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.