Happy Belated Christmas and Happy New Year

Spent Chrismtas in upstate New York. Had a good time visiting family and shopping. No snow but had some snow on the drive home. Saw a Walmart truck that ran off the road - I took a picture of it but can't get to it right now to post it. I got a new computer for Christmas to replace my 8+ year old model so I quite haven't gotten the picture thing figured out yet.

While in NY I had a chance to go to a Salvation Army. The first thing I saw in the store was a customer holding a Serta Sheep. Uggh - I wanted to buy it! Some Serta Sheeps are very collectible - I believe you get one free if you buy a Serta mattress or else you can buy them new in Serta stores. Well anyways the sheep all have a # on their side and once they run out of a particular #, its no longer made and they go on to selling a different #. Well anyways whenever I see them I buy them. I sold a #13 Sheep for about $30 a while ago and I have a pink Breast Cancer Awareness sheep to sell tucked away somewhere in my clutter.

Well anyways at the Salvation Army, I couldn't tell what # it was but I was mad at myself for missing it and not being at the store 5 minutes earlier. I could tell the customer was friendly since she was chit-chatting with the workers and she was also talking out loud to herself and commenting on thing on the shelves. She had a armful of stuffed animals. So....I walk past her and say "Oh that sheep is sooo cute" and she agrees. I then walk away - not too far - but look at other stuff on the shelves. A few minutes later she comes up to me and goes "I just noticed this sheep as wires in its legs - my dogs may get hurt chewing on it - do you want to buy it? Of course! And I thanked her and wished her a Merry Christmas. Not the end of the story. I go to the register with some other stuff I find and the cashier looks at the price tag on the sheep and rings in .25 on the cash register and says "I just hate when companies try to sell their advertising figures - its just a personal pet peeve of mine so I only charged you .25" As it turns out the sheep is a fairly recent one so I'll hold on to it for a while.

I've done some after Chrismtas shopping. Went to Target up in NY and the one here by my house. We did "Christmas" with my brother and his wife on the afternoon of December 26 so I was able to buy a few more things on Tuesday morning to give to them - and of course it was half priced. My sister-in-law collect Disney Pooh ornaments and other Pooh related stuff so I was able to buy her a Pooh Hallmark ornament for $5.

I was at two different Walmarts yesterday and bought stuff at 75% off.

Well I gotta go - I still haven't unpacked from being home. Been too busy on the internet (I get internet withdrawls when I go to NY) and now been playing on my new computer too much.

Jeff is sick, not doing anything for New Years.

Christmas is coming up too fast

I have so much stuff to do before Christmas. As a kid it seemed like it too forever for Christmas to come, and now it gets here too fast. I had wanted to list a bunch of my Christmas related stuff on ebay, but only got a chance to list a few things. Oh well, always next year.

In my post the other week about OK! Magazine - I've since found a better offer. There's a seller on ebay selling 2 year subscriptions for only $3.75 . I bought a subscription for my sister and sister-in-law to give as gifts. What can I say? I'm a generous person.

No yardsales today. And probably not any for next few weeks. There is a ray of hope though - St. Pauls church always does a second Saturday in January indoor yardsale.

Report on Black Friday

Someone asked how I did on Black Friday and I guess I had forgotten to blog about it.

I had a good time shopping. As I've probably mentioned before, the closest real mall is about an hour drive away, so I mainly buy from stores that are nearby (Staples, Target, JC Penneys, Best Buy etc). I rarely go to a mall and when I do, I rarely buy stuff. I haven't always been this way. I grew up about 3 miles from the Clifton Country Mall in upstate NY and when I lived in Charleston, SC, the Northwoods mall was only about a mile away.

This past Black Friday I was at Staples at 6am. My husband said that he'd like a GPS that was on sale there for $149. So I got that and also bought the laminator which will be free after rebate, the power cord (free after rebate) and an extra memory stick for my camera which will cost $15 (after rebate). And of course I used three $3 coupons that I got from recycling inkjet cartridges at Staples. And used my bonus Rewards card. I thought the laminator would at least come with a few laminating sheets, but it didn't. I really don't need a laminator so maybe it will be for sale at my next yardsale. (And since it was free after rebate, any money I make on it is pure profit).

Best Buy: Bought 4 DVDs ($10 The Office Season 1 - love The Office!, Munich $5, Fight Club $5 and Brokeback Mountain ($5 - for me since I knew my husband would never buy it). He wanted Munich and Fight Club so those are put away for Christmas. He already has been playing with the GPS.

Old Navy - just looked around and won some free package stickers (which I think everyone won)

Bath & Body Works - had a coupon (got in the mail) for a free item worth $12.50 with any purchase. So I bought a package of the Wallflower refills on sale for $5. I bought a Wallflower last year during a Black Friday sale and also picked up another at the thrift for .25. For my free item got a big bottle of a combo shampoo/bodywash/bubblebath that was $12. B&BW sends out good coupons - really worthwhile to get on the mailing list if you like to shop there. I don't normally buy stuff there since I find it all the time at yardsales. I once bought a brand new B&BW gift set at a yardsale for $1. The seller received it and said she only likes fruit scents or flower scents (or vice versa) and she received the wrong type of scent.

Chickfila - used free soda coupon

Target: Bought DVD The Notebook for $4, Spongebob Plug N Play game for $10 - may put away for Jacob's birthday since he already is getting a lot of gifts (bought other stuff I needed but nothing Black Friday sale related)

JC Penneys: got the free snowglobe. Bought my husband a pair of Dearfoam slippers on sale for $15 (normally $30) and bought myself my Christmas present from him - a black leather coat on sale for $48.88, which was one of their Black Friday morning deals. I hadn't gone looking for a coat, but I saw them and tried it on and liked it. I also got 15% off my purchase because I did an online survey and when the survey is complete, I got to print a coupon good for 15% off my next purchase.

CVS Pharmacy: I went to 3 different CVS's. They had 2 liters of diet coke for .66 (limit 4) so I got 12 bottles. That should last me 12 days - I am so addicted. Also bought the Kleenex that was .88 box and had a $1 off 5 boxes coupon so I paid .68 a box (Jacob's teacher is always asking for donations of Kleenex for the classroom). Also bought myself some Maybelline makeup with was Buy 1 Get 1 Free - and I had a $2 off Maybelline coupon.

Also went to both Vintage Value thrift stores and got some stuff there. At one of the stores, they had a sale: .25 clothes. I can't remember what exactly I bought, but you know I bought stuff.

I wanted to stop at Ace Hardware but ended up meeting my husband & Jacob at a park and didn't go shopping afterwards.

$2 Longaberger basket, $2 Vera Bradley and free movie

I went to Smile both on Wednesday and Thursday. Wednesday my buy of the day was a $2 Longaberger basket. It has a dark stain and is marked "Longaberger Handmade Series" on the bottom. It's a keeper. And yesterday I found a $2 Vera Bradley purse. I don't get the popularity of Vera Bradley purses at all. But I'm glad people are willing to overpay for them on ebay.

Also yesterday the Calvert Marine Museum was showing an indie documentary movie that I wanted to see (free admission to movie). So I went to that and afterwards noticed how pretty the lighthouse was decorated so I took some pics. My admission to the museum was free too since I'm a member. (Last May I bought a year family membership for $25 during a half priced day). I'm so used to going there with Jacob that it was weird to go alone. Weather was beautiful yesterday - I didn't adjust the color settings at all in the picture, that's exactly how it looked.

Subscription to OK! Magazine either $77.52 or $4.84

I've gotten so many free subscriptions to magazines from www.freebizmag.com but I was searching eBay weeks ago for magazine subscriptions and came across a 2 year weekly subscription to Ok! magazine (a cheesy celebrity gossip rag) for $5.99 so I figured what the heck, I'll splurge and actually pay for a magazine for a change. So I ordered it and it just started coming in the mail this week (when you order magazines thru a seller on ebay, sometimes it takes several weeks for it to start). What I found was amazing was that in the magazine there was a card offering a 2-for-1 deal, buy one year for $77.52 (!!!!!!) and your friend gets 51 issues (one year) free. Is anyone actually crazy and stupid enough to do that?

I just checked ebay and there are sellers now offering 2 a year (weekly) subscription for only $4.84 - so now i am feeling ripped off that I *overpaid* $5.99 for it - haha.

Pet Peeve about cashiers

First let me say I've been a cashier at many jobs in my life (Burger King, Opryland, Bradlee's etc) and now I'm the cashier at all my yardsales. The thing that drives me nuts is how some cashiers give you change back - they make a pile of the dollar bills, receipt on top of that, and then pile up all the change and give you the whole mess at once. The cashiers at my local KFC always do that and it drives me nuts (which happened tonight so that's why I am blogging about it). And then to even top that off the whole mess gets put in your left hand at the drive-thru (and since I'm right handed, my left is the lesser coordinated)

When I have a yardsale and let's say the customer's total is $2.75 and they pay with a $20 bill, this what I say when giving back change: quarter makes $3, four, five, five makes ten and ten makes twenty. I give the coin(s) back first - that way they have a second to put the change in a pocket if they want, then the bills.

Update on old fridge

I forgot to mention, I sold our old refrigerator for $100. I placed a free online ad at a local community type website.

"saved" $83.93 at the grocery store the other day

Did my weekly grocery trip to Giant Food the other day and used a bunch of coupons. The receipt shows the total was $114.23 but after the sales and coupons were deducted, I only paid $31.01

Spending spree

We've kinda been on a little spending spree lately. First the fridge - got the bill the other day, it was $848. But we put it on our Discover bill which has the cash back bonus. And we religiously pay off our bills every month. Last night someone came by and bought our old refrigerator for $100 cash. I put a free ad online for it. Plus we'll be getting about $20 gift card from Best Buy for buying the fridge and using their rewards program. They used to charge for their rewards program but when we bought the fridge, they said its now free to join so we signed up and will be getting a giftcard in the mail from them.

We've been needing a second cellphone. So I bought a new fancy one on ebay for $150 and a sim card with 150 minutes ($8). We use T-mobile but we don't get good reception at our house (a problem with many of the cell providers in our area).

To save money, we changed the service plan with T-mobile on my phone. We had been paying about $25 a month for very limited daytime minutes and unlimited weekends. (the main reason I have the cell phone is just for emergencies incase the school needs to call me while I'm out shopping).

So I changed it to T-mobile's prepaid service (with no monthly fees) and just bought $100 worth of minutes (1000 minutes) that will be good for a year. So instead of paying $300 a year for my cellphone, it will be just $100.

Oh and my husband bought a beemer. A 2002 BMW motorcycle that he found on ebay (has less less 7,000 miles on it). Paid cash for it. Will sell his old motorcycle, a Kawasaki Concours which has about 40,000 miles on it.

Looking forward to this Saturday - there's an indoor yardsale that should be good.

Think Florida Sucks? Let Penn & Teller know!

Today I got an email from someone from the Penn & Teller Show Bullshit. Apparently they found my website because of an abundance of wacky yardsale stories submitted by people in Florida on my website.

Anyhow for the next several weeks, they are looking to hear from people who think that Florida sucks for an upcoming episode of Penn and Teller's Bullshit show. If you have a Florida story to tell (it doesn't have to be yardsale related), submit it to them and maybe you'll get your 15 minutes of fame.

For more info click here Florida Sucks

Refrigerator Make-over

We had a refrigerator make-over last week. What a job - even just taking all the crap off the old one took a while, let alone transfering food to the new one and cleaning out the old one.

Got a good deal on the new fridge from Best Buy. For some reason they sent me a coupon for 10% off any appliance or item in the store. The refrigerator already was on sale and they offered free delivery as a promotion. So when the cashier went to ring up the 10% off she said it wouldn't take because in small print on the coupon it said it could not be combined with any other offer or promotion, and the "free delivery" was considered a promotion. So then I said "Well charge me for delivery (it would have been $49 to deliver) and then use the 10% off coupon because it would still be cheaper that way. The computer cash register wouldn't let her do that either. So then I just said "can you get a Manager?" So she disappeared in the back for a while and came back and pressed some magic buttons on the cash register which allowed her to give me the 10% off AND get the free delivery. So I was happy.

My husband leaves for Las Vegas and the roof flies off!

This happened a few weeks ago but didn't have time to post until now. My husband left for Las Vegas on a Saturday (actually it was the Saturday I bought the chocolate fondue pot and mentioned the crappy weather). In the afternoon he called to say he got in safely, yadda yadda. We hang up and I then I look out the window and see something strange in the backyard. It was part of our roof! A 12-foot section of a ridge vent that runs right at the peak of the house. And at this point, it was raining.

I go up in the attic and I can see the sky! I was like "ohhhhh craaaaaappppp!!!". We have a 2-story house, so no way was I going to attempt any roof work. Since it was Saturday, I knew it would be hard to get any roofers to come out, but I figured there must be someone who would call me back soon. Boy was I wrong!

Since it was raining, I took an old blanklet and stapled it to the gap and put down plastic. Thankfully, it wasn't raining too hard and sun was forecasted for Sunday. But by Monday I figured all the roofers would be calling me back. Nope. As it turns out, I'm glad no one did since they could have charged me whatever they wanted and I would have gladly paid it. Even the ones I did get in touch with on Monday said they could put me on their calendar for later in the month (!!!).

On Tuesday I had the bright idea to call my cranky old man friend Rick (picture further below) and told him my problem. He called a handyman friend who lives just a few streets away from me and does jobs on the side and by Tuesday afternoon and $40 later, it was fixed.

Fall in upstate NY

I took this pic the other morning while at my mom's house (my childhood home). Would give anything to have a backyard like that now - instead I have to look at a little old house full of low-class renters.

back from upstate New York - 3 days of garagesales!

I spent a long weekend (is 5 days considered a long weekend??) back in my hometown of Clifton Park, NY. Since it's definitely fall up there, I wasn't expecting too many garage sales but I was wrong. There were several on Friday and Saturday and I even hit one on Sunday near my sister's house near Saratoga Springs.

Well I will write more later but I wanted to share this before I forgot - I packed very lightly going up and came back with a totally loaded down suitcase. So much so that the baggage clerk had to put a special tag on the bag with it's weight - 45 pounds! Five more pounds and I think I would have had to pay an extra charge or start layering on a bunch of clothes right at the ticket counter.

So anyways I was hoping that my suitcase wouldn't be chosen for inspection (maybe they all are)? But when I went to unpack it today, I saw the "Notice of Baggage Inspection" card. I would have loved to have seen the face of the baggage inspector going over the contents: Homer Simpson in a hula skirt? Not a security threat. I mean, if it wasn't my suitcase, I'd have to wonder about the person who packed a Glow in the Dark Nativity scene, vintage ice cream scooper, Deathland books, Dora the Explorer VHS tapes, coffee tin full of buttons and a wooden tool box. Good thing I didn't find any vintage Playboys or anything like that (for ebay) because if I had those would have been in there too.

And I had 5 packges of Chew-eez Carvers dog treats in the front section of the suitcase. I had 5 free coupons for dog treats (and 5 free coupons for cat treats) that were only valid at Petsmarts on 10/14 and 10/15. And as luck would have it, there is a Petsmart in my old hometown (I don't even have one near me in Maryland so I'm sure the coupons would have gone to waste had I not been in NY). I just had to pay the sales tax $1.22 for the 5 packages. I also got the 5 free cat treats (they were on a different receipt) - gave 2 to my sister for her two cats, and 3 to my brother for his 3 cats.

Yardsale buys today

Sorry for the long lapse in blog entries. It seems time just flies by and I don't have time to do anything, except shop that is. I gotta get a handle on my shopping addiction!

Only went to two yardsales today. No I wasn't restricting myself or anything, it was just that because the weather was so crappy yesterday there weren't many going on in my area. And I didn't want to drive far to find them.

I spent $5 at one sale ($0 at the other). Paid $3 for this new chocolate fondue fountain, $1 for a new Playdoh Lunchables kit and $1 for a new Disney Goofy Golf game (which I will put away for Christmas).

The funny thing about the fondue fountain is that on the fountain itself, it says "Old Fashioned Chocolate Fondue Fountain". Old Fashioned??? Just like grandma's electric chocolate fountain????

I sent in my reservation to attend a high school reunion later this month. My chance to get away by myself for a few days. Going to the reunion will be interesting since none of my friends that I've kept in touch with since high school are going.

Cutest Yardsale Customer of the day

One woman brought her cute little dog to the yardsale and when she saw me take his picture, she ran to the car and put on his Halloween costume for me.

Oh I forgot to mention in my previous post, before I set up for the church yardsale, I went to a few that had started early. At one sale, I bought a huge box of household decor stuff for $2. I only wanted a brand new medium sized Yankee Candle that was in the box (probably a $15 candle). So at my yardsale, I went thru the box and priced a few things at $1 each, .50 each, and probably sold $4 or $5 worth of stuff just out of that box - and of course I got the brand new Yankee Candle to boot! The rest of the stuff that I didn't think would sell, I set up a "freebie box" and a lot of that went too. Afterwards when I was closing up, I packed up a big box of stuff and donated it to a local animal rescue thrift store (luckily it was very close to the church).

One helluva yardsale sign at church yard sale

My friend Pat and I did the church yardsale yesterday. The church had advertised in the newspaper, posted the yardsale on their church sign facing the highway, had a massive sign on a cherry picker truck facing the highway and guess how many people showed up to actually hold a yardsale? Two - me and Pat! Can you believe it??? We couldn't and had a good laugh over it. There was one other person who set up near the parking lot, but they weren't in the parking lot with us.

When you think "church yardsale" you expect tons of donated stuff from the church members. Customers kept asking, is there going to be more? I think the church expected their members to show up that morning with their own stuff to sell or something, and no one did.

It worked out well for us because we got all the customers who were expecting to go to a big church yardsale. But unfortunately this week I didn't get very organized with my stuff - I could have brought tons more. I sold $111 (and gave a $10 donation to the church).

And the funny thing is, the yardsale was advertised as a "Youth" Yardsale and instead people got me and Pat. I am glad no one is suing over false advertising because if they did, they'd win!

Planning another yardsale

Ran into a friend today at the thrift store (yes, my bad! I can't stay away!) and she mentioned she wanted to have a yardsale soon - like this weekend. So she called a church that is having one this weekend and they said we can set up a table at it (and pay a donation, of our choosing). So tomorrow and Friday I need to re-group the junk that didn't sell last weekend, get rid of true crap and find "new" stuff to add to it.

Won't be as fun as a *fun*eral home yardsale, but it's nice to hold a sale with a friend.

Funeral Home Yardsale - I made a killing!

The yardsale at the funeral home was really good. I made $115, which is good considering my most expensive thing I sold was $6. And I can only bring enough stuff that fits into my minivan and what I can handle since I don't have any helpers. I got there around 7:40am (wasn't set to officially start until 9am) and there were already people there all set up and waiting for customers. Although I miss not being able to go out yardsailing on the days I hold a yardsale, I am able to shop at all the other vendors. And I did stop at an early church yardsale near the funeral home (it started at 7:30) and got a few little things there.

Best sellers at my sale were a bunch of CDs priced at $1 each. Earlier this summer at other yardsales, I bought a bunch of CDs at .10 each. I like selling CDs at yardsales since they are small and easy to manage (not like heavy glassware which you have to lug around and break).

At first at the sale, I was worried that they wouldn't have a lot of customers since you couldn't see the sale from the highway. But I was pleasantly surprised since it seemed busy all morning long.


Setting up my table for the sale


During the sale - my little corner of junk. The man in the black shirt is at the end of my table, looking at the CDs.


Hmmmmm...what is the long grey thing on the floor inside the building??? And is it for sale??

Funeral Home Yardsale - hope there's lots of warm bodies there

Well tomorrow is the day of the yardsale at the funeral home. They said they had a lot of people sign up for it. Hope it attracts lots of warm bodies with money. My car is loaded up with junk.

It's so hard to be good

Been trying to be "good" lately and cut down on buying at my thrifts. My husband is not happy with my junk. Hopefully I'll sell a lot this Saturday at the funeral home. Now that's something I don't say everyday. I keep telling him, "you'll see, I'll sell it on ebay". The trouble is, I like shopping for stuff a lot more than I like writing up auctions and listing stuff on ebay.

My goal today was go to to Staples and unload the last of my generic inkjet cartridges for recycling and getting the $3 Staples coupons. They are changing their policy on 9/17/06 so that means they're only going to be accepting HP, Lexmark and Dell brand cartridges for recycling. I think I may have mentioned this but over the summer I bought 100 empty Epson cartridges on eBay (for a flat rate of $50 including shipping) and been slowing bringing them to Staples. So anyways I had 17 left to go, but I decided to stop in a "new" thrift I've found (I don't even know the name of it but it's at some church) and I found 4 generic inkjets for .25 each to add to my 17 that I planned to recycle. So today I ended up with $63 in Staples coupons. Then tonight - of course - I go to print something and two of my cartridges are empty. Why couldn't I have printed something yesterday instead??? So now I'm going to feel the need to drive over to Staples again before 9/17 to get my two $3 coupons for my generic cartridges.

Yardsale at Funeral Home - and you're invited!

This is a first for me - having a yardsale at a funeral home. Well the funeral home is donating the use of their parking lot but said in case of rain they'll move it inside If so, I hope they cover up Mr. Johnson or whoever happens to be there at the current time. I know because I called about reserving one of their free spaces - I need to declutter. Maybe they are trying to put the "fun" back in "funeral" or maybe they'll have roving salespeople talking up the benefits of pre-planning.

Real Store Shopping - "saved" $197.81 at JC Penney's

Went to JC Penney's yesterday and did some clearance shopping. Even bought some clothes for myself - a novel concept! My total came to $27.48 with tax and I bought 6 items. The stuff I got was already 75% off, but I also had a coupon for an additional 15% off. Here's what I got: dress pants for me $4.22, Crazy Horse jeans for me $5.07, "vintage" Pink Floyd t-shirt for me (found in Men's dept) $1.67, dress for me $8.47 (was regularly $69.99), pair of Arizona shorts for Jacob $1.67 and a shirt for my husband $5.07 (which I plan on returning since it's the wrong size).

I got my picture taken with Big and Rich!!!!!!!!! 8/27/06 Solomons Maryland

Here's a pic of me with Big and Rich in Solomons Maryland. Ok, I didn't get the real thing, but there's always next time! In the last picture you can see my favorite lighthouse in the background.

Jacob and I went to the Calvert Marine Museum today and watched them set up for the concert tonight and of course did our usual museum stuff. Ok, I know I was too cheap to pay the $40-50 for tickets but I found someone cheaper! As I was leaving the museum (around 3pm) I saw a mom and a toddler on a piece of grass outside the gate all staked out and set up to wait 4 or 5 hours for the concert to start so they can listen for free. Even I'm not that cheap!

So Big & Rich - I guess my pleas (see further below) for free tickets didn't work this time, but don't worry, I'll forgive you! ;)

Gonna watch the Emmy's tonight and Big Brother. Good luck The Office and kick butt Janelle!

Mystery item revealed

In case what you were wondering what my mystery item is, it's a basketball ball return. You put it on the rim of your basketball hoop (you do have one, right?) so when you are practicing, the ball will come back to you when you make a shot rather than falling straight down. Perfect for the lazy basketball player.

Mystery item bought at yardsale (but I know what it is)

I was at a church yardsale today and none of the workers knew what this was. Of course I knew since I've seen them at Target but didn't want to pay full price. Paid $1 for it.



Also bought a pair of Longaberger S & P shakers for $1 which should do well on ebay.

Well tomorrow is the Big & Rich concert - if I don't get free tickets, I think I'll survive and plus Big Brother is on tomorrow night! :) Maybe I'll just go to the museum tomorrow anyways and maybe accidently climb aboard the tour bus and chat with the roadies. I've never been to a concert at the Calvert Marine Museum but I know how it's done. They just stick a bunch of folding chairs on the flat parking lot and make people park across the street in a field. The stage is where the museum holds their annual yardsale. Since school started, Jacob hasn't been to the museum all week (he gets home late from school and the museum closes at 5pm). His current fascination at the museum is the lighthouse, earlier this summer it was watching the otters.

Back to school

Today was my son's first day back to school. To me it's kinda like making a New Years resolution: I resolve to keep all of my son's paperwork organized and send back forms to school on time etc. And resolve to not shop as much and spend more time selling junk on ebay and organizing the house.

However, my husband took today off from work - so my resolution is a little delayed. We spent the day shopping. Went to JC Penneys (I just wanted to look at some of their clearance stuff - didn't buy anything). Had lunch at Applebee's - used coupons that came in the mail the other week for $5 sandwiches. Hadn't been to Applebee's in a while and wasn't impressed. Slow service, burnt burger and the whole place smelled like a dirty sponge. You know when a sponge turns "ripe", it has a certain nasty smell? Well the whole restaurant kinda smelled like that. Then I had to watch a guy in the next table over lick every finger after he ate a french fry. People are gross. Last week I was on the boat ride with my son and there was this mom there - who was picking the zits on her arm. What's wrong with people?!?!

After lunch, we also shopped at Walmart (my husband hates that place - not because of the Walmartization of America or anything to do about the pay scale of employees etc, more like he hates dealing with the other shoppers there). Also went to BJ's Warehouse and Staples.

At Staples they are having a policy change effective 9/17/06 - they will only be accepting HP, Lexmark and Dell brand ink cartridges for recycling (for the $3 coupons.) I have a bunch of Epson ones I need to turn in. A little while ago, I bought 100 empty Epson ink cartridges on ebay for $50, but that will turn into $300 worth of coupons (so if you deduct the $50 I spent to get the cartridges,it will be $250 free Staples merchandise). I'll be doing a lot of shopping at Staples over the next 3 months.

Killing fleas the yardsale way

It's always this time of year that fleas get bad on the dog. So I gathered up all my flea killing stuff - and noticed that everything was bought at a thrift or yardsale. (So I took a pic). I used some of the Hartz spray on him, then a bath, then the flea collar. And the fleas are totally gone. I was ready to do the flea fogger in the house, but I may be able to wait on that.

My Myspace page

I started a Myspace page a few weeks ago, I figured it would be a good and free way to advertise Yardsalequeen.com So if you have a Myspace page yourself and want to be my "friend" or whatever they call it, send me a request or whatever. Not exactly sure how it all works.

Anyhow, here is the link to myYardsalequeen Myspace I started a blog there too, but I don't plan on using it much - mainly to direct people back here. I hate all the ads on Myspace.

Holy Crap - Yardsale Toilet Paper - and it's Charmin!

Sorry I haven't had time to blog lately - been too busy checking my email every 5 minutes waiting to hear news from either Big or Rich. So far nothing. I would have thought I'd have heard something by now, I'm sure the promoters just want to keep me in suspense til the end and then surprise me with free tickets to the Big and Rich concert on August 27. Well anyways, I thought I would take a break this morning from my email checking and go yardsaling.

This is a first for me, but I bought yardsale toilet paper! While at a Girl Scout fundraising yardsale, I bought a tote full of paper products, plasticware, aluminum foil and baggies. All for $5 and that included the tote. The papertowels are on top of the tote (they had been opened but they are clean and I will only use them to clean up spills etc. And 2 rolls of TP that were in a ziploc but not partially used or anything.

My friend Rick - a potential date for the Big and Rich Concert Calvert Marine Museum 8/27/06

Because I'm an optimist, I started thinking about who I would take with me to the Big and Rich concert at the Calvert Marine Museum on August 27 if I somehow manage to wrangle some free tix. (You really don't think I just want one free ticket, do you?) My husband would probably rather stay home and scrub toilets than go to a country music concert. So I got to thinking about who would really enjoy it, and it would be a yardsale acquaintance of mine. He's recently had a ton of bad luck (not counting the pacemaker bandage on his chest) and I think a concert would lift his spirits. And because he's cheap like me, I know he wouldn't actually go out and buy tickets.

Girl with 4 arms wins beauty pagent!

Saw this in the newspaper (Washington Post) and made me realize how far beauty pagents have come. In the past having four arms would have meant point deductions, but it's good to see that the judges no longer discriminate.

Big and Rich - still need tickets

"Free is good" - Kelly Ripa 8/10/06 (or maybe it was 8/9/06, I don't remember)

Ok, day 3 of my attempt of getting free Big and Rich tickets for the August 27 show at Calvert Marine Museum. I haven't heard a thing yet, but I realized my email is not easily visible here. No wonder why I haven't heard anything, so here it is: yardsalequeen@hotmail.com

Big & Rich (Big and Rich) Concert Tickets needed

Big & Rich (country music duo) are coming to the Calvert Marine Museum in Solomons, Maryland on August 27, 2006 and I gotta find a way to get free tickets. Even celebrities like free stuff so why not try to make a pitch to score some free tix? Yardsale royalty likes free stuff too. I figure if I blog about it for a few weeks, it will show up in Google searches and maybe Big and Rich will throw me a bone.

Found condom wrapper at a yardsale - and more Super Nintendo

Luckily the condom wrapper and Super Nintendo were at different yardsales. I was at one big yardsale where they had tons of stuff everywhere but it all looked kinda junky and dirty. I peered into one box and in the corner was an empty condom wrapper. Ewww, while I was glad I didn't find the condom itself, seeing a wrapper mixed in with things for sale was kinda yucky. At a different sale, I came across a small box full of Super Nintendo stuff. It was only $2 for all of it. The seller said one of her friend's dropped off a bunch of stuff for her yardsale but hadn't priced anything so she was just making up prices. That's the best way to get a good deal since the seller has no money invested in it and no sentimental value attachment to it either to drive the price up.

It's kinda funny that I've been looking for a Super Nintendo every week since May and don't find any, and then boom, two weeks in a row I find them and at cheap prices. So now I am glad I have one to send to my Mother-in-law. My husband is testing it out now so I'm pretty sure it works.

Went to the mall today (I can't remember the last time I was there, but probably in the spring??). Our nearest real mall is 45 miles away. We do have regular shopping though nearby: Old Navy, Best Buy, Petco, Staples, Michael's, JC Penneys, Belk, Target, etc, but they are in shopping centers, not in a "mall".

I spent a whopping .50 at the mall, and that was in the arcade for Jacob to play a game. My husband did buy some stuff at Dick's Sporting goods (bought a golf bag that was on sale for half-off) and a book at Border's so we didn't drive that far for nothing. And we went to Chuck E. Cheese for Jacob to play games. We don't go to eat there, just play games. I have a ton of the Chuck E. Cheese tokens. I heard rumors that a CEC may be opening near us, so that would be great. We also went to Toys R Us and I bought two items. An inflatable pool slide (on clearance for $25, normally $50) and a Fly Wheel toy (normally $39, on clearance for $10). There were a lot of toys on clearance, I guess they're cleaning out summer and making room for Christmas stuff.

I had a $10 coupon for Toys R Us that I was able to use, so my total with tax came to $26. Then I used gift cards to pay the rest. Jacob gets Toys R Us gift cards occasionally from family and plus we have a Toys R Us Visa card that sends us $10 gift cards occasionally depending on how much we charge.

We pay off our credit cards every month so for us using credit cards is the smart thing to do.

My .25 yardsale buy is a museum quality item!

The top two pictures are from a display in the local Calvert Marine Museum (it's the little local museum that Jacob and I go to a lot). They recently opened a new display featuring aspects of the oyster packaging businesses that thrived in the area decades ago. Well anyways, in looking at the display I realize I have an identical oyster can at home in my kitchen! I bought it at an indoor yardsale several years ago for a quarter. I am kicking myself that I didn't buy them all. Anyhow, the two top photos are pictures I took at the museum and the bottom two are pics of the identical can in my kitchen. I added the red arrow to the top picture to point out which oyster can I have.

WILSON!!!!!! (that's me doing my Tom Hanks impression)

Call Tom Hanks - I found Wilson last week! (Ok, there were probably thousands mass produced as a promo for Cast Away but I had to have it.) And it was only .50 at VV. And same with the like new Land's End shoes for Jacob - only .50

I shopped at VV after I had my checkup for my ear tubes. Didn't do a hearing test this time, the doctor said next time. When I do a hearing test they put you in a little booth the size of a phonebooth. (Believe it or not, we still have regular old phonebooths in our rinky dink town - complete with a folding glass door.) Anyhow during the hearing test, I feel like I'm doing an audition for Jeopardy - I'm positive the little clicker is exactly the same.

My best yardsale buy from last week was a big box of old Nintendo and Atari games for $5. During my mother-in-law's last visit, she told me to keep my eyes peeled for a Super Nintendo for her since hers died. Unfortunately, my husband had to "test" all the games etc and now Jacob loves the Super Nintendo. So...I guess I'll still have to keep my eyes peeled for another for her.

Ear Tubes Surgery - strip from the waist up!

I forgot to mention that I did have the tubes put in my ears last Thursday and I survived (and I even did some thrift shopping afterwards). I went to the part of the hospital for outpatient surgery and was led to a little room by a nurse and was told to strip from the waist up and to put a gown on. And I'm thinking, what the heck??? Is the Doc gonna throw in a complimentary breast exam? So a few minutes later a different nurse came in and I questioned the reason behind the bra removal and she told me to put it back on. And if that isn't bizarre enough, I wore my glasses thru the whole procedure. Heck, even when I get my hair cut I'm told to remove my eyeglasses, but surgery on your ear drums - it's ok to leave them on. LOL!

My ears felt a little funny the rest of the day, but now just a few days later, they feel fine. I just can't go underwater, scubadive (which is fine since I hate scubadiving), and be careful about getting water in them when I shower. And now that tubes are piercing my eardrums, I cannot "pop" my eardrums anymore. I go back on Friday for a check-up, (and probably a hearing test) so it will be interesting to see how the results compare. I know one thing is much better - the "crackling" sound I often had inside my ears is gone which is nice.

More Cheap Yardsale Liquor and Yardsale Food

Well actually I think it would be considered Moving Sale Liquor. Went to a pretty big indoor moving sale today - the seller happened to be someone I remembered from working at the nuke plant (she worked there the same time I did). She was selling food 5 for $1 since she had to really reduce the amount of weight for the moving company. Here's a pic of some of my buys, there's more but it all didn't make it into the pic. I got (free) two gallons of deck stain and deck protector. She also gave me that bottle of Smirnoff Vodka for free too. The Bacardi was $1.50. She was pulling things out of her cabinets left and right, but that was all the liquor she had. The deck stain will come in handy since I need to re-stain Jacob's swingset.

Another gift for my mom - Meditations for Miserable People

At a moving sale today, I bought this book for my mom, it was .25

Ok, before you all tell me what horrible daughter I am, let me tell you a little story. A few years ago my parents went on some senior citizen bus trip to somewhere (most likely a casino). They were all given a blank name tag and told to write their name on it with an adjective describing themselves. Example: Jolly Joe, Sassy Sue, Lucky Louie and so on. What does my mom put? Mean Mary.

One of my buys from last week - Russian Matryoshka Nesting Doll

I guess I forgot to post about what I bought last week at the yardsales. For $1 I got a set of Russian Matryoshka nesting dolls (you unscrew it and inside is another doll, then unscrew that one there is another one and so on). Not sure if they are from Russia but they definitely were not made in China. Will be a gift for my mom at Christmas. I think she'll like it since she is 100% Ukrainian and it's a pretty Matryoshka with a cat, not your run of the mill bland looking doll.



Another memorable buy was a big STACK of pink Depression glass plates and bowls and 4 old pink swirl Fire-King cups and saucers, all for $10.

We had a big thunderstorm tonight, I hope it doesn't dissuade anyone from having their yardsale tomorrow.

I think I may be able to do some thrift shopping tomorrow

Tomorrow I may have some time to do some thrift shopping at Vintage Value. But first I have to deal with a little appointment at the hospital to have a medical procedure done. ACKKK - I hope really its nothing and I'll be in prime condition to do some thrift shopping afterwards. I'm having tubes put in my ears. It's normally a procedure that kids have done rather than adults.

Went out on the boat again last week and took this pic.

Remember the supposed squirrel proof birdfeeder I bought?

I bought a "squirrel proof" birdfeeder a few weeks ago for $2 at a yardsale. Thought I would share some pics on how much the squirrels love it. They eat - without disturbing the lever that hides the seed - then leave.

eBay clutter! Oh the Horror!

I was looking at some pics I took earlier this year and found this one. Aye yi yi. I really need to start selling again on eBay. I am happy to report my desk area DOES look better now, I have a real computer chair (bought new) and my new fancy big flat screen monitor.

Yardsale Bargains from Saturday

I had a good morning yardsaling yesterday and then after I went to Smile thrift (boy have I been missing that place since it's been a whole two weeks since I've been able to go), JC Penney's for their clearance sale and then did some grocery shopping. I left the house at 7:30am and didn't get home 'til about 1pm. It was nice to have some "me" time.

My yardsale buys:

.10 each - 26 CDs, various artists. This is twice this summer that I found a seller who was selling CDs for only .10 each. I sold a lot for $1 at my mom's garagesale the other week. I bought more than half of what they had - left the ones where the CD was missing (I pulled the case for them, was heavily scratched, was a totally obscure artist).

$5 new in package Grampa's Weeder garden week pulling tool. Their website is www.grampasweeder.com. Original price sticker says it was $19.99

$3 Dora sleeping bag (keep)
$2 pretty glass candy bowl (pic below)
$1 Green Glass (I think it's Vaseline glass or depression glass) canning jar with ceramic lid
$1 three compartment foldable laundry bin that pops up
.25 (for both) two Leap Frog small toys
$1 package of Burt's Bee sampler items
FREE - new in package inflatable snow tube
FREE - Boyd's Bear small pillow
$2 pair of Cabela's pants for me
$2 Tony Stewart Woman's blouse (resale)
.50 1994 Patrick Ewing Starting Lineup action figure in package

At JC Penney's I got Jacob two t-shirts on clearance for $1.97 and two Plug N Play 7 in 1 casino game thing for tv, Orginally $30 on clearance for $5.97. My husband's birthday is coming up and the other one I'll give to my casino-loving mom. But chances are I'll show her how to use on Christmas day, but then it will be too "electronically difficult" for her to do it on her own - even though there are probably two steps to do it. She has a simple VCR and we've written down instructions for her, but she rarely uses it since it's too confusing for her.

Woman's Day July 11 issue

I should have mentioned this earlier but I'm quoted (and my website) is mentioned in the current issue of Woman's Day that is one the newstands now - the date on it is the July 11 issue.

So if you are standing in line at the grocery store checkout, take a look at page 15. Not sure how much longer this issue will be sold before the next one is out.

My free Stargazer lillies

Back on September 19, 2005 I blogged about getting free bulbs from Brecks.com - I chose Stargazer lily bulbs - the squirrels ate most of the bulbs that I planted in the back yard, but the ones in the front yard came up nicely. Here's a pic I took earlier in the day:



I hope they multiply. But the funny thing is, when I was visiting my mom last week, she got ANOTHER Brecks catalog with no-strings-attached $25 coupon that she didn't want, so I'll end up ordering more bulbs for free - again!

Kohl's shopping bargains

I forgot to mention, I did do some "real" store shopping last week. I love the Kohl's near my mom's house. Last Friday they had late night hours till 11pm so I was able to do some shopping after I put my son to bed (my mom was still home so it wasn't like I left my son unattended). There is a Kohl's near the mall here in Maryland (the mall is 45 miles away so I don't go there very often). But still for some reason I don't like that Kohl's as much as the one near my mom. I've figured out why - the one that I like has high ceilings and everything is on one floor so it's easy to navigate. The one "near" me is two stories and has regular height ceilings. Plus when I go to the one near my mom, my husband isn't tagging along and rushing me.

Last week I spent about $25 at Kohl's and got: $7 Go Diego Go shirt (orig. $14) for Jacob, $1.99 each (orig. $4.99 ea) two nice dishtowels with embroidered lobsters on them, $7.50 double sided birdfeeder (orig. $29.99) and a patriotic bunting $5.99 (orig. $12) I did try on some clothes for me but since I only had about an hour to shop before it closed I didn't have time to really shop for clothes and still look at everything else.

back from upstate New York

I just got back from visiting my mom in upstate New York and going to my neice's graduation party. I'll post some pics later. Since I'm always telling my mom she needs to have a garage sale, I stuck my foot in my mouth and said I would have one during my stay this time. Boy do I really need a vacation (and a strong drink) now! It was a ton of work for one person (me!) to do. My mom is not much help when it comes to stuff like setting up tables, putting up signs, displaying things, you know all the stuff that needs to be done when having a garagesale. The tables that my mom has are ancient and must weigh 50 lbs each. Which I had to lug from one garage to the other. And then back when the sale was over. And of course all the stuff she wanted to sell was down in the cellar. And with all the rain, water was leaking into the cellar so I had like a mud pit I had to cross everytime I wanted to bring something upstairs.

Oh speaking of the rain, did you hear on the news about that section of highway in upstate NY that crumbled and 2 truckers died? I drove on that highway on Monday afternoon and the highway collapse happened on early Wednesday. How awful. I am really lucky I drove to NY on that Monday since I heard that on Tuesday that area got torrential rain all day. Today I drove home on the same highway and there was a detour because it will take months to reopen that stretch of Route 88. All the rivers and creeks in that area were a nasty brown color.

Well that's it for now, I have a lot of reading on my message board that I need to catch up on.

Yardsale Buys today and Cypress Swamp visit

Been raining the past few days so not many last minute yardsales. Only went to a few sales and mostly bought food items. Strange but true. Bought a 12 pack of Diet Coke with Splenda for .50, a big box of Act Popcorn (16 packages of popcorn) for $1, a gallon Arizona iced tea .25 (I hate tea in any form, but my husband drinks it). Also bought a bunch of kids books at .10 each and a big spool of fencing wire for $1 - to fix where the Whiskey dog keeps digging out.



The other day was awfully hot and humid - so I figured the best place to go was the local Cypress swamp of course ;-). Above is a pic. That's the way I like to enjoy nature - see it but not get dirty. No charge to visit the cypress swamp and nature center.

Greetings from a pretty ghetto area of Southern Maryland!

The local news is all over a story about Hilary Duff refering to a nearby town as "pretty ghetto" in an issue of Elle magazine. Hilary Duff Joel Madden Good Charlotte article

Actually the local DJ's (Don & Mike) refer to Waldorf as the "Armpit of Southern Maryland" which is pretty accurate. The Waldorf I know has lots of sprawl, townhouses and traffic. I do like the Dollar Tree that Waldorf has - man, that is so ghetto!! Would have been really funny if she had said that the area was "pretty armpit-like" rather than "pretty ghetto".

Boat ride on the W. B. Tennison

Haven't bought any bargains lately (hard to really shop at the thrift store with my son) so if I don't have any bargains to post about, I'll just talk about what's going on at yardsalequeen.com headquarters.

Yesterday I took my son out on a boat ride, my son loves it and it lasts about an hour. It's $11 for the two of us. He'd like to go out on it everyday, but I told him we'd do it once a week during the summer. Usually they only do one boat ride per day, but yesterday was a busy tourist day at the museum so they did a second cruise. We got on the second cruise and there was only about 15 people on it which was nice. The boat ride goes under the long two-lane bridge that we regularly go over. My husband wants to buy a sailboat and go out sailing on the weekends, and I'm like, well if we did I wouldn't be going out on Saturday mornings, that's for sure!

If you happen to see the current issue of Woman's Day (dated July 11 and it has popsicles on the cover), look at page 15. That's where they put my interview and yardsalequeen.com is mentioned. A much better spot than last summer when I was all excited about yardsalequeen.com being in Woman's Day and it turned out to be a two sentence blurb buried in the middle of a article.

Yardsale Buys

My favorite buy from yesterday yardsales was a squirrel proof bird feeder ($2). It has a lever on it and when lightweight birds land on it they can eat the food, but when a heavy squirrel gets on it, the lever falls and blocks the food. Well in theory anyways that's how it's supposed to work. The seller had other birdfeeders too, but the thing was, there was still seed in them all. Yuck. The cheap birdseed too - millet.

Went to Target yesterday and returned a $15 blow up pool that I bought for my son. I inflated it (thank god we have an air compressor) and by the end of the day, it had a hole in it. I knew when I saw how cheap the plastic was that it wouldn't last long, but one day???!!!! I thought I threw the receipt away, but I found it so I was able to get a refund. Went to K-mart and bought a pool that I think is a little more heavy duty for $24. I hardly ever shop at K-mart but a similar pool at Target would have been $30. I swear you walk into our K-mart that we have here, and it feels like you've entered a time-warp and it's 1973 again.

Also went to a jewelry/gift store since they mailed out coupons for a free watch battery replacement.

Today Jacob and I went to the museum again (they had extra activities going on today due to Father's Day) and he and I were able to go out on a little rowboat for a while.

Calvert Marine Museum Solomons Maryland

Since school is out, we've been going a lot to the little museum near our house (The Calvert Marine Museum). I bought a family membership in May during a half-priced membership day (Normally $50, I paid $25). Jacob likes going to see the fish and the otters. We also climb up to the top of the Drum Point Lighthouse. The above picture is of Jacob outside the otter habitant and the Drum Point lighthouse is reflected in the glass. We are definitely getting our money's worth out of the membership fee. If I was to take Jacob there - and not have the membership card - it would cost $9 for the both of us. So since we usually go at least 3 times a WEEK, we definitely got our money's worth.

Free twin bed (only cost us $99)

I visit a local community type website that has free classified ads, you know I have to check out which yardsales are added every week. Well anyways they also have a "freebie" section where people post stuff they have for free. The other day I saw someone was giving away a 3 year old boxsprings for a twin bed (they switched to a bunk bed so they no longer needed the boxsprings). And that was exactly what my son needed. Jacob sleeps on a twin bed - the exact same one I had when I got my own room in the third grade! Really - the same frame, headboard, boxsprings and mattress. Geez, you would think a twin bed would last a lot longer than 35 years - just kidding. The fabric on the boxsprings finally tore and my son was pulling out all the padding and the actual springs were visible - yes, it was made during a time when actual springs were in boxsprings.

So I called about the boxsprings and we picked it up the other night - looked brand new and it was made by Serta. So then we stopped at BJ's Warehouse (since it was nearby) and saw that we could get a new mattress for only $99 so since we were in the truck, it just made sense to get one. So for $99 my son got a new bed (still has the same headboard that I had as a kid).

Before anyone suggests that I check out freecycle.org - yes, I know all about them. I just never had any luck with it. Seemed like the "good" stuff was gone quickly and you really had to read the emails ASAP. Also seemed there were a lot of greedy people on it. Someone would post something like: I have these items to give away, let me know if you can use any of it: a pack of diapers, a hammer, 10 cans of lima beans, 5 kittens, 2 yards of polyester material, 3 spare tires, 5 big landscaping rocks and a hairdryer. Then someone would say "I'll take it all!" Come on, how could anyone need all of those things. People were just getting greedy and all the constant emails were annoying. That's why I prefer the little local website where I found the boxsprings.

My Bargain at CVS Pharmacy : Razors .20 a package

I had some coupons for free packages Bic Shavors Comfort that were due to expire on 6/18 and I couldn't find them at the grocery store or Target, but I found them at CVS the other day. The coupons value was for up to $5.29 off a package, but at CVS they were on sale for $3.99 - which was good since the regular price at CVS was $5.89. So since I had to pay tax, they were just .20 a package!