Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a very happy Thanksgiving.

Mine started off with an EARLY trip to CVS for their "Black Friday" sales that start on Thursday!! I got up early, finished up my cooking, showered and headed for CVS. I made it home before 9 am, took my casserole out of the oven, and got Matt up. We loaded up the car with all the goodies and were off to his parents house in Spring. We made one pit stop at another CVS (yay!). Matt wanted to get his sister a B-day card and I totally took advantage of more free stuff!

Our Thanksgiving tradition in Matt's family is to go to the huge GardenRidge sale after we eat lunch. I LOVE GARDENRIDGE!!! I needed a new tree anyway, so it was the perfect place. (Our tree stand broke last year and the whole tree fell over! We had it propped up the rest of december, but trashed it when Christmas was over.) GardenRidge was packed, but we still had fun. I got a good deal on a Pre-lit tree (my first), some cute ornaments, and a few other items.

All in all it was a great day!

Money Makers

As I'm sure everyone is getting bored with the same ol' "this is what I got for nothing" posts, I thought I'd share a new concept. Not only getting things for free, but MAKING money on the deal! (disclaimer: for those of you who are math challenged, this might be a bit much! This is only for the true die-hards!)

Here are two examples from this past weekend.

#1 at CVS:

Two items "free after extra bucks" this week.

1. Maybelline mineral foundation $8.99 with $8.99 back in Extra Bucks.

2. Complete Contact Solution $8.99 with $8.99 back in Extra Bucks.

I purchased one of each of these for a total of $17.98. I used a $3 Maybelline foundation coupon and a $1 Contact coupon, making my new total $13.98. I added a candy bar so that my total would be $15. I paid for the items with the $15 Extra Bucks I received last week from the battery deal.

So in summary: I started with one Extra Buck coupon for $15. I ended with a maybelline foundation, a bottle of contact solution (no, I don't wear contacts!) and two Extra Buck coupons for $8.99 each. In essence, I made $2.98 AND got the stuff.

Example #2 from Walgreens.

I purchased 4 Bic soleil razors, two BionInfusion shampoos, and one christmas pencil (not pictured).

The shampoos were $10 each, the razors were on sale for $6.99, Buy one, get one free, and the pencil was $0.39. Total: $34.37

I had coupons for $3 off the razors, and even though they're on sale for Buy one get one free, I can still use one coupon per item. So that takes off $12.

Walgreens also had a coupon in their Easy Saver booklet for $3 off Bic Soleil Razors. These coupons CAN be combined with regular maufacturer coupons and when scanned, they will automatically deduct that amount for each one purchased. That takes off an additional $12.

In that same booklet there was a coupon for $5 the purchase of any BionInfusion shampoos. When scanned, it deducted $10, because I bought two.

Those discounts combined are $34. (Which, on a side note, is the reason I purchased the pencil. Otherwise my total would have been -$0.02, and that doesn't work!) So, after discount, my total was $0.37 (on my giftcard!).

Now, for the money maker part. In the November Walgreens Rebates (same booklet) there was a rebate for $10 if you purchased $20 in BionInfusions shampoos. That $10 will be credited to my gift card. So, I spent 37 cents and earned $10.

Cool?

Batteries anyone??

This weekend's shopping focused on a great deal at CVS.....batteries! I'm hoping to pick up some more during the week, but you'll at least see what I've gotten so far. I shouldn't have to buy batteries again for a REALLY long time!!

This weeks items (CVS only, no time for walgreens!)

Trip One:

2 Colgate toothpastes

1 Rimmel mascara

1 smart water

1 listerine agent cool blue rinse

1 Always infinity pads

1 Garnier Mousse

2 8-packs of AA batteries

1 16-pack of AA batteries

Total Cost of Trip one: $1.47

Trip two:

2 8-packs of AA batteries

1 16-pack of AA batteries

4 Glade Glass Scents Air Fresheners

1 Loreal Moisturizer

2 Candy bars

Total Cost of Trip Two: $0.95

Combined Cost: $2.42

Anyone need Batteries?

Shopping While Sick

As usual, I spent some of my weekend shopping. However, it was a little less fun this week because I was sick. :( I hate being sick. I don't like spending all day in bed, but if I get up, I feel worse. Hopefully I'll be better soon.

Of course, I did suffer long enough to make my trips to CVS, Walgreens, and Kroger. Here's what I got this week!



4 Progresso Chicken Noodle Soups
8 Carnation Evaporated Milks (mom will get some of these!)
2 Garnier Shampoo/Conditioner
1 Hershey's Chocolate Syrup
1 Kroger Syrup
1 Half Gallon Milk
2 Bryer's Ice Creams
2 Liter Smart Waters
3 St. Ives body washes
5 Yogurt
2 Toaster Strudel
1 Glade Air Freshener
2 4lb Sugar
1 Box cup cake papers
2 Betty Crocker Frostings
2 Boxes Hefty Storage Bags
3 Boxes of CVS Kleenex


That's a total of 42 items.






Now for the total.
At walgreens I put it on my gift card, so ZERO.
At CVS: 60 cents.
And at Kroger, $12.87.

So the combined total is: $13.47.

New Furniture & a Good Laugh

After months of searching, Matt and I FINALLY found some new bedroom furniture we could agree on. We both are pretty strong-willed and have some differences in taste, so everything takes longer with us. But, it paid off and we found something we could both agree on. Without too much reading....here it is.

I apologize for the poor pictures. There really was no good angle to get it all together.

Now, to close out this post. A laugh. Here's Matt's office-award-winning halloween costume. It was supposed to be Bush, but the resemblance was poor to say the least. Regardless, it was pretty funny!!

More Shopping!!

Walgreen's and CVS both have terrible deals this week. Had it not been for some store-issued money-off coupons I wouldn't have even gone. But, since I had Register Rewards (Walgreen's) and Extra Bucks (CVS) that were about to expire I figured I should find some way to spend them! See how they suck us in!!!!

Anyway, since those stores were so disappointing, I'm including my Kroger trip into this post. Here's a quick breakdown of what I got, just in case you don't get it all from the picture!

3 healthy choice dinners
5 yogurt
5 12-packs of diet coke
2 Quattro disposable three-packs
3 power toothbrushes
2 rolls of tape
2 Herbal Essence shampoo/conditioner
2 Almay mascara
2 pound package of strawberries
2 smuckers jams
3 powerade zero
3 packages of ground beef
1 Soy sauce
4 mighty dog can dog foods
2 bags of dog treats
1 Dozen Eggs (not in the picture)
1 box texas toast
1 cake mix
1 special K cereal (the big box!)
1 pilsbury cinnamon rolls
1 Downy





Now, for the part you're most interested in....the price. Right?

Well, for the items I got at walgreen's, I consider those free since I paid with my gift card that I got from the montly rebates. The mascara is a rebate item for November, so I'll be adding some money to my gift card for that.

I was supposed to have a $2 E-coupon on my Kroger card for the herbal essence shampoo, but that didn't work. So, I overpaid $2 on that deal. The real killer is that I was only getting that shampoo because that $2 coupon was going to make it FREE. The last thing I need is more shampoo, especially shampoo that I have to actually PAY for.

And, finally, I took advantage of a fabulous glade promotion last time I was at Kroger that gave me some nice coupons to apply to my purchases today. $16 worth of coupons if you'd like me to be specific.

So, with all those disclaimers aside, I spent a grand total of $12.51, even with the shampoo.


Happy Shopping!!

This Week's Free Stuff

On the weekends, I like to get as much shopping done as possible. This weekend was especially busy due to some nice deals at Walgreen's. Luckily for me, CVS was having an off week! So here's my loot, as I call it, from Walgreen's this weekend. :D



1 Bounty Basic Paper Towel

1 Package of paper plates

7 Halloween Pencils

2 Packages of Extra Gum

3 Mac and Cheese

3 Alka Seltzer (only cause they were free!....any takers?)

1 Fusion Power Razor

4 Oral B toothbrushes

3 St Ives Elements Olive Cleansers

2 St Ives Elements Olive Scrubs

7 St Ives Elements Protective Cleansers

4 Dove Beauty Bars

2 Lysol Neutra Air (the big ones)

1 Airwick Freshmatic (the big one.....this was supposed to be a lysol one, but apparently I grabbed the wrong thing!)


And the picture :)

Total Cost: $4.79

Technically it didn't cost me anything though because I used my new Walgreen's gift card that I got for sending in the montly rebate!! So FREE!!! Plus, I'll get another $3 Walgreen's Rebate from the lysol air fresheners. (only one though)

On a side note, I had a great trip to Kroger too! Yay for coupons!

Yes, a New Post....Finally

I know its been FOREVER since I updated this, but Jenna talked me into it. :)

I was so happy with my shopping trip today I thought I would share. For those of you who aren't into the whole couponing thing yet, shame on you. Here's what I did with my coupons today. I went to Walgreens and CVS and this is what I got.

Halloween pail

4 Bags of Brachs Candy Corn

Oral B toothbrush

Crest toothbrush

Crest MaxFresh Toothpaste

3 Listerine Agent Cool Blue

3 Kleenex 80 count with lotion

5 Mac and Cheese

2 Fusion Power Razors

Alka seltzer Cold 20 count

6 Excedrin

If you need a visual.... here:

Thanks to some nice coupon programs at CVS and Walgreens, as well as my obsession with cutting coupons, I got all this stuff for only $2.13.

How cool is that? Granted, some of it I probably wont use, but I can always give it away. The razors and mac and cheese will definitely be used and would have cost far more than $2.13 themselves. Oh, and Matt totally digs the Listerine Smart Rinse I got free a few months ago, so I'm betting he'll make good use of this Cool Blue stuff too! :)

Dog update

It was recently brought to my attention that there has not been a dog update in quite some time. As you can imagine, I've gotten quite lax in my picture taking. So, today I got the camera out and tried to get some new shots. Here are some of my favorites!

Roxanne was looking very photogenic in this pic. If you can't tell, she's lost some weight. Yay! She had gotten a little chubby after she was spayed, but she's back to her skinny self now!

Here's daisy posing for the camera. She is now ten months old and has finally reached a slow in her growth. She's weighing in at about seventy pounds, which is double roxanne's 35 pounds!

Now, for my personal favorite. No dog pictures are complete without the close-up snout picture. Check out those whiskers!! Isn't that the cutest dog?

Racing

Matt asked that I include some pictures from his racing event. I have no comments because I know nothing about this. So, here are the pictures. :)
Oh, and Matt's car is the red one with the blue tape on the bottom!

Happy Valentine's Day

I have to take the opportunity to brag on my sweet husband. He does valentines day so well! For the second year in a row, he's send me not one day of flowers, but three. That's right, THREE.

On Tuesday, two days before valentines day, I got a lovely arrangement of red tulips sent to me at work.

Then yesterday, Wednesday, he sent to me at work my very FAVORITE stargazer lillies. I LOVE stargazer lillies!!!! Aside from the fact that they look beautiful, they smell SO good. They also came in the most adorable white vase with polka dots in various shades of pink. It is too cute!

Finally today, Valentine's Day (officially), I got a dozen red roses. Nothing says February 14th like red roses.

I know some people don't really care about getting flowers and honestly I wouldn't be hurt or anything if I didn't get them....but I do love them.

Thanks Matty....I love you!

Ok, brag session over.... :)

Great Start

Well, as you can tell, I'm off to a great start with this whole "keeping my blog current" thing. I just have such an uneventful life....not much interesting goes on and I'm not very good at making the uninteresting interesting.
Matt has been sick for the past couple of days, which always sucks. It's no fun when he's not feeling well. He'd rather sleep (which I can understand) but I need him doig stuff and hanging out with me. Surely he'll be better soon.
The dogs are doing well. I wish I had some current pictures, but I've been too lazy to take any. Daisy is hitting the 70 pound mark now and she'll be 9 months old tomorrow. She's giant. But, despite her size, Roxanne still remains the boss. They are both great little heaters at night when its cold. I go to bed and have one on each side of me until Matt comes to bed. Then he puts them in their respective beds where they remain until morning when I get up. Then they both get in the bed with Matt until he gets up. So, yes, they're spoiled. They just love to be under the covers.
Finally, I must mention my continuing obsession with coupons. I have become an expert at how to get the most stuff for the least amount of money. I cannot count the number of useless items I have that I got only because they were free. Or, lets go one step better than free...items that I MADE a PROFIT by purchasing, if you can call it "purchasing." I also have enough shampoo, toothpaste, and dish detergent on hand to keep a small country clean for a year. I did mention it was an obsession, right? Oh well, surely someday I'll find somewhere to donate it. In the mean time, Matt and I will be exceptionally clean.

Happy New Year

In 2008 I hope to do a much better job with this blog than I've done lately! I know its sparce, but I feel like I don't have too awful much going on to blog about. That being said, I will fill everyone in on our Chrstmas vacation to Alabama.

We met my parents at my aunt's house in Biloxi and stayed there with them for two nights. We had tons of food and opened presents with them. Matt got to meet some of my cousins he had never met before, so that was cool. Mom and Dad brought my nephew, Kendall, with them and I think he was just as excited to see me as I was to see him. I just adore him. He'll be 9 this February. As excited as he was to see me, he was ten times more excited to see Matt! He was stuck to him like glue the whole time we were there!

On Sunday before Christmas we left my aunt's house and traveled to my parent's house in Alabama. Kendall wanted to ride in the truck with Matt and me, but my mom convinced him he'd be bored for those 4 hours without a movie to watch. She won, and he slept most of the way home.

Monday, Christmas Eve, we had our traditional Hall family Christmas which consisted of: lasagna for dinner, opening presents (when my sister finally gets there....) and our family poker game. LOL. We always break out the change and see who's the last one standing. As it progresses it gets sillier and sillier with random wild cards and crazy games, but that's just how we do it. When all was said and done, I WAS THE BIG WINNER!! :)

ha!

On Tuesday, Christmas Day, we went with my parents to have lunch with my mom's brother and his family, so Matt got to me more cousins that he'd never met.

My Grandmother had been staying with my parents for several weeks because she had fallen in her house where she lives alone and my Dad insisted that she stay with them. She's incredibly......I guess "moody" would be the nicest way to say it. She just says what's on her mind no matter what. Nothing is ever done to right or to her satisfaction. She's very candid, and quite funny at times. Right in the middle of Christmas Eve dinner (the lasagna), everyone is stuffing their faces not saying a word. She says to my sister, "Reeser (her version of "Teresa"...I'm called "Tesser," and my mom is "Linder,") I never realized how far back on your forhead your hair grows (she doesn't have bangs)...." I almost choked. For those of you who question my bangs, that was all the reassurance I needed to keep them! If Reeser's forhead is big, so is mine!

One other Granny story....

Matt and I gave my parents one of our portraits framed. This one:

Upon seeing it, Granny says to Matt, someone she's met only two or three times, and I do quote, "Well, it looks like you're trying to rape her!"

Happy New Year!

Family Portraits

For the first time since our wedding, Matt and I decided we needed to have some pictures taken together. We had them done two days before leaving for Alabama so it was a mad rush to get them done in time to give as Chrstimas gifts to our families. I regret now not having them done earlier so that we could have sent cute Chrsitmas cards like everyone else does...but, oh well.


Being the huge dog nerds that we are, I talked Matt into bringing the dogs along to try to get all four of us. Of course, we were already dirty by the time we got them in the truck, much less in front of the camera. We decided the best way to avoid more dirt and dog hair in our pictures was to leave them in the truck while we took pictures with just the two of us, and then, if time permitted, we'd include them later. When we went back to the truck to get them, Daisy was sitting in the driver's seat and Roxanne was sitting in the passenger seat. They were just sitting there looking out the window like they had driven themselves there. It was too cute! Too bad we didn't get pictures of that... :(

Anyway, it was quite difficult to get them to both be looking at the camera while we were both looking at the camera. Then, usually they had their tongues out... But, we did manage to get a few good ones. Here they are:

Oh, Happy Day!

After literally MONTHS of searching, I finally found a piano. For those of you who don't know much about pianos, they're kind of like cars. They come in many brands and can go from average to luxury. I just wanted something mid-range, but nice. I've looked at used and new and everything has been either JUNK or too expensive. Finally this weekend, I found what I've been looking for!!! It's a Kawai, which is an excellent brand. Grand pianos are measured in length from end to end (front to back). They can go anywhere from 4 foot 7 (junk) to 9 foot for the serious pianists. The official length of a baby grand is anything less than 5'10. Mine is a nice 5'7. Since I brought up the 9' ones, I must tell you about the one I played at the piano store. It was a brand new 9' Yamaha (which is an excellent brand). Keep in mind I was playing on it because of what it was, not because I intended to purchase it. The price tag was $150,000. Yes, I typed that correctly. Can you imagine???? $150,000 for a PIANO? Needless to say, that's NOT what I was looking for.

Anyways, long story short, I got my piano, here are the pictures!

Never In My Life....

So yesterday Matt and I went to Matt's little brother's football game. He's a senior at Klein Collins, and yesterday was parent's day. He had asked Matt to come and escort him onto the field, so we went.
I, of course, am not into football at all. I almost didn't go, but I thought that wouldn't be very sister-ly of me, so I changed my mind. I sat through the first two quarters hoping for some relief at half time. Being the band nerd that I am, I was looking forward to half time despite the fact that I knew I wasn't really going to enjoy either band. (On a side note....why are all of Klein ISD's bands so bad?) Well, Klien Oak performed first and, as I had imagine, I was not impressed. I actually felt bad for those kids putting so much effort into something SO BORING. They were coming off the field and Klien Collins was getting all lined up to perform.
Now here's the crazy part.... Just as the first band cleared the field, out of nowhere comes this guy. He's running from the end zone of the side we're sitting on. He's shooting across the field like he's running a race. And, did I metion he's totally NAKED??? That's right....he's a streaker. I could hardly believe my eyes. He was in mid-field before everyone could figure out what's going on. He runs clear to the other side of the field, near the other end zone when he sees the police running toward him. In an effort to avoid the police, he runs directly into the Klein Collins band, which is still preparing to get onto the field and has no idea what's happening, and disappears. The cops run through the band and tackle the guy right on the track. Meanwhile, the band has come on to the field and is actually playing....but not a soul is watching. Everyone is enthralled in the naked kid held down on the track by at least 4 police officers. Then comes the little golf cart bringing some clothes to put on him so they can get him out of there. Finally, he is escorted out of the stadium.
After that, Klein Collins' band concludes their (boring) performance and the game continues. Two more quarters of torture for me. It was 900 degrees and I don't enjoy football. Oh, and did I mention, they lost....again....38 to 14.

Back Yard Renovations

Matt and I (and Ryan) have been working hard for the past two weekends trying to regain control of the back yard. The weeds were winning the war, but major progress has been made. We have numerous flower beds in the back yard (thanks to the previous owners) and its just been too much to keep up with. So, we've decided to re-do most of them with rocks and to turn the rest back into just grass. Over the past two weekends we have moved in LITERALLY nearly 3 TONS of red, lava rocks. And, I'm happy to say, we've done some great work. I can't imagine what all this would have cost if we'd paid someone to do it for us. Now, we only have three small flower beds to do and we'll be completely done.

Sadly, I don't have any before pictures, so you'll just have to imagine lots of weeds, mud, and general gross-ness. Here are some pictures of the progress:

New Dog Pictures

This past Thursday morning, Daisy and Roxanne were lying in the bed together after Matt and I had gotten up and they were just too cute. Normally, they wouldn't be near each other, because Daisy gets on Roxanne's nerves so badly. But that day, there they were, side by side, looking like they enjoyed each other's company. So I thought it was a Kodak moment. Here they are!

Boring Update

I hate to over-do it too much with the grocery game stuff....but I'm going to anyway because I had another good week. Although I thought it was just going to be mediocre, it turned out quite nicely. At Kroger, I bought 35 items. The total before savings was : $81.81. After coupons and my Kroger card, the toal was $33.48, savings of 59% (according to my receipt... I don't actually do the math!!) That came out to less that $1 per item! :) Yay!

Ok, I'm done. No more grocery game blogs for atleast a week. :P

More Grocery Game News

I took a second trip to CVS today to take advantage of my coupons from yesterday.

On a side note, if you do NOT shop at CVS, you are totally missing out.... Here's why.....

Today I picked up two bottles of 24 count Excedrine, a tube of Colgate toothpaste, and two Biore Cleansers. Total: $26.

Amount I actually paid after using sunday paper coupons and CVS coupons from yesterday....

.........................

.........................

$0. That's right. Zero. I didn't have to fork out one penny. So, it was FREE. Plus, I got $3 more in extra bucks as well as a $2 off coupon for shampoo. That'll be next trip!