Coupon Sense Testimony Time

Ok, just had to share.  You know how it is when you save hundreds of dollars for your husband.  I dropped Austin off at hockey practice and lo and behold, there is a Fry’s and Safeway conveniently located by the arena.  Sweet Jesus!  I am currently grounded from spending money… but that’s for another blog on a depressing day… not today.  So, I went to both stores for just the freebies and got:

5 boxes of Kellogg’s corn flakes

2 avocados

6 Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups (4 in a pkg)  No, I don’t plan to eat all those tonight or even this week.  That is a three month supply!  Hidden of course.

(They were out of the free zip lock baggies and the free salad dressing!  BAH!)

And spent….. $.19.   Yes, that’s cents, not dollars.  NINETEEN cents.  That doesn’t even count as spending money.

Then I went to Barnes & Noble to casually browse adoption books, which is what us adoptive parents do in our WAITING time.  I found three and then a comfy chair.  Half way through the second book I figured out that I was pretty tired when I did a church nod!  (That’s when your head falls to the side in an uncontrolled, but quickly rectified fashion.)  So I put the books back and wandered TJ Maxx.  Remembering fervently that I’m grounded from spending money.

One of the adoption books, or should I say anti-adoption books, was just more than I could take.  It was so generalized on the negative side I felt like ripping out pages and wadding them up.  But then I’d have to explain the the B&N people that I can’t pay for it because I’m grounded from spending money.  So I just put it back on the shelf and truly questioned the benefits of books full of negative smack.  Who reads those?  Oh, negative people.  Right.

Anyway, Rick is away tonight on a trip, so I will have a full night of blissful rest without having to tell him to turn over and stop snoring.  Yes, I’d rather have him here.  Yes, my tired body is happy he’s gone for just one night.  I can’t imagine being a real pilot’s wife when they are gone so much.  Thankfulness has again filled my heart, even though I’m grounded from spending money.  Sweet Dreams!

Pre-Computer Life…

OK, how in the wide world did we survive before computers????  (Mine are still down…. grrrrr.)   Seems our hard drive gave up the ghost.  I couldn’t renew library books or movies…. and the movies are $2 per DAY for each day late.  We had eight of them….. that’s $16 per day, for those who are mathily challenged.  Thankfully I was on top of that one!  Then, glory be, there were F-I-V-E inserts full of $365 worth of coupons in today’s paper…. but can I label them without my Coupon Sense site???? NO!  And where are eggs on sale?  Rick bought me a dozen, but accidentally threw them on the floor in front of the fridge instead of putting them in the fridge.  I’m so lost without my electronic friends.

Anyway, we are still breathing and surviving without internet access.  Hey, wait!  Doesn’t the PSP go online???  I could at least find information…  I’m off to steal my son’s PSP.  No more Madden ’08.  It’s Coupon Sense, baby.

Aaaaand,  along with the majority of North American citizens… Rick and I started an “eat healthier” plan on Jan. 1st.  Well, I did, anyway.  He joined, by his own will power, on Jan. 3rd at 8:00 a.m., albeit half-hearted. I think he went off the plan on Jan. 3rd at 4:30 p.m., but the jury is still out on that one.  He started again this morning… and was off by 1:30 p.m.  He ate some pasta with cheese sauce that was not on the plan…. he told me the pasta looked like chicken.  See what I’m dealing with here?  A blind man.  We did consume some all-beef dogs without the buns, but Rick had to keep his bun on his plate to make it appear that there was more food at his disposal.  I think I’m a nervous, emotional eater.  He’s definitely a visual eater.  We distracted him and removed it eventually…. so it wouldn’t start looking like chicken.  Keeve, our 10 year old, confiscated the bun and put a churro inside.  (Those are deep-fried dough sticks covered with cinnamon and sugar.)  The first ever churro dog.  (Disgusting.)

Churros

So, YOU, my dear readers are my new accountability group.  I’ll post my weekly losses here for you all to analyze and scrutinize and envy.  The first week’s always a good one with bloated water loss…. please stand by for my Thursday posts.  Intimate details will be posted for the entire universe to view at their discretion.  Pray!

?#20 from My Sister’s Jar ~ Holiday Celebration

If money were no object, how would you celebrate your favorite holiday?

(OK, I’ve been supremely lame at weekly answering the questions from My Sister’s Jar this year.  Just now I wiped a layer of dust from the lid of the jar.  I only got to number twenty.  But I must say, in self defence, that I read through all the remaining questions and they don’t truly inspire me.  I may just have to make up my own questions from now on.  I’ll never tell.)

Every year our family participates in Operation Christmas Child by filling shoe boxes with toys, trinkets and toiletries for children all over the world.  What better time of year to share Jesus’ love than on His birthday!?!  In years gone by we saved all the McDonald’s Happy Meal toys, but we don’t get those anymore.  Thanks to Coupon $ense, I have a drawer full of free toothbrushes and toothpaste.  All that being said, I would LOVE to spend Christmas following our boxes to the land far away and have my children see the faces of the little kids that are being blessed by their boxes.  I believe it would change their hearts.  It would crack open a sensitivity to those less fortunate.  Packing the box and taking it across town to the gathering location is one thing…. seeing the fruits of their labors would be quite another.

I heard on the radio today about a contest where the winner gets to travel to Panama (Oh, so close to Colombia!) with Samaritan’s Purse and deliver the boxes this December.  That struck a chord in my soul.  That would be ultimately cool to participate in with the whole family.  I don’t know if I would be able to be so close to Zaza and not want to dash across the border yelling her name.  Crazy, I know.  She doesn’t know we call her Zaza.  But it’s the thought that counts.

Someday I hope to spend Christmas delivering boxes.  Someday.

Affordable {FREE} Groceries

Another unbelievable week of coupons is upon us.  For those who don’t participate in Coupon $ense, please bear with me as I shamelessly brag about my grocery store savings.  It’s just too good not to share the diligence by which I’m saving my husband’s hard earned money.  It’s testimony time!

Today the store that sucked me in was Fry’s.  They have a Buy 10 Get $5 Off deal going on, with a maximum of 3 per transaction.  So here’s what I got:

8 bottles Powerade, 3 boxes Scalloped Potatoes, 3 Quaker Oats, 4 Mashed potato pouches, 6 cans evap milk, 3 xL liquid hand soap, 1 Hefty sandwich bags, 3 Colgate toothpaste, 3 Shick 10-count (cute pink) razors and 2 boxes Macky-Cheese.   THIRTY-SIX items should have cost $73.50 …………. drum roll please ……………. and I paid …………….. $5.31.  That’s a 93% savings.

You just gotta love a system that can save you this much money.  If you’re curious, you can check it out at www.CouponSense.com.  It is not available in all areas, but if it is in your town……. needless to say, I highly recommend it.  I get 3 Sunday papers each week + the C$ fee so I pay $30 per month for the whole schpeel.  I saved that twice over just with one trip to the store. 

I have cut my grocery bill in more-than-half from $570 to $250 per month for a family of five (plus a dog).  My pantry has never been this full.  I started C$ in January and I have tracked my savings all along on the site.  In coupons ALONE I have saved more than $1,065 and received more than $89 in rebates.  The other deal is knowing when the stores have their super sales.  Totally worth it!

I know you’re thinking I spend hours per week cutting coupons and filing them alpha-chronologically, but NO.  The site tells me where the best deals are.  I pick one or two stores every other week.  I clip the ones I need (3 at a time) and it maybe takes me 20 minutes every other week.  Well worth it, in my humble opinion.  And no, I don’t get paid to advertise for Coupon $ense, but I should.

I’m done preaching now.  (I didn’t think about the election for a whole 15 minutes just now!)

Flashback Wednesday

As I stood in my kitchen this morning I had a flashback to my youth.  Specifically, it was a sunny late afternoon in Sunnyvale, California and a family bar-b-que was underway.  Ground beef had been thawed to make some scrupmptious hamburger patties, but alas, a plight arose.  There were only hotdog buns… no hamburger buns.  I distinctly remember being so proud of my clever mother for shaping the hamburger patties into hotdog bun conforming shapes.  Brilliant.

Back to my kitchen, my boys requested French Toast for breakfast so I  mixed the magic potion in which to dunk the bread slices.  The first four were sizzling with merriment as I dug through the freezer for more bread.  There had to be some hiding in there because I just got five free loaves two weeks ago.  (Thank you, Coupon $ense!) Nada.  I made enough egg-milky goo to dunk half a loaf, so I wandered back to the bread box to find one and a half packages of hotdog buns.  Presto!  I invented Hot French Dog Toasted Buns. I sliced the top part in half horizontally and got three pieces out of each bun.  Wonder of wonders. 

I was seriously doubting if the boys would even eat them.  But to my sheer delight, they wanted the new fangled French buns instead of the regular slices.  As I was nearing the half way mark in the bun bag, one son announced that when he grew up he was only buying hotdog buns.  No bread.  Why buy bread when everything can be made with hotdog buns?  Sandwiches, hotdogs, and Hot French Dog Toasted Buns. I mentally added hamburgers.

McDonald’s is a Dangerous Place

Minding my own business…. (isn’t this how most horror stories start???) … Keeve and I were at Micky D’s this morning shoveling hotcakes and sausage and breaky burritos.  We had two hours to KILL (maybe not the best choice of words here) while Larisa was at a drama meeting.  So I brought my Coupon $ense box and was the psycho with the scissors in the corner of the dino-playland.  Keeve was running in and out of playland with 5 or 6 little kids who only spoke Spanish.  Isn’t childhood great?  You don’t even have to speak the same language to play together. :o)  While darting in and out of the yellow tubes, my son got a straw jabbed in the back of his mouth.  The pain made his eyes water and the taste of blood lead him to the napkin dispenser. 

So as I’m locating W232 a $1.50 coupon off Doritos Salsa (which is on sale at Safeway for $1.69!!!) Keeve shows up beside me with a rolled up bloody napkin in his mouth.  This first thing I thought was he pulled a tooth out.  Nope.  With napkin wad filling his mouth he pantomimes the straw going in and the tears started.  I did look in his mouth, but I looked at his cheek and saw a little dot…  a microscopic dot.  He continued to change the medical gauze for ten minutes until it stopped bleeding.  I thought he was fine.

We ventured off to Safeway and saved $119 while only spending $53. Thankyouverymuch. Then to pick up Larisa and on to home.  We unloaded groceries and Keeve poured himself a bowl of Trix, because Trix are for kids. The first bite brought on more tears and I wondered if he needed a nap.  Mothers are tele-pathetic sometimes, able to determine the needs of their children with precision.  He said it REALLY hurt.  So I looked again to see if the teeny dot had grown.  Then I saw IT!

OK, I probably should not have yelled, “OH MY WORD!” But I did.  (spoiler warning for those with squeamy stomachs)  There is a 3/8 inch hole in the back of his mouth.  I remembered the over-sized straws at McD’s.  No wonder he cried.  I called the 24-hour nurse… who called back in 78 minutes.  Let’s just refer to her as Speedy.  Speedy said there is nothing that can be done if there is no bleeding.  It will heal on its own.  I told her that it hurts when he eats.  Speedy said to give Keeve pain reliever, jello, milkshakes, pudding and ice cream.  You know, the little poke might be worth THAT diet plan!?!?  Just a thought.

Keeve is on the couch full of banana pudding and blue jello… watching his third movie. He says his throat is “a little better.”  Maybe a milkshake and a few more movies will help.

Blundering Butterfingers

Yesterday I did a Coupon $ense Safeway run.  The targets: Charmin TP, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, Nature Harvest bars and eggs.  Of course I also picked up a few dozen other on sale items, but always the pull is the outstanding prices on the C$ Hot Deals.  I mean, please.  The Cinnamon Toast Crunch is normally priced at $2.89 a box.  Safeway had a special for 4/$10.  Then I had a Safeway flyer coupon making them 4/$6.  On top of that I had 75 cent coupons for each of the four boxes…. that are “doubled” to $1.00.  And the grand total for each box was a mere FIFTY CENTS. (An 83% savings) Why don’t they just hand them out on the street corner???

Onward to the broken egg picture.  The 18 count eggs were on sale B1/G1  (buy one, get one free), so 36 eggs were placed delicately in the cart.  At the check out stand, the eggs didn’t fare so well.  They were the last items I was pulling out of the cart and somehow the edge of the top carton caught the side of the grocery cart and out they plopped.  Trying to correct the situation, I gripped the carton firmly enough to hang onto it, but too firmly for the eggs in my G.I. Joe kung-foo grip. 

I have never broken a single egg in a grocery store in forty-two years.  That should count for something.  But no.  I looked up from the slimy mess that was dripping through the cart onto my Charmin TP, and said to the checker and the bag-girl, “Clean up on aisle 3…. I just broke a bunch of eggs.”  The bag-girl immediately grabbed a roll of paper towels and was heading around through an empty check-out lane, but then she disappeared???  What in the world??  Not a good time for a potty break.  She returned a few moments later and said, “I just went to aisle 3 and there weren’t any broken eggs.”  Oh.  See the drippy mess by my shoes???  I kindly replied, “It was a poorly timed joke,” and half smiled at the poor girl as we started wiping together.

The egg shells were still in the bottom of the cart so I picked up each goopy mess and dropped them back into the carton.  But, when I finished there was a vacant spot in the carton.  One egg was MIA.  How could that be?  They wouldn’t fit through the cart slots??  I looked all over and finally lifted up the carton to reveal the culprit, hiding from me!  Eleven or twelve of the 18 were smashed and oozing.  BUT, the whole mess was cleaned up in time for me to pay and run from the store red-faced.  “Did you need help out, Mrs. Crosby?”  Not today!

When I retold the entertaining story to my family, my daughter asked, “Did you have to pay for them?”  “No, broken eggs are absorbed into the dumb shopper fund.”  :o)  Thank God, Safeway has a dumb shopper fund.

Newsworthy Information

Despite my terribly busy day (2 b-day parties, post office, grocery store, book store, Walmart, cooking 2 lasagnas, hemming and strapping the grad formal… whew) I sat down to eat lunch and decided to have a stab at the AZ Republic… our newspaper.  I get the paper during the week only because it was cheaper that way for my three Sunday papers for Coupon $ense.  So usually I don’t read them.  But today I must have been feeling intellectually stagnant and opened the wealth of verbiage.  It was a substantial news day, unlike most “shot cat” and “drug ring” and “road closed” type days. 

Substantial News Story #1:  There has been an uncontacted tribe of Indians with huts, spears and not much clothing discovered in the Amazon on the Peru/Brazil border.  Story and pictures: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080530/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/brazil_indians  And they paint themselves different colors.  Cool!  This amazes me, that we haven’t found everybody yet.  With the heat-sensitive apparatus available that can find a fugitive hiding in a dog house… FROM a helicopter… why haven’t we found all the people groups yet?  I read with interest and thought of Nate Saint and the End of the Spear movie.  The article stated that contact wouldn’t be made due to flying spears when planes neared and because our germs would wipe them all out.  It neglected to mention that they need Jesus too.

Substantial News Story #2: (OK, not nearly as substantial as #1) There is a blog called www.ifoundyourcamera.blogspot.com where you can post pictures from a digital camera or card that you find.  OR if you misplace yours, you can pray that the finder knows about the blog and posts a few of your precious lost pictures so you can again have them securely in your obviously slippery hand.  The success stories are also listed, and they circle the globe… guy#1 from Kentucky loses his camera in Florida… guy #2 picks it up and takes it home to the Netherlands… guy #3, a friend of guy #1, lives in Australia and recognizes guy #1 on the blog and VOILA! The Florida pictures make it home to Kentucky.  See, there are good people left on Earth.

www.LindaCrosby.com

 

Use Drugs and get FREE Goods

Has anyone else caught onto the FREE Gift Cards when you transfer your prescriptions?  I have a monthly script to fill and I am making at least $10 a month if not up to $30 a month by transfering it from pharmacy to pharmacy to pharmacy.  The coupons are in the Sunday paper from CVS, Walgreens, Target, Safeway and Albertsons.  Of course, I have to keep track of it all in my daily planner or I don’t remember where it currently is.  Last month I did a FREE $30 Albertson’s gift card and then used coupons combined with their store sales and got TONS (that would be 2,000 pounds) of FREE groceries.  Specifically cereal, granola bars, popcorn and yogurt.  This month I’m going to CVS for $25.  Yes, I learned all this from Coupon Sense.  They rock my socks.

Shop Strong, Sistahs!

Let the Good Times ROLL

Toilet paper is an American family enigma that is not going away anytime soon.  I have yet to meet a family that consists of two or more family members, where one is NOT a Toilet Paper Nazi.  I mean, really.  If you’re going to buy cheap, flimsy, poke-my-fingers-through TP, then I need to use at least one-and-a-half good spins to adequately polish off the job.

I have fond teenage memories of gathering around the dinner table with Dad, Mom, my older brother and younger sister, and listening to my father’s lecture about toilet paper usage violations.  Distinctly I can still hear the deep, baritone voice commanding, “If you are a scruncher, you need to become a folder.”  And thus I embarked on my folding days, which have served me well for twenty-something years.  (I have saved my husband million$ of dollar$ during the past 21 years, thanks to my father’s wisdom.)

Yesterday, I asked my brother if he remembered that family “talk.”  He replied in his money-minded, business-like manner, “No, but I’ve always been a folder, so it wasn’t something that applied to me.”  Then he proceeded to tell me that everyone in his family uses too much bathroom tissue, exceptions include only himself and his diapered son.  (See!  He’s the TP Nazi in his house.)  He mentioned one infraction when he heard the roll spin faster than a centrifuge.  He wanted to yell, “I hope you’re cleaning the whole bathroom with that!”  But didn’t.

Since my conversion to Coupon Sense, we have, for the first time in our married life, purchased QUALITY toilet paper.  (It was on sale AND there was a coupon, making it less expensive than the bargain brand!)  Only being familiar with the cheap goods, this new stuff feels like 12 ply.  Sweet luxury at my disposal.  Unknowingly, I married a TP Nazi, and he stood true to form after the new flannel-soft privy paper appeared in our powder room.  Rick yelled from the john one night, “I hope you’re using less of this toilet paper now that we have this good stuff.”   I assured him that I was still a folder, ….but only twice now.

In the early hours of the morning, necessity called and I made enough movements getting out of bed to ensure Rick’s wakeful state.  After sitting there in the dark for several minutes, I yanked on the paper harder than I ever have and that baby spun as fast as my front-loading washing machine on full tilt.  Rick hollered from the bed, “I bet you had to put your arm way over your head to make it spin that fast.”  Oh, did we laugh.  Undeviating from his economical character he added, “You better be rolling that back on there!”  I could not stop laughing.  O.K., I was really overtired, but it still makes me smile.

Who’s the TP Nazi in your home?  If you can’t think of anyone else, it’s probably YOU!