Apr 14 Money Monday

Our oven was decades old.  Several repairs had happened over the last few years, most recently in March.  Last Tuesday she gave her notice.  Wednesday I researched and found four viable candidates, made a spreadsheet of their stats and highlighted my top pick.  While I was out kid-running, Husband checked them over, agreed with me, ordered a new one, which was delivered Friday.  Rather than pay $50 to have the old oven hauled away, we called a local scrapper.  He picked up the old oven Sunday.  We saved a bit, he'll earn a bit, seemed a good trade.

Saturday, the lawn tractor also resigned. argh  Also after two decades of service, but ARGH!  It wasn't totally unexpected.  For the past five years, it's been 'hope she starts' for the first mowing of the season.  For two years, she's needed the jump box to start *every* week.  Last year she started leaking a bit of gas.  This year, she said 'nope, I'm done'.

April already has two kid birthdays in it, but this is becoming a VERY expensive April.

I did/do NOT want to spend that money for a new oven or lawn tractor, but I am happy our savings is fat enough that it is an annoyance, not a crisis.  We have been where it would have been a crisis and it's far less stressful having a cushion for *when* a big expense pops up unexpectedly.  This is why we save the bits!

April 19 Money Monday

After looking and comparing for over two years, we bought a Blackstone Griddle a few weeks ago.  It wasn't cheap, but we feel we got the best deal that we could.  Already 90% of recent dinners have come off of it.  If you have the cash and the space (we got the 36", so it takes a bit of the patio), it's a worthy investment, imo.  Saving most of the time means we can make a bigger purchase when we want.

There are three in the house who shave their faces periodically.  I'm always happy to find products cheaper and stock up.  Last week I scored three Nivea Men shave gels and three Nivea Men shave balms for cheaper than free.  I was paid $1andsomechange to bring all six products home.  That will do them for a bit!

5/21 Money Monday

Last week was a definite Splurge week around here.  Son1 received his AS degree, Son2 and two nieces all graduated high school, so I wrote a few graduation checks and we threw a celebration steak dinner for 10.  A great milestone week for some of my very favorite people, but not at all a cheap week.  We did the dinner at home vs a restaurant to keep some of the cost down, but still. lol

I did manage to send in a rebate, feed the $5 Tin two bills, and feed the Dime Bottle a few dimes.  That was all the 'saving' that happened last week.  We have great memories and I'm not mad about it.  That's why we save most of the time, to splurge some of the time.  I will, however, buckle down a bit more over the next few weeks as Son1's rent and Son2's tuition payment are looming large.

8/14 Money Monday

Received a $12 rebate check, which went straight to savings.

Target is running one of my favorite promos 'spend $20, get $5' on health/personal care.  I always take advantage of this, stocking the bathroom with toothpaste, toothbrushes, cotton balls, etc.  This time I had a $5 GC from the promo for spending $20 on kid clothes, so I spent $15 OOP, restocked needed supplies and have a $5 GC for later.

Our local trampoline park had a promo 'bring in a backpack with school supplies and get 2 hrs free jumping'.  I bought a backpack on sale from Walgreens, which is decent quality and passed the 'cute' test from my daughter.  We shopped our stash of supplies, which were all high quality bought on deep sales, and filled it up.  I told daughter's bestie's mom about the promo, so both girls helped other people AND get to spend time together at one of their favorite places and on the cheap.  Win-win!

One of our dance stores had a 20% off entire store sale.  Pointe shoes are expensive!  20% off helped a bit.  Daughter's bestie met us there, so we shopped with friends, saved a bit of money, and hit Chipotle for lunch with free kid meal passes from the library's summer reading program.

Yankee had a promo 'buy 1 medium, get 2 free'.  I got 3 candles for the price of 1 and checked 3 gifts off the Christmas List.  :)

7/10 Money Monday

I received my check from Shop at Home.  $23.53 added to the savings account.

My Ibotta account had a balance of $20+ after last week's rebates went in.  You can only cash out when your account is $20, so I took out $20 and left the rest as a head start on the next cash out.  That goes to our Paypal account.

My son's laptop died.  I had a coupon for a free diagnostic at Office Depot.  It's the hard drive and was going to be $310 to fix it.  No, thank you.  My husband went on eBay to buy a new hard drive that he will install himself.  After eBay bucks sitting in the account from a previous purchase and $20 in Paypal from Ibotta, the new hard drive was under $10 cash out of pocket.  That is a MUCH better price.

Our AC unit also died.  Specifically the capacitor died on July 4th.  I was planning on a huge bill.  I wasn't happy about that, but it's HOT here and no AC was a NO go zone.  When the repair guy came, he called the company and verified that the part was still under warrant so the repair cost was under $200. Yay!  Not cheap, but cheaper than planned, and considered a necessary splurge right now.

I cashed in some MyPoints points for Barnes and Noble GCs, which I used to purchase a book for my daughter's birthday.  I love shopping for free!

6/12 Money Monday

So, we came back from vacation and the AC in my van had retired.  That's why I save, so we have a savings account when big stuff happens.  I'm not happy about spending the cash, but I'm happy it's in the bank.

I deposited a small rebate check.  Every little bit helps.  It did make me chuckle sadly that I was depositing $3 when being told the van repair would be $1800.  But Save the Bits! lol

5/8 Money Monday

Husband installed the new windows in the basement, changing out the builder grade egress windows for vinyl windows that fully open AND match the rest of the windows on the house.  The windows weren't cheap, but we purchased at Menards and he installed them himself, which saved us some.  They look so nice and will improve sale-ability.  The extra ventilation will be good, too, as we still haven't turned our AC on.  I'm hoping to make it through this week, but the forecast is upper 80s, so we'll see.  Our parents are coming over next Sunday and we will have to turn the AC on then.  They all keep their homes in the 60s, so our current high 70s would have them melting. :)

5/1 Money Monday

In a case of splurging to save, we changed all the lightbulbs in the house to LEDs.  I found a great deal at Home Depot, which is no longer available.  Cases of LEDs were on sale for about 1/3 the regular price.  We counted bulbs, I placed an order with free shipping.  We did not throw out the bulbs we removed that were still working.  If we do decide to move, we'll put them back in and take our LEDs with us.  Now to watch our electric bill to see if it improves....

4/10 Money Monday

Last week was a bit of a slow week here.

*I resisted the Ulta sale again, which was SO hard since my beloved Perversion was half-price.  I almost bought it, then remembered I have...ummm, a few still new mascaras to go through.  The sale will come around again, right?
*I'm one of the lucky ones that is receiving a month of free bagels from Panera.  They do this for members a few times a year and April is my lucky month.  I don't run out to get my free bagel, but if I'm out already I'll swing by.  My kids are enjoying the random chocolate chip bagels.
*On Wed I took my daughter to the Lego store for a free mini build.  While at the mall, I bought a big jar candle from Yankee for $28.  Not cheap, but that big jar lasts a long time and the new lemon scent is so fresh and clean smelling that I gave in.  Then I woke up on Thurs to an email with a BOGO coupon. ARGH  Seriously?  I had already promised my son I would take him to the other mall on Fri so he could spend a VStock GC, so I put my new candle in a bag and took it with me.  I 'returned' the one and 'bought' two, making that $28 go twice as far.  Yay for coupons!
*While out with just the one kid, I took him to Chik-fil-a for lunch.  That's not a cheap lunch out, but it is good and that $15 or so scored me an hour and major points with said son, making it well worth it in my book!  And I didn't buy during the Ulta sale, so I think I still came out ahead. ;)

3/13 Monday Money

I booked our cabin for vacation (splurge).  I remembered to check Ebates and we got $10 back (bits).  That's probably my favorite thing about Ebates, how easy it is to get a percentage back on something I was going to purchase anyway!  Yes, it's only $10, but it's $10 more than I would have if I hadn't checked.

Our new mattress is wonderful, well worth the money to buy a new one.  I was super happy to find deep pocket, king sheets at Target regularly $60, but on sale for $40.  Then I checked our local Here Today.  There I found sheet sets for $20.  I bought two and returned the two sets I had purchased at Target.  Side by side, you couldn't tell which set was which so I am VERY happy with my $20 sets.

I sold a makeup lot for $15, which added a $5 to the $5 Tin.

2/27 Money Monday

1-We did our taxes. And Son1's taxes.  And they're all done! lol  I hate tax time, but I do it because #American.

2-We ordered a new mattress.  As we have a King, that's a splurge, but in this case a necessary one.

3-Our new mattress is deeper than our old one.  Which means I now have to buy not just $$ King sized sheets, but $$$ 'deep pocket' King sized sheets. sigh  A splurge I'm not super happy about, so off to find a sale, I am!

4-Husband DID go through ebates on the mattress purchase, scoring us $9 back, which is going towards those $$$ new sheets.

5-I sold one of Diva's dresses on Offer Up.  I also had several 'I want it, when I come pick up' messages on other items, then they didn't set a time or grrr set a time and didn't show.  Why are people so flaky?

Cents of Style Grab Bags

Feel like playing a little Style Roulette?  Cents of Style has grab bags available.  Each bag will have 2 pieces of clothing and 1 accessory.  You do select your size for the clothing, but that's the only 'option' available to you.  Grab bags are normally $35, but 2/27 only, you can score one for $16.95 shipped!  Use code GRAB17.

Normally I would not purchase a fashion grab bag since there's a good chance I won't like what's in it.  However, two of my fave graphic Ts are from Cents of Style and they have several others I like as well.  If I get one of those, I'll consider this a win. lol  And if I don't, there's always Offer Up to get my money back.  I strongly suspect these bags are clearing warehouse space, so I did take a quick spin around the 'Last Chance' page.  I liked a lot of what I saw there, so I'm kind of excited to see what mystery items I'll get.  I will do a serious happy dance if I get that cute Coach Taylor Forever or Team Luke T.

Stay tuned....