Ao5

We went to the Marietta Fire Museum on Wednesday. It was so cool! The boys had a blast. After we got thru traipsing thru the museum, we visited the fire station. The fireman there gave us a tour of the whole thing- where they eat, sleep, cook, relax. He was very nice & answered all of our questions & gave us a ton of info. The boys got to climb in the firetrucks, including a brand new one!!! A HUGE perk- the entire trip (less gas) was F-R-E-E!!! Woohoo!!! Here are some pics. Please excuse the quality as these were taken with a cellphone.

You know spring has sprung when you can't go 50 feet without seeing a yard sale sign! LOL... Yesterday we took Hubba to work, and on the way home we hit a few yard sales. I managed a fondue pot, brand new & in the box ($3), a "vintage" fire king loaf pan (like pyrex- 25¢), 4 quart sized canning jars (25¢ each) and a few freebie toys (the sweet lady gave the kids some toys). We headed home, so I could change & get the directions to Hubba's great-nephew's birthday party. It was an hour away. We went. It was one of those bouncy places. The kids had a BLAST! We ate pizza & chips, cake & ice cream. Ater almost 3 hours, we headed out. Hit Ingles on the way home for a few groceries, home to put them up & rest for a mo, then back out to pick up Hubba. On the way home, we stopped & picked up a bunch of frozen convenience foods for dinner. We plopped in front of a movie & snacked on jalapeño poppers, mozzie stick, shrimp spread & crackers, ho...

Last year we got some display cases. You know the types for die cast cars? We've stored them in the boys' room, thinking we'd use them one day for collectibles. Well, we've had them almost a year. They were taking up space. I decided to revamp them (Car collector's, close your eyes now!)..... The display case as it's "meant" to be: Drilling holes: Spray painting (roots don't fare well in/with light): The finished product: And with soil: TA-DA!!! My new planters!!! I flipped the bottoms over as well. They are a tray of their own making. Be sure if you do this, you don't get the ones with holes already in the bottoms.

Ingles 12- 19oz Progresso soup 1- 10ct Swiss Miss hot chocolate 2- 4.6oz Pasta Roni Nature's Way 2- 19oz White Lily brownie mix 3- 3.5oz Hungry Jack dried potatoes 2- 5ct Fiber One granola bars 6- 15oz cans Hunt's diced tomatoes 2- 8oz Mt Olive sweet relish 7- 18oz Peter Pan peanut butter 2- single roll Viva paper towels 2- 10ct Zantac 2- .5oz Afrin nasal spray 1- tube Blistex 1- 22ct Kotex 4- 2pks (12.3 oz total for each 2pk) Fleischman's margarine made with olive oil 6.62lbs Tyson 100% Natural boneless skinless chicken breast 63oz Coleman Organic sausages Total OOP- $34.17 Saved- $91.66 Totals so far for 2008- Spent- $64.18 Saved- $245.25

CVS 5- 13oz Palmolive dish liquid 1- 13oz Garnier Fructis shampoo 1- 4oz children's motrin 1- 4oz children's Tylenol 6- 24ct Excedrin 3- 24ct Aleve Total OOP- $8.58 Saved- $73.61 ECB's earned- $23.00 Wilke's Market 4 very large red bell peppers- $4.08 (I gave one to my Mum) Sam's Mart (would you believe milk is actually cheapest at the gas station?!?!) 2 gals 2% milk- $7.21 Totals so far for 2008- Spent- $30.01 Saved- $153.59

CVS 6- 24ct Bayer aspirin 1- 4.0 oz tube Colgate 2- 4oz children Robitussin 2- 1oz pediatric Robitussin 1- 24ct Excedrin 1- 4oz children's motrin 1- 4oz children's Tylenol 4- Reese's Whipps bars 20- Soy Joy bars Total OOP- $10.14 Saved- $79.98 ECB's earned- $21.00 Totals so far for 2008- Spent- $10.14 Saved- $79.98

I've been informed that my math was wrong on the chicken. My math wasn't actually wrong, but I had transposed my numbers. So my math was right, my numbers were wrong. I'm still very happy with the amount of meat I got for the price (Thank you, Hubba. And thank you for allowing me to continue homeschooling the kids, hehe). I went and did some grocery shopping today. I love sharing my deals, and I really racked up on a LOT of mark-down dealios!! The meat scores are my fave!! MEAT: 23.92 lbs Boneless, Skinless Chicken= $33.01 ($1.38/lb) 5.90lbs Leg of Lamb= $11.74 ($1.99/lb) 3.56lbs Bratwurst= $5.97 ($1.99/19oz pkg) 1.5lbs Breakfast Sausage= $1.98 (99¢ per 12oz pkg) 5.01lbs ground chuck= $8.92 ($1.78/lb) Grand total= 39.89lbs of meat for a whopping $61.62 DAIRY: 2- 1/2 gallons organic whole milk= $1.58 each (That's only $3.16 per GALLON!!) 2- 1/2 gallons chocolate drink (you know the "fake milk?")= 58¢ each PRODUCE: 1 pkg stoplight peppers= $1.99 1 8oz pkg snap p...

LOL! Get it? Cheepend, instead of weekend. Oh I crack me up, more so when I'm tired! So a lot of folks were wondering about my deals this weekend in cheapdom (HA! There I go again!). I figured to save myself typing them over & over & over & over &.... well you get the message. Nope, I prefer the word CHEAP!!! Day 1 (Friday): CVS 1 Nature Made Rx Essentials 2 Beano to go packs 1 20oz Coke OOP (out of pocket)- $1.90 Dollar General, trip 1 1 24oz Iams cat food 1 18-ct Kotex liners 3 4.2oz Crest toothpaste OOP- 16¢ Dollar General, trip 2 2 pairs boys' camo cargo shorts 1 decorative letterbox 2 small decorative birdhouses partial pkg canning flats (7 in the box) OOP- $2.23 Ingles I paid full price for bananas OOP- $1.67 (I know, the SHAME!) Day 2: Publix 2 cans Purina One dog food (will donate these) 2 24ct Lipton family size tea bags 2 boxes Nonni's biscotti 1 loaf Publix white bread 1 tub JLKraft spreadable cheese OOP- $4.07 Walgreens 1 bundle pack Sunday paper...

I've come across a LOT of people that have BJ's Membership Cards but don't know that they accept manufacturer's coupons. The few that DO know that don't know this little known secret. BJ's accepts multiple coupons for multi-packs. For instance if you pick up a 4-pack of Gillette Series deodorants for men, you can use 4 coupons for the one multi-pack. Direct from the BJ's website (Click on FAQ's at the bottom of the page): Can I u se coupons? Absolutely! BJ’s is the only warehouse club to welcome all manufacturers’ coupons — including the ones that come in your Sunday newspaper — giving you additional savings on top of our already low BJ’s Member Pricing SM . Plus, we offer BJ’s Members-only coupons throughout the year. After all, saving you money is what BJ’s is all about. You can get exclusive BJ’s coupons: Online . To access and print online coupons, you will need to create an Online Profile . In BJ’s Journal , BJ’s Member magazine Through special...

LOL..... Meredith wrote awhile back about purchasing Hunt's Organic Pasta Sauce for $1 a can . I was able to purchase some cans from Big Lots for ONLY 70¢ a can. I was so excited when I saw it in the ad. I bought 10. I'm not crazy about store bought sauce, but I figure it'll be great for pizzas or the emergency meal when I run out of my own sauce. So if you have a Big Lots near you, run, don't walk, to it and pick up some for your pantry. The sale ends when supplies run out or at the end of the week. I only left about 6 on the shelf! (Sorry, Mer, I had to, LOL).....

That frugal decor I was talking about, I'm finally getting around to posting some. We found in one of the boxes, this BEAUTIFUL candle lantern. It's in awesome condition. We cleaned it up (attic dust- achoo), and decided it would go nicely in our cottage-y bedroom. I decided to nestle it between a couple of wicker baskets (which hold small photo albums) on Hubba's antique dresser.

I have been asked several questions regarding different areas of freebie hunting. Here are a few tips based on those questions. 1- I recommend you sign up with a free email service. Yahoo is a good one. You have the option of a spam folder, and that folder can be auto-deleted or manually. It even gives you the option of holding them for a certain amount of time, for your viewing and then will delete them automatically. Yahoo is also one of the few email services that does not automatically "blacklist" addresses. You will get ALOT of junk mail, as the companies you sign up for will indeed sell or give out your info. Expect a lot of nonsense in your inbox. You wouldn't want this going to your personal email, do you? Yahoo also does not count your spam folder (they call it BULK) towards your storage quota. And it also seems to have one of the largest quotas. 2- I've been asked how to track the freebies you apply for. Me, personally, I don't. I figure, I didn't pa...

I have been washing jars since last night........ Here's my story....... A couple months ago I'd emailed a lady about some canning jars on freecycle. Well this 'n that happened and tween her schedule & mine, it wasn't happening. I figured she'd given up on me. I got an email from her a couple days ago asking if we could make arrangements. I emailed her to let her know I couldn't pick them up til after 7 last night. She said she wasn't sure anyone would be at the house they were at at that time, so...... She and her hubby came by tonight and dropped them off...... Well, I'd forgotten to ask her how many there were..... I unboxed them (all 7 boxes)..... and counted them..... there were 86 jars of various sizes....... EIGHTY SIX!!!!! I have dubbed the Mr & Mrs "The mason jar fairies." God bless them! Have a wonderfully blessed day!

Meredith, of Like Merchant Ships is in a frugal foodie duel with Amy over at The Aldi Queen , to see who can plan the best-for- their-buck meals. Meredith will shop solely using the week's sales, while Amy will be doing all of her shopping at Aldi. The games begin on Monday. This is going to be fun! *sits back with a LARGE tub of popcorn!*

My husband had an agenda planner while back that got stolen or went missing. I believe the latter as we haven't had any issues with unauthorised credit card purchases, etc. Regardless, he had been complaining about it being too small anyway (be careful what you wish for, LOL ). But in a hunt for a large one that holds the 8 1/2" X 11" papers, we realised it's just not in the budget. Then you h ave to g e t refills, etc. I was at Big Lots a week or 2 ago and I found a zippered binder, similar to the one posted in the Coupon Binder post , sans handle, f or a whopping 6 bucks. The ide a struck me to build a planner for my husband, cutting the cost to a FRACTION of a pre -made-store-bought one. As follows: This is the $6 zippered binder: It has a pocket on the front that has small elastic bands on the sides. I slid a manila folder in there for extra filing space. Maybe for things the Hubba - bubba needs at a quick- grab's length. On the left hand side, when you ...

First you start with a LARGE 3-ring binder . I was able to get about a dozen of these for 50-75¢ each at a thrift shoppe, brand new. Mine are from a business complete with logo, but that's ok. 50-75¢ sure beats 8 bucks at Wal-mart. Plus mine DOES have a front pocket, in case I want to make it a bit purtier. Some people prefer a zippered binder. These are GREAT if you can afford the dough for a LARGE one. This one is especially great as it has a handle for carrying. You'll also need some pocket pages . I prefer the 4-per-page pages. The pockets are a little bigger, which is GREAT for those LONG coupons (which stick out, so I fold them in half) and those WIDE coupons, and especially for holding more coupons than their miniature counterparts! Now others have had luck with other pages. They come in 1-pocket (also known as sheet protectors, which we'll be using as well- we'll get to that later), 2 pocket, 4-pocket, 5-pocket, 6-pocket, 8-pocket; 9-pocke t. Anything with more...