Wednesday Deals at JcPenney

Just a reminder to check JcPenney's Wednesday Deals. They have 3 pages of stuff this week although I didn't see anything for me.

Also, don't forget the visit The Bible Site and The Hunger Site and click daily. It's fast, free, and you are helping others. :)

Our $3 Tinkerbell Shoes

My little gal, Grace, needed some shoes for her Tinkerbell costume this year. Since we were saving money by letting them wear their same costumes 2 years in a row, I naturally didn't want to spend a lot of $$$ on a pair of shoes she would wear no more than two times.

I came across some cute bedroom shoes at the Dollar Tree a couple of weeks ago. They had a pair that was the perfect shade of green for her costume. They had little faces on them which I knew I could do something about.

This is what I started out with:

As you can see, I cut off the hair. I then painted the faces yellow with some paint I had on hand. I did 2 coats.

I also found these rings at the Dollar Tree in which I removed the jeweled hearts and DH superglued them on the shoes.



The end result? Cute little Tinkerbell shoes!

Yard Sale Results!

Well the yard sale went great! I got rid of a bunch of stuff. It feels good to purge sometimes you know? I made about $130. One thing I did different this time was not list it in the paper. I wouldn't have had time to do it anyway since it was a spur of the moment deal. However, I don't think I'll be listing in the paper again. It saved me at least $15 and I had just as good of a turnout using signs which only cost $5. I did get a picture of the end result but of course I was too busy to even think about getting one at the beginning. I really wish I had a before and after shot but oh well! Near the end, I did fill a bag for $1 so that helped to get rid of more stuff.

Giving Without Spending...Much: SanDiegoParent.com Pajama Drive

A mama posted this on a board I am a member of. This pajama drive is to help families who have lost everything to the wildfires. They ask that all pajamas be mailed by November 2nd so if you'd like to help, make sure you don't put it off. Read all the info and directions here.

I'm Nuts!

I decided today to have a garage sale tomorrow (Saturday)...well technically it's already tomorrow since it's past midnight. I just felt the need to downsize and cleanse the house of unused items. I've made a mess trying to get ready but hopefully I'll have a good turnout. I'll post about how it went sometime later on this weekend. I am going to try and get pictures but I don't know how crazy I'll be running around. Therefore, pics may not be possible. I better head to bed since I'm planning on getting up at 6:00 a.m.! Stay tuned!

Freebie Friday! Better late than never right?

Sorry I'm just now getting to this. I decided on the spur of the moment to have a garage sale tomorrow, and I've been trying to get together all that can. I'm ready to make some room. We have Grace's birthday in December along with Christmas so we'll definitely need space for the new things! Wish me luck.

Check out Walmart's free samples.

Free Sample of Oxyfresh Toothpase.

Free subscription to Elle Decor Magazine. (I get this mag and I got my subscription free also)

Free Fisher Price "Ace in Space" DVD. (This does come)

It's Wednesday!

So check out JcPenney'sWednesday Deals in their outlet section. They used to have 3 pages and now it's down to 2. Don't know what's up with that. Anywho, they have a pair of bootcut maternity jeans for $9.99. Not too bad.

Giving Without Spending: Freerice.com

I love this! You will not only help donate rice to the hungry, but learn vocabulary as well! For each word you get right, they will donate 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. Click here to get smarter and help others.

Our Cheap Date Night

A few weeks ago, the kids went to my mom's house on a Friday afternoon. I decided that the mister and me would have dinner and a movie frugal style.

First, I had to take care of dinner. At the grocery store, I came across a rack of bread and pastries on clearance. They had hoagie sammich loafs for $.80. Therefore, I decided we would have subs and chips for dinner. The pack of lunch meat was $2.13 I believe and the chips were $3.00. Now, I know I could have gotten chips a lot cheaper but since it was a date night, I splurged on some Sun Chips. Yummy! The movie rental was about $3.00.

I'd say the total tally for our date night was around $15. This includes our movies, chips, and all the sandwich fixings (some of which I already had on hand). And the best part? I didn't have to wear my bra! I even went all out on the presentation just to make it a little more special as you can see below.

Garage Sale Pricing

I usually go garage sale-ing every weekend and it never fails to attend at least one that is overpriced. You can tell these folks aren't very familiar with yard sales. And that's ok by the way, I'm just sayin'!

Therefore, that brings me to my post today. I thought I would offer a general guideline for pricing your garage sale items. Try to price them 75-90% off the original price paid. Where you want to fall on that range depends how desperate you are to get rid of your stuff.

So, let's say I have a bangin' picture frame I paid $5.00 for. As years have past, it doesn't bang for me like it used to and I'm ready to get rid of it. 75% of 5 bucks is $1.25. Take the quarter off and price it for $1. If you're really desperate to get rid of it, price it for $.50 which is 90% of $5. I'm not going any further. You get the picture (no pun intended) and that's the extent of my math skills.

Another thing you must note is CUSTOMERS DO NOT CARE WHAT YOU ORIGINALLY PAID FOR THAT ITEM. They only care about what they have to pay for it. People don't shop at garage sales so they can brag to their friends about purchasing something 25% off it's original price. Hell, they wouldn't even brag at 50%! If they want those kinds of deals, they'll go to Walmart, Target, etc. and BUY IT NEW. I promise I'm not being snarky when I say that. I'm just being honest.

Some common things I see overpriced are books, vhs tapes, and childrens clothes to name a few. I hope this helps you in pricing your items at your next garage sale.

Freebie Friday!

It's a rainy day here. Hope you have sunshine!

Check out what Walmart has this week here.

Free sample of Feline Greenies.

Free storybook from Claritin.

Giving Without Spending: The Bible Site

This site is similar to the Hunger Site in that all you have to do is make a click to make a difference. The Bible Site donates Bibles and books of the Bible to persecuted Christians in other countries. Click here to visit the site and click now. Make sure to bookmark the page and click daily!

Like Telling People How To Do Things?

Now you can get paid for it. I randomly came across http://ehow.com/. This site is full of "how to" articles written by members. Here are some examples of articles that were listed on their main page:

-How to Inspect a Bathroom Before Buying a Home
-How to Give Verbal Instructions
-How to Apply Press-on Nails

Your are compensated by how many times your article is read. They pay directly to your paypal account. For more information go here.

Blast from the Past: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

I've been in a rut this week and therefore have not posted much. My apologies. I decided to do a Blast from the Past and repost one of my old posts for a memory refresher or for someone who has not ventured far into my blog.

In the original post, I stated that I had hung the mirror in our computer area. It is now hanging in the living room above our couch. People are always amazed to find out it was a chevel mirror and comment that they thought we had purchased it from a store.


This is my first project to share with you all. As I said in my "Coming Soon" section, I had one of those cheval mirrors like the one pictured on the left, that I was going to put in our yard sale. It hadn't been doing good for a while now. It wanted to stay permanantly tilted upwards so if I wanted to use it, I would have to push it down straight, quickly take a few steps back, and try to admire my outfit in a span of 2 seconds. Not very easy for someone who is detail oriented!

Our dining room is where we have had the computer since we moved into this house. I had planned for it to be the computer slash playroom. However, it seemed the kids' toys never stayed in this area so I said "Forget it!". I made the decision to make it my computer and sitting room for reading and such. At my direction, my loving and patient husband moved a small couch in there that we had stored in our bedroom. I liked the way it fit and looked, but I wanted something nice to hang above it.

The "dining room" is small and they say that mirrors can give the illusion of more space. Instead of placing this aggravating cheval mirror in our upcoming garage sale, I decided to see how it would work as a wall mirror. If I did pull it off, I would save at least $30 going out and buying one from the store. Jon, my patient love, removed it from it's hinged prison, and he was also nice enough to paint it for me. I was going to paint it myself, but he does renovations and remodeling for a living, so he's better at it and more importantly, FASTER!

Here are the results:

Before:



















After:

Freebie Friday!

Free Old El Paso Taco Seasoning

Free Sample of Purex

Get 2 Free Disney Games

Use UPC Codes:
030400765414
030400762437

And don't forget to check out Walmart's Free Samples. They have a few new ones this week.

Shameless Plug Day: Messages in the Sand

I thought since I'm about to leave for the beach in an hour and since this is my blog (*giggle), I would post about my business real quick before I eat lunch and head out. My business is called Messages in the Sand. I do just that...make messages in the sand! People tell me what they want to say, I write it in the sand, and take pictures of it. Sometimes I can get seagulls to pose in the pics as well!

I've done them for wedding, anniversary, father's day and birthday gifts. You can announce you're pregnant or propose. As I say on my site: the possibilites are endless. It makes a great unique gift. I just started offering my service at the end of May of this year. Today, I'm doing a birthday, Christmas, and anniversary message. I hope you'll check out my website: http://www.messagesinthesand.net/. I've included one of my favorite pictures in this post. Thanks and feel free to contact me if you have any questions or are interested in getting a message of your own. :o)

(Click picture for larger view)

Creative Recycling: Medicine Cups

You know those little cups that come with your bottle of Nyquil or cough syrup? I found a good use for them.

If you have small kids the like to paint, these little cups make great paint holders. Just pour a little bit of color in each cup. Then, you don't have to worry about the whole bottle of paint being mixed with another color because lil Susie (or in our case lil Grace) didn't wash her brush first.

Here are a couple of action shots:






Have fun!

Giving Without Spending...Much: Make a Child Smile

Make a Child Smile is such a sweet, wonderful program. Each month, 3 children who are suffering from chronic or life-threatening diseases, are featured on the site. A mailing address and biography is provided so that you may send these children a card and/or a small gift to brighten their day. What a blessing for these kids who should not have to be going through what they are. With stores like the Dollar Tree, you can send a card to all 3 children for less than $5. Or if you have the time, you can handmake your own cards. I'm sure no matter what, anything would be very much appreciated.

The Complete Tightwad Gazette

If you are trying to live the frugal life and do not already have this book, please go get it. I'm not even a quarter of the way through yet and I have learned so much already. Yes, I'm a slow reader!

The author, Amy Dacyczyn, is my hero. She is the frugal queen of all queens if you ask me. The Complete Tightwad Gazette is filled with her best tips and ideas, along with submitted reader tips from her newsletter which was published from 1990 to 1996. If frugal living had it's own bible, I would daresay this book would be it.

Try checking it out at your local library if it's available. If not, you can purchase a used copy at half.com. If you decide to do this, please go through my referral link by clicking on the picture below. It would be very much appreciated!

Halloween Costumes: A different idea

As Halloween approaches, you see the typical save money ideas for costumes and such. I wanted to throw one more suggestion in the pot.

How about wearing the same costume from the previous year? We'll actually be doing just that for this Halloween. Luckily, the kids are still able to fit into their costumes from last year which was Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. (We vacationed in Neverland just so the kids wouldn't grow much and we could save money by not having to buy costumes this year *hehe)

Now, I know this is not always an option that will work. Kids do grow and so do their mouths in which they will argue that they are no longer into the Power Ranger thing and Transformers is the happening costume this year. Then I say is the time to get crafty and peruse the spare materials you have lying around and see what cool costume you can come up with. Until then, just let them wear the same costume from the year before if they can. Look at it as a 2-for-1 deal.

Heads Up: Scheduling Your Garage Sale

Just a little tidbit I thought I would put out there if anyone is planning to have a yard sale this time of year (Fall/Winter). Schedule your time to start no earlier than 8 a.m. The mornings are getting longer so it's still dark at 7. Right now, you could get away with 7:30 but as we get more into the winter months, 8 a.m. will be your best option.

I remember going to one last year when it was still dark and the lady had her car running with the headlights shining on the merchandise. LOL

Freebie Friday!

Check out Walmart's Free Sample section here. This week they have Dunkin Donuts coffee and Nivea hand cream to name a few. Their samples always come.

Program Review: GiftMonkey.com

GiftMonkey is one of those websites that offers free laptops, desktops, plasma tv's, etc. Your chosen prize is assigned a certain amount of points that you must earn through completing offers and having your friends complete offers.

I thought, ok, I'm going to experiment with this and see how successful I am. First, you the member, must sign up and complete an offer yourself. I decided to sign up with WorldWinner.com which is a game site. I clicked on the banner from GiftMonkey.com and it brought me to WorldWinner where I signed up and paid $10 to get started. Please note: The only reason I signed up at this site was get my points from GiftMonkey. These types of game websites don't really interest me normally.

I know getting credit for offers can take some time so I was patient. I would check my account every couple of weeks. After two months of checking and the points still not credited to my account, I contacted GiftMonkey.

Here is the communication that took place between myself and GiftMonkey:

-----Original Message-----
From: (email addy removed)
Sent: Tue, September 11, 2007 10:58 pm
To: support@offercentric.com
Subject: GiftMonkey.com - Have never received my point(s)

I signed up with WorldWinner.com through your site at least a couple of months ago and I still have not received my point(s). I can't even remember if it was for 1 point or 2 and I don't see the offer listed anymore. Thanks!

_______________________

RE: GiftMonkey.com Have never received my point(s)‏
From: support@offercentric.com
Sent: Wed 9/12/07 4:10 PM
Reply-to: support@offercentric.com
To: (email addy removed)

Hello, Unfortunately we have not received any indication of this. We receive a list of offer completions once a day from our network which deals with this advertiser. If you did not receive credit, this is an indication the offer was not completed correctly, completed previously, or completed using fraudulent or invalid information. At this point we can only recommend you try a different offer.

__________________________


RE: GiftMonkey.com Have never received my point(s)‏
From: Melanie C. (email addy removed)
Sent: Wed 9/12/07 5:32 PM
To: support@offercentric.com
Cc: (email addy removed)

Unfortunately, I won't be trying another offer. I was actually doing this as an experiment to see if these things really work and post about my experience on my blog...which I will do. I don't have money to throw away and if your only form of customer service is just checking a list that you receive, well, I don't think that is good customer service. What I was hoping to hear is that you would check with WorldWinner to confirm me signing up...I could provide paypal information. So $10 down the drain...literally...and nothing to show for it. My tone of this email is one of disappointment, not anger so I'm not trying to be mean here. I just don't feel like I'm valuable as a member with this response. I can't see how you would expect me to lose money and points only then the solution is to chance the same thing happening again? But thanks for getting back with me in any event. I do appreciate that. Melanie

___________________________


RE: GiftMonkey.com Have never received my point(s)‏
From: support@offercentric.com
Sent: Thu 9/13/07 11:54 AM
Reply-to: support@offercentric.com
To: Melanie C. (email addy removed)

Hello, We are very sorry that you have had a bad experience with using an OfferCentric site. If you did not receive credit for an offer, this is usually an indication the offer was not completed correctly, completed previously, or completed using fraudulent payment methods.

________________________

So as you can see by this last response, I'm the one to blame. I'm sure countless people have had great success with the program, but I'm not one of them unfortunately. I feel like I wasted $10 and was blown off about it. My only option was to just try another offer...yeah right. Do they think I'm a glutton for punishment? And in the end, it came down to:

- I didn't complete the offer correctly: Doesn't take a rocket scientist to follow the basic directions of clicking on a banner and signing up.

- I had already completed the offer: Nope I had not. I was not only a GiftMonkey virgin, but a WorldWinner virgin as well.

- I used a fraudulent payment method: Well obviously I didn't becuase WorldWinner got my damn money and I have the Paypal transaction info to prove it.

This program receives double thumbs down

Giving Without Spending: Send a postcard to a soldier for free

This cool program called "Lets say thanks" is sponsored by Xerox. Simply pick out which postcard design you want. Then choose a message from a list of pre-written notes or write your own. Click submit and you're done. It's really that simple and easy and it will be very much appreciated by the soldier that receives it.

Click here to send a card.

Freecycle Score: Fabric

I received a big pile of scrap fabric from Freecycle that will be used to make my cloth napkins. The lady offering these scraps owns a custom drapery and window treatments business so this is some really nice, quality fabric! Thanks Rhonda!

My Garage Sale Finds (9-29)

Pair of prescription glasses I found rummaging through a box: Free

*I'm going to donate them to the Lions Club. See my previous post about their program here.

Toy Wagon: $.50

Mary Kay Mini Satin Hands: $1.00

Mary Kay Mini Timewise Set: $2.00

Large Piece of Fabric: Free

*The Mary Kay mini sets will make great little gifts.

*The fabric will be used to make my cloth napkins.

New Wedding Frame with Engravable Area: $1.00

New Small Crystal Bowls: $5.00

*I'm going to put these in my bathroom to hold my cotton balls and q-tips.

It's Wednesday...

Just a reminder to check out JcPenney's Wednesday deals in their outlet! Click here for Wednesday Deals.

Free Phone Number and Voicemail

Netzero offers a service that will give you a free phone number and voicemail. It's pretty cool. I've had mine for over a year and trust me, it has really come in handy. I've used it for online forms and also in real life. Boy howdy, I won't get into details, but suffice it to say when a certain person wanted my phone number one time, I was really glad I decided to give her that one and not my cell phone.

The number you receive is local to your area so it won't be long distance for those that live in your town. You can call and check your messages or just check your email. Everytime someone leaves a message, a notification is emailed right away. You can also listen to the voice message online by logging into your account. It's really fricken neat!

Click here to sign up.

MyBargainBuddy.com: A Great Website for Frugal Shoppers

If you don't yet have this site bookmarked, do so now. As frugal shoppers, we're always trying to find the best deal to get more bang for our bucks. Using mybargainbuddy.com is like having someone do the dirty work for you. The owner of the site, Karen, posts new deals daily on the main page. She makes it very easy by including the product link and any coupon codes that you can use to make your total even cheaper.

It doesn't stop at the main page however. Go into the forums section of the site and check out the online bargains section and you'll find even more deals posted by members. Or check out the offline deals for bangin' savings in the real non-virtual store world.

One other aspect I love about this site is the Hot Deal Alerts. These are email notifications sent out whenever a "too good too be true" deal has popped up. You must be subscribed to the newletter to receive them.

I check out the website daily because it truly is my bargain buddy.