Saturday, February 19, 2011

Getting ready for sping and doing my best to save while doing it.

I had one more mystery shop this week and didn't spend more than I made so that was good. :) I managed to pick up some Valentine's for my little boy for the future, some cool straws leftover over from Valentine's day and a couple of packages of Valentine bags with zippers on them to use to give out Valentine play dough to his friends at some point. I loved the idea another blogger posted about making homemade play dough and adding a heart shaped cookie cutter to it. I did not manage to get a deal on cookie cutters though so I am a bit bummed on that. I will have to keep my eyes open next year and see if I can find any cheap to use. If not maybe we will wait another year to use this idea.

Today started the Once Upon a Child President's Day sale where you can get anything in the store for an additional 25% off. I knew that we were lacking in dress shirts for summer in bigger sizes so I stopped in to check it out. Due to the fact boys clothes in any size over 2 are hard to come by I made sure and got there first thing for the best selection. I got him 5 shirts and 2 pairs of shorts for under $21. Not the best deal in the world but it beats retail prices and the extra 25% off helped a lot. I have learned with the consignment and other shopping that name brand does not always equal the best value. I do like that the name brands have a higher resale value but sometimes what I would pay out makes it not worth the extra which isn't much anyway. I go for what looks best at the best prices.

I was all out of packing tape and I hate paying a lot of money for stuff like that but I needed it for mailing stuff. So off to Dollar Tree I went. Love that I can get it there for $1. I got two so I won't run out to quickly.

I also took a trip to Meijer this morning. I had a few things on my list that had better prices there and they gave me $2 free on my Mperks card so I wanted to use that. I got 3 containers of the new Philadelphia cheese cooking cream. A friend used it and said it was great. They had it on sale for $2.50 and were offering a 50 cent off meijer mealbox coupon. I was able to print 3 $1.50 coupons from two different sources. So I paid 50 cents a container. It is great to get to try new products for great prices. I don't always keep buying them but it's fun to try new stuff and get ideas for different meals I can make from scratch. Their website gives all sorts of recipes for them. I also got 8 boxes of Ronzoni pasta. I stock up when I can get a good price and have coupons. I paid just $4 for all 8 boxes and it's regular price is about $1.69 a box here I think. 

I am thinking about how the prices of everything are rising so fast and how many people are going to be having a harder and harder time feeding their families. I am starting to work on ideas for making more and more things from scratch or just plain not buying them if they are to high. Next year I am going to make my own chili beans. I learned they are really just pinto beans in a chili powder sauce. Why was I paying so much for these? I have also been working on a recipe for honey whole wheat bread that I like. No lucky yet but I think I am going to have to bake it in the oven not the bread maker to even get close to the kind I buy. Thinking harder about this now that the bakery outlet jumped their prices 20 cents a loaf. I have got to find a cheap source of honey. :)

Happy Saving everyone.

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