Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: bargains–score (Page 1 of 5)

Eggs. Lots of eggs.

February 21, 2014 / / 1 Comment

At the grocery store today, I came across a 5 dozen package of eggs that was slightly damaged.
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Two packages, actually. Can you read that price there? 25 cents.

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Normally I don’t buy eggs at the grocery store, since we have 11 chickens who are supposed to be not just entertaining us, also laying eggs for us. By supposed to, I mean that they are each laying one egg about every other day. So, we get around 4-5 eggs a day. Which is enough for us, and extra to sell a dozen or so a week to my friends who love fresh eggs as much as we do. If everyone were pulling their weight and it were warmer, we might get 9-10 eggs a day, and could therefore sell or give away more.

But for a total of 50 cents, I got a whole lot of eggs.

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Of course, some of them were broken, and I had to wash them all to get the egg goop cleaned off of them, but I am used to washing eggs, and I have no trouble throwing the broken ones away. We don’t often have white eggs.

And, I have lots of spare egg cartons because people that I give eggs to will often save their cartons, so I just washed them, and put the cute little white eggs into new cartons.

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When they were all washed and put away, I had about 8 and a half dozen. For 50 cents. I don’t know WHO you are, but that’s a bargain right there.

So, I’m going to get crackin’ (literally) and we’ll have eggs for dinner tonight. Just don’t tell the girls that they didn’t come from them.

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Valentine’s day done right

February 19, 2014 / / 1 Comment

My husband gave me a shower head for Valentine’s day. Uh-huh. Yes he did. Installed it, too. Now that’s what I call a gift.

For a few weeks our shower has been kind of dribbling. Not great. I asked him if he knew what was wrong with it, and he did not. That shower head has been working hard for over 12 years, so I guess it got tired. Instead of buying a new shower head, however, my husband pulled one out of the boxes under our bed, and gave it to me. Instant gift.

What? Why do we have a shower head under our bed? We have a lot of neato shower parts in boxes hidden around the house. You see, several years ago, a certain shower maker wanted to partner with Ryan’s company and do a really cool automated shower. Somehow Ryan was the guy, and we got a whole bunch of shower stuff delivered to our house. Where is the really cool shower? In boxes. Ryan didn’t want to demo the bathroom and redo the whole shower, especially not when we were trying to work on the basement. So, in the boxes it sits.

Until now. Now I have a really cool shower head that does multiple functions. Like a hotel shower. And the cost? FREE. Better than flowers in my opinion.

(I gave him a shirt. A pink shirt, no less. Because we are ALL about the sappy valentines day stuff here.)

BUT, the next night, we got all dressed up and went to a Ball. Yes, that’s right, a BALL. A Regency ball. Where people dress up in their best Pride and Prejudice era garb and eat fancy food with the right forks and all that.

A friend of ours was turning 40 and wanted to throw herself a ball. She LOVES stuff like this. Well, it wasn’t exactly her birthday, but Valentine’s weekend, instead.

They hosted this party at the White willow Reception center in Provo. Everyone came dressed up. Some rented their clothes, some used what they had at home, some borrowed. It was so much fun.

Here I am sipping my juice. Elegant, right?

After dinner, there was even dance instruction and some dancing, and fancy desserts.

Ryan had to try on my gloves. I think he’s doing a magic trick or something.

There was even a photographer there taking pictures of us when we came in, and then candid shots throughout the evening. I can’t wait to see those.

What a fun way to celebrate Valentine’s day! I’m so glad we got to attend.

Not ready for extreme couponing just yet

December 6, 2013 / / 0 Comments

Saving money is hard, and it’s sometimes stressful. After figuring out exactly what to buy and what coupons to use at Walgreens to take advantage of the Register Rewards and maximize my savings, I was frustrated when I did everything right and the $10 coupon did not print out. I had to have her call the manager, then wait for a manager, meanwhile feeling super awkward as other people looked at me wondering why I’m not checking out. But when the manager finally came, she looked at my receipt and confirmed that I had indeed purchased the required amounts, (4 Pantene products and 2 Always products–the joy of having lots of girls) and it should have printed it out. She printed out not only the $10 register reward, but also another $5 coupon. So, it was like a $5 bonus. Great! I felt like my hard work paid off.

Then, I was off to our local grocery store. I had counted out my coupons and written down exactly what I needed to purchase and which coupons to use. They currently have a special that if you buy four boxes of cereal, you get a free gallon of milk. I’m all over that one, and I had coupon match ups as well.

I bought
10 Progresso soups
12 boxes of cereal
3 gallons of milk
2 little debbie snack cake
1 box of Capri sun

I also picked up a can of mixed nuts for Ryan and a package of bird seed because I realized we were out of birdseed.

With the $10 off when you spend $50 coupon that came in the mail, I spent $35.95

SCORE! I felt like I finally did it right!
Now, as long as we are ok eating cereal for every meal, we’re set for the next week!

The Grocery Game

October 19, 2013 / / 1 Comment

We are trying to get back on a budget at our house. Ryan’s got me reading Dave Ramsey and all that, and we are going to focus on getting out of debt.

I don’t always do coupons and pay attention to the sales, but TODAY I DID.
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I went to our local grocery store because they had a GREAT sale on General Mills items, with a “buy 8, get $6 back” deal. I don’t LOVE these little games they make you play to make sure you have all the right items and in the right quantity, and then to match those items with coupons makes it extra complicated, but I took the coupons I knew I would use, and not ALL the coupons I had so that I could pay attention and JUST get the things that were on sale.

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I actually loved watching the guy ring in my purchases, adding my coupons, the sales, and then the $6 back from buying the featured items. Want to know how much I paid for all this food?

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I don’t know if you can read that amount, so I’ll make that picture bigger…
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but I paid $88.84. And that includes 6 bags of candy there in the middle. I used $12 something in coupons, and my receipt says I saved $88.11. Boo-Ya. Granted, I bought a lot of packed food and no meat, but since we just bought a fourth of a cow and our freezer is FULL, I didn’t need to buy any meat. Plus, we are still enjoying produce from our tomatoes and apples right now.

I am not claiming to be the best bargain shopper there is, but it gives me a little thrill to bring home that much food, especially the snacky things like gogurt and granola bars and fruit snacks, and to save money on it.

Yes, I feel kind of smart. Now I need to see if I can rustle up any more coupons so I can get more of this stuff while it’s still on sale. And to reach around and pat myself on the back just a little bit, thank you very much.

Why I love Grease Monkey and the story of the headlight

March 19, 2013 / / 2 Comments

A few months ago our daughter had an unfortunate accident where she hit a parked car. Not much damage to the 88 Camry she was driving, more damage to the 95 Camry she hit. Anyway, that left our Camry with a crunched headlight. When it came time to get that car inspected, we wanted to make sure it was going to pass inspection before we put any money into it.

So, I took that car in to Grease Monkey to be inspected, and miraculously, everything else passed. They told me that they would once we got that light, they would put it in, and could even pound out that bit of metal so that the light would go in.

That was in January. Ryan didn’t want to go picking and pulling to find that light at a junkyard, so he ordered it from some place off the internet. When the light finally came, it was quite BIG for the light that we needed. Turns out that they sent us a taillight for a Nissan VAN or something, not the side light for a Camry. Ryan had to write to that company, get a RMA number, etc, etc. Then he ordered the part from Auto Zone, thinking that they would get it right. Right? When that part came another week or two later, it was also the wrong part. Smaller, but not right. So Ryan took the part in to Auto Zone and probably chewed them out. How hard is it to order a part for a stinkin 88 Camry?

Here we are in mid March, and the guy from Auto Zone called to tell me the part was in. I was skeptical, but went to go get it. It was indeed the correct part. Megan and I went back to Grease Monkey to see if they could A-install the light, and B-sign off on our registration inspection, even though we have been expired for about 45 days. Those guys at Grease Monkey not only installed the light for us, they pounded out some of the crunched metal to make the part fit! AND they passed off on the inspection. When I went to pay, he said it was NO CHARGE. NO CHARGE? Can you believe that?

So I must sing the praises of Grease Monkey once again. Not only do they give you popcorn and drinks while you wait, accept everyone else’s coupons making it so I never have to pay full price, AND they are generally nice and helpful guys! And the Lehi location is really the best (not to mention that there’s a Kneaders right next door, in case the popcorn and sodas aren’t enough for you to nosh on while you wait for the nice guys to work on your car.)

Thank you, Grease Monkey!

Thankful weekend

November 24, 2012 / / 2 Comments

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What a wonderful Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a big family gathering for the Colemans. Because there were about 70 people coming, we had to hold the dinner at my sister’s church, and there was no shortage of yumminess going on. Larissa got to experience her first Thanksgiving, and hopefully she will remember the day fondly.

My family doesn’t go in for all the formal dinner stuff, (we used paper plates) and while half of the cultural hall was set up with tables, the other half was used for basketball. People played before and after the meal. There were oreo turkeys and silly hats.
Perfect! We also got to chat and catch up with cousins I only see once or twice a year, and everyone had a great time.

After most people had sufficiently stuffed themselves, I took my large pot that had held green beans and started to scrape plates into the pot. What? Some of the food was HARDLY touched, (picky kids!) and it’s good enough for my chickens, right? Those girls aren’t picky–they eat bugs, for heaven’s sake. I filled the WHOLE pot with the leavings, even though I got some strange looks and had to explain that I wasn’t taking this home to feed my family, but to feed my CHICKENS. Otherwise it would just be going in the trash, right? I had to transfer that big pot of squished food to 3 gallon sized ziplock bags. I wouldn’t want to feed it to them all at once. They are happy with the leftovers and don’t complain at all when I bring it out to them.

The chickens are happy with their new fabulous house, by the way.

Here’s an inside view.

They don’t have a microwave and furniture in there, but I worried it might come to that.

Anyway, after that big family feast, we went over to Ryan’s sister Julene’s house, where most of Ryan’s family was gathered. They were just finishing up dinner, so I’m glad we didn’t get there any earlier. We tasted some of our favorites and Ryan got some of his mom’s dressing, which is his favorite part of Thanksgiving. I’m not a big stuffing/dressing fan, so I don’t bother with that, but he is convinced that it’s the best dressing in the world, and it’s not Thanksgiving until he has some. That right there is one reason that I won’t even attempt to make dressing. It would never live up to his mom’s, and I don’t really like it, anyway. After the meal, we helped clear the table and divide up the leftovers. Even though we didn’t eat at this party, we ended up taking a little bit of everything home. Ryan’s mom divied up the leftover dressing (don’t ever call it stuffing, by the way. “Stuffing is cooked inside the bird, dressing is NOT.”), in baggies. Ryan’s niece Camille just started eating the dressing. “This won’t even make it home,” she said. Like I said, this family really like’s Mom’s recipe. Julene and Italo’s son, Elias, even called Grandma from California and asked how to make this dressing. He was hosting his first Thanksgiving and said hers was the best dressing he’d ever tasted. She gave him all the specifics and instructions. Not sure how it turned out, but good for him for trying it. We went home with the generous fixins for the perfect leftover sandwiches–turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy and sweet potatoes. I had made rolls and pumpkin pie for us, so we were set for at least one lunch.

We are so blessed to live so close to family! It was a wonderful day with people we love and we are so blessed.

For Black Friday, I did a little online shopping. Ryan was the one who went out, but that was just to the hardware store. He’s been working on the basement this week since he had a couple of days off. Hooray! No, we are not ready for our 4-way inspection and I don’t know when that will be, but every day there is some progress, and it’s been nice to have Cole here for the weekend to help out. He doesn’t really let me help much, but I did help move a tub into place and he let me paint a door frame yesterday. I really just try to stay out of the way.

In the afternoon on Friday, Ryan and I got cleaned up and went to Salt Lake to meet the family in the Salt Lake Temple. Ryan’s niece Rachel is going on a mission. She’s the first sister missionary in the family, and we are SO proud of her. She’s going to The Dominican Republic. Because of the new mission age for girls, her younger sister Marissa is ALSO going on a mission, and just got her call this week to serve in Puerto Rico! How blessed this family will be to have two missionaries out at the same time! We enjoyed an endowment session there in the temple, then met for dinner at the Garden Restaurant. Because the lights on Temple Square turned on at 5:00, it was pretty crowded, but that just added to the spirit of Temple Square. We looked out over the temple and it was so beautiful!


(Photo from RKSmith

Saturday was spent working about the house. I ran some errands and bought a few things. But while at Kohler’s (our local grocery store), I realized that the 6 pk bottles of sprite were still on sale for $2 each. Thinking that these might make fun and easy neighbor gifts, I bought all I could find. When I showed up at the checkout, my cart was FULL of sprite, and a few other things for a salad. I got some weird looks (again), but I don’t mind. A bargain is a bargain.

I was kind of bugging my husband to get the lights up while it was warm, but he decided to do that when he decides to do that. I had bought new LED lights after Christmas last year, and therefore we needed new clips. I bought some when I was at Lowe’s this week, but not knowing if they were right, I only bought 3 boxes of 100 each. Well, they were right, but we needed more. I went back to Lowes while he got started. Of course Lowe’s did not have any. I checked WalMart to see if they had such a clip….nada. Then I went to Home Depot. I found a similar clip, just not the same exact one. It will have to do! I bought five boxes of 75 each. Hopefully they will work, cause that was all I could find. I could always order more–if I had to.

The weekend was a nice break from school and work. It was really wonderful to be here with family and to have time to celebrate, count our blessings, and enjoy!

Please Makeover my basement, Mandi!

September 3, 2012 / / 5 Comments

You may remember that I entered a blogging contest last year to have the absolutely talented and amazing Mandi come and do a room makeover. I didn’t win, but that doesn’t mean I don’t absolutely follow and adore Mandi (she’s MET Nate Berkus, for heaven’s sake) and am amazed at what she can do with a little paint and creativity. And believe me, paint and creativity are two of my favorite things. My other favorite thing? FREE!!! Oh, you know it.

Well, she is doing it again!

And do I have the perfect space for her!

My basement!

Don’t panic, Mandi, you don’t have to do the whole basement, you can CHOOSE YOUR ROOM!

Right now everything looks pretty much the same, but soon we will sheetrock these walls. The beauty of this project is, there’s nothing to take down, paint over, or rip out. We can start fresh!

You can choose to makeover a bedroom,

or a different bedroom,

a kitchenette/family room,

Or we could break those up and do JUST the family room,

or JUST the kitchen.

Don’t let those piles of insulation scare you, those will be up in the ceiling and walls soon enough.

Why do we need Mandi’s help and your votes? Because on our own we will never get this done. Seriously. Two years ago I told the hubby, “let’s not take a vacation, let’s just use those days and work on the basement.” Oh, how I laugh at that statement now. I think that was about the time when hubby started really traveling for work, so that he leaves the country and is gone for weeks at a time. Well, we started on this basement about a year ago. It took us a while to dejunk and clean it out, and then we had it framed back around Christmas time last year. We currently have an exchange student from Germany living with us, and when we the host family coordinator asked if we could host this school year, I think I said, “Oh, we’ll have the basement done by then, so we will actually have room for her!” Not so.

Hubby’s done most of the work so far, and he’s amazing. I don’t know how to do any of the wiring or plumbing to help him. And the poor man doesn’t have a lot of free time, what with a full time job, extra traveling for work, church duties, a garden, and a busy family with 5 make that 6 children.

I love to paint and can’t wait to slap some paint on the walls. I even have dreams of buying new furniture, but I can’t really think about that (or buy anything) until we get those rooms done. I do have one piece I already painted, remember this vanity?

Right now it’s stuffed in my bedroom waiting and wishing for a room of it’s own someday where it won’t just get piled high with laundry to fold. But that’s probably the wish of all my furniture in my bedroom to tell you the truth.

So, as you can see, we have a lot of…..potential (that’s putting it nicely), and need. We NEED Mandi to come and help us out with her decorating pizzaz and her boundless energy. She could whip this place into shape in no time.

All I need from you is your vote. Just click on the box and vote, vote vote.

From Mandi’s website, the timeline is like this:

September 7-September 14: Linky open for voting. Send everyone you know over to vote for your post. Please help me get as MANY votes as I can, so if you could help me by posting a link on your facebook page, or blogging, or asking your friends to vote for me (even if they don’t know me, I’d still LOVE all the votes I can get).

September 15: Top 10 winners will be emailed and required to submit a “Plead Your Case”. The Top 10 will have 36 hours to submit their paragraph. If it is not submitted in time an alternate will be chosen. Top 10 will be determined with a combination of Most Votes on the Linky Party, Random.Org, and Wild Card Favorites.

September 17: Top Ten announced/Plead Your Case Post goes live. At this time voting will be open to the public and will run until September 24th at Midnight MST.

September 25: Winner is announced and has one week to prepare for the lightening fury that is the Epic Room Makeover.

So if you can mark your calendars, set a reminder in your phone, write it on a sticky note to vote between Sept 7 and 14th, I would SO appreciate it!

We’re so hungry

March 22, 2012 / / 3 Comments

It’s Hunger Games Movie Mania time.


I read the books, along with about everyone I know. Loved the first book, loved the second book less, and didn’t love the third book. Suspense, Action, Drama, a little romance. But I don’t need to tell you that, because you probably read them, too. Even my mom has read the books, although she said she didn’t like them. Hats off to you, Suzanne Collins. May you live in peace and enjoy your millions.

So, a few weeks ago my 15 year old daughter asked if we could buy tickets for the movie. She wanted to give them to her friend for her birthday. We decided not to do the midnight showing (I just can’t go without sleep like that anymore), but bought tickets for the three of us (they need a driver) for Saturday. But then my 13 year old daughter was feeling left out because why couldn’t she come with us, and when was SHE going to see it. Her carpool friend was going on and on bout how excited she was to go to the MIDNIGHT movie with her family, blah, blah, blah, and so I looked into buying another ticket to take her with us on Saturday, although older sister didn’t think that was a good idea at all. Ugh. Sisters.

But then, on Tuesday morning, I happened to be the right caller when radio guy said CALL NOW to win Hunger Games movie premier tickets. I won two tickets to the Wednesday night premier! A day before all those MIDNIGHT movie insane people could see it. He said he would put my name on a list, and knowing that I had rehearsal that night, I put Natalie’s name on the list, and then told her she could invite a friend. She was through the roof excited!


(no, we didn’t win a free shirt. Now THAT would have been really cool!)

So, she got a friend and I talked to the friend’s mom and got it all arranged. Friend came over Wed at 5, and we took off. Yes, leaving at 5 for a 7:30 movie is a little early, but we know from experience that they ALWAYS give out more tickets than there are seats, and if you don’t get there early, you will NOT get in. Seriously. Ryan and I have been to quite a few movie premiers. There were good ones, like That thing you do, Miracle(got a promotional squishy hockey puck at that one, The Astronaut Farmer, Hildalgo (Ryan got a free hat at that one), , and The Count of Monte Cristo (we remember that one because some lady behind us said quite loudly “He’s SO GORGEOUS” right behind us during the movie, and it made us laugh), a re-release of Star WArsWe’ve also witnessed several not so good movies, most of which we have forgotten, like that one with James Earl Jones and Robert Duvall (can’t remember anything about that movie except that it was boring), Along Came Polly, Dukes of Hazard,something stupid with Demi Moore, and I’m sure there have been others, but it’s really about 8 am and my brain can’t really remember them all. But my point is…. If you aren’t there early, you won’t get in. Once, I had worked so hard to win TWO sets of passes to the latest Harry Potter movie (I think it was 5. Or 6. Don’t know), so that I could take all the kids AND the cousins who were staying with us. I gathered them all up in the Suburban, and we got down to the Gateway at about 5:30 only to realize as we were getting out of the car that Cole didn’t have his shoes (we laugh about it now! In his defense, I did say “Get in the car”, and I didn’t mention anything about getting shoes on BEFORE we did so), but that’s beside the point. We rushed into the lobby, only to find that we wouldn’t be able to get actual seats, even though we had passes. Ryan’s brother, of course, got there early enough to get seats. But I’m not bitter or anything. So, you can see why I was rushing to get them down there to the theater.

When we got there, there were already several lines, and when we got up to check our name off the list so we could get in line, ticket lady with bad teeth said that she had no list, and the promotions people have their own list, and weren’t there yet. Ponytail ticket lady said that, no, promotions lady was indeed there, but she had told her she wasn’t working until 6. I looked at my watch, and it was 5:55. OK. Don’t stress out. 5 minutes won’t make or break this deal. So we waited. And waited. And waited, while many other people went in with their little passes. Stress. What if they don’t make it in? What if I have to wait here forever and am late for rehearsal? What if my little girl is left alone at the gateway with no movie to attend? Ugh. Breathe in. Breathe out. At about 6:20, the promotions gal turned up, and looked at her list. Sure enough, Natalie’s name is on it, and she ushers them over to the line where they are guaranteed seats. Big Sigh of relief! I hugged her and said goodbye, told her where I would pick her up, and the ticket lady was nice enough to tell me that the movie would be over at 10:02. That was very nice of her, because then I knew I would have time to park and meet them there at the theater.

To reward myself for getting them into the movie, I got myself a Junior Crown burger combo. Yum. And got to rehearsal in plenty of time. Just as I was going into rehearsal I got a text from Natalie telling me they were taking all their phones, goodbye. What? Like she could record and pirate the movie on her crappy phone. That reminds me…it’s March. Didn’t the T-mobile guy tell me I could get a free phone in March? Got to check into that! AHEM. Ok, I’m back.

AT 10:02, I was there, back at the Gateway, to pick them up. Smiling people were coming out talking about what an awesome movie that was.

Just the trailer makes me cry. You can watch the trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=SMGRhAEn6K0 (it wouldn’t let me embed it for some reason)

They were SO happy they had gotten to see it, and told me a little bit, but not too much. They even made $5 when someone asked them to save their place in line and offered to pay them 5 bucks. Sweet! Junior mints and popcorn!

But most importantly, my daughter got to feel like a rock star. She got to feel like a special person, getting to see a movie premier before any of her friends. It won’t make any difference in her life, or even next month. But today, she can feel special. And hopefully, she will remember how much her mom loves her.

Can I help it if I prefer FREE?

February 9, 2012 / / 4 Comments

We are planning a trip for spring break. A trip to Nauvoo to see some LDS church history sights and play and have fun with the family. Thankfully, we were able to book the flights using miles from Ryan’s extensive traveling (Thanks, Ryan’s job!), and we’re getting some pretty decent deals on hotels.

As we were talking about the trip, hubby said to me, “Now don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but…..(long awkward pause) maybe you could relax a little bit on the trip, and….maybe let the kids order drinks once in a while.”

What? Are you calling me cheap?!

Well, yes, I AM cheap, or as we in the cheap community like to call it…”Frugal”. I do admit that I like to win my vacations instead of pay for them; if it’s possible to use a coupon at a restaurant, I will try it; and I have a frequent diners card for just about every place we go to eat. Is there anything wrong with that? We try to stay at hotels with free breakfast, and if not, then we end up keeping cereal and milk and granola bars and oatmeal at the hotel to avoid the cost of eating out for breakfast. And drinks! Don’t even get me started about the mark-up on drinks! If everyone in my family orders a soda at $1.99 to go with their meal, that’s an extra $14 added to the meal. I can’t change my personality just because I’m on vacation!

Once when in San Diego, we went to a yummy yogurt place, and with the 7 of us and my parents, we filled up an entire punch card. So, we let Cole get the free $5 worth of yogurt right then, since we were leaving in the morning and most likely never coming back to that place to use our rewards card. He piled on the toppings and enjoyed a yogurt overload. Hey, there are perks to being the only teenager on vacation, you get to be the designated glutton!

We all laugh about the time that we were at Disneyland, and I used the free birthday tortillas from the Mission tortilla factory to make pb & j roll ups, but the jelly all smooshed out of the rolled up tortillas and ended up in a huge sticky mess in the bag. Fun memories!

Of course, nothing can compare to the cheapness in college. Some friends and I went to Disneyland, and instead of buy ANY food in the park, we had brought Captain Crunch cereal, bread, and peanut butter. Halfway through the day, we trooped out to the car, and ate our cruchilicious-peanutbuttery feast. My aunt, who was Disneylanding with us that day, just laughed and laughed at our cheapness.

And sporting events? I can’t say we NEVER go unless they are free, but that’s pretty close of an assessment. Go, Jazz! Same thing with concerts. I’m ok sitting in the nosebleed section to see a concert (Lady A next week–so excited!), although I must admit that those 2nd row seats to see Michael Buble were pretty sweet. I do pay full ticket price for Broadway (or touring) musicals, if I have to. I guess I do have that weakness. I mean, I TRY to win tickets, but it doesn’t always work out for me.

But I did listen to him and agreed that I would try to not stress out about money while on vacation. If that means paying for some things in advance and setting aside a certain amount of cash to use for entertainment and eating out, then I can get on board. Or maybe I just let him pay for everything and not look at receipts (or menus) so that I’m blissfully unaware of how much we are spending. Nope, can’t do that.

I can’t be the only one who tries to save money even while on vacation. How do you do it? Do you just get into that “I’m on vacation” mentality and spend with reckless abandon? Or, like me, do you still try to keep it simple and not go all extravagant even though you are on vacation?

Get your priorities straight, Grommet!

December 8, 2011 / / 5 Comments

I have a ton of stuff I should be doing.
I need to finish cleaning my kitchen, as I’m hosting a big brunch here on Sunday.
I need to flippin clean up my office. It’s a disaster.
I need to wrap some presents, because I have a huge pile of shipping boxes and shopping bags not so skillfully hidden in my bedroom.
I need to make my treat to take to the Relief Society party tonight.
I need to go out and check on my chickens and see if they’ve left me a very cold egg.
I need to hem those pants for my daughter, that she left hanging on my sewing chair.
I need to finish arranging my furniture in the front room that got rearranged by the Christmas tree.
I need to haul about 60 pounds of crap from the basement to the garbage.
I need to take a shower and get ready for the day. I get to teach 1/2 day at the Jr High today (woo-hoo).
I need to start a load of laundry.

And yet, here I sit, writing Tillamook Cheese Christmas carols for a contest.

The 1st prize is FREE Cheese, people. Free Cheese!

So far I’ve got this little jingle, to the tune of “Have yourself a merry little Christmas”

Have yourself a merry slice of cheddar,
Tillamook’s so light
From now on,
our troubles will be out of sight.

Have yourself a chunk atop a cracker,
make it Tillamook.
It’s so nice
for snacking, won’t you take a look.

Here we are as in olden days,
Happy golden days of yore.
Faithful cheeses are dear to us
Gather near to us once more.

Through the years 
We all will have our favorites,
Colby, swiss, or jack
All the greatest dairy products from the cow.
So have yourself A slice of Tillamook right now.

I can do better, though.

FREE CHEESE!  

How about this one?

Santa Baby,
Just slip a cheddar under the tree
For me
Been an awful good girl
Santa Baby, make sure that it’s Tillamook cheese

Santa baby, chocolate peanut butter ice cream
A dream
I’ll wait up for you, dear
Santa baby, make sure it comes from Tillamook

Sour cream is oh so smooth
How about a package of Till-a-moos
Next year I could be just as good
If you’ll bring along a block of swiss.

Santa Baby, Colby Jack and Pepper Jack sliced
So Nice
Been an angel all year
Santa Baby, so bring me something Tillamook tonight.

Santa honey, a bag of shredded Mexican blend
Makes our tacos so fine
Santa Baby, make sure it comes from Tillamook

Santa cutie, and fill my stocking baby Swiss
Oh, Bliss
Provalone is so fine
Santa cutie, make sure it comes from Tillamook.

Come and trim my Christmas tree
With some decorations that are Chees-y
I really do believe in you
Lets see if you believe in me

Santa Baby, forgot to mention yogurt so sweet
A treat!
Santa Baby, so hurry down the chimney tonight
Hurry down the chimney tonight
Hurry…tonight

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