Amy J. Bennett

Extraordinary Faith for Everyday Life

We’re almost home

by Leave a Comment

99% of the time, we have the two screen DVD player playing in our van for the kids.  And they like to change DVDs often.  It’s a pain and if we’re anywhere in a 5 mile radius of home I just say, "We’re almost home and you won’t have enough time to start anything else.  We’ll pick a DVD next time we’re in the van."  To date, that seems to work.

Today I picked up the girls and S from preschool.  S wanted to work the remote which Emma is normally the controller of.  In fact, when we get in the van, one of her first questions is usually, "Where’s my remote?"  So when S wanted to use the remote today about 2 minutes into our ride home, Emma says, "We’re almost home.  I’ll have to do it for now."

2nd CVS & Walgreens Deal November 11-17, 2007

by Leave a Comment

OK, I was really kicking myself from Sunday after I learned the coupons I had for Garnier for $2 EACH would have worked and I would have had only pennies oop instead of $5.  With those coupons (found at coupons.com) and the $2/10 CVS coupon, you end up making over $4.  Seems like a no-brainer.  So I was insistent to go back and do it again when I realized the limit was 2 and not 1.  But the smallest ECB I had was $10 so I had to work up a bigger deal to use all of it.  Well, people, that’s not as easy as it sounds when you are using so many coupons and trying to earn as many ECBs as possible but after sitting down and running some numbers, this is what I came up with…

2 Garnier $5.99 products (I ended up getting the cleansers this time instead of the towelettes)
5 2pack CVS soap @ 1.99 a piece
2 B1G1 L’oreal lip color products that cost $5

The plan was to use

$5/$25 beauty purchase
$3/15 CVS coupon
$2/10 CVS coupon
2 $2 Garnier coupon
$2.50/$10 CVS brand coupon
$10 ECB

That should have brought my total to .43 or so while earning $15 in ECBs.

My mistakes were the soap was not on sale as moneysavingmom.com reported.  Not sure if it was on old sale she had on her monthly deals or her store sells it for less.  Mine were $2.29.  That was $1.50 more than planned. 

Then, I bought L’oreal nail polish which was Buy 1 Get 50% off instead of B1G1.  They had tags posted all over the place and I just didn’t pay attention to the difference.  That was another $2.50 wasted.

So I ended up with $5.01 oop.

Well, I stewed over that over dinner and I couldn’t handle I paid so much for nail polish.  So when I went with Heather, I returned the nail polish and they gave me $8.02 on a gift card.  Made me happy as a lark although I feel bad because the $5/$25 beauty coupon wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t originally bought it but I will respend that money at CVS, so no worries.  So all in all, I got $31 worth of product with no oop and got back $23 to spend next week when originally all I had in my pocked was $10 ECB.  Sweet.

As for Walgreens:

I had a $6 Register Reward that was expiring in the next couple of days and we needed milk so I decided to buy milk and fill it in with something else.  I used their weekly in-store ads to buy green beans and sweet potatoes and shredded cheese with the milk and paid $3.24 oop. Not too bad even just for a gallon of milk.  I still have my October rebates I’m waiting for before I can make any more deals there with no money oop.

Potty Training update

by Leave a Comment

This will probably conclude our potty training tales for now.  Lexi seems to have been potty trained in less than a week. She’s had no accidents.  She woke me up again this morning to go and only woke me up because she couldn’t pull down her pull up like she does her panties.  She has gone by herself several times.  She went while we were out shopping at almost every store.  In fact in two stores, she asked to go twice.  She’s done fine at school, overnight, at family’s houses, in stores, at home.  I’m not sure we have any other hurdles to cross anymore except for #2.  So until she does all that and we all do the potty dance for her, I won’t mention potty training again.  For all of you that still need to do it…You can do it!!  If we can do it, anybody can!!

That was painful

by Leave a Comment

No, I don’t have a potty training horror story to tell you.  Simply, my Internet was hosed almost all day yesterday.  Up and down it went until we finally left the house around 4 when I gave up working and I didn’t get back on my computer until 11pm.  *gasp*.  That must be a record.

But today it seems all better and I’m able to get to all my favorite sites and oh, um, work too.

So let’s talk about my evening out.  It was a frugal night if you ask me.

  1. We went to Blockbuster and turned in a DVD mailer and used our monthly coupon so each of the girls could pick out a movie.  No cost.
  2. Then we went across the parking lot and went through the drive thru and got 4 Jr Frosty’s with some coupons.  No cost.
  3. Then we headed up to Old Navy so I could pounce on their winter coat sale right now.  I picked out this coat that was normally $68, and 40% off and then I had a $10 coupon.  Scott threw in a $10 thermal shirt at the last second but I still got both for $40.
  4. I then stopped in at CVS to do a second deal this week.  I realized my coupons for Garnier would work and I could make some extra ECBs.  The deal didn’t quite go as planned but it turned out ok in the end.  The end result of this trip?  I spent $5.01 for $33.41 and got back $15 in ECBs.  I should have gotten a better deal than that but I’ll post more on that in a separate post.
  5. We headed to dinner where it wasn’t that cheap but we did get the kids free drinks.  I ordered them sodas but the guy took a look at them and only charged them for waters.  Thankyouverymuch,kindsir.
  6. After that, Heather and I headed off to CVS and Walgreens since she hadn’t done her weekly shopping and I needed to fix my problem from my earlier trip.  I ended up with a $8 gift card which then cancelled out the money I spent earlier.  Again, more later.
  7. And then we came home and M and Heather and I watched Grey’s and Run’s House. 

To me a very eventful yet low cost night.  All in all, we came home with 4 or 5 bags full of stuff worth over $115, 2 rented DVDs and full bellies with a snack and dinner all for under $60. 

I guess my title doesn’t really fit what this post ended up being about…I never have been good at those things.

Day 4 Mid-day potty training update

by Leave a Comment

I can’t help but post on how well they’re doing!

When Lexi got up this morning, she was dry and did not want to go potty.  She insisted she wanted to use the potty at school.  Same for Emma.  So I crossed my fingers and flew to the school.  I walked them in and notified the teacher that she had been potty trained while she had been out sick this week and she hadn’t been this morning so be on the look-out. 

When I went to pick them up I was thinking, if she’s in the extra outfit I sent, then I know it didn’t go well.  And sure enough, she came running out in the outfit I put her in this morning.  Yay!  I happened to walk by her other teacher and she said she went twice at school today.  Yay!

We stopped at Taco Bell on the way home and she tried to go there but didn’t.  We got home not too long ago and I hear, "Emma, I peed  I peed!"  I flew to the hallway hoping that didn’t mean she had done it in the floor somewhere.  But sure enough, she had done the whole deed by herself in the potty!!  Double, triple yay!!

Thankful Thursday

by Leave a Comment

 

  • So incredibly thankful for the potty training success this week.  Thanks to my mom who insisted we needed to start–sometimes the Mom speeches do work.
  • For the rain last night and this morning.
  • For the time off work this week and in the coming weeks.
  • For the extra $$ rolling in daily from our favorite paid posting sites.
  • For a helpful husband who rolls up his sleeves and does the dishes for me when the sink is overflowing and I just can’t seem to tackle it.

Hurdles jumped with flying colors

by Leave a Comment

Yay!  Yesterday MIL said Lexi didn’t go at her house at all…even taking an hour nap…and then went to church in panties and then asked to go as soon as service was over.  And she actually did it on the big potty there.  Wow.  I’m not sure how good it is she went 5 hours without going but I’m glad she went in the potty when she finally did. 

Emma also went #2 while over there so yay for that too.

And then last night Lexi woke me up to go.  I was clapping and handing out stickers at 3:47 am.  Fun stuff.

New goal today…going to school in panties.

Another good day

by Leave a Comment

The day progressed well on the potty training front.  Had a couple #2 accidents for Lexi but none were horrific to clean up and she had no #1 accidents.  And ALL were her coming to me asking to go.  Emma had NO accidents and several successes.  Yay!

But more hurdles have to be crossed this afternoon.  MIL took them to her house about an hour ago.  I sent her off with extra panties, pull-ups, clothes and her stickers and chart as well as a speech about using Maw Maw’s big potty.  They also will be going to church this evening and I’m pretty sure MIL is planning on putting a pull-up on her when they go although she did great at the church last night and had panties on.   But I guess I can’t ask too much.

Emma especially I’m concerned about because most of her accidents happen over there when she gets to playing with S and no one is really asking her to go.  But soon enough we’ll know.

On another note about today, we’re not having our regular Wednesday youth service.  We had a youth member’s best friend pass away last week after being hit by a car.  The boy actually visited a time or two to youth group functions.  They’re holding a candlelight service tonight at the school so we’re taking a group over there instead.  Which kind of worked out good in the sense we didn’t have a speaker lined up tonight so this helps us out.

I wish I had more interesting things to tell you about.  The whole potty training thing has consumed my week and I’m really not any more interesting than that right now!