I’m right in the middle of my busy few days. I stayed up until 1am last night cleaning the house. Of course that lasted until 8am when the girls woke up. I spent a (very) long lunch at the tax office and confirmed we are getting a GREAT refund back. I need to do some cleanup and a grocery store run before the Arbonne lady shows up tonight. I’m looking forward to having a few people over tonight. Should be fun to see everyone at least.
what i did today
This means I’m going to have to clean tonight
Alright, this week has been pretty calm around here, hence the lack of what I did today type posts. But starting in about an hour, I’m going to start being pretty busy through the weekend. Here’s how it’s going to happen:
- I’m going to lunch today to meet Beth. She’s I think the third fellow blogger I’ve met in person. Actually Heather is going with me. We met through our 90 day study and in such a it’s a small world moment, we realized we only live about 10 minutes from each other.
- This afternoon I want to take our taxes to get done.
- Tomorrow evening at 6:30 I’m having an Arbonne party here.
- Saturday morning at 9 I have to go to the church to help prepare our choir dinner.
- Saturday afternoon I’m supposed to help with concessions at the youth league basketball games at our church gym.
- Sunday is our choir dinner
- Sunday after dinner, the youth council is coming to our house for a meeting
- Sunday evening I’ll either be at church or watching the Super Bowl depending if they go ahead and cancel bible study.
Whew. All that meaning tonight I have to clean my house before people come over because I certainly won’t have time this weekend to do it.
Tax Time!
This is becoming an annual post. It’s tax time and that makes me happy! I looked back at my post from last year and here was my list of things to do with the money and I marked off what got accomplished:
Hardwood floors in living room/kitchen/entry/playroom
Kitchen countertops
Refrigerator (and stove if I REALLY had a lot of money)
Curtains for my room
Curtains for my living room (if I could figure out what fabric I wanted)
Pay off our van
Get another car for us to use
Bedside table for Scott
Telescopic lens for my camera
New computer that will run Pinnacle including new graphics card with TV Tuner
DVD camcorder
We did well right? Ha. My list I’m afraid is very similar this year. I’m ecstatic to report I did a dry run with what I have so far for this year and it’s going to be our best year yet. But this year we have a little bit of credit card debt left from the end of last year we need to pay off (the first time that’s really happened–normally we pay it off every month) and we still have the fridge which is on 1 year same as cash to pay off. So that will take a good chunk of it there. But there should be enough to at least do one special thing with it. I’m guessing it will either be a water softener, the hardwoods and/or the kitchen countertops. Oh and I might squeeze in an iPhone 🙂
The really good news is between this, the rebate coming in June we should be back up to par on our savings
CVS Deals Week of 1/27
Alright, with all the store coupons out this week, I did well for myself.
2 Garnier shampoos
2 Monster drinks
2 Robitussins
2 Advils
Arm and Hammer toothpaste
StayFree pads
Gillette Razor
KY Intrigue
Crest Whitestrips
2 V-day cards for the kids
Gallon of milk
Used 1 of each…15/75, 10/50, 5/30, 4/20, 3/15, 2/10 CVS Coupons
Used coupons for Garnier, Robitussins, Advil, toothpaste, StayFree, Gillette, KY, Crest
Used $29.95 in ECBs
Now what I paid is sort of questionable. When I was there yesterday, the cashier was VERY suspicious of every. single. coupon I used. She read every one because she was scared she was going to get in trouble. When I try to use the $off ones, she told me I could only use one. A shift supervisor heard her and came rushing over and said no, it was fine. They argued back and forth and the supervisor put them in for her. So that made me feel better that it is acceptable because I know people have been questioning it.
But then I kept giving her coupons and once it got to 10 coupons, she said you have gotten to your limit. I was like limit? I’ve only used one coupon per item. We went back and forth and got the supervisor over there but they said they couldn’t do anything about it. So I called it a day and checked out with $19.86 oop and 7 unused manufacturer coupons.
I called a different CVS today and told them I had coupons I didn’t use and they said come in and we’ll take care of it. The manager apparently had told the front cashier because she said she was expecting me. I took in all the merchandise, my receipt and the coupons but she said they were just going to ring up the coupons and give me cash. I got about $14 in cash back.
I also asked her about the coupon limit since I don’t usually do deals that are so big and she said if they scan the coupons in, it does randomly give her a limit but they are able to override it and to come see her. Needless to say, when I have a complicated transaction, I’ll be visiting that CVS.
All that to say my total oop for all that would have been about $5. My savings were somewhere around $115. I now have $51.29 in ECBs.
To get all the details on the coupons, go to moneysavingmom.com
My Day and Kids Story
As my mother pointed out, I missed a day posting yesterday. Looks like since giving her the site last year, she’s finally taken to it (hey, mom!).
So Sunday could be summed up as church and CVS. I got a really good deal at CVS which I’ll post about next.
Today is just the norm. Working, kids back and forth to school, etc. And since this is really turning out to be a boring post and the reason I didn’t post yesterday, I’ll tell you a conversation Emma and Lexi had the other night in bed that had me laughing listening to them…
Lexi was crying because she didn’t want to be in bed. Emma has a habit of doing something really silly so Lexi will laugh and quit crying. I heard Emma doing just that and Lexi was cackling. Emma I guess finally got tired of it and wanted to go to sleep and she said, “Lexi! OK, I made you laugh now quit. ” Lexi I guess kept laughing and then Emma said, “I’m serious, Lexi, it’s time to go to sleep.”
Lazy Day
Today was an officially lazy day. MIL didn’t get the girls last night and Scott worked all day today so it was the 3 of us at home for most of the day. We didn’t even roll out of bed until 9:30 and then by the time we did breakfast, exercising, shower, play time, it was noon by the time we were ready for the day. I played with the girls on and off while doing very, very light cleaning. I actually stopped a time or two to catch a few minutes of tv which I never do on Saturdays.
By the time Scott got home at 4:30 I felt like the day was a bit wasted but he said I probably needed a day off, which was probably true. We went out to the cafeteria with Mom and Dad and by the time we got home, the girls went to bed. Since then, I filmed my little video for the Weekend in Wilmington One Tree Hill contest (no, I still can’t believe I actually did it), finished up my reading for today and now am watching Bring It On: In it to win it. So far it’s quite a dumb movie and I really hope Heather was not trying to dupe me in to watching a bad movie (again).
Tomorrow is plan-less as well but the CVS deals are shaping up to be good so I’m seeing a trip in store for me. Before I know it it’s going to be another Monday morning on the horizon.
27 Dresses Review
Yesterday evening J&M and I went to see 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl. I had heard it was good but honestly I wasn’t expecting it to be THAT good. I guess when you hear from so many people how good it is, you get your hopes built up and then it’s a bit of a disappointment.
This movie was far from a disappointment though. The storyline was interesting and even surprising a time or two. Katherine’s character was so funny and the romantic part wasn’t too cheesy. I think my favorite line was Katherine saying, “Yes, I’m perfect. I’m Jesus.” Total throwback to her line in Grey’s Anatomy when she yells, “Because it’s what Jesus would freakin’ do!” Except this one was done with dry humor which was surprising and funny. I guess in some ways it was predictable. She falls for the guys she hates before knowing who he really is (can we say “You’ve Got Mail”), she starts to fall for him, he screws up and then they make up. But it worked. And let’s just face it, staring at James Marsden on the big screen being very witty and charming is probably reason enough to see it.
This movie is on my list of movies to buy and that doesn’t happen often. Go see it if you get a chance!
RIP Heath Ledger
I am in UTTER SHOCK over Heath Ledger. Really. I welled up when I found out. I feel so bad. He just had a baby and he was such a talented actor.