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.