Search Results for: coupons

I've made no bones about how I'm an extremely cheap person. I pretty it up by calling it frugal, but that's just my secret code for cheap. So when it comes to coupons, I'm a participator. No, I do not have shelves of got-it-for-free air fresheners and cup-o-noodles in my basement, instead I go the...

What do restaurant meals, bowling and, ahem, personal waxing all have in common? Easy. They're all items/services you'd be foolhardy to approach without a coupon in hand. No longer are coupons relegated to the grocery and drug store aisles. Coupons today are for anything and everything. And yes, I use them. I do not consider...

Coupons get a bad rap. Sure, there are countless coupons for Lean Cuisine, Count Chocula and Sunny Delight. But there are also huge numbers of coupons for butter, bread and pasta. Add in store specific coupons, and there's no reason to turn a blind eye to this opportunity for grocery and general savings. I just...

When my friend Glenn sent me a link to a Good Morning America/ Huffington Post piece about a woman who feeds her family of six on $4 per week. My first thought was: Wow, that's a lot of lentils! But no, the women is one of those coupon fanatics who's able to combine sales, coupons...

I stopped by the Franz Bakery Outlet on Saturday to grab a couple loaves of of their $1 bread for our basement freezer. (First Saturday of the month, bay-bee!) I'd hoped to score a couple more sleeves of their restaurant packaged English muffins, as each bag holds a dozen or so muffins, but such was...

I stopped into a Goodwill to see if I could find anything to resell or at least photograph for the blog. I found neither and left with my wallet intact. Poor quality crap in the stores = poor quality crap in thrift shops. I had more figs than I could possibly eat, so I chopped...

I started reading a library copy of Anne Tyler's Three Days in June, which drew me in from the very first chapter. I'll never stop being appreciative of everything my local library provides! I arranged to get together with a neighbor for tea in the garden later this week. It'll be nice to catch up...

I used the discount postage website PirateShip.com to mail my father's needlepoint artwork to New York. $14.18, which is a pretty good deal considering the box was 19" x 19" x 3" and 4-½ pounds. I then walked the package to the UPS store. I passed by the above free wire shelf unit on my...

I finished organizing all the drawers from our built-in buffet, which was deeply satisfying. I found a lot of things to recycle, a few things to throw away, one thing to gift through Buy Nothing (the above clothesline) and a handful of random bits and bobs to donate to Goodwill. I then gave my husband...

When pushed to come up with a few holiday gift ideas, my daughter asked for a blender. I was able to find a Cuisinart Duet model on Facebook Marketplace for $15, which was much better than the $90 it would have cost new. I had to drive across town, but that was okay with me....

My sister needed a last minute duffel bag for her trip back to New York, so I placed a request for one in my Buy Nothing group. We had a response almost immediately and the bag in hand in under an hour! The duffel bag gifter also gave me four 10%-off Safeway coupons that she...

I've been working the art (and science) of extreme frugality since 1998, when my youngest was born and I realized I needed to pull it together financially. It's been an interesting 26 years, as many of the frugal hacks I used to employ have gone the way of the dodo bird. Luckily, new money saving...

My son and his girlfriend were visiting and he mentioned that a $70 electronic device he'd bought on Amazon wasn't working properly. I offered to manage the return and promptly took care of of it this afternoon as it's easy enough for me to drop it at the UPS Store in my neighborhood. Bing, bang,...

I stopped by my beloved dented vegetable store yesterday afternoon and shelled out $7.78 for an impressive amount of (actually undented) groceries/produce. Here's what I got: • Two yellow heirloom tomatoes. • One container of cherry tomatoes. • Three heads of broccoli. • One container of mixed greens. • One big yellow squash. • Two...

I finished refurbishing my adult daughter's old bedroom, which'll continue as her personal space in the house. We already have a designated "spare bedroom," so both kids get to keep their childhood rooms to chill out in when they're here. We let our daughter take all her childhood furniture to her apartment, so I had...

I picked up a discarded Winco receipt outside the store and later scanned it into my Fetch app. * I don't earn impressive points as I rarely buy big corporate brands, but have scanned abandoned receipts here and there, which always do better than my own. I finally gathered the supplies to try out this...

I stopped by the Franz Bakery outlet store with a completed punch card that would normally be worth five loaves of bread. Unfortunately pickings were slim so I grabbed just a single $2 loaf of Seattle sourdough bread and brought it to the cashier. I explained that I had a full card but wouldn't be...

I recorded a interview with the dudes Matt and Joel over at the How To Money podcast a couple weeks ago, which is finally available for your listening pleasure. I was sure that I full on rambled during the interview, but now think it actually turned out pretty decent. Fun facts: • Joel Larsgaard was...

I took my mom to the Goodwill bins, where I scored a small LLBean duffel bag, a new looking Land's End lined rain coat, (in my size!) a lazy Susan and a miniature wooden Pinocchio. All of which I'm keeping. The Adventure duffel was unfortunately embroidered with the name "Eleanor," which I'm 93% sure is...

I received a large postcard of coupons for a high end grocery store that's normally too pricey for my cheap blood. It included a coupon for a free jar of pasta sauce, which I promptly snipped. This coupon was dated for a week or so out, so I added it to my calendar to make...

I didn't sell much on eBay, then again I didn't thrift much last week. I did try to stop at the N.E. Broadway location after hitting the Franz Bakery outlet, (high end $1 loaves and bagels!) but there was a neighborhood blackout and all the businesses were dark. • I parted out a marble chess...

So sorry that my blogging schedule has devolved to the far side of infrequent, but my focus has been on family, health and hearth. I've continued to sell things here and there on eBay, including a handful of items pulled from "free boxes," (ski gloves, ski bindings, a book, a Christmas stocking and a set...

I sold just a couple of things, including: • An extra Oakley accessory kit that went with an old pair of my husband's work sunglasses. • One of my son's accounting textbooks. • A set of my son's Mega Man electronic game chips. Actually, that's all that sold. Lucky son. I went for a masked...

I sold just a few things on eBay and absolutely nothing through Facebook Marketplace. However, the eBay sales were enjoyable as you can see: • A plastic Fiestaware cheese knife set that had been relegated to the back of a cupboard for at least twenty years. $80? Yes, please! • A collectible Vueve Clicquot champagne...

eBay sales have been coming in at a good clip, which is welcome since December is always a huge clusterhump of gifting, winter term tuition and miscellaneous add ons like nursing license renewal, car registration and the inevitable financial nonsense. Some items were things I'd recently picked up, while others had been languishing in my...

I stopped into a nearby Goodwill store to recharge my batteries and ended up walking out with three items: • A $3.49 Salvatore Ferragamo silk necktie which I quickly resold for $30. • A $1.99 painting from the Tanzanian artist Simon George Mpata, whose art is displayed in museums throughout the world. I put it...

I noticed that my refrigerator was empty while my freezer was full, so I spent a hour or so remedying the situation. I was able to pull out enough food for multiple meals and make use of my already paid for food. I only composted a few items, most notably the above wrinkly orb that...

I worked yesterday and dutifully packed enough food to get me through the 12-½ hour shift. (A banana, hard boiled eggs, grilled chicken and some green beans.) However, it turned out to be the day when the hospital provides a free holiday meal for the entire staff! I did eat the banana for breakfast, but...