What do you bring for POT LUCKS?

Okay.. everyone out there has their "signature dish" that they bring to pot lucks, pig out days, fat days, whatever you wanna call them.. depending on where this is being held, work, a families house for a special occasion, at church, or at a club meeting. There is one dish that you *always* make either because you love it or because you aren't allowed to come without it. I have a few and they've changed over the years. Not sure why but I do try to mix them up. Here are a few I've done over the years.

7 layer salad
1 1/2 heads lettuce shredded
8-10 green onion's chopped
3 carrot's shredded
4 hard boiled eggs sliced
small bag frozen peas (just dump in)
1lb cooked & crumbled bacon
8 oz shredded cheese cheese
dressing - mix 2 cups of mayo with 2-3 T lemon juice and dillweed.
put the dressing on top, spread around. add a little shredded cheese and a few green onions on top for garnish. Right before digging in mix the dressing into the salad otherwise you got wise guys eating just the dressing/top and a bunch of lettuce at the bottom.

PRETZEL SALAD
you can do this one with other flavors like raspberry as well.

Brushetta
okay I learned this one from an old Italian mama type from New York. It turns out super yummy and it's easy.
cube up tomatoes (I use PLUM tomatoes)
salt
pepper
fresh garlic
olive oil
basil

this is all by sight. I fill a bowl with the tomatoes then drizzle around some olive oil. next I put about 2 teaspoons of garlic in and add in the salt/pepper/basil last. It's all about how you like it.
I get french bread and slice it up and then toast it. I like to make this at least 8hours before servings so the flavors blend. Super garlic but ooh so yummy!

layered taco dip
in a 9x13 pan
large can refried beans
1 container guacamole
1 container sour cream
1 container salsa
8 oz shredded cheese
tomatoes, green onions, olives sprinkled on top.
easy, yummy, gone




VEGGIE PIZZA
I don't make this as neat as this picture looks. I normally just chop the veggies up very fine and throw them on top. I usually do carrot, green pepper, white onion, broccoli and then I put shredded cheese on top.

If missed my MASHED POTATO BAR post go back and check it out. This is one I learned from a neighbor of mine. Super great, super easy, super yummy, super crowd pleaser.

Sausages
I use sausage sliced up in chunks or the little cocktail wieners. throw it all in the crock pot with equal amounts of grape jelly and chili sauce. Let it "cook" through on low maybe 1-2 hours depends on how done you want them. Put a ladle out and toothpicks with little plate. Easy.


Okay.. so what are your signature dishes? What do you bring? What is easy and cheap? What do we have in our stockpiles that we could bring?

REDBOX MARCH MADNESS

WHOOO HOOO REDBOX IS AT IT AGAIN!!

Giving out free codes on Wednesdays as well as Monday's in March! Today's code is

75EA16.

I didn't get a text for this, did anyone else? or do you get your REDBOX info from INSIDE REDBOX

Luckily I have great sources like FRUGAL DR MOM to keep me informed!! Thanks Dr Mom!!

no more pasta?

what? I was buying pasta 10-12 boxes at a time for less than 50 cents a box or even free some weeks during the summer. I grabbed the last box tonight! I can not believe I've blown through all that pasta. To make matters worse I held onto SEVERAL great coupons for pasta waiting for the next big sale and they expired! *sigh*

anyone got any good pasta deals I could get in on?

my bed's getting trumped

well.. it looks at though I will not have time to go bed shopping this weekend. I had started writing up a list of everything I need to do this weekend however, after today car shopping is going to be the highlight of this weekend.

I was about to fall asleep last night at 12:20 and I remembered my keys were still in the ignition of my car.. I decided it would be fine and fell asleep.. the rude awakening at 8:23 this morning of my car saying CLICK CLICK CLICK wasn't so great. Here is the situation, and excuse me if I've already mentioned this like 400 times (I can't remember if I have or haven't) but my car has been having issues with letting go. It really is in love with me driving it or having my key stuck inside the ignition.. something about the car and that darn key.

My mechanic has had the car for over 3 weeks at one point and of course his report is, "it works every time for me".. yeah well it DOESN'T work every time for me. They've replaced the cylinder and greased the key.. and short of ripping apart my entire car just to figure it out they can only imagine that the transmission doesn't think the car is in park therefore will not let go of the key.

My husband and I have come up with tricks to get the key out and finally I figured out that if you just leave the dang thing in there it pops out on it's own. Pretty magical really. Sometimes it takes just seconds to pop out but now it's becoming increasingly longer, today it was 20 minutes.

Anyway.. last night I got home from work after 6pm and just wanted to go in and.... (make myself one of my mocha fraps) EAT and get to work on my BUCKET of work I brought home.. which I did...

so that brought me to 12:20am and then 8:23 this morning. luckily my co-worker has to pass my house to get to work, so I rolled my car out of the garage (almost lost the car as I tried to push the car and the recycle bin and the car started rolling down hill out of my garage) she showed up, popped her hood, jumped it in 3 seconds, she was gone around the corner before I even shut the hood of my car. we're that good folks!

anyway.. I've been looking for a new car on and off here and there but I've worked very hard to save the money I've saved towards a new car and really.. I JUST DON'T WANT TO SPEND IT!! not good.

So my husband is busy shopping at Carmax. Just wondering if anyone has had any luck (good or bad) at this place. I've also been looking at a local car auction but my husband got me turned on to carfax.com so I've been checking each of the cars and of course the cars I want have either been in accidents or have wayyy too long of records to want to touch.. *sigh*

soooooo I guess this is going to be a car shopping weekend and the bed is getting trumped...
***my cousin's husband (then boyfriend) wanted to buy her a diamond engagement ring and they needed a new bed. her engagement ring got trumped. then for their 10th wedding anniversary he wanted to buy her a 10 year anniversary band and of course they wound up needing a new bed that year. So again her "marital" jewelry was trumped by a bed.. now my car is trumping my bed. so strange***

free chicken & what to do with that ham?

Okay.. I had to hit that Jewel sale before I didn't have time to hit it.. plus it was on my to do list from this weekend. They said they would be restocked with chicken on Monday and as I said I had those $15 in CATS that were expiring today burning a hole in my pocket.

So last night after work I quick took a run to Jewel. I grabbed 4 packages. The sale was 4 for $19.99. Well not one of those packages was a full 3lbs (which was the sale) and not one of them was $5!! So I didn't know how the deal would work out...

Well up to the checkout I went.. my total for 4 packs of just under 3lb of chicken? $13.23 WITH TAX! Yipes. grabbed 2 packs of gum, paid $1.28 and left with my almost 12 lbs of chicken.

I fired up the new George Foreman and spent the next couple hours breaking down those packs between grilled chicken packs, raw chicken packs, and cut up raw chicken packs. My freezer is full of chicken and beef once again!

OKay.. one other thing.. I bought that huge honkin ham for $6.99 the other day. It's still sitting in the bottom of my fridge.. I need to make it.. I'm not going to make it for just the two of us AND I don't get home until 6:30 most nights so I don't have the time to make it.. can I just throw it in the crock pot? What else can I do with it? I should have just brought it to my mom's house and threw it in her freezer for Easter! oh well!

procrastination sunday... UPDATED

hmm this is more like every day of the week for me, so not so sure what it is about today that it's actually bugging me.. but here is the list of things I HAD to get done this weekend. I was sick this week with a monster cold so yesterday I wound up lounging around the house all day, took shower around 7pm and then did a few errands.. but none of them actually made a dent in what I needed to get done this weekend. Here is my list.

1. Jewel. They are having their awesome buy 4 for $19.99 meats again this week. I have $20 in CATS burning a whole in my pocket along with a list of a few necessities we need for the house. Drove past 2 Jewels last night but didn't want to get out of the car again.
I went to Jewel and snoozed and loozed (or something like that) I got there and all the meat deals I wanted to pull were already taken! *sigh* I could have gone with all ground beef and pork.. but that's all I got in my freezer now!

2. Woodmans. This store is on the other side of town. Winds up being a 30 minute drive. I was within 5 minutes of it last night on the same road, but didn't want to drive that far south out of my way of the other errands we were doing. There are a few WW necessity items I need from there.
ACCOMPLISHED

3. Laundry. I am notorious for doing laundry and just leaving it in front of my dryer. I wear wrinkled clothes to work, to parties, to baptisms.. doesn't matter. Downy wrinkle release is my best friend and I actually wind up making my own once the bottle is gone. I have about 7 loads of laundry currently sitting on top of my bed waiting to be folded or hung. My sheets are in the dryer, my mattress pad is being washed right now.
shhhhhh my husband is actually watching tv and cleaning our bedroom which is where all the laundry is....

4. Kitchen. I have a full load of dishes that is clean and just needs to be put away. I also have a full double sink that is double deep of dirty dishes that need to put in the dishwasher.
umm yeah.. emptied the dishes, refilled the dishwasher, started the dishwasher but my kitchen is STILL a wreck. I started pulling out all the things I want to sell at our garage sale this spring so kitchen appliances pieces are all over the place...

5. Bathrooms. Both bathrooms are disgusting. enough said. I just finished the upstairs ones in it's entirety and actually the downstairs isn't as bad and it's only a toilet and sink.
never touched the downstairs bathroom.. it's attached to the kitchen and it's only 9:30.. hmm

6. Bills. I normally pay them so far ahead of schedule, I forgot about one that was laying on the computer room floor in a stack of stuff to be recycled. Imagine that. I just wrote it out (I tried to pay it on line and realized I would have to PAY to pay it on line and decided the stamp was cheaper). But I did pay all my other bills (some of which I found in that same stack of recycling) that I had ahead of time on line. The ones that HAVE to be mailed will wait another week. IN the mean time I will "File" them in my recycle stack.
just as far as I was when I wrote this, but I did accomplish it today.

7. Car. I have to drop my mom's car off today.
yeah nope, read below...

8. Shovel. I have to shovel my mom's driveway today in order to drop off her car. However, it's NEGATIVE 2 right now and the foot of snow on her driveway isn't going anywhere. Luckily I talked to my sister and she's gonna have a plow guy come tomorrow so dropping off my mom's car and shoveling have actually been stricken from my list.. however now I have to find time before Tuesday night to drop off her car and check the house before she goes home.. I should add to the list PRAYER because I'm gonna need it when I walk in her house and find all her pipes have burst, the house has been ransacked, and my Porsche is missing.
yeah nope... going with my sisters plan although it was warmer than I thought.. it was 8 degrees around 4pm but the windchill was negative something..

9. Bed shopping. This is something my hubbie and I have been talking about since July folks. It hasn't happened since July, it probably won't happen today.
HA HA HA HA HA SNORT

10. Coupons. I quit cutting out the coupons and just clip right from the inserts because I plain just don't have time. I still have the old ones, probably all expired to send out to the military. I need to go through those envelopes to make sure I don't have any I could use still. I also need to go through all my inserts, make them neat, write the dates on the front and put them in order. Also I need to get the ones that are dead out of here too.
umm I found the coupons I needed for my shops today.. yeah that's it.
11. Work. I brought about 2 hours of work home.
ACCOMPLISHED

12. Dress. I ordered my bridesmaid dress last month and it came in 2 weeks ago already. I need to pick that up. The wedding isn't until July so maybe I could fit bed shopping and my dress pick up together for my 11th anniversary July 3rd. lol! The dress shop is only 20 minutes from my house.. doh!
right there with my bed shopping!

13. Mail. bills. enough said.
ACCOMPLISHED


Any ideas for me? How would you organize this list? have you ever been a procrastinator and how did you overcome your obsession with blogging and FB long enough to stop procrastinating and get some work done? Is there FB/Blogging/web surfing rehab?

**so I accomplished 7 (6 1/2 because I have to go back to Jewel before Wednesday) of the 13 things and 2 others my sister/husband will help me with tomorrow that being the car & the driveway.

God, I could use a little push...

I'm feeling a need for positive in my life.. I just watched a small segment of Oprah's show today.. her talking with Demi and Ashton about the change in not only America but the World. the words "we are in this together" have very much touched me tonight.

But here is my cyber pat on the back to try to push me into seeing that I need to start moving in this direction FORWARD in 2009. I actually said out loud today that I didn't accomplish anything while I was off 9 months. I'm still in awe that I let those days slide by without slapping myself and saying "wake up girl you'll never get these days back" BUT then something deep inside me says I did right by myself. Maybe it was a good time for me to stop and smell the roses so I could say I once spent some time to myself.. not sure.

Last Thursday marked my 2nd check at my new/old job. Again the check in it's entirity and a big portion of my husbands check from the week prior went to savings.. this made me think.. where was I a year ago financially????

I know a year ago I was still in debt. I know a year ago I was working 2 jobs, my husband too. I know a year ago I saw my son for probably an hour every other weekend and most of that time was spent eating with him or just not talking or interacting with him because I was so exhausted all the time from working. I know a year ago I was moving in the right direction (financially). I know a year ago I had *just* found out I was going to be laid off come March. But, once I checked my bank on line and found out just where I was financially a year ago, I nearly threw up. seriously.

A year ago (this week) I was over $25,000 in debt. so basically I paid off almost $26,000 in 4 months time. I still don't know how we did it.. but today my credit cards are paid off (except for the bridesmaid dress I put on my credit card ONLY to earn the points for it which I will be paying off with my husbands check this Friday). Last Thursday I deposited enough money into my regular savings to meet a personal goal of my own. It was something I was striving for.. and then tonight to look at my NEGATIVE HUGE balance from a year ago.. and just the screen before seeing the savings as of today... I'm wowed by myself.

Sorry I know I need to get over myself, but right now... "God I could use a little push" just point me in the right direction and I can do the rest.

Any other pushes needed out there in cyberspace???

more 2 ♥ & hate

Okay.. here it is.. the Shick Intuition. I admit, this isn't even my razor, I stole this pic off photobucket. I got my Shick Intuition a few months ago free in the mail. I got a few coupons with it but never intended to ever use it. My sister uses it and LOVES them. Hasn't bought another razor since.. but I never saw the point considering the price. Even the few times since I have started hounding that I could have basically gotten them free I haven't.

Of course, one day I was in a big hurry and had to shave that day. So I figured since my sister had said how awesome and time saving they are I would at least the one I got for free. Yeah.. UMMMMM LOVE AT FIRST SHAVE! For real! I couldn't believe how in love with this shaver I became after just the first use. It was like crack, crack for all of those who hate to shave... crack for those of us who hate to take the time to shave... crack for those of us who hate lather up in the shower and by the time you got yourself lathered the shower water has taken half of it away...

So I actually started lQQking for deals on them or at least the refills. There was none that week or the next few weeks coming up, but then I used it a few more times and realized I HATE THIS THING! lol! Before I started hounding I would use the same razor for months. I started hounding and getting them for free so now I use the same replacement head for probably 2 weeks. I don't shave every day in the summer, probably every other day. This summer was even less because I wasn't working and actually didn't wear shorts until almost July. Now here I am using the same head for the 3rd shave and already I can feel the blades rubbing against my skin. By the next shave it was almost not even worth it, there wasn't enough lotion around the head to really get a good shave without almost hurting myself. So basically I got 4 shaves out of it.. is it worth it?

Have you used this? Do you like it? Tips? Comments?

SMELLING GOOD W/ FREE FEBREZE & BUTT WIPES

sorry this is going to be a fast post. It's already almost midnight and all I've done today is work, work late, ran to 2 CVS's, got gas for the car, made dinner at almost 8pm, cleaned up the kitchen, started some laundry, fed my cat, took the pics and posted. *sigh* working is sure getting in the way of hounding! ;)

1ST TRANSACTION
2 FEBREZE CANDLES CLEARANCE $1.99 USED $2 COUPONS
2 XMAS SEPARATED DISHES CLEARANCE 49 CENTS EACH
1 CVS MOIST WIPE 84 COUNT $4.29 USED $3 OFF CVS COUPON
1 J&J STRESS MELTAWAY LOTION $5.99 USED $1.50 J&J CVS COUPON AND $1 MANU
$3/$15 $2.59 ECB
PAID 58 CENTS OOP

2ND TRANSACTION
1 XMAS BABY BIB 99 CENTS CLEARANCE
2 XMAS BOXERS $1.75 CLEARANCE
1 COIN PURSE 49 CENTS (TOO CUTE TO PASS UP)
3 PET BLANKETS 75 CENTS CLEARANCE (TO BE DONATED TO SHELTER)
1 CVS MOIST WIPES $4.29 USED $3 OFF CVS COUPON
1 CVS HAND SANITIZER (THE CASHIER HAD TO TELL ME ABOUT THE BUY ONE GET ONE 50% OFF DEAL SO I GRABBED THE CLOSEST THING TO ME) 59 CENTS
1 BAG ALMONDS $3.49 USED $1.50 CVS COUPON AND $1 MANU
$3/$15 CVS AND $7.49 ECB
PAID 19 CENTS OOP


3RD TRANSACTION (DIFFERENT STORE)
3 FEBREZE CANDLES $1.99 ON CLEARANCE USED $2 MANUS
1 COTTONELLE BUTT WIPE PACK $5.98 GOT BACK $3 ECB PLUS TRIED TO USE A $2 MANU FROM LOCAL GROCERY STORE BUT THEY WOULDN'T TAKE IT BECAUSE IT HAD THE GROCERY STORE LOGO ON IT.. GRRR
2 CVS FEMININE WASHES $3.29 AND $1.64 (B1G150%) USED $3 CVS COUP
$3/$15 AND $3.99 ECB
PAID $1.61 OOP


****Also I wanted to know.. the 6 pack of water at CVS where you get a $2 ECB does it have to be a specific type of 6 pack?****

which do you use?

I'm full of questions again the last few days... so I'm wondering out of all the little websites that offer you cash back or points to shop through their sites, which ones do you use? Right now I have so many accounts I can't even keep them straight HOWEVER whenever purchasing a product I go on each site and find out which pays the most back and which allows you to use coupon codes. Plus I always use my credit card that pays me back points towards it's own website. Here are a few I use.

www.ebates.com
www.cashbaq.com
www.mrrebates.com
www.thankyou.com
www.mypoints.com

I know there is at least one other I'm not thinking of right now. Tell me what you think about these sites and which you use.

Is there any double dip deals this month at Walgreens?

Just a question because I was looking at a few sites and didn't see any posted?? even over at www.iheartwags.com they didn't have anything posted... hmmm I know it's a bit late to be asking this but it slipped my mind until just today!

The 65 sq foot home, could you live there?

Jay over at Tumbleweed Tiny House Company has found a way to live green in many ways.. living in a 89 sq foot home since 1997 he runs a company that sells not only plans to these tiny homes but builds them and delivers them to you as well. Be sure to check out the you tube video's posted especially the one of his own personal home. I made sure to check out each of the layouts and thought that I would love to retire that way. Doubt my husband would be as excited about it, and stockpiling would be impossible.. but really.. with economic times being the way they are, living "green" would be so easy.. the green would be lining my pockets to keep me warm as well.. hmmmm check it out and let me know your thoughts on this...

2009 goals..

anyone got any? yeah.. I know some of you have already posted your goals and even your budgets for the following year. I seriously don't have the energy or time for that right now and really who knows what is going to bring this year.. so instead I'm proposing a dare for myself.. ut oh another challenge where I'm gonna last ooooh 3 days. Probably.

Well basically now that I've learned how to live on what unemployment pay is for 9 months including my husband getting laid off.. I'm thinking of staying with that frame of spending. 2008 has been a kick butt year for me to learn a ton about myself and really even though I've spent on things I probably shouldn't have in the end I'm pretty dang proud of how well I've done. We paid off our debt in 6 months, $30,000 in 6 months.. I still can't even believe that happened.

Ok so I'm thinking that my goal for next year should be to live off of my husband's paycheck and only 1 of my paychecks per month. I get paid on the first and last day of the month so I could actually use my checks to pay bills and my husbands for the goal/challenge...?? hmm or I could take half from each check and throw that into savings. Either way, we'd still be living the way we do now with stocked shelves full of food, toiletries, cat/dog food/items, and really all I would have to do for awhile would be to buy fresh veggies, fresh dairy, and meat. We've done it for 9 months why can't this continue?

a little help from my "hounding" friends...

I NEED EVERYONE'S HELP ON THIS!!
Okay.. I'm not listing this as a challenge because frankly I have nothing to give to a "winner" and nobody could actually be a "winner" because everyone's ideas are valuable to me. Anyway.. here is my idea. Last night I was laying in bed thinking about Christmas being so close. My husbands family has decided to do away with getting gifts for everyone, the family was just becoming too large especially now with the three of the 4 boys getting married in the last year (my husband being the 4th we got married 10 years ago).

Anywhooo just for fun the last couple years we've been doing one of those white elephant type games where everyone brings a small/cheap gift, wraps it, and we do a little game of rolling dice, picking gifts, and stealing from one another until everyone has rolled a 6 in the final rounds. This year they changed it up and said everyone must bring 3 $1 gifts... hmm well AS WE COUPONERS KNOW $1 can goooo a long way.

So I started thinking of items I've hounded that I either hounded so many of I'll never use them all OR items I've hounded that I haven't found a home for yet. My husband and suggested using the universal remote from CVS Black Friday deals as one of the $1 gifts because for that entire shop I only spent $1.33 OOP. We don't need it, we have all the universal remotes we need right now. I thought it would be a good back up if we needed it..?? but okay.. I'm game.. I got it for free.


So I was trying to think of 5 other items last night. I came up with some nail polish, batteries, soap, shampoo, cereal, etc. But then I started thinking bigger. So here is where I need your help. I'm going to go to CVS and do the biggest shop I can do where I only spend $1 or less out of my own pocket. Everything that I shop in that one transaction will be going in one big box along with the receipt as PROOF and one person will get to open that box and keep the entire contents.

Okay so what I want you to do is leave me a link to a shop you've just done, a shop you've just outlined for upcoming weeks, leave me a comment just outlining a shop that could be done easily or even leave me a comment of just ideas that could help me out.

I'm not sure how many people from the family read the blog, I think maybe 2-3 tops because I do have it linked to my FB. Either way, for the people that don't read this is going to be fun.

Here are my personal CVS details to date to help you with your ideas.
♥I have roughly $46 in ECB's.
♥I would really like to keep all of those $46 ECBS if possible maybe even making more.
♥I have several $10/$50 coupons and $3/$15 coupons I got in the mail from CVS.
♥I get regular papers so I do have multiple of most coupons unless I have used them.
♥I just bought more toner so if you suggest IP's I'm good in that dept
♥I have until Jan 3rd to do this because my husband's family is waiting until after the holidays to celebrate this year. This gives me an extra full week PLUS after Christmas sales.
♥Items must be products that you know will be stocked well. I have only 3 CVS's I can hit and most of them are not well stocked because apparently there are several other hounders out there that "clean the shelves" pretty early.

WWHD?

What would HOUNDERS do?

Okay.. remember all these??



Just found out these are going to be $1 starting tomorrow.. I paid $2 for each of them and had gut feeling they would drop to $1 each but wanted to make sure I got them before they sold out!! *sigh* so what would you do? Would you bring them all back tomorrow when the sale starts and get your $1 back for each? So far I've only found 2 of the receipts but it's for 10 of them. I believe I bought 12 total.

owned

yup that's me.. today.. you see.. I ran a bunch of errands. Came home started taking pictures of my deals. Went outside to take pics of the the last deals and dropped my camera on the ground. Grr.. we've been looking for a new camera HOWEVER we don't have the $$ to be going off to buy a new one yet. when I take pics the screen looks normal but then the pic looks all weird. I figured maybe it was just the way the pictures were displaying. yeah no dice... I just loaded them and they look like this...


yeah not good.

Okay.. my run went like this

CVS (sorry it's impossible to see what is in the picture)
First Transaction
4 Glade candles $2.50 each used $1.50/2 coupons
paid $7.xx OOP got back $5 ECB

Second Transaction
4 batteries $5.99 each used 2 $5/2 and 75 cent coupons
4 Glade plug in refills $3.99 ea used BOGO coupons
2 Glade candles $2.50 each used $1.50/2 coupon
$5 ECB and $15 ECB from last trip
paid $3 OOP and got back a $15 ECB for Duracell and a $10 ECB for glade.

Butera
2 bagged salads 99 cents each used 75 cent coupons
1 clearance bag of rolls 99 cents
$1.52 OOP

First transaction
9 Swiss miss hot chocolates $1 each (regular price $2.35) used 2 30 cent coupons
1 (not pictured) Parmesan cheese $2.99
$10 CAT from last week
$1.60 OOP and got back $10 CAT

Second transaction
8 boxes cereal $3 each used $1/2 coupons
2 boxes chex mix bars $3 each used $1/2 coupons
$15 in CATS $9.53 OOP got back a free milk CAT (for next transaction) and $15 more in CATS.


Last transaction
1 milk $3 used $4.50 coupon gave overage
1 Dannon Yogart$2.29 Avenu coupon 75 cents
paid 12 cents for both

Okay so the question of the day is, do you know of any great deals on cameras? Bring em here if you do! :)

*sigh* now I can't get rid of A&H TP!!

Okay.. here was my CVS deal yesterday. I went specifically for the batteries. I have plenty of coupons the CVS ones, ones from inserts, and the internet email CVS ones.. so combined I planned out a groovy easy deal.

4 Duracell batteries $5.99 each (not pictured) used two $5/2 coups and 4 $1 coups (we didn't the $1.50 coups?)

4 A&H TP clearance for $1 used 75 cent coupons

1 Johnson Buddies $1.19 used $1 coupon

11 Halloween chinese food style containers clearanced to 9 cents each

CVS $5/$30 coup plus $5 ECB

My original total came out to $37 which I thought I was right at $30?? not sure.. but then I gave her coupons and my total was $7.xx so I had figured I would have to spend $6.xx OOP so I might have been off here or there. I get the receipt and realize the A&H TP rang up as $1.99.. so she credited me back $8.xx to my debit card, rerang and my total came to $4.xx. So basically I got everything for $3 OOP in the end. I also got back a $15 ECB for this transaction which was good because I was down to one lonely little $5 ECB! lol!

Okay.. while I was there they were bringing out a ton of Halloween clearance items. TONS it was insane. I almost wanted to ask if they actually ever brought out any items during Halloween because there was the freebie plastic pumpkin and many other great buys during October.

So here is my question for the day. This lady was there and she was filling up 2 CARTS of this stuff plus baskets of candy and odds and ends. She had an envelope filled with coupons. It took a full 20 minutes for her to get rung up so while I was getting my issue cleared up she had finally gotten everything put back into the carts and had left. So I walked over to the cashier that had rung her up and said "out of plain curiosity what was her total" she says "she did 3 transactions and each was under $1" UMMM HOW? there is no way on god's green earth that she had coupons for most of that stuff... none of it was name brand anything.. so I was I asked the cashier "what coupons did she use" she showed me what she used and she was stacking $3/$15 (old expired ones), the $5/$20 halloween from scanner coup, then $4/$20 email ones and $5/$30. It still makes no sense how each transaction was over $30 and she got them all down below $1.. but does your CVS let you stack multiple of their coupons?

My personal challenge.

Well.. it's come to my attention over the last couple days with all the shopping I did and trying to fit everything into the freezer and moving things around to make the stockpile shelves fit everything I bought that I really need to "dig in" to my stockpile. Seriously. (ok longest run on sentence followed by the shortest sentence ever) I still have most of the boxes of 100 cal packs I bought in August during Meijer's back to school deals.

Here is a list of my over abundance of goodies.

MEAT
One of the first things I noticed yesterday is that I now have more pork than I know what to do with. Somehow I've ended up with I think 4 packages of just pork chops. I also have a pork roast. I also have a good stock of chicken. I have some burgers which I can make into other things such as chili, meatloaf, or for spaghetti. I'm going to aim to clean out the freezer first of meat and then I can start buying other meat. I probably have enough meat in there to last my 25 days.

SOUP
OMG somehow I've managed to gather a ton of soup, and not just already made soup but those packets of soup, cup of soups (both little packets and little cups), not to mention Ramon noodles, chicken stock, bullion cubes and the like. whew.

FROZEN VEGGIES
Because of that sale I have a huge over abundance of frozen veggies. They are all in steam packages, however, I have been using them over the past few days in various other ways. I actually partially steamed the sugar snap peas and used them as dipping veggies. Didn't work out that great because they were limp and soggy, but it was a yummy treat with no chips! lol!

PASTA
Those Smart Taste coupons came in handy and I used em! lol! It was BOGO at $2.29, so I got two boxes for 29 cents a couple weeks ago. The sale before that was 10/$10 and I used up what coupons I had at that time. Not to mention I started out with a good amount of pasta in the house. But now it's just out of control. Same with Pasta sauce. Lots of it!!

BOXED POTATOES
wow.. not sure where they all came from (yeah I do, don't let me fool you) but boy do I got boxed potatoes. I have plenty of mashed potatoes and au gratin potatoes to last a long while. I would say I would save these to use for the cookie exchange party, but I like making plain potatoes and letting everyone put their own toppings on. All the boxed mashed potatoes I got are all flavored.. hmmm guess I could use the cheese ones.. who doesn't like cheese? lol!

CEREAL
Currently I think we have around 15 boxes of cereal. Which for other hounders probably isn't a huge amount, but for us I think in 4 weeks we can make that last.

CHIPS/GOODIES
As I mentioned above we have plenty of 100 cal packs and pretzels from 10/$10 sales and also a scary amount of tortilla chips.

THINGS I WILL ALLOW MYSELF TO BUY
I will allow myself to buy dairy. I know I'll need milk, sour cream, cream cheese, and regular cheese this month. Fresh produce mainly fruit but also a few veggie items like lettuce and cilantro for other meals. Meat I will allow myself once my stockpile gets smaller as I mentioned above.

One little strange thing about this is that my last day is the day before my cookie exchange in my neighborhood. I usually make PB balls and one or two other types of cookies. I've already bought the PB and I have a ton of chocolate. I'm pretty sure I have plenty of powdered sugar so I will be okay in that area. Maybe for my other cookie I'll make cake cookies from cake mix. Easy and yummy.

But the fun doesn't end there with the cookie party. It's a neighborhood fun night and I invite neighbors from my hood to come over, eat munchies, and spread Holiday cheer with the cookie exchange (this includes MEN!), ornament exchange, and usually lots of good ol fashion gossip and of course explaining our cookies to everyone else! Some years I've spent a ton of ca$h buying boxed appetizers and the like.. last year I pulled back the reigns because of credit card debt. This year I'm going to do my best to find some cheap 2 liters of pop and I have to do my mashed potato bar for sure. Included in this I will have to buy sour cream, bacon, cheese and veggies. I will do boxed mashed potatoes so I think just the food/drinks should be a pretty minimal amount.

This DOES NOT mean that if I can get something for 25 cents or less that I won't buy it.. it simply means that I need to cut back and start using the stockpile. There is no reason to have a stockpile if I'm not going to use it right?

EATING OUT
I normally count my eating out into our food budget but I also combine our grocery budget with entertainment and household items because with hounding it's hard to separate what was cleaning products and what was food. I have SEVERAL coupons from restaurant.com that I had purchased so when my son is visiting (which is when we eat out the most) we'll have those to go out to eat with.

Luckily we have Thanksgiving tucked in there. This year my family is not celebrating basically because my sister/mom are both nurses and always work the holidays for the extra money. My mom will be out of state for Thanksgiving and my son is actually going out of state with his dad. My sisters boys will be with their father and his family out of state as well. We do have dinner with my husband's uncle on the 15th and of course Thanksgiving at his grandparents on Thanksgiving day. So both those days are automatic freebie days for us!

BUDGET
This is tricky.. because I really need to figure out what I've spent so far THIS MONTH on food. As I said I combine Entertainment and household items into our food budget so I'll have to figure this out tomorrow. I was originally thinking $80 for 25 days which I think is possible. I will need $6 for milk this month, $10 other dairy items, $10 produce, and between $14 & $20 for the cookie exchange party. This puts me roughly at $46 however this doesn't include my great deal buys of 25 cents or less.

I do have $15 in CATS from the Jewel shop and also around $40 on my WAGS card. That money I will not count towards this month. Those are essentially my freebie dollars.

As some of you already know, I get very excited when I make entire meals from the stockpile. I also try to figure out how much it cost me for the whole meal and each serving which sometimes is hard considering I don't remember exact prices. I'm going to try my best to blog daily to let you know how I did the day before!! Wish me luck!!

my hearts just not in it right now.. do you go through this?

I have $5 ECB from CVS that expires today.. I've heard you can use them even after they've expired but then I've also heard you can't.. so I don't want to risk the chance of losing them HOWEVER, there is honestely NOTHING on either this weeks sale ad, next weeks sale ad (my stores combine on Saturday nights) or even the November ECB deal book that strikes my fancy. There is not one thing in my house I need desparately, and nothing I can think of that would help combine anything from my stockpile to make something amazing.

Sooo I've decided I'm going to take my box of coupons and leave my last month and half of un cut coupons at home and just see what I can dig up. I don't even know which CVS I'll hit considering I have hit/miss problems in all my stores.. so weird. A few stores are never stocked with anything, others it seems that some weeks the other hounders out there forget about a few stores.. but of course it's after I've hunted down that item at 5 other stores, finally got it and then see they've been all sitting happily at the last 7th store that I just didn't feel like driving too. Most of my CVS's are about the same driving distance so it's just a matter of which direction I want to drive... anyway.. I'm off.. let's see what I come back with..

I did take about an hour or longer to look through other sites to get some ideas maybe even a little encouragement.. and seriously.. I don't need anything on anybodies list of things they bought this week.

So the question.. do you have days/weeks/months like this where your heart is just not in it??

I'm not happy about this one...

Okay.. a friend wanted to do some double couponing at K-Mart so I spent a few hours sorta going through coupons I haven't clipped and coupons I have clipped sorta figuring out what I might be able to get for free, close to free, or stuff I really wanted/needed for the cheapest possible price. I came up with this huge stack of coupons, all only under $2, all only for one product because the last time I went and tried to use coupons that were $1/2 they didn't double. So I read each coupon carefully, only picking coupons that didn't have any special "notes" to them like NO DOUBLING or whatever.

This is what I got.

4 Zest 3 bar packs $2.19 each used $1 coupons (rounding) 80 cents
3 Gillette Shampoo's $3.50 each (2/$7) used $2 coupons for each only one scanned and doubled at $1.50 so I'm confused on this one
4 lifesavers $1.25 each used $1 coupons doubled at 25 cents FREEBIES
4 Soft & Dri deodorants $2.49 each used 50 cent coupons doubled $1.49 each or $6 total
4 pantyliners $1.29 each used $1 coupons not sure but I think the double on this only gave me 28 cents?
1 KY Jelly $4.49 used $2 coupon did not double??
3 Arm & Hammer TP $2.50 each used $1 coupons I think these doubled correctly
2 kids TP $2.49 each used $1 coupons I think these doubled correctly
4 Glade carpet powder $2.19 each used $1 coupons I think these all doubled correctly
1 Greased Lightening spray $2.99 used $1.50 coupon doubled $1.59 FREEBIE
2 Hershey Dark Choc bars should have been $1.99 each rang up as $2.49 each used $1 coupons
2 Glade sprays $3.79 each used $1.50 coupons cashier entered them wrong and they doubled as 69 cents she chose the wrong Glade item for this
4 Whiskas treats $1.39 each used 2 BOGO coupons and 2 $1 coupons the bogo worked.. not sure about the other regular $1 coupons
1 beggin strips $2.50 used $1 coupon
2 Whiskas milk $1.19 each no coupons

my total after coupons was $26.50 I calculated my total without tax should have been $16 (rounding up here and there like I counted 80 cents as $1).

What do you all think about this transaction???