You Don't See That Every Day

I've probably already said this, but saving money is so much fun!! This week has been a great one in the savings department. I often go to Fred Meyer, and use my rewards card to rack up points. And then I use the points to get a few cents off my gasoline. And if you look at your receipt closely, there are occasionally surveys (which are super simple to fill out!) and you get more fuel points for doing it. So I did a couple of those in the past month. For whatever reason I had a ton of points on my card, and when I went to fill up my gas tank earlier this week, I got 20c off of each gallon!! Seriously, I wanted to do a little dance right there. So even though the price sign said 3.15 per gallon, I only paid 2.95! Wahoo! And then today, let me tell you - I saved over $13 at the grocery store just using coupons! Wowzer. I print most of my coupons out from Swagbucks , so not only am I getting the money saved at the grocery store, I am gaining swag points to use towards gift cards ...

Around our house there is a lot of laughter. A lot. My day doesn't feel complete if my husband hasn't made me laugh at least once. And in return it's a good day when I can make him laugh. There was the one time when we went to a grocery store while on vacation, and he decided to talk Irish the whole time. Especially at the checkout counter. Good times. Today we had to go to the bank and deposit a large sum that we had earned over the summer. And we had to get the tuition paid, so there was all that to take care. I needed my personal bouncer as I handled all that cash. So we go into the bank and thankfully! we were the only customers there. As we handed over the $$ to deposit my husband alluded to it as "the drug money." Oh my word! I am sure my eyes were shooting darts at him. And then he says to the teller, There's only one counterfeit in there. And so she obviously has to look at all the bills, and has to put them in the special machine. Oh sure, they a...

Today is "Parents Day" according to my calendar. So my husband and I decided to take advantage of the day and go out without children. Can I just say how nice it is to have kids that are teen-aged and responsible enough to babysit their younger siblings?! G and I drove to a Nike outlet store to use our special friends and family coupon during their sale. What a madhouse! There were so many people in the store it felt like a Christmas Eve rush. At least there was no fighting over any items, and the people were nice and polite all around the store. G was able to score a pair of running shoes to replace his worn ones. They were on sale, and then we got them marked down another 30%, so we knew we couldn't get a better deal elsewhere. After that we wandered around the outlet center. I used to really enjoy doing this kind of thing. But I have either gotten too old, or too practical or too tightfisted with my money, because I didn't really enjoy the stores. I found a few t...

Something unusual happened to me today. Since the kids are at VBS all week, either helping or attending, Little K and I have been having some fun. Ok, not really 'fun' to a 3 year old, but we are getting things done! Today we hauled some more stuff out of the house and dropped it at a relative's garage sale. Then we hauled some cans and bottles to be recycled - gotta love the Oregon .05 back deal!! I had a big bag that another relative had given me because they didn't want to be bothered with returning the cans. Free money - I don't mind! So far, nothing out of the ordinary. So here I am in my running clothes, hat in my hair, I didnt' think I looked too bad for 11 in the morning, since I had not even run yet! And K was dressed and happy sitting in the grocery cart handing my cans to recycle. Along comes this older man and he sticks out his hand and says, "You dropped this." Um, what? He is handing me a $20! I told him oh no, it wasn't me. He in...

My husband and I have just finished a financial class offered through our church. And am I glad we did! We went through something called Financial Peace University, by Dave Ramsey. I'm sure some of you have heard of it. Let me tell you, it is awesome. If you have debt of any kind, I highly encourage to read his book, take his class, listen to his audio. I think the key for us was that we did it *together*. It wasn't me trying to get G to change his spending habits, or the other way around. It was both of us, working together, to manage the money. We've been married for almost 16 years, and this is the first time we have actually stuck to a budget. I learned about money somewhere along the road of life, but never really about what a budget IS and what it DOES. So basically now we pay with cash. And when the cash is gone - as in the amount we set aside for that area of our life - then we are done spending. Novel concept, eh? Yeah, it actually was for me! I used to use my deb...

I've been going to the same store for about 13 years. Sometimes when I think about it, that blows me away. There are a couple of cashiers who have basically watched my kids grow up, and seen our family grow from one to five. We have a certain cashier we like to go to; the kids call her "The Nice Lady," as in , "Mom we need to go to lane 8. The Nice Lady is there!" She is friendly, and always smiling. Maybe she remembers us because the kids are nice. Maybe it's because taking 4 or 5 kids grocery shopping is a novelty to some people. For whatever reason, she knows who we are. And today something happened that I just need to applaud her for. Last week we went in for our big grocery trip. We had a lot of stuff to get, along with a number of coupons. One of the girls always likes to be in charge of the coupons and handing them over to the cashier. At the end, I check to make sure the coupons were received, and then off we go. This week we had to stop in for ...

In my corner of the world this past week I did ... our taxes. Just the preliminary figuring. I wrote down the numbers, researched the numbers, added the numbers. It was kind of, sort of, fun. Almost like solving a puzzle. I ran ... and ran! I made it up to 5 miles today! My first mile was alone, kind of a warm up. Then I snagged our dog and ran with her 2 miles. She is such a good pace-setter. And getting better at not chasing the squirrels. Or else they are hiding when we go by. The last 2 miles I exchanged the canine pacer for a minion-pacer.  My daughter and her bicycle helped me finish up. Oh, it feels good to go this distance one again! I baked ... heart sugar cookies last week. Most of them went to my son's basketball team for snacks, but the girls and G got some too. We didn't do a big Valentines Day celebration, because, really every day is a Love-ly day with my family. (But we did watch the Charlie Brown special!) I watched ... plenty of basketball. I love the game...

For the past few months I've been following this one blogger , who has an amazing knack for getting groceries and paying pennies ( onehundreddollarsamonth ). But as much as I read her (funny yet informative) blog, I still pay a lot of money every month for groceries. But then great things happen, like what I am about to share, that make me "see the light": Our boy's birthday was this week. So of course we went shopping the night before for birthday presents. We picked up an OSU T-shirt, blanket, and some Nerf darts, along with some air freshener (for our house, not a birthday gift). The 'original' total was $37.55. But then ..., I whipped out my gift card I received from listening to a bid on gutters (something we needed at the time) - bing - minus $25 and then I showed the clerk my rewards card, and the 2 coupons I had from a flyer - bing - minus 4 and then I laid down the Money Off coupon I got from the store for being a rewards card cu...

I had some alone time today! I did not have to take any girls with me I went to pick up the Boy from school. And I also got to go for a run, all on my own! Which gave me lots of quiet time to think. Here is what came of it: 1. I am trying to budget better. i have been keeping track of what we spend daily, and monthly. The one month (October, blech) that I did not keep daily track, we went over on our spending. Oops. It's a great motivator, for me, to try and beat the numbers each month. 2. Should we keep Netflix or not? I have been thinking about where we can cut costs. Yes, the looming bills for the remodel are spinning in my brain. And I am in the cutting mode. But ... I sure like watching certain shows I can only get through Netflix... unless I buy it from Amazon. Hmm....and then I could sell it ... I think I might be leaning towards Cut. 3. I am beginning to think of gifts for that holiday that comes after Thanksgiving. I won't say the word, because November belongs to...