Coupon Sweatshop

They say the key to being a good parent is quality time with your child, not quantity.  I whole heartedly agree.  In fact, what's better than spending quality time with your child AND teaching them to be thrifty.  Today was FULL of quality, thrifty time :)

First stop of the day was Kohl's.   I heart Kohl's.  I bought three things there and paid less than $12.  This store always has some sort of coupon out and sales going on, which results in one happy momma.  I had $30 of Kohl's cash and a $10 coupon.  I got $52 dollars worth of merchandise for $12?  Score one for momma!

Next up, we hit the thrift store.  I wasn't really looking for anything in particular but found some good jeans for Julia for five dollars.  I didn't feel too triumpant about it though because it's a thrift store.  Shouldn't I be getting them for a buck?

Finally, we headed home for an afternoon of mother-daughter bonding over coupons!

She was so excited about cutting coupons with me.  She even devised a great work schedule for us.  "Momma, after every three coupons we cut, we can have a free drink of water!"  Yeah, we take coupons very seriously in this house. 



To finish off our day of penny pinching, we decided to entertain ourselves for free by seeing who's head was harder.  Head shoving??? My daugher is so weird, she loved it.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh?

Do you score amazing deals with coupons?

What weird games do you play with your child?

Belts are Non-Negotiable

So I'm starting to feel a little sloppy when I go to work....

I think it's time to invest in a few outfits for work.  It's a great thing that I get $10 coupons for Fashion Bug all the time and that my Banana Republic card gives me rewards too!  I won't be investing too much (I have a wedding to save for after all) since I still have great lengths to go to before I will be in a healthy range for my height.

Rockin' the Maymont 8-miler shirt

I still have four sessions with Patrice left.  I do not think that I will renew my personal training with her.  It's been tough to find time that works for both of us and let's face it, it's a lot of money!  I have decided that I might be better off continuing to train for different runs and investing in some weights for my home.  Tonight I did three miles on the treadmill and tomorrow I have another five scheduled!
In other news, I was super-excited when I went shopping at Bloom yesterday.  They were having double coupons up to $1.99 and I did pretty well!

My favorite purchase was the People Style Watch magazine.  I had a coupon for $1.00 for People from the Sunday coupons and then the magazine itself had a $1.00 coupon on my next issue.  F that, I'm using it now.  So double the first coupon and double the second, that makes four dollars off a $3.99 magazine!  Yay!  I finally feel 1/100 of the joy extreme couponers must feel :)

So a little off topic and just for fun, I thought I would pose a question to my readers to get some feedback on an issue that my friend is dealing with. The little girl is very rough and tumble and loves Spiderman.  Should the little girl wear the classic Spiderman costume for Halloween?  Or should the four year old girl wear a "spider girl" adaptation of the costume?  Does it matter what the girl prefers?

What costume would you let your own child wear?

~Andrea

Holy Bloom Trip!

So today was double coupon day at Bloom, up to $1.99.  I'm not sure if you clip the coupons or not, but that's pretty good.  Usually stores will only double coupons up $.99 so I made sure that I took advantage of the situation!  The catch was you could only have twenty coupons per transaction and per person.  So what did I do?  Got my lovely parents to meet me at the store so they could "buy" one of my transactions.

I'm sure you all have seen the TLC show "Extreme Couponing."  I am definitely not a contender for the show.  That show actually made me feel bad about the savings I didn't get.  I should have walked away with free stuff or things that they paid me to have!

So what do you think.....

Would you pay $155 for this?  Allegedly, my savings was $125.35.  I spent my lunch break checking out the sale ad for Bloom and comparing it to the coupons that I had.  I made an extreme rookie mistake.  Bloom had Herbal Essence on sale and I had Garnier Fructis coupons; so based on the picture on the coupon, I thought they were the same :(  Oh well, I have no shame....the cashier let me run and get the right one haha.

Another rookie mistake:

It was like playing Tetris in my freezer trying to get everything to fit!  Alex is pretty stoked for the things that I bought....it's not too often that you see coupons for chia seeds or spinach...

Has a TV show made your accomplishments look like chump change?

~Andrea