Cheap Wipes and Other Stuff

Just caught this deal on Amazon and wanted to pass it along.

I love Huggies Natural Care Fragrance Free Baby Wipes Soft pack, 72-Count (Pack of 8) and right now they are $12 for a box of 8 packs, which is $0.02 per wipe. You will need to sign up for the Subscribe & Save feature, but you can always cancel it after you get your package. Also, Target's Up&Up brand formula rang up at $17.99 for the big canister last night (usually $19.99), so that was a happy surprise! I skipped getting wipes at Target last night because I didn't have any coupons on me and I'm glad I waited to look at Amazon.

The baby's first birthday is coming up soon and plans for a fun day are in the works! We'll spend the day at the apple orchard picking apples and a pumpkin. They have hayrides and a petting zoo, so it should be a great day. If it rains, I think we're going to go to a local children's museum.

Homemade Frapp

More dollars than I care to admit have been spent on Mocha Coconut Frappaccinos at Starbucks this summer. I am thinking about having half my paycheck direct deposited to Starbucks on my way to work (and the other half at the Starbucks in my Target).....

However, the other day on Pinterest (why are you not on Pinterest???) I saw a recipe for homemade frapps that were supposedly a perfect match for the Starbucks ones. I dragged out the ol' blender this past weekend to find out.

It came out perfect on the first try, and now I can keep my direct deposit dollars right where they are. Good thing, because getting direct deposit changed is such a hassle...

Here's the link and below is my take on the recipe - the original makes 36 oz, which is enough to fill 1.5 of these. My version makes enough to fill that Copco cup with just a smidge left over. I also like mine Mocha Coconut flavored :-)

1/2 cup double strength coffee (basically 4 oz boiling water & 1.5 tablespoons of Foldgers instant)

1/2 cup cold milk

A few shakes of Splenda (I get the kind with a gram of fiber per serving)

2 or so tablespoons of Hershey's Light Chocolate Syrup

A splash of coconut extra (imitation, because that's what my grocery store had. It's by the vanilla extracts)

1.5 cups of ice

Throw it all in the blender, pour into cup, be amazed at how it didn't cost $4.85. I make mine right before I leave the house so I can enjoy it on the way to work. It starts to separate (it's still delicious) as it warms, so it's really best to enjoy right away. So for me, that means: get myself ready, make the coffee & throw all ingredients (except ice) into the blender, get the baby ready, get our bags together, throw the ice in the blender, blend (and watch baby's eyes get HUGE as the blender does it's thing), pour in cup, collect baby & bags, and get to the car. I've made one every morning this week :-)

Living Social Movie Deal

Another link to save some dollars! Right now Living Social (similar to Groupon) has a deal up for a voucher for two movie tickets for a total of $9.... how amazing is that?! Movie tickets by us are usually $10 each, so 2 for $9 is amazing.

It's one voucher per person and expires September 9, 2011. It has to be used on Fandango.com (you can't take it to the movie theater), and each ticket price can't exceed $15. I don't think there are any other restrictions! I'm buying one under my card and one under Ryan's... he loves going to the movies, so I was pretty thrilled to see this one. Here's a link in case you want to get in on all the movie fun!

Note: The links above are referral links and if 3 people click and buy from those links, my movie tickets are free. If you're going to buy.... please use my link? Pretty please???

Old Navy Groupon

Just an FYI that up on Groupon right now is a $10 for $20 worth of stuff at old Navy! It's a nationwide thing, and you can combine it with in-store promotions!! It looks like it expires on July 30, 2011 and it's one per person.

I am in love with Old Navy's summer dresses and baby girl stuff this season!! How sweet are these little dresses??

Another FYI - the link above is a referral link and I would LOVE if you used it to buy your Groupon. You don't have to if you don't want to, but it really would be sweet <3 Here it is again just in case.

20 Dollars for free

RueLaLa just sent me an offer that I wanted to pass along because who doesn't want $20...

Apparently all you need to do to claim the $20 credit with RueLaLa is join via an invitation by October 25!

So if you want to claim your $20 credit, leave me a comment below with your email address and I'll send you an invitation. Looks like you just need to sign up by the 25th, and then use the credit by December 31, 2010.

Happy Shopping!

Edible Arrangements Special

I loooooove Edible Arrangements but I am too cheap to buy them... really I wish one would just show up at my house every week. They have a special going on this week that I may partake in:
$10 for a dozen pieces of chocolate dipped fruit. Yummmmmmmm. The only catch is that you have to pick it up, but who cares. That way you don't have to wait for delivery (or pay delivery charges)!

For Movie Lovers

Today's Groupon for Boise is 4 movie tickets for $20.... that's $5 a ticket.... for any show - not just the 9am ones!!!

It's through MovieWatchers.com, and you get 4 codes to use at either Fandango.com or MovieTickets.com and the codes are valid for movies up to $14 per ticket, including IMAX.

I am sooooo happy I saw this because Ryan wants to see the Facebook movie, but I have a really hard time paying $12 a ticket - date night at the movies ends up being $45! Yey for Groupon.... click here to get in on the $5 movie tickets.

PS - This is an internet deal, so you don't need to live in Boise to get in on it. I don't.

Isn't this stealing?

I am newly in love with these Yoplait Frozen Smoothies: The bag says it's 2 servings and each serving is a whole serving of fruit and only 110 calories... so I make the whole bag and drink it all :-) It's delicious.

These little bags of goodness are usually $3.29, which I feel like isn't too terrible but at the same time, I don't want to be spending that much on breakfast (or my mid-day snack) every morning. This week these bags were on sale for $2.49 though.... and then I found a coupon for $1 off a bag on Coupons.com. That makes each bag $1.49. So I printed out 3 coupons (that's the max it'd let me print) and bought 3 bags, each at $1.49.

And then while I was at the store, I happened to notice that Kix were on sale for $1.99 - they are normally $3.49 a box! And wouldn't you believe Coupons.com had a coupon for $0.75 off a box??!

So what did I do? Ran home and printed out Kix coupons. And more Yoplait Smoothie coupons. And then I went shopping.

Yesterday I bought:

4 bags of Yoplait Smoothies
2 boxes Multi-Grain Cheerios (on sale for $1.99 each, with a $1 off 2 boxes coupon)
3 boxes of Kix

The grand total? $12.66. My receipt shows a savings of $18.15, which is 58% of the total bill.

Let me say that again: I saved 58% of my bill.

While I was scanning my coupons, I kept waiting for the machine to tell me to go to hell. Or for a store employee to tell me I couldn't use them all. Or for the police to show up because I was committing highway robbery.

I secretly want to print more coupons and go back tomorrow, but I don't have anywhere to store another 5 boxes of cereal. If I had a big pantry, though.... I'd go back to rape my grocery store's cereal aisle again.

Old Navy Deals

I recently stumbled upon OldNavyWeekly.com and am newly in love... but only till April 1, apparently, when the site will be taken down (?). Basically, you click around and coupons pop up:

There are a few different ones, like 10% off your purchase, or 15% off, and I even saw a $15 off $75 purchase. I found the $5 off $25, and I'm happy with that, because I'm going to pick up 2 of these this weekend. Yey for fun spring clothes and coupons!

Productive Phone Call

Remember when I asked a simple question that will end up saving me over $1,000 in rent this year? Well, this time a 20 minute phone called will end up saving me an additional $480 this year. How hot is that?

We've been looking at our budget and trying to see where we could cut some cost and throw a little bit more in savings each month. Even a few dollars here and there adds up over time, so I was just looking to trim a bit from anything I could. One of our monthly bills that really stuck out was our car insurance - we've had Progressive for just about 5 years now, and while we love our service, I do not love the price. So I looked around and found out that with Geico, I could have the exact same coverage for $50 less. That at least warrents a phone call to Progressive, no?

So this morning I gave them a call, let them know that I didn't want to switch because I'd have to build up a new history with them (whereas once you hit 5 years at progressive, they have major accident forgiveness), BUT I found a way cheaper rate through Geico and did they want to do something about that?

Well fancy for me, they were able to give me a few new discounts (state employee, paperless something or other) and get my rate down by $40 a month!!! Sure, Geico is still cheaper by $10, but staying with Progressive (and thus keeping my history with them) is going to pay out in the long run in the event of a major accident. And now I can tuck away $40 extra a month into our savings account.... just because I spent 20 minutes on the phone this morning.

Anyone else have any tips on lowering bills? I'd love to hear them!

Seriously, it gets you free stuff.

I've posted about SwagBucks before, but wanted to give you a refresher today because it's their birthday and they're handing out swagbucks left and right!

Basically, you click the banner or any SwagBucks link, input some info (to create a log-in), and start using the SwagBucks search bar to do internet searches for anything you want - and voila! SwagBucks earned! You won't earn on every single search, though, so don't be discouraged. Just keep entering stuff to search till a notification comes up that you've won! I use the SwagBucks search bar instead of Google, and I've already earned a few Amazon giftcards... for free. For doing internet searches.

So sign up quick and get in on the free handouts of SwagBucks today - you will be so insanely happy when you see how quickly you accumulate enough for an Amazon gift certificate (and other cool stuff, but I like gift cards).

Like Google but with Prizes

I so wish I was being paid to tell you these things, but I'm totally not... truth is, I totally love Swag Bucks and figured you might, too.

A while ago I saw an ad for Swag Bucks on someones blog and was intrigued, so I clicked the link to check it out. Turns out it's a search engine that randomly rewards you with "swag bucks" (see how that works?) as you do your searches... sometimes it's just 1 buck, and sometimes it's 5. Either way, you end up with a bunch of swag bucks which you can redeem for cool stuff like gift cards and MP3s. At first it's kind of tedious because you don't get bucks for every search you do, but I stopped using Google (for the most part) and strictly use Swag Bucks to do searches. It adds up pretty quick!

I'm just a few bucks shy of an Amazon gift card... a few more searches for random stuff should do the trick! To get in on the (totally free) action, click the image below. It'll take you directly to Swag Bucks so you can sign up, too (and get free gift cards just for doing internet searches).

Coupons and Burn Notice

So here we are, home again - true story, work was cancelled again. I haven't been to work since last Thursday and I couldn't be happier (is that terrible?). Ryan got his notification yesterday around noon and I got mine around 7-ish. So we're home again. Together. With lots of food, hot chocolate, and the cleanest house I ever saw in my life.

So we went grocery shopping yesterday and ended up spending $79.87, which was $4.87 over my goal. I'm chalking that up to a last minute addition to the cart (Consumer Reports Healthy Eating Edition - $6.99). However, we did great with coupons and sales - we saved $23.98, which was 23% of the bill!

I feel like we've been doing pretty good sticking to an $80 a week grocery (and household supplies) budget, especially now that I'm a coupon manic. I cut them every Sunday and try to print a few here and there from websites. I'm good about using them only when something is already on sale, and try to stick to my shopping list (which is matched against my weekly menu).

However - I'm not good about buying stuff when it's on sale to start a little stockpile. I generally have cans of beans and corn around, but it'd be nice to have some key items around for when we can't get to the store and I need to make something quick. It's also good to stock up on stuff you use a lot when it's on sale (and you have coupons!) so you never have to pay full price for those things. I just always forget to look around for good deals because I'm so focused on sticking to my list.

As a side note... Ryan and I always watch the first few skits of SNL to see if the episode is going to be funny. If it is, we watch. If not, we go to bed. Last Saturday, Ashton Kutcher hosted and they did a great skit about Burn Notice. Right now you need to go to Hulu.com and search for SNL Burn Notice. The first thing that comes up is the skit from Saturday. Watch it immediately, and then come back here and please tell me what the hell Burn Notice actually is... because I still have no idea.

Plays with Scissors

Today on my way to work (thrilling, I know) I picked up a Sunday paper and spent the morning flipping through the coupon section. I used to do this a lot back when I wasn't working 3 jobs and made a lot less money, but slowly stopped caring about the coupons because I got promoted and then picked up a little extra income from the mall job.

But we are so close to paying off our credit cards that any extra money we can put towards them really makes a difference (in my head anyway). So this morning I clipped out lots of coupons from the Sunday paper.

Now here's the thing: sometimes coupons make me buy things I don't need. Sometimes, I see a sale (for things I don't need) and I buy it because it's on sale. It is a good deal. The 2010 "Credit Card Debt is Almost Gone so Don't F**K it Up Now" Me knows for a fact that it's not a good deal if I didn't need it in the first place.

I am a changed woman, y'all.

I did find lots of good coupons for stuff I normally buy, though, and thought I'd share in case you don't already know about the wonderfulness you can find in the Sunday paper.

In today's paper I found:

• $1 off any 2 bottles of Purex laundry detergent. Sometimes my grocery store has Buy 1, Get 1 sales. I will save this coupon for that sale, and I will buy 2 bottles (and get 2 free) and save an additional $1.
• $3 off Mach 3 razors (6 ct). I love coupons for razors because they are so freaking expensive.
• $1 off 6 cans of Swanson chicken broth.
• $1 off Laughing Cow wedges and .55 cents off Babybel cheeses. Apparently these are rare coupons and I love both of these cheeses. Score.
• Buy 1, Get 1 Free on Soleil disposable razors.

I found some others, but they aren't nearly as exciting. My inspriation for keeping on top of my food budget comes from Money Saving Mom. She routinely spends $40 a week to feed her family of 5, and I am blown away by the fact that they don't eat dog food all week. Ryan and I spend $75 a week and I thought we were doing good!

So check out her blog, and stay tuned for Menu Monday tomorrow and a great giveaway on Wednesday. Happy Sunday!

EDIT: Just got back from the grocery store! I saved a total of $19.01 with sales and coupons. Mission accomplished.

300th Post + Help Wanted

So here we are, just a few days after my blogiversary, with 300 posts..... and the exact same blog layout since day 1!



We've already established that 2010 will be a year of goals, changes, and all that goodness, and I was happy to see 2009 say goodbye. Why not kick off the new year with a blog makeover?

Thing is, I have no idea how to do that... and that's where YOU come in! I'm looking for someone to help me redesign my blog. I have lots of ideas, and i"m just looking for someone who knows how to make them come to life. I'm really just looking for a new header and background - nothing too extensive - and as this is the year of pinching pennies and all that, I'm hoping to find someone who would do this for some major exposure on my blog.

If you're interested and can help, please email me at blessthisnest@gmail.com. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

Ask and ye shall receive.

My townhouse lease is up for renewal. We actually got the papers for it back in November but we chose to not look at them until last week, because our rent is going up by a depressing amount. As a state employee, my paychecks are decreasing by an equally depressing amount.

Needless to say, I was not thrilled, but such is life.

Until I found out that my friend had just signed a lease for the exact same model townhouse for about $200 less (per month) than my new rent amount. No bueno. At all. Then I looked up our apartment complex's website and saw that if I were moving in to an identical unit this weekend, I'd be saving $200 a month.

I'll do it. I'll move. (I cannot even tell you how pissed my husband is going to be when I tell him we have to move this weekend)

So I took a trip to the leasing office yesterday morning to see if the lady who did our rental agreement was in. She was. And I showed her the online listing and my renewal papers and showed her how they don't so much add up. She was super nice, and took me in to the complex manager's office. Where I explained my situation again.

And after a very nice conversation and much staring at each other & hoping the other might back down, it was decided that we could renew our lease for 15 months at the same rate we paid last year. No increase. For 15 months. Till April 2011! Thank God I don't have to tell Ryan to pack up his crap in the next 4 days to move.

I am so thankful for this financial miracle.

I also already did our 2010 budget figuring I was going to have to pay a heinous amount in rent, so I just switched the RENT line back to the 2009 rate and added the difference to our credit card payments. We are only 6 days in, and 2010 is already kicking 2009's ass.

$121 offers ends tonight

A hot tip from Money Saving Mom!

Right now ING Direct is offering a $121 bonus on all new Electric Orange Checking Accounts opened todat (Black Friday). All you need to do is open the account, deposit some monmey (any amount), wait for your debti card, make 3 "credit" purchases (ie sign your name instead of entering your pin) within the first 45 days and on day 50 get $121 deposited!

Click here to see Money Saving Mom's original post.

Early Christmas Love.

Maybe it's all of the home improvements/decorating that we've been doing... maybe it's cause this the first time in a while that our living situation feels like a home... either way, I'm pumped for the holidays and I can't wait to start decorating for Christmas.

This little guy popped up in my email today and I'm hightailing it to the mall later:

The adorable ceramic gingerbread luminary is $35, and you get a free big candle (the $19.50 ones!) with your purchase. I happen to have a $10 off any $30 purchase coupon, so for $25, I'm going to score the gingerbread house and candle. Hotness.

Also - the Wallflowers are on sale for $6 (per set of 2). I always stock up when Bath and Body Works has a sale. They on the expensive side at $12.50 per 2 pack, but on sale for $6, they're cheaper than the Febreeze wall units!

Happy shopping!!

More free money!

I keep an old paint bucket by my front door and every night Ryan and I dump our spare change in. The bucket isn't even half full (it's a big bucket) but money is money, right? And that money is going to help buy Christmas presents.

Wanna know the BEST PART??? Right now CoinStar is running a special where if you change $40 of spare coins to a gift card, they'll throw in an extra $10!! So your $43 worth of random silver turns into a $53 gift card to your favorite store - Lowe's, Amazon.com... where ever!

Click here for more info, and then gather up your spare change and get to a CoinStar. Shoot, for an extra $10, I'd even take some dollars to the bank and have them give me coins! Happy holiday shopping!!

eBay = 2 Thumbs Up

Over the past few weeks I've been posting lots of old/not worn/never going to look right on me clothes (ok, not "lots") on eBay with the hopes of making some extra cash to put towards holiday shopping and 2 belts just sold! I've made just over $100 so far! just by cleaning out my closet and posting them on eBay. How great?!

And the stuff that I list but don't sell automatically goes in a pile to take to Goodwill. I was never really that big into buying/selling on eBay, but I am a convert. Anyone else have good luck with eBay lately?