2. On Tuesday, I went up to the big city with MIL for one of her doctor's appointments. Every 28 days, she has an infusion for her MS which takes two hours. The girls and I spent the two hours at Wal Mart, where I did some serious coupon shopping...I was so proud of it that I took this picture. Two things are missing from the pic, 1 gallon of milk that I bought for MIL and one of those $1 cups of oreo cookies from the checkout area that Eva chose to buy with her dollar (I took the dollar and paid for it so we didn't drive the checker crazy!). Here's why I am so proud...even though I often see pictures where couponers pay $1 for $200 worth of groceries, I don't live close enough to anything with good sales to do that sort of thing...so my grand total for this transaction was $27.10 for 31 items. I roughly estimate that had I bought these things in our town (without coupons) it would have cost just over $90. Also, I thought it was pretty cool that my receipt is double sided...what a good idea!
3. Hubby rototilled our extra lot this week. He made a nice big garden plot in the back, and did much of the rest of the lot pretty lightly to break up the ragweed (which he is allergic to). We will probably plant some buffalo grass seed on the front part. I'm really looking forward to the garden part, and once my seeds and plants arrive it'll probably be about time to plant. I got all my seeds and plants from Gurney's this year, as I didn't feel like running all over creation getting seeds and starter plants. I ordered yellow onion sets, tomato plants, green pepper plants, hot pepper plants, carrot seeds, beet seeds, cucumber seeds, zucchini seeds, yellow squash seeds, cilantro seeds and basil seeds. Gurney's is a part of ebates, so I get money back on my orders...not tons, but I've gotten $40 something back from them so far, and have earned almost another $20.
4. Also in my bargain shopping this week...I've been struggling with the issue of kids bowls for years now. We've gone through three sets of plastic bowls in Eva's lifetime (so, maybe 3 years of eating regularly out of bowls) and it was driving me crazy. Well, I finally got smart and copied Katie, who has these great bowls from pottery barn kids that have survived her 6 kiddos...and at $9.99 per 4 pack, they weren't too expensive, even shipped to my house! It looks like I may have bought them out, though...but a similar set of bowls (set of 4 for $14) are still available if you search bowls.
5. Our really cool 1997 Saturn SC2 has needed new tires for a while (okay, it WAS really cool in high school when my mom bought it...of course, getting the car as a gift 10 years later makes it a little less cool...) and because one of hubby's coworkers is on maternity leave added to the fact that next month is one of our three paycheck months, he has gotten more hours recently and we had money in the bank that wasn't already earmarked for something (okay, maybe emergency savings, but I want hubby to have a safe car to drive) so we had a new set of tires put on the car this week.
6. Last night we went to a nearby town to participate in Dave Ramsey's townhall for hope, which was being broadcast simultaneously at over 6,000 locations across the country (you know it is everywhere when we found a location near us!) It was pretty cool. Lots of good information, and since I am a dork, I found the whole discussion of economics to be fun. There was also a "fellowship time" afterwards, so we got to chat with some like-minded people (at least in the financial realm). Of course, I don't know if I will ever really get used to protestant churches...Our neighbor's kids (they attend the church that we were at) we climbing up and jumping off the front platform (I'd call it an altar, but it clearly isn't) and our girls wanted to play with them, too..but I spend too much time at our church trying to keep them off the altar, so they went outside to play instead. Anyhow, the townhall for hope is well worth watching if you missed it!
7. This weekend is the Knights of Columbus state conference in Denver...actually, it started on Thursday but with the shortage of people at hubby's work and my recent surgery, hubby wasn't going to take time off. His boss is going to cover for him on Saturday evening, though, so we are going up after he gets off work on Saturday, and will get there in time for the Mass and the business meeting on Sunday. The cost to stay at the conference hotel (even on hotel discounters) would have been about $125 after taxes...and I am just way too cheap for that, so in the end, I did the whole priceline thing, and got a 2 1/2 star hotel within 5 blocks of the conference for under $60 after taxes...much more my level.
More quick takes at Jen's blog!
I can't believe you still have the Saturn. Mine died a couple years ago. Well, maybe not died, but was traded in (for like $500). It went through 2 alternators in it's 150,000 miles. It was traded in right before the alternator was going to die again.
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