Happy 2006

Happy New Year. Ok, I know I still have a little of 2005 left. I am glad that 2005 is almost over. Will always remember 2005 as the year that my Dad died.

I am looking to make some big improvements in 2006. In case you haven't figured it out, I am a big packrat. I really have to declutter and have some mega yardsales. I also have to get my house is better order. I used to be very organized, I would match all my receipts to my credit card statements every month - then save the entire bundle forever. But sometime in the past few years, I've been slacking off, so I still have all the receipts and all the statements, just that now they are not matched up nicey nice. I need to start shredding. There's no way I need to look at my Discover card statement from October 1992 and reminisce about what I bought back then. Or look at my cable bill from August 1990 and see what I was paying. But right now, I could. I hold on to too much crap!

On Christmas Eve 2005, I told my brother and my SIL that by Christmas Eve 2006, they are going to see a much thinner Chris.

One good thing that happened in 2005 was the big improvement in the message board program I use for my website. We started off with the usual crappy board I had for years at bravenet and in May 2005 I switched to a different board, which turned out to be totally unreliable. We suffered with that board for 4 months, until September when I found the super awesome board system from Spreebb.com . You can see my actual message board by clicking on the link to the left.

Did a little bit of bargain shopping at Target today, Christmas stuff is 75% off. Also got a bargain the other day at home. I went out to get the newspaper and saw found a dollar bill in my yard.

Happy 2006 everyone!
Chris

Happy After Christmas Bargain Shopping

We spent Christmas in upstate NY - including our dog. I was hoping my dog's other family would watch him but it didn't work out. So we took him to my mom's. Didn't really want to take him to a kennel - since boarding prices are high plus, I would have had to take him to the vets for a kennel cough shot beforehand (another expense). In the past I've also hired a local Dog Nanny to come to the house but the last time I did that my dog ran away (to his other family) and I still had to pay the dog nanny every day regardless. Also in the past I've used a reliable teenager too, but they moved. Taking the dog to NY worked out pretty good I think. My mom lives on a busy road so we couldn't let him off the leash (plus he doesn't listen anyways) it gave us a good reason to get out of the house a few times a day for some fresh air and exercise. Which we need - the above pic is of the yummy cookies made by my cousin Kathy.

Hey, I'm gonna add to this post, but gotta run now and watch Criminal Minds. Will finish this post on Thursday.

--ok, it's Thursday now and I am back to finish my post.

Whenever I visit my hometown I always visit two thrifts - a Salvation Army and a community based one called Captain's Treasures. At SA I bought myself a $1.99 Saratoga Springs t-shirt and a $1.99 vintage Adidas shirt for ebay. Also bought for .99 a vintage melted plastic pellet Santa decoration. At Captains I bought a bunch of new in package Covergirl makeup for myself that I love, only $1 a package. A $1.75 black Aigner purse (for myself), two books for .25. Also a vintage Napco ceramic Christmas sleigh in perfect condition (no chips, cracks etc). It was only marked $1, and the cashier didn't see it when she was ringing up my other items and when I asked her if she rang it up, she said no and said that I could just have it.

My son got to go to Chuck E. Cheese twice (didn't spend a thing there). When a child walked in, they got a mystery sticker that revealed X number of free tokens. The first day he got 10 and the second time 15 free tokens. Plus I had a ton of free tokens from all the specially marked .99 Koolaid Koolburst packages I had been buying.

Also stocked up on stuff at Aldi's and Dollar Tree. I love Aldi's - I wish I had one close to me. At the Dollar Tree, I mainly bought $1 packages of Panasonic C & D size batteries. All those Kacie the Kinderbots I've been buying lately need Size D batteries and they are expensive at regular stores. We use a lot of rechargeable batteries for AA and AAA. I tried going to a Pepperidge Farm outlet store that I went to over the summer to stock up on Flavored Blasted Goldfish crackers for my son, but it wasn't there anymore - they must have moved their location.

After Christmas I went to a few Targets and also Walmart and CVS. Went on Monday with my mom to her Target and she bought a lighted star window decoration. They only had one and she wanted two. But she could live with just one. Spent most of the day Tuesday driving in the car so no shopping on Tues.. Anyhow I told Mom I would check "my" Target and on Wednesday I bought the last one they had, so now she'll have two.

Bought several bags of Dove chocolate on clearance $1.49 each - will give to my husband for Valentine's Day since Dove chocolate is his favorite. (The package does say it's good until May 2006). At CVS, I bought two half priced Celine Dion perfume gift sets. One to give to my mom for her birthday and one either to keep for myself or sell on eBay. Also bought a sale Mary Kate and Ashley perfume set to give to a niece.

Also on Wednesday I went to VV. I bought 4 pieces of clothing for .30 each and some games. Paid $1.50 for The Game of Cub Scouting (for ebay) and some games for my son.

And lastly I went to BJ's Warehouse. My free membership is expiring at the end of the month and I don't plan on paying for a membership. I stocked up on birthday cards to last me thru most of 2006 for people I send BD cards to (greeting cards are half-off the price printed on the cards). The one I like the best (and bought a few of) was a card that said: I looked all over for a nice gift for you but I all I found was crap - then when you open it it says: maybe I should have left the house. LOLOL!! how true!

Nothing much going on. Just busy thinking up a ton of resolutions for 2006!

Happy Ho-Ho-Holidays

I barely got my Christmas cards (bought last year half off of course) mailed out before Christmas. My friend from high school has to show me up (again of course ! LOL) by sending out her custom handmade Christmas cards that have at least 4 layers of acid-free paper and a string "embellishment" for the reindeer reins. All this done of course while tending to her 5 month old twins. She is totally nuts! But she thinks I'm nuts for buying other people's junk.

I'll be busy for a little while, so I may not get a chance to post again before Christmas. Today was a good day at Smile - everything half off. I bought several Hallmark ornaments for .25 each and a few things that I intend to give this year (a new Old Navy stationery set for .50 for a niece, and also a hardcover cookbook (.50)by redneck Jeff Foxworthy to give to my mom.

Til next time,
Chris

My Papa John's pizza bargain yesterday

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday about my Papa John's pizza bargain. I mentioned this in a previous blog posting about how our local Papa John's gives free toppings on Mondays depending on how the Redskins did the following day. Well this past Sunday's game they made 5 touchdowns so that means we can get 5 free toppings the next day. Wait, there's more...if they win, the amount of free toppings is doubled. So yesterday was a 10 free topping day! It's hard for me to come up with 10 toppings that I like, so on a pizza for me I did double pepperoni, double cheese, double onion and bacon. And I still had "free" toppings leftover! On the pizza intended for my husband, he got 3 different kinds of peppers plus every kind of meat.

And remember me talking about bargain in buying the DVD, March of the Penguins? Well yesterday I saw there is a $3 rebate on Minute Maid orange juice. So I will send the rebate in - will do it in my niece's name so she'll get the $3, afterall, I did have to cut off the Proof of Purchase.

If you shop on Amazon.com

Here is another shameless plug, if you do any shopping at Amazon.com, I would appreciate it if you would get to Amazon.com by going thru my link. Thanks!

Went to Smile today and it was a half priced day. Every once in a while they'll do a half priced day and it's great. I bought about $15 worth of stuff. Most expensive thing was a $4 Sony Dream Machine clock radio. For myself I bought a $2 black Liz Claiborne purse. And of course, a bunch of other junk.

Been doing some Christmas shopping lately in real stores where they sell new stuff. Today I bought a March of the Penguins DVD as a gift and at one Walmart it was $19.99 and at another one it was $14.98. How crazy is that!?

I've been using some of those $10 JC Penney's coupons that I mentioned in a different post to score some bargains. Here's my JC Penney's buy of the week: spent .53 to get my husband 7 new pairs of Adidas socks. The socks were on sale for $10.50 so after the coupon I paid .50 plus .03 tax. And the package has a bonus black pair of socks, so it was 6 white pairs plus a black pair, for a total of 7 pairs of socks.




Today at the grocery store I saw something that makes me wish my cellphone had a camera. It was this HOT guy and guess what make him even HOTTER? He had a white envelope and he was sorting thru his coupons! I NEVER see any guys carrying coupons in a grocery store, let alone a cute one!

I haven't checked the newspaper ads, but I'm guessing there are no yardsales tomorrow. But that's ok, since I know there are going to be tons of people at the malls and other stores buying high priced stuff to give to people who won't want it and it will end up at a yardsale this spring for cheap! (Am I bad or what??) But it is the truth since I've often bought stuff at a yardsale that still had remnants of Christmas wrapping paper on it.

Till next time, happy saling,
chris

Well on Friday I didn't go to Smile (I couldn't - haha) We had a little bit of snow/ice so they closed schools. So when schools are closed for bad weather, so is Smile.

My husband really outdid himself this year as far as my Las Vegas souvenir. Man, this gift makes me WISH I got another shirt advertising a strip club. I got a paper towel. You read that right. He said while at the bathroom at the Venetian, the paper towels in the men's room were so nice that he had to bring me one. I'm hoping at least it's one that he picked up AFTER he washed his hands, but I can't guarantee it.

Hey, if you are on JC Penney's mailing list, check your mail for their $10 coupon they are mailing out. I got one yesterday. It's good for anything over $10. Earlier this year, I got it and got some great deals on socks. I think I even blogged about it.

Got the software from Estore.com. A word of advice, don't buy the Candyland computer game from them. It sucks. It did not hold my 5 year olds attention at all.

Went to Smile yesterday and today. Also went to Vintage Value. I need to start paying more attention to the books at VV. They are only .10 each. I bought a stack of about a dozen Dr. Suess books in very nice condition ($1.20). At Smile I found yet another Kacie the Kinderbot robot ($2) so I bought it. I figure it will be good for resale eventually. And I got lots of nice t-shirts (.50) for my son, including a I heart NY one, which I heart since I am originally from upstate NY.

Today I bought two pillows that match our sofa, a nice magnetic "chores chart" thing ($1.50)for kids made by Lights, Camera, Action. A bright orange vintage looking metal watering can ($1 - it's brand new, but has a vintage design, I figure I can spray paint it).

I just remembered another neat thing I got at Smile yesterday: a pink Serta sheep stuffed animal. A few years ago I bought a few Serta sheeps at a yardsale and then found out there are people who love those things. They are the counting sheep that appear in the Serta commercials. At the yardsale, I bought #13, which is a desirable number for the collectors. I think I paid .50 for them and they sold for about $25-30. The one I got yesterday is the #3 pink breast cancer awareness Serta sheep. I checked ebay, and I think I will have to hold onto this one until the #3 sheep gets harder to find. Smile sells bags of toys for $1, so the sheep was in a $1 bag along with some other toys.

I got a bargain buying my brother's Christmas gift. There is a seller on ebay (ebay seller name: Elenahume) which has cheap magazine subscriptions. Right now she is offering a 3 year subscription to the Sporting News (a weekly sports magazine) for only $5.99. That is super cheap compared to what it normally sells for - at the Sportingnews.com website, they sell a one year subscription for $19.97 and I got my brother a THREE year subscription. He used to get it all the time, so I know he will love it (I checked with his wife and he doesn't have a current subscription to it).

And that's not where the bargain ends...There is a 10% off eBay/Paypal coupon code that is circulating around the net, so I entered the coupon code at the checkout and I ended paying just $5.39! I'm not going to post the code here since it's going to expire in a few days, but if you really want it, it's posted on my message board in the Reselling Forum.

My husband got back from guy's trip to Las Vegas last night. I wonder if he brought me back any souvenirs - he has quite the track record for souvenir gifts. One year after a golfing trip he gave me a plastic cup emblazoned with "The Witch" on it, (apparently The Witch was the name of the golf course or the drinking establishment at the golf course). Another year on a golf trip he brought me back a t-shirt from the Crazy Horse Gentleman's Club in Myrtle Beach. Just what I wanted.

I gave up going to Nashville last weekend (a relative was getting married) so my husband could take his annual Las Vegas jaunt. But don't worry about me, I think I need to plan a cruise trip with the girls, or else a world's longest yardsale trip! Also would love to go to the unclaimed baggage center in Alabama.

Anyhow, I wanted to mention, my sister had a celebrity sighting while at the Nashville airport - she saw and talked to Paula Deen from Food TV. My quick thinking sister ran into an airport newstand and bought a Paula Deen magazine and got Paula to autograph it for a surprise Christmas gift to my mom. So hey, if you are reading this and know my mom, don't say anything! My sis said that Paula was very nice in person and smaller and thinner than she appears on tv.

My bargains for the week

My bargain of the week was getting a huge dying pine tree cut down (and most of it hauled away) for free. The guys who do the tree trimming for the utility company are trimming the trees in our neighborhood and when they got to my house they asked if we wanted the big dying pine tree to be cut down for free. Of course! The above is a view of it from the front yard and from the back. It's totally cut down and they mulched up the branches and just left us some big pieces to deal with. We have a large back yard so we have plenty of room to let the big pieces decay on their own. I don't think pine is a good wood for burning. Also I asked the tree guys what they do with the mulch and they said they just dump it wherever they find a good spot, so I told them I could use some and so they dumped a few large truckfulls on the edge of our property.

I know cutting down a large tree like that costs a lot of money so I'm glad the utility tree guys did for free. I wanted to get rid of that tree for a long time.



My other good bargain of the week was finding a Longaberger basket for .50 at a thrift store. The handle was broken but I just sawed it off. In Longaberger baskets, I prefer no handles or swinging handles rather than the "fixed position" handles. The "fixed" handles make the baskets look too Easter Baskety for me. The basket I just bought had a fixed position handle so actually I'm glad the handle was broken so I don't feel bad about sawing it off. I also found a vintage felt Christmas elf ($1) for my collection. I will have to take a new pic of my elf collection (I think there's a pic of my collection in my blog archives).

At Vintage Value, I bought myself two nice Liz Claiborne tops for myself (.30 each) and a pair of Michael Jordan sneakers (.50) for my son. And at Smile I bought my son a nice winter jacket for $2 (made by Boardgear). His coat that he has been wearing is a size 6/7 and it's a little big on him. This "new" coat is a size 6 so this one fits him better.

I finally planted my free Stargazer lilly bulbs that I mentioned back in the blog in September or October. I planted 4 in the front of the house and 2 in the back. About a day after I planted them, I saw that some animal (a squirrel maybe?) dug it up but they haven't gotten the others. Geez, you would think that they'd be happy with the sunflower seeds and cracked corn I give them.

I bought my son a bunch of kid's software this week. I buy it from www.smart-estore.com I've bought from them before and it's good software, but you don't get jewel cases or any instructions/paperwork with it, you just get the disk. Anyhow, early on I've realized that you have to be "smart" when buying from smart-estore. If you go their regular website (www.smart-estore.com), you see software for $5.95. But I've found other links within their website that offer the SAME software for $3.95 or even $2.97. To see what I mean, check these out: $3.95 Smart E-store and $2.97 Smart E-store If you do order any, at the check-out you can use coupon code GET10 to get 10% off.