I was going to finish cleaning the kitchen and pantry, finish planting the rest of the seedlings, visit a possible preschool for Shawn, run to Walgreens and Walmart to use up coupons that expire tomorrow.

I didn't even put a dent in that list. I did some dishes and went to Walgreen's but that was about it. Actually I did get to go up to Aquarelle Kids Academy and check out their facilities. I can't believe that my little man will be attending prek in just over 4 months. I got us on the list for the morning classes and got the info so I can get him enrolled in the Voluntary PreK and get the state to cover the costs. If you've got little ones make sure you check out your options, I've heard so many people say that prek's are expensive and they just can't afford it. The truth is there are free programs out there for your kids, you just need to look alittle harder. You also have to get moving spots fill up fast at a lot of the nicer pre k facilities. The place that Shawn will most likely be attending only takes 92 kids a year between the two times. My area is full of apartment complexes and housing development on any given day I could see 90 4 year olds at the stores I bargain in. As the women in charge there told me, there are plenty of vouchers to go around (there's one day you have to go and get a voucher) but there aren't enough spots to go around.

are you participating in the 3rd annual Earth Hour event tomorrow night? From 8:30-9:30pm local time businesses, individuals, and governments are encouraged to flick the switch and go dark for 1 hour to show that energy conservation is important.

Go here for more information and here to see if your city is participating. They are saying that for the first time ever the strip in Las Vegas and the Welcome to Las Vegas sign will go dark for the hour.

In times when so many people are getting laid off or getting their hours cut we need to think about ways to live more frugal. This is a great habit to get into and it helps us live more green. Install more efficient lightbulbs in the lights that need to be on and shut off the hall light. This is something that gets repeated here almost daily when my son goes upstairs and leaves the stairway light on. So are you going to participate? What else are you doing to either live more green or just save some money? I'd love to hear what others do, it helps everyone to read other's suggestions.

tomorrow is Build and Grow day at Lowes. They are building a cute Yard Mobile from 10-11am. Shawn is excited as usual and I still haven't sewn on his patches from the last 2 clinics he went to. Guess I should do that tonight.

I didn't do any couponing today but we did head to Target. Grandma bought me a new pair of sandals that I love. Thanks Grandma!!! And I bought 4 recycled paper boxes, they will fit perfectly on the stairs and now instead of piles of crap on the stairs everyone will have their own box they are responsible for. With one extra box for my deals that need to go upstairs check your clearance endcaps since these were 75% for $1.xx each. Also treated myself and grandma to a free coffee from Starbucks thanks to my neighbors who throw away all the good Target coupons.

I managed to have a successful run last night even though the sales are cruddy this week. I got lots of Dawn with .50mq (FREE) and I also picked up some of the new fancy softsoaps which aren't in the ad but are on sale. They run $3.99 and have a buy 2 get $4 ECB with $2 mq in last weeks paper they are also free.

I also picked up some cheap paper towels, almost free glade spray, almost free St Ives lotion, and 2 gallons of milk for $1 a piece. I'll be headed back on Saturday evening to get 2 more gallons of milk by then we should have used 1 gallon already.

So the deals look kinda crappy this week don't they. Well if you are also a Florida resident the CVS ad really sucks but there are a couple of gems hidden in there. Go to TGLee.com and you can print out 2 $1 off coupons for milk, making your milk $1 a gallon after ECB's. Also the Dawn is a great deal it works out to free if you have any coupons (.50 mq) otherwise .50 a bottle isn't a bad deal at all.

Where are you shopping this week? I've been out of the shopping loop for a while now since I've had family visiting. Between family and the Target still running new store specials all the rest of the stores have been neglected. On the plus side I can't fit anything else in my new freezer that my mother in law bought us for our anniversary. Target has steaks on sale $1.79 a pound and with that $2 off coupon it's been making for some great free steaks and a full full freezer of meat.

don't you? Here are 3 great places to earn a little free money. They aren't get rich quick schemes they take time and pay very little but I'll explain each of them.

The first would be IRazoo. Just click on the box in the right column for a referral, we each get a bonus 50 points. The deal with IRazoo is they are a search engine that lets you earn up to 100 points a day. You get 2 points for every search and 4 points for every site you click on. At 3000 points you can cash out for a $5 gift card. If you use this as one of your regular search engines it won't take any extra time and you'll get a reward after a month or so.

The second is Swagbucks. They also are a search engine site. I use this one in addition to irazoo and it takes no longer than a normal search. I'm up to $30 in Amazon giftcards from them and have only been a member for 4 months. I usually get 1-3 swagbucks a day and you can cash out at 45 swagbucks for a $5 Amazon giftcard.

The last free money site for today is YouData. This is actual free money!!! You check there site once a day and get paid to view ads. This takes all of about 2 minutes and on Saturday you get paid via paypal automatically. This isn't a huge payout and the amount of ads you get depends upon your situation. I received $2.50 the first week and $2.25 the next. It's not bad considering it takes almost no time and I was online anyways.

Do you know of any other ways to get free money? Please share if you do, I love to hear about how others are doing.

Well it's Sunday isn't that supposed to be the day of rest? Oh well, Dave and I both woke up with headaches and he's cranky. But headache or not there is a ton of stuff that I need to do today.

I've been avoiding the laundry since 2 of the washers have been broken for about a week now. But they are fixed so I have several loads of laundry that need to be down, a kitchen that needs to be clean, 10 clumps of broccoli to boil and freeze, and of course 3 weeks of coupons that need to be organized. If I manage to finish any of that it'll be a miracle but just in case I do I also need to go Michaels and look for a frame. I don't think there will be much time for deal shopping today.

Don't forget to go get your free toothpaste or toothbrush and the free Irish Springs body wash at CVS this week. The sooner you go the better chance you have of actually finding it. There is a .50 mq in the paper today for the Irsh Springs so you can make a little money on that.

So what's on your plans for today or this week? Have you started your garden yet? Are you buried under a pile of laundry like I am? Or do you just have a mountain of coupons to sort?

Coupon Mommy is doing a giveaway here

The first 3 people to leave a comment on this post will receive a gift from me sometime during this year. When and what will be a surprise to the winners!

There's a small catch though....Post this same thing on your blog and then come back and leave a comment telling me you're in.Remember, only the first 3 comments receive the gift.*Don't forget to post this on your blog first, then come back and leave a comment on this post!*

Don't forget that tomorrow is the Tabletop Basketball build and grow at Lowes. I think they start at 10am and are free. Make sure you stop in, my son has a blast at these events and asks all week about them.

Target and I have always had a love/hate relationship. They have had some of the best sales in the past but they've also had some of the worst customer service. About 4 months ago I decided that was enough, there wasn't any Target's close enough for me to keep running around looking for product and a decent cashier. So if they were paying me to take something and I was headed that way anyways then I would go otherwise oh well.

But now there is a beautiful new SuperTarget just down the street from me. I drive past it very often so it's not like I even have to go out of my way. And since it's a brand new store they have those great New Store Specials, I've written about them this week before I know but they are great.

Yesterday I got 3 lbs of steak, 1 lb of beef stew meat, 4 packages of fresh broccoli, 6 bags of goldfish crackers, a 24 pack of bottled water, and 4 cups of Velvetta mac and cheese. I only paid $1.65 for all of that. I think I could be in love with Target again so hopefully they continue to have great sales.

Thanks to Together We Save for giving me this award

Here are the rules

I've seen lots of talk lately about the free clinic at Home Depot for women to attend but nothing for the kids. So here goes

Go here to sign up for a free Build and Grow Clinic at Lowes the next one is this Saturday and they seem to go every other week. Registration is not required but it tells you the dates and times of each Clinic. At this clinic Shawn received an apron and googles to wear to all the clinics he attends and at each clinic you receive a patch to sew onto the apron.
This week's project is a Tabletop Basketball set.

On the first Saturday of every month Home Depot also hosts a Kid's Workshop. There's no where to register for these but you can go here and get all the info you need.
This is the next project on April 4th. At this clinic Shawn received an apron and a pin for the clinic, no googles so we will be taking the lowes ones with us from now on.

Between the 2 I prefer the Lowes one's. They seem to have their act together alittle more but that could have just been the store we visited. The project at Lowes also went together alittle easier and since Shawn's only 4 easier is better. He seems to love going to these though so we'll be continuing to go, besides it's free entertainment and the kids leave with such a sense of accomplishment. And if you have little girls don't shy away there were more little girls than boys at the Home Depot Raceway clinic than boys and everyone was having a great time.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love when stores open and have great sales. If not boy do I ever love it. SuperTarget opened it's doors this morning and after such a great trip and since they are much closer now I might be back in the Target game.

Here's my receipt recap. NSS= New Store Special, you won't have these deals available at your store unless it's one of the 27 that opened today.

Door Mat (we still had one with pumpkins out) NSS $7.19
6 packs of Goldfish NSS $1 each -$1TQ =FREE
Printer Paper $3.39 (not on sale not a great deal but we were out of paper)
2 Strawberry plants $1.25 each (I think that's a regular sale price)
50th Anniversary Barbie $3 (Great price for a collectible)
Color Changing Hot Wheel NSS $2.69
2 Broccoli .99 each -$1 TQ =FREE
5 packs of Chuck Beef Steak on NSS $1.99lb (prices were $1.93-$2.55) -$2 TQ = FREE to .55 steaks

Total Spent was $19.93

I will be going back several times this week to stock my freezer with cheap steaks and free broccoli and of course tons of goldfish crackers since my son could eat this 24/7.

Finally I remembered to do a Freebie Friday post!! Here are some of the interesting freebies I came across.

Go Here for $20 in free plants you just pay shipping which for me was about $7.95. I ordered 3 raspberry plants and a very pretty carnation plant to add some color to my container garden.

Free Carmel Mocha at Bob Evans. This is good for dine in or carry out with no purchase necessary.

Free Splenda Sample you can receive 2 coffee size flavored samples or 2 with fiber packets.

Free Tide TotalCare sample these are the perfect size if you are traveling to toss in your suitcase.

Free Warm Delights Mini be careful because these are good and not that bad for you.

Free Team Chevy Decal. You can order your favorite Chevy Nascar Driver. It's a nice decal especially if you live with a Nascar junkie like my 4 yr old.

Magazine Freebies

Garden Center Magazine

Creativity Magazine

Our anniversary isn't for 19 days but we had the time and food so we decided to have a nice dinner tonight for our anniversary. I have more family coming to town in a couple weeks so we don't have to try and squeeze in a nice dinner then.

We had 2 delicious ribeye steaks, 1 pound of large shrimp, zucchini, fried red potatoes and strawberry shortcake. You want to know the best part? The whole dinner cost less then $10. If we had something comparable at a restaurant it would have cost more like $40. Instant savings of $30 on dinner.

The ribeye's were marked down at Target to $6.60 a lb so I bought 2 steaks that were about 3/4 a pound and used 2 $2 off Sutton & Dodge Steak coupons from the target website. I got the shrimp a few weeks ago at Sweetbay, it was one of the specials for the grand opening the shrimp after coupon was $2.99 a pound. I got a big bag of potatoes at the flea/farmer's market for $1 and 2 huge zucchini's for $1. I still have 1/2 lb of shrimp, 1 1/2 zucchini and several potatoes left for tomorrow night.

See with a little work you can have a great meal at home for very little money. $10 is high for me to spend on one meal but it was a special occassion so I could see splurging. We usually get some money from a relative to go out to dinner but that money will be put in the grocery budget and go towards a nice bottle of wine for our actual anniversary.

I went last night and just had to share the deals I got. I know the sale ended yesterday but it was too much fun not to share. The pic isn't the best since it's from my phone but it'll do.


I got 6 boxes of poptarts, 10 cans of Green Giant veggies, 10 cans of Muir Glen tomatoes, 4 jars of Classico pasta sauce, 2l of Dr Pepper, and I finally found the Kid's Boost to use my free coupon on.

In total I spent $6.11 and saved $59.28

We will use the veggies eventually and since I just used the last can the other day it was great to restock. Come hurricane season you never know what you might need. We desperately needed pasta sauce to go with the tons of spaghetti I got for free awhile back and the tomatoes will be used for making more sauce or chili YUM!!

Don't forget to load your new Upromise Coupons today. Once you activate them you have all month to buy the product and then you get an extra boost from upromise. There are some great coupons on there this month which can be paired with manufacturers coupons and sales for great extras.

If you haven't signed up yet what are you waiting for??? Click on the link at the top of my blog and head over. I'm sure you know someone that has a child and is trying to figure out how to save for college. In this time who has the extra money? It's so easy and if you don't sign up you are letting free money go that I'm sure someone could use. You sign up register your most used credit cards and shopping cards, then once a month add the coupons. When you have some money in the account send it to one of your loved ones trying to save for their kids. Every little bit helps.