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!