Another blog?

I am wondering if anyone would be interested in reading it if I started a blog about my bargain hunting.  I know there are a ton of bargain blogs out there already, so maybe it would just be dumb.  Let me know what you think by voting in our poll in the sidebar to the right and/or by leaving a comment on this post.

This weekend is our anniversary celebration.  I will be back in a few days with updates.  In the meantime, vote away.

A long winded explanation

I promised to tell you about some of the deals I got this week, and how I did it.  Here's a breakdown of what I do.

First of all, I get the Sunday paper (as mentioned in a previous post) and I cut out just about every coupon I get.  You never know what there will be a deal on (perhaps even one you can make money off of).  The only things I do not cut out are things that I most definitely would not buy, even on a good deal.  These things include pet food and such, and baby items.  I don't have a pet, I don't have a baby, I don't plan on having either any time soon, so I just throw those coupons out. I also don't clip the coffee coupons.  I don't drink coffee, I never will, so I just don't clip them.  Don't discount stuff you don't think you'll need though.  The other week at Rite Aid, I got some Zantac (heartburn medicine).  I don't get heartburn, but it was on sale for $5, plus I had a coupon for $3 off, then there was a $5 Rite Aid rebate, and then there was a $5 Zantac rebate.  So I went ahead and bought it even though I will never use it, because I made $8 off it. So hang on to random coupons because you never know.  Then I file my coupons away in a little file I bought for them.  I file by category (oral care, toiletries, cereals, etc) and by expiration date.  That way, at the beginning of each week, I can throw out the coupons that expired during the course of that week, and I can also easily find whatever coupon I am looking for.

The next thing I do is go pick up the store ads.  I usually do this when I drop Z off at work on Monday mornings.  There is a Rite Aid, CVS, and a Fresh Grocer (grocery store I shop at) all between us and his work, which makes this really easy.  Alternatively, most places post their ads online nowadays.  You can even get e-mail alerts when the new ad is posted online.  I prefer a paper ad myself so I can circle things and carry it around with me while I am shopping.  Then I go home and compare what's on sale in the ads, and what coupons I have.  I am not very good at this yet, and I am relying a lot of blogs to help me out here.  Lots of people have been at this kind of bargain hunting for a long time and they are much better at it than me, so I just look up what deals they found.

This week I started at CVS.  CVS has a program called Extra Care bucks (ECBs).  You can read about it HERE.  Since I have already accumulated some ECBs, I pretty much never have to spend a penny at CVS unless I want to.  This week, there weren't a ton of bargains.  They had some makeup usually priced at $12.99 on sale for $9.99.  I bought this makeup using ECBs that I had previously accumulated, and got $9.99 back in ECBs, making it absolutely free.  While I was at CVS, I wandered over to the shampoo aisle and found 3 different shampoos with tags hanging from them that said "Try Me Free".  These tags are actually little mail in rebate forms which you send in and they will reimburse you for the price of the item you bought (shampoo, in this case).  I picked up all 3.  One of them was even on sale at CVS buy one, get one free, so I got a shampoo and a conditioner there.  I paid for those with my own money since they would not earn me any ECBs, but I sent in the rebate forms and will get reimbursed for the entire cost, making all the bottles free.  

Next I went to Riteaid.  Riteaid is running this rebate program right now.  So my trip went something like this:

1 Healthy Choice Fresh Mixer on sale for $2.50-$2.50/1 ($2.50 off one) coupon= Free

1 Bic razor $5.99- $2 rebate- $2 coupon= $1.99

1 clear eye tears eye drops on sale for 99 cents- $1/1 coupon= Free

1 Colgate total toothpaste on sale for $3

1 Colgate  toothbrush on sale for $3.  There was an in-ad coupon for $3 off when you bought 2 (2 toothpastes, 2 toothbrushes, or 1 of each)- $3 manufacturer's coupon when you buy a toothbrush and toothpaste= both for free.

Insoles on sale 3 for $15- 3 $2/1 manufacturer's coupons ($6 off)-$10 rebate= $1 profit

Also, while I was rite aid, I saw one of the shampoos with the try me free tags that I had seen at CVS, but this time a different one was on sale buy one, get one free, so I picked those up.  I later returned the one I had gotten earlier at CVS.  That made for 5 bottles of shampoo/conditioner absolutely free.  So Rite Aid shampoo and conditioner $6.99-$6.99 rebate= Free. 

Total at Rite Aid... about $1.  I have been shopping at Rite Aid over the past 3 weeks.  I calculated yesterday that I have spent $49- something at Rite Aid in that time and got $50-something in rebates, making everything I bought absolutely free (and then some).  

Next stop was Acme, a grocery store.

My trip went like this:

Pasta sauce on sale $1.

Kelloggs cereals (4) on sale for $1.97 each (sweet sale!)= $7.88- 2 $1/2 coupons= $5.88.

Kelloggs fruit snacks (2) on sale for $1.67 each= $3.34- $1/2 coupon= $2.34

Kelloggs pop tarts (2) on sale for $1.97 each (just a so-so price)= $3.94- $1/2 coupon= $2.94

Keebler cookies (2) on sale for $1.97 each= $3.94- $1/2 coupon= $2.94

Total: $15.10 (we don't have sales tax on food here in Philly) - $10 rebate for buying 10 participating items= $5.10

Finally, today I went to Staples.  Here's the breakdown:

Label maker (funny I know, but hey it was free) $15-$5 instant rebate-$10 online rebate= Free

Dry erase markers $3.99-$3.99 rebate= Free

Notebooks (6) on sale for 1 cent a piece= 6 cents

I also got some CDs to burn music on which cost $3.99 (no rebate).

So basically, this week I spent less than $10 and got all of that stuff, much of it free.

Here's a picture of some of the stuff I have gotten for great bargains (mostly free or better) over the past couple weeks.

A couple of words of advice.  Sometimes, bargain hunting is complicated and can be time consuming.  I have time for that now since I have no life.  Maybe start really small to get some practice if you don't have a ton of time.  Maybe just pick one store and try and hunt out deals at that particular store.  Second, always be very careful to make sure you pick up the correct item. Check the store ad and the coupon to make sure your item is the right size, brand, etc.  It is a pain to try and fix the problem after it's already been made (trust me).  Third, roll with the punches.  Sometimes, the item you want is not in stock and you can't get that deal you had all planned out.  That's just the way it is.  Lastly, rebates are completely awesome, and have made most of my deals possible, but remember that you have to put down some money up front and get it back later.  This is really difficult on a tight budget when we are living paycheck to paycheck.  It is hard to have $50 of my money floating around out there trying to make its way back to me as rebates.

Here are some links to a couple of my favorite bargain hunting blogs.  You will find links to many other blogs on the sidebars of these blogs.  Look for something that works for you.  Since I live where I live, I have a ton of different grocery stores around me.  These blogs may not be as applicable depending on where you are and what you have around.  So find one that is applicable.  They are out there.

Money Saving Mom

My Frugal Adventures

Anyway, this has been fun for me.  I like the thrill of getting stuff for free.  We have a whole bag of school supplies that I got for free to donate to children in our ward.  We are using much fancier toothpaste, shampoo, etc than ever before.  We are able to get some treats that we maybe wouldn't have indulged in before.  All this for less than we were spending before my bargain hunting.  Yay!

Brief and Boring (plus pictures)

It's been a busy few days, which is always nice for me since I am pretty much bored out of my mind lately.

I spent a couple of days at youth conference with a couple of the young women.  We went up to Valley Forge, which is about 45 minutes north of here.  I mostly spent the time chatting it up with other old ladies, but the youth did lots of fun things from seeing Valley Forge to dances to water fights to river rafting.  Since Valley Forge is so close, I got to come home and sleep in my own bed each night, which was really nice.

This past week we took a quickie trip to Utah.  I flew in Wednesday morning and spent the day with my fam.  We did some shopping and just chatted.  That evening, we went to Matthew's hockey game.  Zack flew in on Thursday evening, and we spent that evening with his fam.  We went out to P.F. Chang's (yum!).  On Friday, we started the day with mini golf.  My dad whomped us, but Z and I tied for 2nd place (Michelle and Matthew tied for the loss).  

In the afternoon, we went to lunch with our dear friend Adam, who we don't get to see nearly enough. After that, we went and saw Harry Potter with Z's family.  We hadn't seen it yet and we both really enjoyed it.  That evening, we enjoyed a Bees game (Salt Lake's minor league baseball team).  The Bees won.  I would rather watch the Phillies, but it was still fun.

Friday was also our 2 year anniversary.

On Saturday, my brother got married.  

The weather was quite cool for August 8th (66 degrees when I checked).  

While we were at the temple, we ran into the Stringfellows, who used to be in our ward here in Philly.  They have since moved to Utah and his sister got married that day too. Actually, I am pretty sure just about everyone in Utah got married that day.  The temple grounds were packed. Anyway, it was fun to run into them.  The wedding luncheon was delicious, and the reception was a lovely outdoor affair.  

It was a little on the cold side, but still very nice.  Sunday, we got up and flew home.  I got to fly 1st class direct.  Poor Z was left with quite the layover in Phoenix.  He is a good sport.

This coming weekend, we will be getting away to Wildwoods and Cape May to actually celebrate our anniversary.  We are very excited.

A couple of you asked, so soon to come is a roundup of some of the deals I got my hands on this week (and how I got them).

Bargain Hunter

When we moved to this new apartment at the beginning of June, we got a nice little perk with it-- a free Sunday paper.  We haven't gotten the paper since we've been married because we just aren't willing to fork it out for a newspaper subscription when it's hard enough to pay all the other bills, so this has been a nice little treat.  Zack gets to read his paper, and I have found a new hobby.  The Sunday paper comes with a load of ads and coupons.  At first, I was just a coupon clipper.  It got kind of frustrating though because I didn't really know how or where to use those coupons.  By that, I mean that I would go to the store with my coupons to get something, and the generic would still be cheaper, so I would just end up buying that and throwing the coupons away.  So I went to the world of blogging to get some help and I am starting to get the hang of some things.  

This was my first real week of this, and I got some good deals.  I got a box of Poptarts for 22 cents, some free contact solution for Z, and a bunch of little school supplies free.  Pretty sweet. This week, I have some ambitious plans, including making $3 profit off some eyedrops, making a buck off some bodywash, getting a gallon of white milk and a half gallon of chocolate milk for $1.79 (for both of them), making $3 off a couple of medicines, getting some tape and lightbulbs for free, and making $2 off some more contact solution for Z.  I am quite excited about this, and am thrilled that I learned how to not just use my coupons, but to actually get stuff for more than free with them. Pretty awesome.

Team of Rivals

I started it over a year and a half ago after getting it as a Christmas gift.  It didn't take me so long because it wasn't good.  It was really good.  I just had a really busy year and a half, most of it taken up by nursing school, which left little time for leisure.  Additionally, it was heavy, so it wasn't ideal for carting along on those trolley rides, and other times that are really good for that sort of thing.  Also, I am in the habit of reading several things at once, and I happened to finish a number of other books before polishing off this one.  So last night, at long last, I read the last page of Team of Rivals. 

Oh. my. goodness.

I just adore it.  I cried when Abraham Lincoln died, because I love him more than ever after reading this book.   It is a delightful read, accessible to people who love history and also to those who really just don't know that much about it.  I recommend it.  Don't take as long as I did to read it though.  I really blew through the last little bit because I was so engrossed, and I wish I had read the whole thing that way.  Yes, I may be a little biased, because I really like to read about Civil War America, and I love Abraham Lincoln ever so much, but give it a try anyway if you feel like it.

What should I read now?

The City of Brotherly Love

Philadelphia has a reputation.  Expression of this reputation comes from a variety of people, including people who have never lived here. They have heard things.  Maybe they visited and they took what they saw and they decided that it meant certain negative things.  I do not like this.

When I moved to Philadelphia, I was relatively unburdened by other people's view of what it was going to be like.  I got to make up my own mind based on what I saw and what my experiences were.

Philadelphia has its problems to be sure.  No one is denying that.  It is a city of streets and neighborhoods.  You could be on a nice street one minute and 2 blocks later, you might be on a more rough and tumble looking street.  There are brand new housing projects that look like something straight out of white suburbia mingled in with poor, old, rundown neighborhoods. Philadelphia has a large black population-- almost as large as the white population in fact.  All the things that I just mentioned help contribute to this reputation I am talking about.

That reputation is that if you are a reputable white person, large parts of Philadelphia should be strictly avoided if at all possible.  It is dangerous.  You will be the target of a crime if you are caught in those places.  If you must go through them, so do only by car, only when it is light outside, lock your doors, and do not make eye contact with anyone.

Oh, and by the way, the neighborhoods you should be avoiding are peopled by mostly black people.  Often, those who maintain this view of Philadelphia beat around this point.  It doesn't really have much to do with that, they claim.  Or they suggest that it isn't their fault that bad looking neighborhoods happen to be full of black people.  It isn't racism.  It's just the way it is. So they say.

I despise everything about this.  These kinds of attitudes have put our city where it is.  They lead to white flight.  They lead people to live out in the suburbs and commute 30 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour to work just to avoid "those" places and "those" people.

Look, forget what you have heard for a minute.  Just humor me.  As a young women's leader, I drive out to southwest Philadelphia each week to pick up young women to come to activities. Southwest is definitely predominantly black.  A lot of the buildings are old.  Some of it looks run down.  Sometimes there is graffiti.  It is the kind of neighborhood that causes the kind of reaction I described above.  Lock your doors and let's get outta here ASAP.  It is notorious. Guess what?  I like it.  Like I said, I drive down there weekly.  There is some cool architecture down there.  Unfortunately, we live in a culture and world that perpetuates poverty through a variety of factors including racism and a broken healthcare system.  So maybe a lot of people down there don't repaint their houses every few years.  When something breaks, maybe they can't readily afford to fix it.  Or maybe they spend their whole lives at work and do not have the time to deal with it.  So things aren't always the neatest looking.  Additionally, it is a neglected neighborhood.  Downtown and into University City, there are "ambassadors" paid by the city to do things like pick up trash.  No one is paying anyone to do that out in southwest Philly.  So there's more trash on the ground.  Do you think that's because the people that live there are bigger slobs?  I don't.  I have driven there day and night and I have never once felt threatened. I actually get out of my car while I am down there *gasp* with some frequency.  When I knock on the doors of my girls' houses, they invite me in.  Everyone comes to see who it is and say hi. The neighbors in the adjacent houses greet me.  There are lots of people out on the streets.  Very often, the young women see people they know, and they holler and wave out the car windows while the people on the streets wave back.  I asked one of the young women how girls camp was after she got back just a few weeks ago.  You know what she told me?...  It was good and fun, but I wanted to come home because I missed Southwest so bad.  This is a tight knit neighborhood that really great people call home.

So it makes me sad when people visit Philadelphia or move here already equipped with ideas about how it is here.  They look at a neighborhood and decide that rundown must automatically equal scary and dangerous.  And they never take the time to get to know the people that live there.  Then they leave this place with their erroneous ideas still in place and perpetuate those stereotypes to others.  And the cycle continues.  It is time for us all to quit putting people into boxes based on where they live, how much money they have, or the color of their skin.  It's a lot harder to practice that out here, and I see good people, who have lived in Utah (or elsewhere) their whole lives, who never really had to confront issues of poverty or race head on, struggling with this.  Even I have a long way to go still.  There is no "us" and "them" in the church or in the gospel.  There are only children of our heavenly father.  I am not suggesting that every person who is white or every person who lives in the suburbs is awful or bad or even has these ideas.  I am trying not to put people like that into boxes either and claim that they (we) are all the exact same.  I am not calling for everyone to move into southwest Philadelphia either.  I am just asking people to step outside themselves a little; to quit assuming that just because you are a white person in a poor, black neighborhood that you must automatically be the target of a crime; to decide not to believe that just because a neighborhood has a high crime rate, everyone there must be committing crimes and must be out to get you; and to realize that putting ourselves out there to serve our brothers and sisters of all walks of life is important.

No more of this Philly hatin', okay?  You be the next one brave enough to change the trend.

And the good news is...

I have a job!  Well, sorta.  I found a seasonal job doing flu shot immunization clinics throughout the area this fall.  It's not exactly what I wanted, but hey, it's way better than the nothing that I have had for the past several months.

I am still looking for a "real" job in the mean time, but this job hunt has been difficult and discouraging from the start.  Economic hard times lead everyone to tighten their belts, even hospitals.  It costs a lot to train a new graduate to be a nurse, so a lot of times, those are the first jobs places get rid of when times get tough.  Many of the hospitals in the area have been in hiring freezes for months.  That was something I was well aware of when I graduated.  We were told many times over that it would not be easy to find a job in this economy.  Philly in particular is a bad situation because there are so many nursing schools in the area constantly turning out grads. The competition is stiff.  In fact, the number one piece of advice they gave us at a career workshop as we were about to exit the nursing program was move out of here if you can.  If that wasn't possible, they encouraged us to look in different places than hospitals for employment, particularly nursing homes.  Well I did that.  I looked every place I could think of. I perused newspaper ads and hospital websites.  I called nursing homes and assisted living centers.  I met with the stake employment specialist and attended a huge job fair.  I found very little that I was even qualified to apply for (still, I applied to a ton of jobs I was not qualified for), and I know that for every job I was eligible for, there were probably at least a few dozen other candidates out there vying for it too.  I am not solely blaming the economy or the Philly situation.  I'm not sure I am very good at this job hunt thing.  I absolutely hate to call people I do not know on the phone, and it takes me hours to build up the courage to call a nursing home to ask if they are hiring.  I guess that aggressive would be one of the last words I would use to describe my job hunting style.  Unfortunately, I think that's what it takes in this economy.  The quiet yet persistent approach just isn't cutting it.

Anyway, time is running out.  If I can't pull a pretty awesome "real" job out of my hat in the next few months, I do believe we will be decided that grad school in Philly may not be our most viable option, and we will move on to somewhere else come January.