A Day off plus Shopping Deals!

A Day Off
DS was sick on Friday, so I had to take him to the doctor. Not our normal doctor, but I had to drive him about a half hour further than his normal doctor. Why? Too many patients and only one doctor. So needless to say, we both skipped work because of the time of the appointment, getting back home, getting meds etc. I was lucky enough to have Saturday off (again - rest) and watch the box of Kleenex from my ds's room get depleted by the second!

Sunday - back to work. Holy Cow! I need better shoes for this running around! Huge restaurant - seats about 600 and they were ALL sat last night! I'm running laps around the restaurant until all hours.... all on a pair of $8.00 Walmart loafers! LOL

Today - Sales Shopping! It's Savings Mania. Here's my game plan.

Walgreens:
Total Toothpaste - 7 day coupon makes it $1.99, add $1.50 mf coupons plus a ES coupon for $2 off $2 leads to overage. I will have 18 free tubes of Total (but in multiple trips because it is LIMIT 3)

Loreal Vive - This one is a little sketchy. Walgreens has Vive on sale BOGO, plus there was BOGO coupon in Sunday's paper for a certain kind of Vive (something new). So the coupon boards tell me that if they do a split total instead of one $4.99 and one $0.00 I only need to pick up two and they will both be free. Worse comes to worse - I pick up 4 bottles - pay for one and the other 3 will be free.

Walmart:
The Centsible Saywer really hooked me up with deals last week. Today I plan on reeling in some more! If you haven't visited this site - you really should!

Planters: $3.00 off Planters WYB 3 Kraft Products. The suggestion is Koolaid packets - they only cost about .16 a piece. So the OOP is .57 for Planters and 3 Kookaid packets.

::Coupon here::

Toaster Strudels: Was able to print out (2) $1/1 Toaster Strudel Coupons. DS LOVES Toaster Strudels.

Just Bunches: Printed another $2.00 Just Bunches (honey bunches of oats) which makes these less than $1.00 a box.

::Coupon here::

School Supplies: High schoolers need filler paper, folders and notebooks. I hear the notebooks were between .05-.10 a piece! INCREDIBLE!

Meijer:
They have a $20.00 catalina for new or transferred prescriptions in this week's paper. Plus I have $5.00 off $25 coupon from last week. This was my 3rd of this coupon. The first was some lady who checked out before me leaving it in the printer. HELLO! You just threw away a perfectly good $5.00!! Her stupidity, my gain. Whatever!

So in essence - $25.00 free shopping dollars today at Meijer along with some helpful 10/10 deals plus milk and eggs are on sale - mealbox deals on pasta (free), sour cream (cheap) ice cream (cheap) frozen potatoes (cheap).

Hopefully going to find a deal on ds unmentionables and socks for his school clothes list here too.

Kohls: Did this online over the weekend. Was able to pick up 4 pairs of Urban Pipeline jeans for my skinny tushed boy for $19.99 a pair - free shipping. It's part of his school clothes shopping and was glad to have gotten that deal!

Also have to return some shoes that ds wouldn't wear. Ahhh well! I should have known better.

Saving Money Online - My Favorite Stomping Grounds

What do you do on the Internet?
I'm not one to play computer games although I do get my fix of pogo.com and NetWinner every once and awhile. What I really do online lately is hunt for new ways to save money and research things.

I've come across a few GREAT blogs lately that I have been traveling to daily. It's amazing these places exist and I wish they were around in the early 90's and I may be sitting in a different situation right now.

Money Saving Mom
The first of my latest fascination is Money Saving Mom. Have you ever said, "I wish I could find deals like that?" This blog is a detailed how to in finding those great deals and the grocery and drug stores! I hit up Walgreens using posted sales/coupons/rebate scenarios and walked out owing little (and getting money back in rebates!) I'm pretty good at finding deals, but having someone wrap them up in a pretty little package is SWEET!

More Than Enough
In the same fashion as Money Saving Mom, the next on the list is: More Than Enough . Again, the nice package with a pretty bow can help you find those money saving scenarios at Target, Walgreens, CVS and other stores. Also gives you tips on finding those great coupons that other savers are finding. Did you know you can call a company and ASK for coupons?

Hot Coupon World
This one isn't a blog, but a website. A lot of hard work goes into this message board as posties post about weekly sales and coupon scenarios, plus has an extensive coupon database. I joined Hot Coupon World a while ago, but didn't get into it until recently. I go there multiple times a week now.

I admit, I do spend a lot of time on the internet - but a lot of it is beneficial time spent.
(yup, I'm going to keep telling myself that)

Amazing Shopping Trip

First off .... this does not happen to me.
I get good deals at the stores from time to time, and to save 50% of my grocery bill is great. Today was just flipping INSANE!

I needed a prescription filled for Chelsie cat's eye drops. Meijer had a deal that if I got a new prescript filled they would give me a coupon for $25. off my next visit. Okay. Well first the bonus that Meijer's cost of the eye drops was $20. cheaper than Walgreens was the last time I filled it. Double bonus. Armed with this coupon (and others) here's my shopping trip.

• 2 cases of Pepsi products
• 3 bottles of ERA detergent
• 3 bottles Ecederin Tension Headache (24 counts)
• 1 bottle of salad dressing
• 1 can of Sheba for Chelsie's birthday
• 1 pork loin (3 meals)
• 2 eggplants
• 1 large tub of Ricotta Cheese
• 2 gallons of milk
• 2 2L of Sprite
• 1 bag hot dog buns
• 1 bag hamburger buns

After coupons total out of pocket -- UNDER FOUR DOLLARS!
I was floored! Completely and utterly! And mind you, I NEEDED the 'script anyway - and saved money on THAT to boot!

Of course, that savings gave us allowance to go out for a Birthday meal that I didn't think we would be able to afford. I went armed with my FREE birthday dinner from Houlihan's and my FREE ice cream from Coldstone Creamery saved us about $30.00. Good news -- I still didn't spend all the money that was in the envelope for this week's groceries! There's still some left!

How cool is THAT??!

Resistant People

Personal Truth
I'm a very multi-faceted person. I usually like keeping things separate from each other. Sometimes when two facets of my life bump heads it's hard to pick which personality should handle the situation. This situation involves work and finances. Just about as ugly as work and politics. I know.

Are you going to talk about work ... HERE, Wendy?
Yes, you'll hear it here and now.
I work in a very high traffic family owned restaurant. We seat over 500 guests which puts us in the top 5 largest restaurants in the state. The only downside to this monstrosity of a restaurant is that it only fills those 500+ seats about half of the year. We are in a tourist town that lives for it's summer and early fall traffic. Winter? Not so much - but what are you looking for? I will say this - I am not a part of the 50 year round servers or the 95 +/- combined summer serving staff. What I am is the one who has to listen to their grievances etc.

Okay, so you have the background of the restaurant. Super busy in the summer - not so much in the winter time - not so much AT ALL if the weather is really bad.

Here's where the story starts ---

More Money Than God
Before I really start - how much you be happy making in 6 hours? Not even always 6 hours of HARD work because the server's shift has it's highs and it's lows EVEN when it's a busy day.

Well, our servers in the summer make More Money Than God! Honestly all said and done - there are NO servers that make less than $20 an hour during a full 6 hour shift in the summer. I'd venture to say that they make more on the lines of close to $30. And I'm not really talking what's made on Saturday night alone. That could be any day or any night basically. The servers are RICH in WEALTH during the summer. In fact, if we were to match up W2s half way through the year, the servers make a BOAT LOAD more money than I do - and I'm THEIR BOSS!

Servers will PLAY HARD in the summer as well. Daily bar trips, fancy purses, clothes etc. Some even go to restaurants that are pretty posh posh. They buy their hot cell phones. They stop at Starbucks before their shift every day or to the corner deli for an early meal. We're talking CASH FLOWING HERE! You're catching my drift here right?

Does it get COLD in Wisconsin?
Hmmm, I pretty much think that as sure as the Packer's take the field in Lambau every year, that it is expected that it might get a little nippy here in Wisconsin. Needless to say, winter isn't a surprise. It does come every year. The tourists go back to their localities and only venture out on those days where it accidentally hits 60 in December or something. Now, guess who doesn't have money? Guess who is getting their cell phones turned off? Guess who is having collection agencies calling their workplace looking for payments? Guess who STILL goes to Starbucks though? Guess who complains that they aren't making any money? Guess who says they should find another job until summer? Guess who complains they don't have money to put in their gas tanks? Guess who gets eviction letters because they haven't paid their rent? Guess who stands at the office window daily asking if W2's are ready because they NEED the refund check to SURVIVE!?? It's not me. I've got money in savings.

So which personality do you put on?
The optimistic manager, who says - "You know, it's winter. Spring Break is coming and we'll get really busy again then. We'll all be fine."

The mother who wants to help, who says - "Maybe I can help find you figure out how this can work."

Or my true feelings of - "Are you kidding me? You make MORE money than me most of the year and you didn't think of SAVING anything for winter? You should do automatic withdrawal from your checking to savings in the summer. Guess what? YOU WON'T MISS IT. But you'll really love having money in the winter when you KNOW IT'S GOING TO BE SLOW!

I can't.. I need the money
But again....those in debt have attraction to the drama of debt. I've talked to more than a dozen of them throughout my career there. Even when I served there I used to do the same thing. Automatic savings. Save for a rainy day - save for when you will need it more. Nope. Nothing. Even the smart ones.

Tell your story walking
God helps those who helps themselves.
The debt that surrounds my place is incredible.
Most everyone lives for July, August, September, October, and Tax Refund Day.
Most everyone is resistant to changing their spending and saving habits.
Most everyone will still complain about how they have no money.
How many days until July 1st?