A Bargain on Kid's Pants

I don't as post much about bargain shopping as I used to. But I still enjoy the thrill of a good bargain and last weeks haul warrants a post. 

I was returning a few things to my favorite place for clothes bargains. And since I can't resist swinging through the kids clearance even when I am only there to return something, I made a quick detour to my favorite racks, promising myself I wouldn't look for more than 5 minutes. 

At first glance I saw a pair of jeans - an unusual find on the clearance racks since they tend to not be a seasonal thing. And when wardrobe staples like that are on sale - you snatch them up. I checked the price tag...

$1.40!! What! Then I noticed 5 more pairs of pants on the same rack. Each for $1.20!! They were 3T, 4T and 1 pair of 24 months; jeans in different colors, basic sweat pants, etc. All sizes I could definitely use (if not right away, then in the near-ish future). For $1.20 a pair, I didn't think twice and I snatched up all 6 pairs.

And then I spotted this amazing dress (which is a little bit cut off in the picture). It's a 3T (Papillon's size) it's amazingly cute, comes with a hat and is made by one of the more high-end brands that this store carries.  Retail price: $40.  Clearance price $8.  Gift for Papillon's upcoming birthday - check!!

6 very practical pairs of pants and 1 amazing dress with hat - Total cost after subtracting bonus discount and adding tax: $13.00

Yeah. It made my day. I love clearance shopping.

Remembering my love of grocery shopping.

I am not as much of a hard-core couponer as I used to be. I just don't have the time to do it like I used to. I do still use coupons, but my strategy is different, more streamlined, as it were.

So, shopping trips like these are few and far between, but when they happen, I LOVE them.

Here is what I got on a recent trip to the store:

4 half gallons of tea
1 tube toothpaste
4 packages hotdogs
and 4 peaches.

Total Cost: $2.70
Of that, $1.20 was the peaches.
The hot dogs were free.
Tea was 25 cents each
toothpaste 50 cents.

Ahhh, it was such a fun shopping trip!

Homemade Laundry Detergent

For a long time now, I have thought that I really should be making my own laundry detergent. But I have never gotten around to it. I don't know why. I mean, it's cheaper, better for cloth diapers than the detergent I have been using, and its super duper easy. So yes, the great mystery is why it has taken me this long to get around to it.

But, that is not important. What is important is that I finally did it.
I used the instructions that a friend posted on her blog. (the link seems to be acting up for some reason...the post was there just last week, I swear!)

And armed with all the essential ingredients:

I got started.

One: Dice up a bar of soap and put it in a food processor. I used Yardley Soap.

Two: Add in appropriate amounts of Borax and Washing Soda (I forget now if it was 1/2 cup of each, or 1 cup of each...hopefully the link above will start working again so I can figure that out next time I need to make some).

Then process in the food processor.

And, voila! You are done.
It was that simple.

And I am happy to report that all our detergent build-up problems with the diapers have vanished since we have been using this detergent. Love it!

Edit: I forgot to mention, you use a very small amount of detergent in each load (A tablespoon I believe) so one batch goes a long way!

New Grocery Strategy

As part of a little life-re-organizing, I have recently changed my grocery shopping strategy.
I used to read the grocery store ads every week, and often times would go shopping every week. Generally a little trip, no more than $50 generally. This would allow me to only purchase the things that were for sale at the BEST price. Therefore, my grocery budget was very low, but the time it took me to shop was rather high.

Time = money. So...

I have decided that I don't need to grocery shop every week. When something is a good price, I need to buy a ton of it ("ton" varies depending on the shelf life of the product) and some times I may need to suck it up and buy something that is a little higher price then the rock bottom price I like to look for.

As an example: I always buy Marge's dog food at Aldi. I used to only buy one when we were getting low. However, the price never changes and I always need more and I don't think it goes bad for a long long time. So why not buy 2, or 3 bags at a time?

Or, detergent. I can get the detergent I like at my local grocery store and use a $1 off coupon which they double, making for a great price even when its not on sale. So, when I have a coupon, I just use it. Very rarely, it is on sale, but generally not when I have a coupon and the coupon saves me more money. So I now put the detergent coupons in a "use immediately" pile and don't bother waiting for a sale and running out of detergent in the mean time.

This shift in shopping strategies prompted a very large shopping trip the other week:

While usually I don't spend more than $50 on any given trip, this trip involved two stores, a sweet meat sale and ended up costing 3x what I normally spend.

But, guess what? I have enough meat in my freezer to last me a solid month. Enough dog food for about 2 months. Enough pantry things that we won't be lacking any staples for a long time. And a fair amount of yummy produce that we can work our way through. So I won't be shopping for a good long while.

I think in the end I will spend a tiny bit more per month on groceries because I won't be running out every time some small random thing is on sale for a rock bottom price. But my time is quite valuable too, and I must spend that wisely as well.

Disassembled

Back before Papillon was born and we were yardsale-ing like crazy, we bought a fun little play mat. I recently pulled it out of the closet thinking it would be a good thing to put as a semi-permanent fixture in the kitchen. The very hard floors of which are tough on Papillon's head when she randomly face-plants so I thought this would be a good remedy for that.

And it would be if Papillon wasn't able to pull the mat apart.

It was day 2 of having the mat down and Papillon figured out she could pull the "A" out of the puzzle. From there, there was no stopping her. It usually takes less than 5 minutes for her to have the whole thing in pieces.

Some times it looks like she is thinking very hard about how to put it back together.
"I think the green one goes over here, and the yellow one goes next to the stars"

This may actually be the best $1 we spent at a yard sale. She loves taking it apart.
But, I think it may be a while before she masters the re-assembly process.

Until then I think I will be getting a lot of puzzle practice.

Nearly free diapers

Cloth diapering is still going very well. I did waiver in my love for cloth diapers the first time Papillon had a real solid-food-eating-poop. Yikes! But, I got over it, and am back to loving my cloth diapers!

From time to time though, it is convenient to use disposables. When Papillon and I flew out west, for example, it was disposables all the way. So, in efforts to anticipate the occasional need for disposables, I have been on the look out for a good diaper deal.

The other day, we hit the jack pot.

$5.44 for 204 Size 3 diapers shipped to our house.
(Size 3 is currently a bit too big for Papillon but since we don't use these often, we decided to plan ahead).

That's 2.7 cents per diaper.

I was super excited about this deal.
We got them from Amazon
Their Amazon Mom deal gave us free 2 day shipping plus a certain % off.
"subscribing" for my purchase gave us another % off. (I subscribed for them to be delivered once ever 6 months...then I cancel my subscription after the 1st ones arrive since I don't need any more)
A coupon I had gotten in the mail gave me $10 off
A gift card I got via Swagbucks gave me $5 off
And another coupon from a parenting magazine gave me another 20% off.


Never have I been able to stack so many discounts into one deal. It was fabulous.
And with 204 diapers, I think we will be set for disposables until Papillon outgrows size 3s (which won't be for a long time at the rate she prefers to grow).

I may have gotten carried away...

...with grocery shopping.

But the pre-Thanksgiving sales were just too good to pass up.
All of the groceries above were a great price, and I stayed under my grocery budget for the month with enough money left for Mon Amour and I to have a little budget-date-night!

The real question was, would the 8lb bag of fries, 24lb turkey, frozen vegetables etc, fit into my freezer...

It took some shuffling, but I got it all in!

Cloth Diapers

I don't have a lot to say on this subject, except to say that after about 3 weeks of cloth diapering, I am a big fan.

We use bumGenius diapers.

They are very easy to use. Snaps to size them. Velcro to close them. And two different size liners for absorbing. We have 10 diapers right now; which means I have to wash them every day. I really need to buy a few more so that I can start doing landry only every other day. But really its just become part of the evening routine.

At first I found the big one-size-fits-all doapers awkward to put on her tiny bum.
Here is a picture from when we first tried the cloth diapers. The onsie was quite appropriate.

But she is a bit bigger now, and now on the rare occasion that I use a disposable diaper, they feel tiny and pathetic.
In summary, bumGenius diapers are lovely. Many thanks to my cloth diapering friends who did careful research about various types of cloth diapers such that I felt pretty confident about the bumGenius before I even began!

My All Time Favorite Goodwill Find

On a recent trip to Goodwill, I stumbled across these fabulous baby shoes:

Quite possibly my all time favorite Goodwill find ever!!

Freecycle

Alternately titled:
Papillon has a ridiculous amount of clothes.


Recently, Mon Amour and I decided to join Freecycle.
I had heard wonderful things about it from a lot of people, but was hesitant to try because I had heard that it was something you really had to be involved in (the more you give, the more you get kind of thing). And I wasn't sure I had the time for that kind of involvement.

But finally we decided to just go for it!
And I must say I have been pleasantly surprised by our almost immediate success.

The other evening, we picked up a couple trashbags full of baby girl clothes, and after weeding through the ones that were a little stained, or that we just didn't like the look of, this is what we were left with: (two sides of one giant stack of clothes)

They range all the way from newborn to 24 months.
Now its official, Papillon has a ridiculous amount of clothes.

But, back to Freecycle.
We also picked up some Day Lilly Bulbs which we have planted.

Picking up free stuff really does inspire one to give away free stuff. At first I thought we wouldn't have anything to give away, then I realized that people give away anything and everything. The strangest thing that someone has offered so far is a half-used bottle of syrup (they tried it, but prefer a different brand). And the surprising thing is...someone took it! That means someone actually drove to another persons house to pick up a half a bottle of syrup. Weird.

The moral of the story being that people will take anything free. So its time to clean out the garage and see what kind of stuff we can give away!

Groceries

It has taken me a while to get my grocery shopping sea-legs, if you will. The number of options of places to shop has been a bit overwhelming. There have actually been times when I have found my self wishing for a good Acme catalina sale more than any of the countless sales in my area. I just kept telling my self, though, that I just needed to get in a good shopping grove - get a feel for sale rotations, who is good for produce, etc etc.

Well, I think I found my grove. I think I may also be nesting, cause I have gotten a bit carried away with the shopping of late. (but I have NOT been going over budget, so my crazy stocking-up must be forgiven).

(Note: The following grocery shopping tale is longer than it should be, and probably boring to most readers. But, I fear this little excursion was the highlight of my week, and so in my mind warrants a long tale. Don't read on unless you enjoy overly detailed shopping trip stories)

This past weekend, I had my grocery options narrowed down to the 4 best stores (out of like 10 options), then decided 4 was ridiculous, so I picked my favorite 3 and made my list, with coupons, calculated out to the penny, and went on my way.

My first store - a locally owned, one of a kind little place. I was a little nervous (always am at a new store) that things would not go as planned (prices would not be as advertised, coupons would be disputed, etc etc) - but it was a huge success. The staff was super friendly, the produce was gorgeous looking, and all the sale prices clearly labeled and accurate. Love it!

2nd Store - an Aldi that I had been to before. I was pre-disposed to like this one because I had heard good things, but my local Aldi has been hit or miss at best. And this time it was a definite miss - I really needed 2 things: strawberries and cherries. I think I looked at 30 strawberry containers, before I found 4 without mold. And ALL of the cherries were moldy. Not impressed.

That's when I decided to improvise. I really wanted cherries, and the one store I had taken off my agenda, was right around the corner, and also had a good price for cherries. So off I went to store #3 - another locally owned, one of a kind little place (the one with the Jamaica me crazy sale a few weeks ago) Successfully purchased a bunch of cherries as well as a bunch of other beautiful produce. Another rousing success.

Last stop - the local Superfresh. We have a very nice local superfresh, and other than my inability to efficiently match my cereal coupons to the cereal sale (I figured it out, but I think I stood stupidly in that aisle for waaay too long. We'll blame it on pregnancy brain), it was also a success.

In summary, this is what I brought home:

Highlights include:
A ton of produce- including lots of veggies and about 12 lbs of assorted fruits.
Close to 15 lbs of meat in various forms
6 boxes of cereal
Luigi's Italian Ice (FREE!)
Assorted snacks, juices, hotdog buns and a small assortment of other stuff.

Total Cost: $59.64

Which was almost exactly what I budgeted! Not too shabby for having to improvise a bit in the middle.

The most amazing part was that I went to all 4 grocery stores....and traveled less than 10 miles total. I am still in shock about that. I don't think there was a single grocery store within 10 miles of my farm house. And I went to 4 without going 10 miles. I could get used to this city life.

In conclusion, I think I have found my top three stores. Two of which are not chain stores, which I was surprised about because in my mind, small and locally owned equates to expensive. I figure its only because of the big bulk contracts that chains have that they can offer low prices. But, its not true. Locally owned seems to be the way to go. The people are nicer, coupon policies are fabulous (doubling up to, and including $1 coupons!), and the prices are fabulous.

Rite Aid

For a long time now, I have known that I needed to break into the world of drug store rebate shopping. I have read all about it and seen some of the fabulous deal you can get from the drug store. But because I have never been drug store shopping, it just wasn't on my mental list of sales to check every week.

Well, it was time to fix that. For my first trip, I decided to go with a good friend and expert deal shopper. Together we headed off to Rite Aid - armed with a print off of their corporate policies on couponing, etc. In case things got ugly and we needed to pull out the big guns. (Fortunately, we did not have to, everything went quite smoothly)

It was not a huge trip in terms of stuff purchased, but it was monumental nonetheless.

Here is what I got:

Total Cost (after my rebates come in): $0.00

Yup, it's not much, but it was all free. And it is all stuff I will use - toothbrush, shampoo, lightbulbs, and who can refuse free chocolate.

I will spare you the details of the transaction, but it was a combination of mail in rebates, SCRs and manufacturers coupons. For more info on how to work this kind of deal for yourself, go here.

A much less lame shopping trip

This past week at my favorite grocery store, there were some really amazing sales. Normally this would have been a week when shopping would have gone by the way side - I didn't get the circulars, I was rather busy, and we weren't particularly low on food.

However, this week, the deals could not be passed up.
So I stopped by the store to pick up a circular (looking at the add online is just not the same)
And I printed off / clipped lots of coupons
I made a list, I rewrote it a couple times to make sure that I knew exactly what my bill should be after all the money saving dust had settled (I find calculating this ahead of time saves me the stress of reading the whole receipt at the end to make sure everything was the price it was supposed to be .

Off to the store I went (with my super-helpful husband in tote)

This is what we came home with.
(You may want to click on the picture to enlarge it - there are fun details included on the picture)

I always get a little anxious about a trip like this where I am combining sales with instant rebates with coupons. Something is pretty much destined to be out of stock, or not on sale like it is supposed to be, and I either have to talk to a manager, or revise my list on the spot, and it never goes as well as I would hope.

However, this trip, I cannot complain. Only two things went "wrong":

First, they were out of the Quaker Bars (which I kind of thought they would be) - so I got a rain check, which I wasn't sure would work since sometimes at-register-discounts don't work with rain checks, but the manager told me it would work. But, turns out it didn't matter, because Mon Amour went to the store for me the next day - and they were restocked! Score!

Second, there were two types of pasta on sale - Healthy Harvest, and Smart Taste. Most of my coupons were for Smart Taste, but one coupon was for Healthy Harvest. And I got all Smart Taste. So that coupon didn't work. I could have asked if I could switch out the pastas and saved that extra $1; but I figured the cashier would hate me, so I decided it wasn't worth it.

All in all, I was quite pleased with the shopping trip! Actually, I thoroughly enjoyed myself on this shopping trip. I am waaay to addicted to grocery shopping.

Side note: I do know that a lot of this food is overly processed (*cough* Hamburger Helper *cough*) or unnecessary (*cough* cake mix and soda *cough*) but I don't think it will kill us, and it was ubber cheap, and I can guarantee we will enjoy eating it :-)

Home Made: Hummus

Unfortunately, the pictures to go with this post are super lame. I always have grand intentions of taking pictures of my baking adventures....and then, after the first picture, the camera is discarded due to the flurry of baking activity.

So here is our one lone picture for the making of homemade hummus.

Garbanzo Beans! or Chick Peas! What ever you prefer to call them. Either way, I love them.

My fondness for hummus is definitely a new found thing. Until about a year ago, I didn't even know what hummus was. I asked people and they would undoubtedly respond "It's ground up chick peas". To which I was like, "Hmmm....not helpful".

But then one day, I had some at a restaurant. Some warm hummus served with tortillas. Sooooooo good! Since then I have been determined to eat it at home. However, it turns our, pre-made hummus is freakishly expensive. Like, I couldn't bring myself to buy it, expensive.

So I figured if people were telling the truth about it being "ground up chick peas", which sell for like 65 cents a can, how hard can it really be?

Well, much to my delighted surprise, it is as simple as it sounds. This is how it goes: 1 can garbanzo beans, 1/4 cup olive oil, a tablespoon or two of lemon juice, then garlic and cumin to taste. Blend until smooth. Serve with whatever.

Many recipes call for a seasoning called Tahini, which I have yet to be able to locate. But, my hummus doesn't miss it.

Home Made: Tortillas

This is one thing that I now make from scratch that I think I will never got back from.

Tortillas:

There are a little bit time consuming to cook, but other than that, they are freakishly simple. A couple cups of flour a smidgen of salt, a couple tablespoons of shortening and some water. Roll out, flop onto a frying pan and cook each side of a few minutes. Very easy.

And they are soooo delicious when they are fresh! Its amazing.

I haven't priced it out exactly, but I am pretty confident they are in fact cheaper than store bought. And there's less preservatives and packaging, they taste fresh, store them in the fridge and the last a long time.

They are good for tacos, for sandwiches, for snacking on, and for eating with hummus (more on that subject later :-)

Homemade: Tomato Sauce

In the past couple of months, I have started making from scratch some things that I would previously never really considered making from scratch. But now that I have done it, its hard to go back to store bought. It is hard to switch back for many reasons, some economical, some chemical, and sometimes even as a matter of taste preference. Over a series of posts (which may or may not be posted back to back) I will share with you some of these fun things.

Starting with: Tomato Sauce.

Usually I buy this dirt cheap at the grocery store. On sale with coupons always. We eat a lot of pasta sauce. It serves many uses in our house. I love sauce from a jar

But of late I have had a lot of tomatoes sitting around; they are from our garden, like these:

I don't really like to just eat tomatoes, so it was time to learn to make sauce.

So I sliced.

Then I simmered with a little olive oil, and lots of fun seasonings. I think the recipe I found said to simmer for about 30 minutes. It seemed excessive, but I guess it did the trick.

Oh, and the recipe that I found also said to peel the tomatoes. I didn't do this. But I would recommend it if you like smooth sauce. Tomato skins don't really simmer up smooth. They kind of stay like skins.

But, after 30 minutes of simmering, take a little pastry cutter thing, or a fork to the mess to smooth it out. And voila! Tomato Sauce!

It looks like the stuff from the can. It doesn't really taste like it. But its close. We ate it and enjoyed it. I wouldn't say I loved it, but it has inspired me to search out a recipe that I do love, cause I know its out there some where.

If any one knows of a good home made tomato sauce recipe - do share!

7%

Recently, Mon Amour and I went on a date ....to the grocery store. Don't worry, I considered it incredibly romantic. I love grocery shopping. And I love that Mon Amour doesn't mind shopping with me. He is very helpful! Helpful for keeping me on track, helpful for telling me its ok to loosen up from time to time, helpful for asking cashiers about items that seem to be out of stock, and helpful for carrying things to the car. Very helpful.

This trip was particularly thrilling. The short version goes like this:

Total Retail Value of my Groceries: $179.97
Total that I paid: $13.61

That's approximately 7% of the retail value. It like everything was 93% off.
hehe. Pardon the giggling. But saving money on groceries makes me giddy.

So, what does $179.97 worth of groceries look like?
Like this:

As for the details -first the "don't be TOO impressed" details (i.e. the flaws/errors with my shopping):

$15 of this shopping trip was the result of a cashier error - not through my own planning (though this trip did require quite some planning!). They accidentally printed me twice as many coupons as they should have. My conscience haunts me a little about not correcting their error...but in the moment, I wasn't convicted enough. So, really, if not for this cashier error I would have spend $13.61 on only $164.97 worth of groceries. Still a very good trip.

Then the sad news - we actually could have gotten 2 free bagged salads added to this trip. There were coupons for free salad with the purchase of dressing that we didn't notice. They were right on the dressing bottles, but we didn't see them until we got home. Lame.


Now the fun news. I won't bore you with all the details. Just some highlights.

The core of the savings was based on a Unilever offer - by $30 worth of stuff, get $15 off your next purchase. Well, the $30 is pre-coupons. So $30 sale cost - approximately $13 in coupons = $17 cost, with a $15 coupon for next time. Do that twice, this time using that $15 coupon in lieu of cash - and you only have to put out a few dollars to get ANOTHER $15 off the next purchase coupon. You can roll the deal like this a lot if you have lots of coupons. I only rolled it twice. (the 2nd time was when they printed me $30 in coupons, instead of $15. Oops.)

The really good deals:

We were randomly awarded a coupon for a free box of cookies from the bakery. Score!

I had a coupon for $0.50 off 2 candy bars. They were on sale 2 for $1. And the coupon was doubled. This equals 2 free candy bars.

And the best deal - Kellogs is running a back to school promotion where if you purchase 10 Kellogs products and mail in the receipt / UPCs, you get a $10 rebate. Well, it just so happened that the grocery store had Kellogs Pop Tarts on sale at $1 a box. A great price even without the rebate. I also had coupons for $0.50 of 2 boxes. That coupon gets doubled. So each box cost me 50 cents. Totalling $5 for 10 boxes. Mail in those UPCs and receipt - and I just made $5 on 10 boxes of Pop Tarts.

On my last transaction of the evening - where I was using up my $30 in "next purchase" coupons. I wanted to get as close to $30 as possible. I didn't want to put out any more cash, but I also didn't want the store to techically owe me money at the end. So, we added a few frivolous items (like gum, and an artichoke). My in-store math was just about dead on. After sales, regular coupons, and the $30 coupons, I owed the casheir 51 cents. Perfect.

Yes, it was a good trip. Next time I will correct a cashier error if I catch it. I enjoy couponing, and don't feel any shame about "making money" off of certain deals - but I do believe couponing should be done correctly, with in the guidelines carefully established by marketing firms everywhere. I don't want to abuse the system (like the guy who was at the store with us who bought 150 jars of mayonaise cause he figured out how to get them for free or at least nearly free).
To me, couponing is a game (a very practical one) and like most games, its really only fun if you play by the rules and be a good sport.

Bargain - Cookware

This is a different kind of bargain than yesterdays. It is not the wow-look-out-little-I-paid-for-this kind of deal. But more the now-this-is-a-stellar-long-lasting-investment-item kind of a deal. Its not always about the cheapest price - but about the best value.

Let me give you some back story. When Mon Amour and I were engaged and were creating out wedding registry, we kind of ignore the advice to register for super high quality stuff! Having never managed my own home before, I didn't really appreciate the difference between a $100 pot set, and a $100 pot. :-) So I got a nice, generic brand set of pots and things. And they have served me well...or at least they did for like a year.

Since that time, I am pretty sure Mon Amour and I have consumed more non-stick toxins, and left more permanent residues on our pots and pans then I like to think about. The major culprit was my skillet. Which I use for just about everything. Literally, I must use it at least 4 or 5 times a week. It was getting really gross. It was time to upgrade.

Well, as providence would have it, there was some extra space in our budget this month, and Mon Amour gave his blessing to "splurging" on a new, high-quality skillet.

After much research, I found the one I wanted at Williams Sonoma. So the next time I was in town, I picked it up. I didn't know it was possible to gush over a pan. But it is - every one in the store was oooing and aaahing over it! Either said it was the best pan they ever owned, or said it was the one they dreamed of owning. (Online reviews say pretty much the same thing)

And now, I own one....of these:

Brand new, fresh out of the box:

Soooo shiny!

When it sits on the stove Marge can see her reflection in it - she hates it. Tail between her legs, fleeing to the other room kind of hates it. Hopefully she will warm up to it.

Also, I feel like my little stove looks kind of inferior compared to my sweet new pan.

The inside has nice rounded edges and is very deep!

I am in love.

The one complaint about this pan that I have heard is that "after 10 years of steady use, it begins to show some wear". Call me nearsighted, but I'll take a mere 10 years of this beautesouness any day! And 10 years of high quality at a higher price, beats 1-2 years of poor quality at a lesser price in my book!

Oh, and it was on sale. Still expensive. But definitely on sale. I haven't gone that crazy.

Bargains - Clothes

I love a good deal! Two days in a row last week, I made puchases that I consider to be GREAT deals! Allow me to tell you about them.

The first deal was of the Goodwill variety. Usually I don't have much luck at Goodwill. I get impatient wading through hundreds of super lame articles of clothing, to find one minute possibility that usually ends up not fitting, having a stain, or just being an all around dud. I have gotten a few things that I like - but mostly I liked it enough to pay the severely discounted price. I don't think I have ever bought something at Goodwill that I would have been okay with paying full price for.

Until the other day.

After perhaps a mere 15 minutes of searching, I had found 6 items I wanted to try on. Off to the dressing room I went, with expectations higher than usual, but still pretty low.

And that's when I tried on THE JEANS! Make that, the jeans of my dreams! They are amazingly comfortable, correct size, long enough for my legs, dark denim, Express brand jeans! for $3.50! Ever since I was given a pair of White House Black Market jeans, I have decided that jeans are one of those things that you can pay top dollar for. There is a huge difference between cheap jeans, and good jeans. Except in this case - in which these really excellent jeans were really cheap!

After that I tried on a pair of corduroy pants - which were also amazing! Perhaps not quite as life changing as the jeans. But I was totally sold. Up until this point, I owned one pair of cords, which I think I bought early in highschool some time, which I definitely shouldn't have still been wearing. But the only other cords I had found that I liked cost like $85 and I wasn't about to pay that much. But these were nearly perfect - my size and talls, correct color, soft cords, not too warn looking, Old Navy brand cords. Also $3.50

All in all - this is what I got:
Cords, three wonderfully comfy and practical shirts, and amazing jeans.

Oh....and these:

Super fabulous, slightly worn out, green flats!

Total cost for everything - $21.

I have never been so pleased with a Goodwill trip! I would gladly have paid twice that amount for the jeans alone because they are so comfy and practically new!

Free Stuff

I love this website.

For a variety of reasons.

1. You fill out the forms, you get free stuff.
   
2. The free stuff typically comes with sweet coupons
3. Even if the free stuff isn't all that great - thanks to this website, we actually get mail from time to time! If it weren't for this website, I think that I could check my mail once a week and really not be missing much. I love getting mail, even when it comes from a cold, mechanized distribution center.
   

Here are a few of the fun things I have received recently as a result of this website:

Shampoo. There are lots of shampoo samples usually...tis not a ton of shampoo, but you get a few washes out of it - and then if you like it, there is a coupon to buy more!

Toilet paper. Definitely one of the most random items. It was a individual sized roll...meaning there was more cardboard in the middle than there was actual TP wrapped around it.
But again...came with an excellent coupon.

Yummy desserts. This thing was tiny - look at the cake mix part itself, it must be like 2 Tablespoons of powder. Add water. Microwave. And two bites later you are done. But, it was free...I will take two bites of chocolately yummy-ness for free.

A single paper towel. Definitely the fanciest paper towel ever. They don't when they say its like a real towel. They probably cost more than I like to pay for paper towels ....but for a brief moment, I could pretend that I had splurged on paper towels.

Cream of Wheat, a coupon, and a Ziploc Bag, need I say more.

We have also gotten lots of little snack foods, and many other random things

In summary, if you like getting free stuff, I would highly recommend this website.

I would definitely recommend creating an email account exclusively for signing up for these offers; most will require you put in an email address, and unless you like getting junk emails you will want to direct those elsewhere.

Also, don't hold your breath in anticipation after signing up for a really cool sample. It might arrive by the end of the week...but it might also take 2 months. So, fill out the form and forget about it. It will get to you eventually, and, honestly, if for some reason it never does - what have you lost? Really just the 30 seconds it took you to fill out the form.