Monday, February 6, 2012

What I did to save money last week....

1.  I went to dinner on Sunday night with a few friends at On the Border. I had an email coupon for a free bowl of queso. I also had a $10 gift certificate, so I used that. My total out of pocket cost for the meal was $4.00 and I had enough left over to take to dinner to work the next night
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2. On Monday morning I made a huge batch of home fries to help me save time during the week on breakfast. I made enough to last all week, so I just had to reheat them each morning and make a quick scrambled egg sandwich.

3. Received two rebate checks for $1.75 & $1.00.

4. Sold an old text book on half.com for $119!

5. Received a Bzzkit in the mail with two coupons for free frozen pizzas.


7. Deposited $131 into my emergency fund.

8. Received and accepted an invitation into a Bzzcampaign for a Phillips epilator. I’m actually very excited to try this out and I’ll definitely post my review as soon as I receive it.

9. Carpooled 4 out of the 5 days I worked this week.

10. My dad’s birthday was yesterday, and he asked if I would help my mom out and take care of buying a cake for him. I decided to make one instead using this recipe I found on (where else?) pinterest. I picked up a few of the missing ingredients (buttermilk, margarine, unsweetened chocolate & coffee) plus a dozen eggs on Saturday night for a grand total of $10.41. It came out great. My mom, who normally doesn’t like chocolate cake, liked it and said she’d have it again.

11. I did horrible this week on bringing dinner to work. I didn’t do my grocery shopping until Thursday (I normally go on Sundays) so I didn’t have much to bring. I tried to choose inexpensive places to eat and drank only water from the cooler at work so I didn’t have to buy soda.

12. My dad and I picked up my buffet on Friday morning. As I mentioned in a previous post, having it shipped to the store and picking it up saved me a $75 delivery fee. It is all set up and looks awesome!

13. I stayed in on Saturday night instead of going out to a bar to see a cover band with my friends. I was pretty tired and was looking forward to relaxing at home so that’s exactly what I did.

14. I listed about 8 items on ebay this week. I have a few more things to list in the next few days.

15. Submitted the reading on my water meter so I get an actual bill instead of an estimated one.




Sunday:   $4.00 On The Border
Monday: $57.87 Gas
Tuesday:  $7.00 Center Pizza
Wednesday:  No spend day
 Thursday:  $5.00 Moe’s
                     $24.33  S&S
                     $4.99   Shaws
Friday:  $1.71 Chipotle
Saturday:  $3.49 Michaels
                   $10.41 S&S

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Railings: Before & After Shots

A few weeks back I mentioned that I had gone to Lowes to pick up some paint and supplies to paint my kitchen cabinets and counter tops. I ended up using some of the paint to do my railings over. I was inspired by this photo on pinterest....(Have I mentioned how much I love this site??)

I followed this tutorial. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be, although it was a bit time consuming.

Here are the before & after shots:
















Wednesday, February 1, 2012

BzzAgent: Dr. Oetker Ristorante Pizza

I’ve been a member of BzzAgent for about 3 years now, and over the years I’ve gotten to try out some really cool stuff. A few weeks ago, I was offered a spot in the Dr. Oetker Ristorante Pizza campaign and I gladly accepted. I received my Bzzkit a couple days ago. It contained 2 coupons to try these pizzas out for free and some coupons and magnet pads to hand out to friends.



There are six different varieties:
~Mozzarella
~Spinaci
~Funghi
~Quattro Formaggi
~Vegetale
~Speciale

I haven’t made it to a grocery store since I got my kit, so I haven’t tried them out yet. Has anyone else ever tried one? They look and sound delicious!

CVS 1/31/12



Reese’s Egg (Sun-Tues Only)  $.87   (earned .87 EB)
3 Hallmark cards@ .99 ea…..$2.98 (earned 3 EB)
1 Physicians Formula Foundation $15.49 - $3 peelie coupon…..$12.49  (earned 7 EB)

I used 13 EBs to pay and the remaining $4.47 was put on a gift card.

I earned 10.87 back in EBs and will submit a MIR for $14.95 for the makeup.