Mommin' It Up!

March 31, 2008

Now all we need is a baby.

I know you’ve all been waiting to see the results of our fabled Ikea trip (What’s that? You haven’t been waiting on tenterhooks? I’m shocked!)… it’s taken a while to get all that stuff put together! But the nursery’s finally (almost) ready, so I thought I’d do some before-and-after pics!

Here’s what the baby’s room looked like before…

As you can see, we were going for the Russian orphanage look.

Kate finally couldn’t take it anymore, so she took the situation into her own hands and decorated the walls.

As you can see, something had to be done! So two trips to Ikea, a whole lot of money and lots of time spent with an allen wrench later, here’s what we’ve got.

This was what I went there to buy.

This was what I accidentally bought.

The rug’s from Ikea, the kid is ours.

I wish that we had painted the walls, but we never got around to it, and given my track record in picking paint colors (Kate’s room is “Bonita Berry,” otherwise known as the color of Dora’s shirt), that may not be a bad thing.

Speaking of that, anyone have a great idea for turning an insanely bright pink Dora room into one we don’t need sunglasses to enter? That will be my next before-and-after post!

March 29, 2008

Why Pay Retail When You Can Pay FREEtail??

I was majorly bummed out this week when their appeared to be no great deals at CVS, so I decided to concentrate on purchasing some items I had rebate forms for. There are few things I love more than paying for things at CVS with ECBs and then getting back rebates for them in real, actual dollars!! As a matter of fact, I have gotten back over $45 in rebates this month for things I bought at CVS with FAKE MONEY! Woohoo! So, here’s what I got:

I had a rebate form for the Pert Plus – if you bought two bottles, you get a rebate back for the 2nd one. Here’s how this transaction worked:
Two bottles of Pert Plus for $3.99 each
Two bottles of Tresemme for $4.99 each
One box of Kleenex for 88 cents
I used:
$5/$15 CVS coupon
$2.50/2 Pert Plus coupon
8 ECBs and paid 54 cents cash
I got back 5 ECBs for the Tresemme and will get back a $3.99 rebate for the Pert Plus! YAY!

I had a similar rebate form for Sure deodorant, and we needed Kleenex and juice so…

2 Sure deodorant at $2.99 each
Welch’s grape juice on sale for $2.50
3 Kleenex at 88 cents each
1 CVS spray hand sanitizer $1.79
5 Juicy Drop pops at $1.49 each (only 4 are pictured because I let Joshua have one!)

I used:
CVS $5/$15 coupon
$2/2 Sure deodorant coupon
$2 Welch’s juice coupon
50 cents/3 Kleenex coupon
FREE hand sanitizer CVS coupon
8 ECBs and $1.07 cash
I got back 5 ECBs (for the juicy pop thingies) and will get a $2.99 REAL MONEY rebate back for the deodorant! Woohoo!

I also bought the Clear Care contact solution that was an ECB deal this week (got back 3 ECBs) and will be getting back a full $7.99 rebate for it. But I sent in my receipt for the rebate BEFORE I wrote down how much it cost me in ECBs and I can’t remember! But it was definitely a profit with the $7.99 rebate!

Then, Thursday I learned via a couponing message board that one of the CVS Monthly April ECB deals had started early! SoftSoap Spa Radiant body wash is $4.99 and already giving back $4.99 ECBs! So I ran right out and got this:

3 SoftSoap body washes at $4.99 each
2 Glade sprays at $1.69 each
I used:
$5/$15 CVS coupon
$3/$15 beauty purchase CVS coupon
3 $1 off SoftSoap body wash coupons
2 $1 off Glade Spray coupons (found these inside my Parents magazine and my Gma’s Good Housekeeping!)
5 ECBs and 73 cents cash
I got back $15.97 in ECBs!!!!!!!!! Not too shabby eh??? I LOVE CVS!

I also got a GREAT deal at Meijer this week on Lysol products! Thanks to two friends, Andrea and Karen for making this happen! Andrea tipped me off about the Meijer 1/2 off Lysol sale and Karen, my favorite enabler provided all the coupons! So, I got all this:

18 canisters of Lysol Wipes, 4 Lysol toilet bowl cleaners, and 4 boxes of pizza rolls for $7.20 including tax! The pizza rolls were FREE with doubled coupons, the toilet bowl cleaner was 4 CENTS and the wipes were 29 CENTS because I had $1 off coupons for each one sent to me by the wonderful, smart, talented, KAREN! Yippee!! Now my family and I are all stocked up on these Lysol products for a looong time! When I first realized that couponing could be a real way for me to give to others, I asked my sister-in-law what kind of household products she would most want if I could get them for free or ultra-cheap. Lysol wipes were what she requested and I was really happy to be able to hand her a big bag full of them!

So, even though I thught this week was going to be a bummer, it ended up being a great week of savings and freebies! In addition to all the above, I also got 7 bags of BirdsEye vegetables FREE after coupons and promotion at Kroger, and a Venus Embrace razor, free plus overage at Walgreens after rebate, coupon, and a $5 Register Reward! I only paid $8.69 after coupon for the razor including tax, and got not only the $5 Register Reward but will also get back a full $9.99 rebate plus 10% extra on my Walgreens gift card! Now that’s what I’m talking about!

For more great deals and tales from couponers, check out Super Savings Saturday over at Money Saving Mom, our savings guru! If you haven’t purchased her Supermarket Savings 101 course yet, go for it!! That’s how I got started saving all this moolah. You can check it out or purchase it here!

March 28, 2008March 28, 2008

A Brief Lesson in Feline Anatomy & Physiology

In lieu of candy in Sophie’s Easter basket, I got her an Elmo’s World DVD about pets (at CVS for FREEE-99 what what!?). It has a story specifically about cats, about dogs, and about pets in general. Joshua also has been really enjoying it, as we have a cat ourselves, whom he really loves. Up until a few weeks ago we also had another cat, Molly, but we recently gave her away to a good friend, as Bobby is allergic and we have been trying to find a good home for both our cats for awhile. Although Joshua did really well saying goodbye to Molly, he misses her and has been talking about her a lot. Yesterday afternoon the kids watched the Elmo video about cats and then we went to run some errands. As we were driving down the road, Joshua began giving me a rundown of Molly the cat’s physical atrributes. Here’s what he had to say:

Joshua: Molly is a cat, and she is black. (She is actually brown with black stripes. Just so ya know.) She has long ears, and soft fur, and the color of her pee-pee is black. And, um…I’m not sure what color her pooping thing is.

Me: (Cracking up) What??

Joshua: I don’t know what color the thing she poops out of is. What’s so funny?

Me: (Still about to run off the road I’m laughing so hard) Um..I just think it’s funny that you are thinking about Molly pooping.

Joshua: Well, Mommy, cats do poop. Why are you still aughing?

Me: Because you’re funny!

Joshua: I’m glad you think I’m funny. You’re still laughing.

Me: I know. I’ll stop.

(pause)

Joshua: You’re laughing again!

This went on for awhile…I would sober up for about 15 seconds and then just giggle again…the Joshua started giggling back and we had a great time.

I am quite sure Joshua has never seen our cats in the act of pooping, and the Elmo video certainly doesn’t feature any fecal adventures, so I don’t know where this came from…but I’m glad Joshua gave me a peek inside his analytical little brain! It was just too funny…maybe he’ll be a veterinarian!