on each bar for buying those!

Coupons came from online coupon sites, the Sunday paper, a Kroger e-coupon and a coupon that Kroger sent us in the mail.


Hope you had a good week at the store!

Let my mom be the hero

My husband wears a suit and tie to work everyday. Wouldn't you complain?

He never does.

But I do.

About the dry cleaning bills.

It's ridiculous.

I asked my mom if she used to iron my dad's shirts when he wore a suit and tie to work everyday. Go figure, she did. Ugh. Yes, she worked full time as an oncology nurse (exhausting). Yes, she had dinner on the table at 5:30 every night. Yes, she raised two kids.

Then there's me, writing this blog about "living consciously" thinking-"If I didn't write this blog, I would have time to iron my husband's shirts and then I wouldn't complain about the dry cleaning bills. "

I'll let my mom be the hero. I'm going to keep writing and going to keep complaining.

But, I do try to do some things from time to time to help with that cost to our spending. I have this great blouse that says  "dry clean only".  "Dry clean only" -that's just a suggestion, right?  (One time, Bethany Frankel said about "suggested retail price"---that she had another suggestion. I died.)

Anywho.

The blouse needed a washing, so I found one of those lingerie bags in the laundry room. Put the blouse in the bag, set my machine to delicate and hung it up to dry.

And guess what...it was fine. Just fine.

 I won't be deceived by the tag. And most importantly, I won't iron and starch my husband's work shirts. I'll let my mom be the hero. She deserves it anyway.

This week at the store

You know how they say "don't try this at home"? That's pretty much how I feel about entering drugstores. You should not enter a drugstore unless you know what you are doing. As a rule, things are not cheap.  Today, I saw a 12 pack of soda for $6.49. That is about $4.00 more than I would ever imagine paying for a 12 pack. Thanks to my mama, I know what I am doing in a drugstore. Here's a post from a while ago that is a mini lesson on how you can conquer the drugstore.

I had to pick up a prescription this morning at CVS and we needed some vitamins. Knowing I would need to wait for the prescription, I got my coupons ready and the extra carebucks I had and off I went to the store with my plan. It took 3 separate transactions, but when it was all said and done, I got this:

The toothbrushes were buy one get one free and I had coupons for each of them. Acutally, my dentist gave me those coupons! The gum-I had one coupon and you got $2.00 in extra care bucks for buying them. The vitamins and moisterizer-more coupons for each. If I would have paid full price for just those 6 things, I would have paid $41.60. That's really hard to believe. Instead, I spent. $16.83. Considering that just the vitamins cost almost  $12.00, I felt good about that.

Glad we got the toothbrushes cuz that's a lot of gum.

Living off of $20-the outcome

This past week, I challenged myself (and maybe you) to see if you could spend $20.00 or less in 5 days. Here's that challenge.  In some ways, I failed my own challenge and in another way I didn't.
I spent $35.00. Here is the week at a glance. (It's probably important to mention that my husband was out of town all week on business.)

Monday: Kickball playoffs and we won! We celebrated with the team but I stuck to water and had a beer from the pitcher. Tossed in the $2.00 that my friend handed me (owed me) when we were at the bar. So far so good.

Tuesday: I have a little hand injury and went to OT. Copay $20.00. Did you notice it's just Tuesday? I totally forgot about that part of the week. Our team  also had playoff game number 2. We didn't win, but we celebrated the end of our season. I celebrated with water and Big League Chew while everyone else ate the yummy bar food. I may or may not have mooched some fries and a few nachos.

Wednesday: I woke up knowing that Wednesday was the day I was meant to leave the office and go out for lunch-a rarity. Sarah, my coworker, is leaving the the company and this was her goodbye lunch. I struggled with what to do. Pack my lunch and just sit with them at the restaurant? Ask if we could go another day? Nothing felt like the right answer. The right answer was to celebrate with my friend like we had planned. She is so excited to be moving on. Sometimes, living consciously means you celebrate people and not save your money. Done and done. Sarah was more important than the contest. That felt clear (and then there was our other coworker Erin saying to me..."the copay shouldn't count!!!!!"  That Erin can be pretty convincing. ) Wednesday night, I took a meal to Abby, who tore her ACL playing kickball for our team. That had also been on the calendar for a few weeks. I sat with her and her roomies. More Olympics.

Thursday: Nothing eventful --just a day at the office with my lunch packed and home to watch the Olympics. No money spent.

Friday:  I made the offer to a friend a few weeks ago that I would keep her children so she could have a date with her husband. A little dinner with them, some fun with the kids before bedtime and then a cozy night of Olympic watching. No money spent.

Eating lunch with Sarah and Erin was wonderful-such fun girls -and am I glad about the decision I made.  And it's not so bad to have a friend like Erin who can spin things for you.
I mean really, if you think about it the $20 will be reimbursed with the flexible spending plan...

Give me a B minus.

How did you do?