Living consciously means a lot of things

It's been about two years since I started  "living consciously". I  have appreciated your encouragement along the way. It's been great fun to watch others' awareness change when they consider practical and fairly easy ways to save money and live more simply. I have loved hearing your stories and seeing your excitement about the little changes you have made in your lives in these areas.

I did not break the mold when it comes to writing a blog about saving money/organization. There are PLENTY. And so, as I say goodbye to this friend for now (and maybe forever), I am glad to know there are plenty of other cool blogs like this for people like us.

Right now, living consciously means something different for me. I want to be more present for my husband and what the next year brings. Sometimes when a person focuses on saving money too much,  they forget how truly rich they are. I'd like to spend more time reflecting on that, than reflecting on  how I am going to tell you that I saved  $3.29.

It's been great fun and maybe I will be back one day. For now, I'll still be up to my old tricks but I'll just save the stories for my mom. I've read others say goodbye to their blogs with a lot of emotion. None here...it's a blog about saving money and organizing your stuff. Hardly something to weep about. But, if you have liked this blog and need another to take it's place, I highly recommend this one.  It won't give tips about saving money, but it will warm your soul like nothing else I know.



photo credit

Coffee grounds have many uses

My husband has started bringing these free guys home from Starbucks.

It's hard to tell by the picture, but it is a bag of coffee grounds. They bag the grounds for their customers for you to reuse. Just ask at the counter and they will hand them out, already bagged for you. We use the grounds in our garden but here is a list of other ways that coffee grounds can be reused. 

Guess what our flower beds smell like. It's actually pretty awesome.

This week at the store, part 2

There are lots of ways to save money at CVS.  (I am not paid to advertise for CVS and so forgive me if this list is not exhaustive. It is all I know to date. )

1. Using manufacturer coupons
2. Using extra care bucks you have earned from previous purchases
3. Using extra care bucks you have earned from using your own bag when you go to the store
4. Using extra care bucks foyou earned for getting prescriptions filled there
5. Getting CVS coupons emailed to you each week. (You hit one button from that email and it will load the coupon to your CVS card)
6. Using coupons that you receive from the Extra Care Coupon Center located in the store.

You can use these offers in any combination and you can use as many as you want. This is fairly unique since many stores don't allow you to use more than one coupon for an item.

And frankly, you should be using any or all of these options because otherwise drugstores typically do not have the best price in town.

This weekend, I got all this for $13.14.

It was a combination of using deals from #1,2,3, and 5 listed above. Five cases of drinks, 3 bottles of laundry detergent, scissors, and dish washing soap. If I would have paid full price for all of this at the drug store, it would have cost about $70.00. Like I said,  I spent a little more than $13.00 and in most stores that is less than the cost of the detergent.  (And yes...I know we should stick to water because that is way cheaper. I have no rebuttal.)

The point is...there are lots of ways to save money at the drugstore! Share your stories with me!

This week at the store

We love protein bars at our house and there have been quite a lot of coupons for those in the circulars and online this week. We had gone to Costco a few days before for most of our needs, but I couldn't pass up the double coupons at Kroger. We also needed ketchup (sadly no coupon) and didn't think we needed the massive amount that Costco sells. So, here is how it panned out....

No meal to be found in this picture, but these are staples for us.  Some of the highlights:

-Free stuff:  Colgate toothpaste, Pom drink, and Good and Natural bars. All of these were free with coupons from the newspaper. Actually, I got an $.11 credit for each of  those Good and Natural Bars.

-The bars in the yellow packaging were $.25 a piece with coupons from the newspaper.

Coupons for most of the rest of it rounded out the purchase for a savings of about 50%. If you don't get the paper, you can find most of the same coupons online. Feel free to click the coupon link on this site in the top right hand corner to get  some of these coupons.

And remember, you can always google "Coupon database" and you will find many search engines which will tell you where to find a coupon for the items you plan to purchase.

Happy Shopping.

$36 savings at Best Buy

I told you on Friday about our fun with the Shopkick app at Best Buy last week. We were able to combine a few other offers from Best Buy to decrease our total purchase price.

 My husband told me he had a Best Buy reward zone card and I had no idea what that was.  Here is the down and dirty from their website. Check it out.



photo credit



Apparently, we had accumulated $10.00 in reward points! That combined without shopkick rewards resulted in a $26.00 savings on our purchase.

Well, the next day I checked the Best Buy sales circular and realized that they were selling the item we bought for $10.00 less this week. Since Best Buy price matches if they drop the price on any item within 30 days of your purchase, we were able to get that money back by taking our receipt into the store.

We can only hope they drop the price again in the next thirty days because I think we've run out of savings options at this point.

Free money for walking in stores

About a month ago, I told you about a free app called Shopkick for Android and iPhone users. I have been using it this month and can now officially report how great it is.

Read the post, but briefly, it is an app that allows you to earn points for walking in stores like Macy's, Old Navy, Target, Best Buy, Crate and Barrel etc. Every point accumulates over time and you redeem your points for gift cards.

Before I say another word...no personal information is exchanged. You give no one your credit card number, your home address etc. It's all done using the app.

For example, the other day a shopkick user could earn 200 points for walking into Target. That is the equivalent of $.80, because every 500 points you gain earns you a $2.00 gift card. Once you are in Target, you can actually earn more points by scanning items throughout the store, but that is really up to you.

So, after using the app for a little more than a month, I earned 4000 points. That is worth a $16 gift card. We decided to redeem those points toward a purchase at Best Buy this past weekend. I handed the cashier my phone and showed him that I had a $16 credit to Best Buy. He entered some numbers from my phone that act as the redemption code and boom!

This is our receipt. "SK cert $2.00" means that I had eight $2.00 shopkick certificates, so $16.00 subtracted from our total purchase.

You can choose gift cards from lots of vendors the site offers. We just happen to choose Best Buy that day. If you are interested in having the app, let me know and I will send you the link. You get 50 shopkick points right off the bat if a friend signs you up.

We ended up combining some other offers and were able to deduct another $20.00 from our purchase. I'll tell you about that on Monday!

Loose Change, Football and an anniversary dinner

This past summer I told you about a man who paid off his last mortgage payment with $62,000 pennies. We set the bar a lot lower than that at our house. We saved our loose change this past year with the goal to use it to pay for our anniversary dinner. Hardly the mortgage.

Nonetheless, here it is!

I know...there are Coin Stars in every grocery store in America. But, they take a cut of the total counted and with football on the tube  24-7 on the weekends these past few weeks, it was an easy task to roll the change while watching the games.

Digression: Why is it that men say... "I gotta watch the game." The game. As if there is one game. Why don't they say "a game" or "some games"? The game suggests one game. Like the Presidential Election or the Oscars. Well, maybe there is the game at 1:30 but there is another game at 4:30 and everybody knows you are going to watch that one too. I highly doubt that the use of "the game" is a  universally poor grammar choice used by all men in America.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, my husband, who loves him some football,  and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, where our wedding reception was held.  They have a beautiful restaurant there and we had a really wonderful evening. I forgot to take the top of our wedding cake out of the freezer, so we enjoyed it a few days later with a candle on top to represent one year down. As I type this we are watching "the game" and there is no other placed I'd rather be.

And the winner of the Swiffer is...

Last week  I told you  that Proctor and Gamble sent a few nice products to my home in multiples! Two Swiffer Wet Jets and Mr. Clean Magic Erasers now make cleaning our home a lot easier

Thanks for commenting on facebook or the post about your interest in these products. The winner of  this give away is LeAnne!  She's a great mom and  deserves a fun treat like this. Thanks Swiffer and Mr. Clean and thanks readers for your interest in these products!

Swiffer Wetjet /Mr. Clean New Years Day Give-Away

Happy New Year!  We travelled for the holidays and I didn't have access to the Internet, hence the break from Living Consciously. Hope your holidays were wonderful! Right before we headed out for vacation, two great products arrived in the mail.

I love to organize. I don't love to clean. And since these were two  cleaning products,  I was really glad  to have a reason to clean. Procter and Gamble were very generous and sent all of this:

Product #1:
Just recently, my friend told me how much she loved her Swiffer and I admitted I was still a mop and bucket girl. Not saying I like being a mop and bucket girl.  I actually hate it, but I had never ventured out. I was so glad they sent two-one for me to try and tell you about and one to GIVE AWAY!!!

The fact sheet that accompanies the product refers to it as: "Swiffer WetJet Extra Power Pad: With the Scrubbing power of Mr. Clean Magic Eraser."

The assembly was a breeze. Three rods easily connect together, to create the Swiffer. It needs 4 AA batteries.

The kit comes with two pads like this...

that easily attach to the Swiffer.

The starter kit includes cleaning solution that easily snaps into the device.

That was it. It was very easy, so I got to work in the kitchen.

There is a button on  the handle and when you you push it, the cleaner squirts out the front of the Swiffer. Initially, I over-squirted....but then I got the hang of it.

Here's a little section of the floor: before and after.

And this is what the pad looked like when I was done.  I was genuinely surprised at how dirty my floor was. It didn't look that dirty! Apparently, the mop and bucket is not getting that up!

You just throw that guy away and replace with a new pad the next time you use your Swiffer.

I guess the best endorsement is that I immediately said to my husband, "I am throwing away the mop today." It really was so easy and quick. I am REALLY excited to share this product with one of you.

But don't forget about product #2. The Magic Eraser-select a size. There are six magic erasers in the box. I love these things. The front of our steps are painted white and get scuffed up by our shoes.
I worked on them today and here's the before and after:

Sorry the pictures are so dark-unless it is a sunny day our stairwell is a little dark. You can see how the scuffs disappeared though!  I also got some scuffs off some beige-colored walls  because it doesn't mess with your paint color. I also cleaned the bathtub with it. This thing does it all!


Comment on the blog or on Facebook if you interested in having these two products delivered to you. I will pick a winner on Monday!