Here's what I got and what I paid

2 Bags Kingsford Charcoal $6.99 each -$3mqs (2)
2 Glad Sandwich Bags $1.59 each -$1mqs (2)
12 Dentastixs $3.59 BOGO -$2.50 mqs (12)
2 Publix Milk $2.89 each -FREE PQ (2)
3 Rightguard Deodorant $3.99 each -FREE MQ (3)
Basmati Rice $4.39 -FREE MQ
Jasmine Rice $2.69 -FREE MQ
10 Wheat Thins Artisan Crackers $3.39 BOGO -BOGO MQ (5)
2 Dixie Bowls $2.93 BOGO -$1 MQ (2) -$1TQ (2)
12 pk Bud Light $9.99
4 Aunt Jemima $1.79 BOGO -$1/2 MQ (2)
6 Kellogg Cereal $1.99 each -$1MQ (6)
Ground Chuck $2.97
Shoulder Roast $4.57 -$6 MQ
Pork Ribs $4.97
Boston Butt Roast $7.84 -$6 MQ
2 Poptarts $2.39 BOGO -$1 MQ (2)
Total OOP $29.75 Total Savings (including sales) $176.24

The best part is I can send in for a $20 rebate for buying the beer, meat and charcoal and my mom is going to buy the charcoal from me for $3 a bag. So my total OOP will be $3.75

Over 4 trips to 2 different Albertson's I've used all but 16 of the 80 coupons I ordered on ebay. I got really lucky on the coupons and got 40 of the Free Marcal up to $1 and 40 of the $1 off coupons for $3.99 which included shipping. Albertson's has had single rolls of paper towels, tissues, and 4pk of toilet paper on sale for $1 (today they dropped to .88) Here's where the pennies fell.

21 Paper Towels
19 Tissues
24 Toilet Papers

OOP $4.38 Saved $64.00

This is the pepper plant it has really filled out from a few weeks ago. It has 3-4 peppers that have set and lots of other buds that hopefully will set and I'll have tons of bell peppers.


The flowers are so pretty on the bean plant. Lots and lots of really pretty purple flowers everywhere. I almost wish they wouldn't die off and produce beans since they look so nice and my garden area is greatly lacking in colors.


Here's the ever growing zucchini plant. I'm going to start attempting to pollinate this plant on the next round to see if the problems are the lack of bees in the area. I figure I can take a qtip and going through all the flowers and hopefully I will get a zucchini soon.


And here's my Topsy Turvy update. If you look at my first post you'd think that the plant shrunk. It hasn't gotten any smaller but it has bent up so that the leaves are growing upwards. I have a couple little flowers already on it, and I think that it will grow in both directions and produce lots of cherry tomatoes.

So how is your garden growing? Have you tried anything new or different. As always feel free to let me know how you are doing, I love getting ideas or just seeing how others are growing their fruits and veggies.

I'm a little late posting my garden pics,, but since it's a holiday weekend it's still the weekend right. LOL Here's a pic of 2 of my raspberry bushes they aren't very bushy but are producing raspberries. Now if I can only figure out how to keep the birds away.
This is my little mint plant. This thing has been growing like wildflower, I've been picking leaves a least once a week for my pom mojitos and it grows faster than I pick them. This so far has been the best growing plant especially considering that I only paid $1 for it at the flea market. I may have to go see what else that guy has if he's still there.
A closeup of the raspberries on the third plant. They are almost ripe so I'm hoping I get them before the birds do.
This would be Mr. Stripey. He still doesn't have any flowers but is growing like a weed. I read that they are slow producers or late producers so hopefully I'll have something to look forward to in a month or two.
This is close up of my other tomato plant. It's a yellow pear heirloom plant. I counted this morning and there are 17 tomatoes on the plant with at least another 15 coming soon. I think Shawn will really enjoy these once they ripen and they should add some interesting color to salsa.
Stay tuned for some more garden photos. I can only add soo many per post and an my weekly topsy turvy update. Feel free to share your experiences with gardening or ask any questions about my pursuit to container garden.

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A few more days like today and the past 4 days and I think we'll have to rename Florida. I haven't seen the sun other than for about 20 minutes yesterday since Saturday. It's been raining and raining and raining. Granted we really needed some rain but we've past the ridiculous point and have headed straight to it's time to build a boat. Luckily for me I live in the "mountains" of Fl so we don't have any flooding concerns but so many areas are flooded and people are having to get sandbags to try and save their homes.

Since the weather has been cruddy and depressing I haven't done much. Today I plan on getting my act together and putting together a trip to CVS and Wags. I also am going to get back to cleaning, decluttering, and organizing this is a horribly drawn out project since I keep losing momentum. Here's how I saved yesterday though.

1. The A/C has been off. It's a little humid but it's plenty cool enough out.

2. The lights have been off until it's really dark out.

3. The computer and TV were off for quite a while yesterday because an electrical storm came overhead. Shawn watched TV upstairs but everything downstairs was off which was good cause we had 2 little outages.

4. We've been eating from the pantry and freezer. I can finally start to see some of the shelves in the pantry. I'm going to go through everything today or tomorrow and check expiration dates and weed out some of the crazy excess to give to my mom when she comes up Friday.

5. I managed to save my pear tomato plant yesterday. It was looking really really sad and all the stems and leaves were wilting. Then it dawned on me that the poor thing had also had enough of the rain, so I went out when it let up a little and pried the water catch off the bottom and let it sit on the sidewalk to get rid of some of the extra water. Of course it started to rain again so the plant got moved up under the little overhang and it is much happier. Of course I can't get into or out of the house without squeezing by the plant but as long as it's happy.

What have you been doing lately to shave some money? The best thing for me has been just staying home and out of the stores.

Yesterday was a spendy day but it wasn't all bad. There was the good, the bad, and the delicious. Luckily for me none of the money spent comes out of my regular grocery budget it was all presaved for.

The Good
I was one of the lucky ones to get a $60 off $100 at Old Navy last week so I went and used it. Since Shawn grows like a weed and is starting preschool this August he needs some clothes. Thankfully Grandma lives in CT where shorts actually go on clearance so she's offered to pick up some shorts for the weed. Which leaves me to buy jeans for him (another thing that hardly ever even goes on sale) so we picked him up 2 pairs of jeans, a pair of sweatpants for playing at home, and 3 shirts for school. Then Mommy got another pair of those fabulous Yoga pants that they carry. I bought a pair a couple weeks ago and they are sooooo comfy!! I also got a shirt and a super cute dress made from the same material as the pants. It's also very comfy and I love it. Total Spent at Old Navy was $43.xx my pretax precoupn total was $100.48 so I didn't waste any of the discount.

The Delicious
Every once in a while we like to go out to eat. Longhorn had a $5 off $25 coupon in the paper and they've been showing commercials for their shrimp and crab gratin which has been making me drool. So Dave and I decided that would be our treat, we have a little money put aside for such occassions so I don't feel to guilty about going. We stopped at Wendy's and got nuggets for Shawn $2 got him a drink and nuggets compared to $7 at the resturant and he'd pick the fast food nuggets over resturant nuggets any day. The gratin by the way is yummy!

The Bad/Evil
We knew that the car was needing a new battery, well yesterday when Dave started the car it made sure to remind him with a slow start. Since it's been raining for 3 days we decided to just go over to Walmart and have them install the new battery, they don't charge for the installation but we couldn't compare prices. Well they tell me it's going to be $50 plus tax I say fine I'll be back in 10 minutes when it's done. We walk around and come back when the tag scans done and they proceed to tell me that they the $50 battery won't work in my car, they didn't have any of the $65 battery so they installed the $75 one. So now I'm not happy, I just wasted 15 minutes waiting for them to finish this and now they tell me well we can take it out and put your old one in (and then let your husband stand outside in the pouring at the Advance Auto down the road trying to install a new one cause you don't want to get stuck out at the Old Navy with a car that won't start). OK so the last part was all in my head but they might as well have said it. I detest Walmart and the only reason we go now is for something that is a need it now kind of thing. I try not to have those very often, but I don't drive the car often enough to have noticed the lag or I would have thought to get before it was dire.

So in all the $45 spent at Old Navy was completely planned for and came for my ebay sales, if they hadn't been good enough we would have gone without the clothes this week and tried again when we had more $$. The dinner was in a special account for just that purpose and the battery was from the car repair fund. None of these funds would have been possible 2 years ago, if it wasn't for coupons, smart shopping and a refusal to pay full price for most things just paying for the $75 battery would have been hard.

I'm grateful for all I've learned in bargain shopping and grateful that it has allowed me to take steps toward saving. When you live off one income and it's not very big saving for anything is very very hard but just know that with work (not always easy either) you can save and you can lead a better life. Eating out isn't a necessity but it's nice every once in awhile and being able to do it and not have to check the accounts to make sure we could cover it is just great. Thanks to all that have helped me shop better and for those of you starting out my mission is to help you get there.

Well we have been blessed with rain finally. It's been a great steady rain all day today. Normally I'm not a big fan of days where it's cruddy out all day, but we've been without rain for so long that this is truly appreciated.

1. Breakfast was cereal for Shawn, latte for me (loving that machine), and I don't think Dave ate. We are bad at breakfast around here.

2. Lunch was leftover brats for Dave, PB&J for Shawn, and I had some of my yummy homemade french onion soup. Check back tomorrow for my recipe it was soo yummy and cheap.

3. Because of the rain it has cooled down alot outside. We haven't had the A/C on at all today or last night. It's been a bit humid inside but with a couple fans running at the worst times it's been manageable.

4. We managed to keep the lights off for most of the day today. There were a few times that I needed to turn on the light since it was kinda dark today with the rain clouds overhead.

5. It let up raining after dinner (pork florentine, $1 potatoes, free broccoli). So I put Shawn in the stroller and I headed out for a quick walk (I'm trying to exercise more) and Dave went for a run (he's trying to get in shape to play hockey). There's nothing better than free exercise.

6. Entertainment tonight was the season finale of 24 and some music.

How did your day go?

A quick trip today to Publix. I handed out a couple cards while I was there so HI!!!! to my great cashier and the very patient women behind me in line. Here's the run down:

3 Glad Wrap $1 each -$1 mq found in store
2 Breyer Ice Cream BOGO $4.99 -$1.50 mqs
2 Bic Lighters BOGO $3.49 -$2 mqs
4 McCormick GrillMates BOGO $1.99/2 -$4 mqs
2 Kellogg Frosted Mini Wheats BOGO $4.19 -BOGO mq from VocalPoint
Pork Florentine $4.72 -$1 PQ from the calender YUMMY!!! Totally worth the money
2 Halls Cough Drops $1.99 each -FREE mqs
3 Wrigley gum $.89 each -FREE mqs

Total OOP $9.33 Total Saved with coupons $22.34

How have you done at the grocery store lately? I find that I spend the biggest chunk of my money on groceries so I love to hear how you shave your grocery bill.

So as I reported yesterday I "bought" this at CVS with ECB's of course. This morning I ran into Walmart and bought 2 cherry tomato plants to put in it. So here it is in all it's glory hanging outside my front door. One of the plants is tipped to the side so if it grows crooked we know why, it's much harder than it looks to plant this thing but once I got the plants in Dave held the bag and I filled it with dirt. I'll keep updating with pictures to show you all my report on how it's growing.

Since plants are not part of my grocery budget, I won't be counting this or the mousetraps I also bought while at Walmart. I'm generally against using deadly force but the mouse hasn't gotten the hint and the plug in thing says that there will be increased activity as the buggers will be disoriented and I can't have them running around here all crazy. YUCK!!!!!

So my only spending today was .34 at CVS when I got my papers and met the demands of the husband and the kid. The little one wanted more Mr Bubble (I may figure out how to make my own and refill that bottle, but then again Mr Bubble makes such nice bubbles) and since we were heading yard sale hunting Dave wanted ibuprofen. LOL

I made 2 quick shopping trips out yesterday. First was Target. Here's what I got and the math/reasoning.

4 Bliss Chocolate Bars free with TQ
4 Quaker Bites free with TQ
Bubble Plane $9.99 (Shawn has been having so much fun playing with his bubbles over the past couple weeks I couldn't resist, but I am holding onto until he's done something really good)
2 Kashi Waffles (not pictured) .29 each after coupon
4 Kraft Dressings .49 each after MQ & TQ (not as low as I would like but Target has some of the flavors I like that I can't find elsewhere)
2 Kraft Mayo .49 each after MQ & TQ (we were all out and this is probably close to the cheapest I'll find it)

Total spent was $15.13 Total Saved $25.06

Next stop was CVS to roll as many bucks as I could and burn a few. We have a cruddy test ad this week so there's not much for deals. This was 2 transactions one with my card and one with Daves. Here what I got and the math

6 Skippy Peanut Butter $10 -$2.40 MQ $3ECB
Bayer Monitor FREE with MQ $5 ECB
Schick Quattro 8.99 -$4MQ $4 ECB
Bayer Crystals $2 $2 ECB
2 Colgate Total $2.89 -$3MQ
2 Rightguard FREE with MQ
Riddex (we have a mouse) $14.99
3 St Ives trial Size FREE with MQ
Loaf of Bread (not pictured) $2.29

Total OOP .37 after ECB's Total Saved with MQ $37.84

Second Order
2 Schick Quattros $8.99 each -$4MQ $4ECB
Crest Mouthwash $3.49 -$1MQ $2ECB
Bayer Crystals $2 $2ECB
2 Off Clip-Ons $7.99 -BOGO MQ -$3CVS Q
2 Colgate Total $2.89 -$3MQ
1 Off Refill FREE after MQ
2 Rightguards FREE with MQ
2 St Ives Trial Size FREE with MQ
Topsy Turvy $9.99 (I've been wanting one of these and know several people that are curious so I'm testing it for everyone)

Total OOP .67 after ECB's Total Saved with MQ $36.94

Well I didn't do much yesterday. I made a quick trip to the store to get beer for Dave and his buddy Shaun who came over to watch the hockey game. The Bruins postseason is over and the guys weren't too happy last night. Oh well, my tolerance for hockey has been pushed to the extreme this year so I'm not too upset. LOL

Other than that trip I didn't spend any money yesterday or today. We kept the lights off as long as possible and the A/C set as high as was bearable. I have to turn it down when we have company since it just gets too warm. It rained alot last night so I didn't have to water the plants today and just once yesterday morning. I'll probably have to water them again tomorrow though since it's been dry today.

My coupons were yelling at me today. It seems they felt neglected, a couple weeks ago I was just too overwhelmed with stuff and never got around to clipping and filing them. They seem to multiple once I put them in the to be filed box, I've never figured this out. But the more they multiple the less I want to do it, so today I forced myself to sit down and deal with the mess. I stapled and clipped them all this morning, and this afternoon I filed them all alphabetically while watching NCIS. This really helps me shop better and I have a day of rest before next weeks coupons come.

How have you been doing this month? Are your coupons taking over too, if they are trust me get sharp scissors and go after them it's the only sane thing to do.

We had a monsoon of rain yesterday, it poured for about 3 hours and then just rained for another 2. It's really good for the plants and everything to get the rain since we just left the driest dry season in a long long time here, but downpours like that are just too much. When growing plants in containers you have to really watch because they start to get to wet and the containers just fill up with water. I'm hoping that the rain stays away for awhile today so that everything can dry up a little. The rain is nice but I wish we wouldn't get flash floods.

This is my other heirloom tomato it hasn't started to flower yet but here's hoping. My other heirloom that I took pics of yesterday and said it had one fruit, well I turned it around and found about 4-5 more tomatoes growing.

This is my little strawberry plant. It hasn't grown very big and doesn't produce alot but it has produced enough to have a snack every once in a while.
This is the biggest pineapple plant I have. I probably should find it a bigger pot but it seems happy in this one. I need to sit down and read up about how to force it to fruit, I know how to do it I just don't know when I should do it.
The left pot is my royal burgandy beans. They grow a really pretty purple color and turn green when cooked. The middle is the bell pepper plant, it currently has a ton of buds so hopefully some of those will turn into peppers. On the right is another pineapple plant, I finally got this little bugger to grab hold of the dirt it's taken a long time for this one though.

So how's your garden doing? Remember it only takes a sunny spot, a container, and a little will power to get just about anything to grow.

Go here for your Free Chocolate. I'm sure it'll go quick though.

Here's how mine is growing. This picture is kinda sideways but you can still get the point. In other words it takes too long to reload the pictures. LOL There are 3 containers with onions, 1 with carrots, 1 with Mint, 3 Raspberry Plants, 1 Heirloom Tomato, a lemon plant in this pic.

This is the first fruit of my heirloom tomatoes. We don't eat alot of tomatoes but I wanted to experiment with a few different varieties this year. This one will be yellow pear shaped tomatoes.


This is my sprawling zucchini plant. It still has failed to fruit but it could be because of the heat. I'm hoping it starts growing some zucchinis but if not we will try again in the fall when it cools down a little.
These are a few of my raspberries that are growing. They are growing nicely. I wasn't honestly too sure about these plants they came as dry twigs with dry roots in the mail, but they've come up pretty nicely.
This is my newest addition it's a Variegated Pink Lemon Bush. It has had a few starter lemons that have fallen off but I'm blaming the poor care these plants receive at the stores. I'm not expecting much this year but am really hoping that it gets some lemons next year. I love the multi colored leaves and the thorns keep the kids from touching any of my plants.

I'll post a few more pics of the rest of my garden tomorrow. I also have 2 more tomatoes. a banana plant, some watermelon (that I've given up on), bell pepper, more onions, strawberries and several pineapple plants. So how does your garden look?

I've taken to really liking Mocha Latte's. But Starbucks they like to charge $4 for one drink. My mom told me that she's going to get me a nice espresso machine for my birthday, but my birthday isn't until the end of August. So I took a couple Target giftcards that I have earned and "bought" myself a cheap Mr Coffee espresso machine. When I get a new machine I can easily regift this or sell it. The machine cost $34.xx free with GCs. So if I use it 15-20 times it will pay for itself and the coffee and milk. Luckily my CVS sells the Starbucks coffee and I get my milk there for free. Enjoying a free latte at home is priceless. And it'll save me from myself when I run across the street to Walmart and have to drive past the Starbucks to and from.

So I had this great idea too rescue something from the trash everyday right? Well it turns out that's alot harder than it seems. I'll list some of the things that I've been doing to reduce, reuse and recycle. I haven't been able to rescue something everyday but I have been reducing our trash output.

1. I've been using my reusable shopping bags everywhere except Target. The Target bags fit so nicely in my small trash cans and they are nice and thick.

2. I've started an apartment sized compost pile. Using a Folgers container in the house to hold the stuff and a plastic container (made of 99% recycled plastic) to hold the stuff outside, we've been reducing our trash every day. All the green scraps go in there instead of the trash and a little bit of newspaper goes in once a week to help keep it dry.

3. Every plastic container that has been emptied has been washed out and used for something else. Either for leftovers, snack holder for a day out, or to hold something.

4. Instead of throwing away things as Dave and I have been decluttering I've been listing it all on Freecycle to pay it forward so to speak. Normally I would save the stuff for the next yardsale but since we just had a sale the next one won't be for 5 months or so. Waiting that long is just too much for me.

5. I've rescued a few items for craft projects that I will post once I get them finished. Unfortunately right now crafting is at the bottom of my list of things to do, but once I get through the other junk I'll have lots of fun stuff waiting for me. Mind you I might not get there until Shawn starts school LOL I need more hours in the day or a way to run on less sleep.

What have you been doing to reduce your footprint or your trash pile? I'd love to hear any ideas you have to share since I seem to be running out of ideas.

The only spending we did today was at the Farmer's Market. I spent $6 on everything above. 3 ears of corn $1, 4 Large Onions $2, 3 Oramges $1, 1lb of mini potatoes $1, 1 1/2 lbs green beans $1. I guess there's no real savings for today since there's no coupons used but I did save over what it would have cost me at the supermarket. The corn would have been alittle cheaper at Publix but everything else would have been more and I wanted corn for dinner last night.

We walked to the Farmer's Market and powerwalked home (it looked like rain) so we spent no money on gas and I got free exercise. Otheriwse yesterday was just the normal no lights till dark, TV off as much as possible, A/C was set at 81. We cooked the corn in the microwave, free rice on the stove, and free steaks on the new gas grill. (Thanks Dad!!) Lunch was leftovers and breakfast was alittle more from the mountain of cereal.

What did you do to save some pennies today?

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Today and yesterday were pretty boring days. Dave and I are working on decluttering the house so the A/C has been on but that's because it's been 90 everyday. I freecycled a trash bag of tshirts and tanktops today. Clothes don't sell well at my yardsales so I figured this is a good way to pay it forward. I also listed Shawn's toddler bed on craigslist hopefully someone will come and get it soon.

We ran to Walmart so Dave could look for a wireless router for the computer. Turns out that the one he wanted to get (a usb one) is just about the same price as a full router, so I'll be keeping an eye out for a deal on one of those. While we were there I picked up 2 pks of hotdogs using one of the new coupons (in my sidebar), 4 Kraft BBQ sauces, 4 Kraft Dressing, bananas, 4 Colgate toothbrushes, a cars toy for Shawn, 2 Rightgaurd deodorants and 4 boxes of mac and cheese. I spent $14.49 OOP but $7 of that was a toy. It wasn't too bad considering everything I actually paid for we needed. My savings was $20

Mother's Day we saved alittle money by bringing snacks with us to Disney but it was Mommy's treat day so I had a margarita and we had a lovely lunch at the Germany pavillion. We also took a ride on the new Helium balloon at Downtown Disney.

And the best news, it's finally raining. It's been raining light/steady for a couple hours now. It's the first rain we've had in a long time and my plants are all very happy. It's a wonderful thing to see everything green up alittle. I only had to water all the plants this morning and I probably won't have to tomorrow morning maybe tomorrow evening though.

How have you been doing? I love reading everyone's travels through saving money. They give me great ideas on what I could trim myself.

I just had 2 quick trips to Target.

First Trip
4 Bliss FREE with TQ
2 Teddy Graham Trail Mix $1 each after TQ
3 Chex Mix Bags FREE with TQ
4 Quaker Bites FREE with TQ
Small pack of Macaroons .99
2 lbs apples .54 after TQ
2 Cottonelle Travel Wipes FREE with TQ

Total OOP $3.54 Total Saved $22.86

Second Trip
2 Target Handsoaps .18 after TQ
4 Bliss FREE with TQ
2 Teddy Graham Trail Mix $1 each after TQ
2 Mac & Cheese Crackers .02 each after TQ
4 Quaker Bites FREE with TQ
2 Cottonelle FREE after TQ

Total OOP $2.22 Saved $17.48

I just printed out some of these coupons and there are some really great ones here.

Here are some photos from Mother's Day here. I thought everyone would enjoy. I'll be back to regular posting in a few hours.

Just wanted to wish all the great moms out there a Happy Mother's Day. We will be out all day tomorrow so I probably won't post any updates until Sunday night or Monday early. But I will update on my shopping excursion today and whatever Mother's Day treats Dave and Shawn have for me tomorrow. I hope you all have a great day and get to spend some time with your kids whether it's on the phone or in person. Just remember that they love you very much.

I stayed home for most of the day so no extra gas was used. When Dave got home I had to run to Target and Publix. I was all out of ink so I knew I had to spend about $25 for both cartridges. I paid $15 after using a couple of gift cards that I had. Here's what I got:
4 Banana Boat Sunscreen Trial FREE after mq
1 Target Hand Soap .09 after TQ
2 Quaker Bites FREE after TQ
Kodak Ink $24.99
2 lbs of Apples FREE after TQ
1 International Delight (Chocolate Eclair) Clearance 1.18
2 Cottonelle Travel Wipes FREE after TQ

Spent $15 OOP and I saved $10.75

Publix was a much cheaper trip
2 Bottles of Sunny D 3.34
4 Electrasol 20ct Tabs BOGO $3.99 -$10 in mq Profit of $2
Package of Zucchini $2.04 (I forgot to go the Farmer's Market this week)

Spent $4.16 and I saved $10 according to their receipt I saved $18.89 but I'm not counting sales into my savings.

Other savings for the day were the normal. We kept the lights off until dark and the A/C was on as little as bearable. The shower upstairs won't turn all the way off and maintenance is obviously not concerned enough to fix the little drip so I put the watering can under the faucet so at least the water isn't going to waste. I worked on my ebay auctions and made sure to answer all questions and get everything ready to go quickly so I keep happy customers.

How did your day add up?