Freecycle strikes again!

I just love freecycle. I live in an area with a fairly active freecycle group, and man have we used it! We have given away tons (yes, tons) of items and saved thousands picking up what we could use. And the best part is it truly lives up to it's mission - to prevent items from hitting the landfills! We have given away clothing, toys, baby items, furniture, appliances (both broken and working), you name it and we've probably given it away on freecycle at one point! We have received toddler beds (the cool fire truck and car ones!), a mini fridge box packed solid with baby boy clothes that carried us from size 9 months to 3T (clothing twins, it really really helped), a mandolin slicer, preK books, a wonderful train table, bulletin boards, school materials, an ikea toddler table and chair, seriously I could just go on and on.

I love the idea that instead of just throwing something useful away, you can find someone who the items will be useful to! Just today I freecycled a year's worth of our Popular Mechanics magazines. We are done reading them, but someone else who doesn't have a subscription was super excited to get them all for free! Our most recent pick up was this awesome pocket chart and stand. It was missing a screw and end cap, so I emailed the company and they shipped the missing parts to me free of charge, two day shipping no less!

I will say some items we have picked up on freecycle are being given away because they have something wrong with them - for example the train table we picked up was given to us because after minimal use a child stood in the drawer and broke the bottom of the drawer. We took the drawer apart (six screws) and took the broken piece to Home Depot. $4 later they cut a new piece to size for us, and bam - brand new train table. We asked if anyone had any wooden trains their child had outgrown, and we received a Brio bin overflowing with wooden train tracks! I went on craigslist and bought at least ten wooden Thomas trains for a buck or two each, and after a trip to Michael's I painted the chipped areas and clear coated them all - they looked brand new. So in total I probably spent $15, and maybe two hours of my time, and my twins have an awesome train table with more tracks than they really need, with a bunch of Thomas trains to play with!

Syma S107 Remote Control Helicopter

Big Kid has been given a few of the $50+ R/C helicopters from Target, Toys R Us and such, and all have broken within fifteen minutes of coming out of the box. The bodies are styrofoam, the blades fall off or pop in half the first time it touches a wall... they are awful and really disappointing to a boy who is trying to have fun with it!

Well, I am posting about this specific one because I am just floored. I spent $20 on this during an amazon sale, and wow is it awesome!!! Big Kid has been playing with it every chance he gets for days now, and has mastered flying it and is in love. The replacement parts are cheap and easy to install according to the website and instructions, not that we need any! THIS THING ROCKS! Plastic and metal body construction, the blades have even been attacked midflight by our cat and are in new condition... the kitty did chew the rear prop but I straightened it out and it's perfect again. I am so impressed I just had to tell someone!

If you are looking for a fun toy for your son/husband, you should check this out! The amazon reviews are excellent, and now I know why!!! WOOHOO!

Savings again!

We have house guests coming next week, so I went shopping for seven instead of five. I got so much meat I could barely fit it in my freezer!! Between Kroger and Publix I got everything we need except for milk (darn, forgot the milk!!). We spent:
Publix - spent $159.80 and saved $81.36
Kroger - spent $88.21 and saved $40.43
I use southern savers to make my grocery lists, and add what else is on our list to the sale items on my lists from both stores. I feel this is a great price to pay for enough meat to feed seven people for two weeks, as well as cereals, snacks, 20lbs of rice, etc. We had so much at Publix things were falling out of our cart! Excellent shopping this week.

Kroger Haul!

I spent $47 and saved $103 on all of this - I was floored. This is what couponing is all about, and I still got a five packs of meat and three gallons of milk! WOOHOO! I'm either getting better at this or I just happened to need everything on sale with corresponding coupons!!!

Kohl's

Wow - just wow! Last week I ran into Kohl's with my mom so she could get a new super nice electric toothbrush on sale, and saw some towels I have been admiring on clearance for $2.99. So I bought towels for our kid's/guest bathroom. At the register we each got $10 in Kohl's cash to use the next week, only good for children's and young adult's clothing. I went back the next day to get washcloths, and got another $10 cash! I went back and got hand towels, and in two more transactions I got two more $10 cash! So I had $50 in kohl's cash!

You can only use one per transaction, so I worked it out so I had five transactions, all for around $10 each. I spent $6.41 and bought six shirts for my 11 yr old, 2 for my toddlers, 1 pr shorts and a pr of swim trunks for the 11 yr old. I was floored at how little we spent, and we had bought ten pieces of clothing!!! Can't beat that, I'll so pay attention for the next time they have a sale like that!

Finally, a good trip to Publix!

We went to Publix this weekend, and saved a bunch! Usually we don't save near as much as we do at places like Rite Aid when we go to Publix, because we are there to buy all of our food for the next two weeks, and there aren't many coupons for things like milk and packages of fresh meat! However, this week I was very proud - while I felt like I was dying from a sinus infection, I still somehow managed to spend $103 and save $56! That is way better than I usually do at Publix or Kroger! I really dislike Kroger compared to Publix, the customer service is miles ahead at Publix, but sometimes Kroger sales are just too good to pass up. Not lately thank goodness!

I had hoped to score some good items for next to nothing at Rite Aid today, but after reading a few posts on various money saving blogs I figured out most of what I wanted was already sold out at the store near us. Sometimes the women who buy the store out of the sale items just get there first! I don't get out of the house early enough to join that race I promise.

Freecycle.org rocks!

Freecycle has struck again - this time we received a beautiful set of vertical blinds to cover our new sliding glass doors! YAY! The curtains we had on the dilapidated patio doors wouldn't work on a slider, so this fit our need perfectly. They are cream colored, which matches anything, and the kids helped me clean them (who knows why it's so fun to clean when you're two, wish that continued!) and hang them up! We have received and given so much on freecycle.org, it's just a great idea. Their mission is to keep items out of landfills, and it is much like a free craig's list. Some areas don't have a very active group, areas like mine the group is bumpin! I love it - clean out the garage, post what you don't want and it's gone the next day. We have received tons of baby and toddler items, and numerous items for our house! You'll hear me mention freecycle often, as we are very active members :)

SAVINGS!!!

Stopped at Rite Aid yesterday for diapers, and wow what a deal! I bought two packs of jeans Huggies, a coke, a mounds bar, and a bottle of herbal essences shampoo for $6.71 after coupons! Now that's a deal, and to top it off I will make $2 in single check rebates for the diapers! YAY! Great start to June's SCR program. In April I made $40, and in May I made $30 - all in rebates from Rite Aid! Pretty cool!

Away time

Yes, I have been away for awhile - allergies whupped my sinuses into a nasty infection, then kittyboo got a UTI. Poor kitty! We have an excellent vet, they were wonderful. Kittyboo is on the mend now, still tripping off the painkillers, but last dose is this morning!

Tried CVS again, usually I can't stand going because every SINGLE item that is on sale where you make extra bucks back is sold out the night BEFORE the sale starts. Yes, they give women sale prices and ECB the evening before the sale starts. That's fair, right? Because everyone can shop at 10pm saturday evening...

Anyway - here's my trip!
bought:
pk jeans huggies diapers
2 right guard deodorants
2 carefree liners
1 schick hydro 3 razor
2 crest pro health toothpastes
1 bumble bee tuna can
bag doritos
2 sodas
pack gum
box U by kotex
12 pk toilet paper

spent: $14.16

I had some great coupons, and this was in five transactions! I flipped extracare bucks for each transaction, so I had some to spend every time I went to the register. Really upset the cashier, but that was not my normal cvs - won't go there again!

I also have been slowly buying deals at Rite Aid, and so far I will be getting $26 in my rebate check the end of the month! Last month I made $41, was a good month in rebates!

Savings

Yes, Rite Aid has struck again! I got three packs of huggies diapers for 1.98 plus tax! WOOHOO!

Savings again!

Rite Aid ROCKS!

spent: $24.75 on my gift card
saved: $38.30

Bought:
two packs huggies overnight diapers
17 bags/pkgs candy for easter baskets
lysol hands free soap dispenser
$11 darth maul figurine
2 - 12 pks coke
2 - 20oz cokes
bag of Lay's chips
two goody brush/comb combos

Savings

Target -
Spent: $8.67
Saved: $29.33

Bought:
6 pack of socks
20 oz coca cola (my addiction)
3 sobe lifewaters
1 box transformers bandaids
airwick imotion freshener
3 gallons of milk
3 pk 3m scrubbing sponges
crest kids toothpaste

Rite Aid -
spent: $6.60
saved: $31.99

Bought:
2 20oz diet coke
2 frizzease conditioners
1 large jar planters peanuts
1 pkg huggies overnight diapers
1 20oz coca cola
1 always 18ct pads
St Ives body wash
St Ives face wash
I also transferred a script there and spent $15 on copay, got a $25 gift card! Not bad!! I am also owed $7.99 in Single Check Rebates on this, so technically I will make $1.39 plus the gift card. Pretty sweet!


I go to southernsavers.com on a regular basis for help matching coupons, Jenny ROCKS!