A Few Little Garage Sale Finds . . .

Just wanted to share a few more garage sale finds with you for those who are interested . . .

Here are some of the books I have bought.  I got all 4 of these for $1 and since then have bought 5 more Dr. Suess books at garage sales in absolute pristine condition.  I was so excited because Russell really wants to have them, but I didn't want to go spend a wad of money on a bunch of brand new books.  Besides, call me crazy but I kinda like that I bought these from a cute little family and I met the kids who loved and read these books. The books have a history, and I like that.

My mother has instilled in me a love for beautiful books.  I found this Cinderella book "like-new" and the illustrations are simply gorgeous.  When the girls are older I'll let them look at it . . . maybe . . .

This is a cute little tea set I bought for $1.  The girls love to play with tea sets and do a really good job with this one, even though it's a little fragile.

This pretty ceramic vase now resides in my mother's kitchen window box.  It goes perfectly with her new green and white kitchen and I was so happy to find it!

Free Toothpaste and Vitamins

I told you I never pay for toothpaste- this is one of those weeks where you can get it for virtually free.   This week at CVS, Colgate Total Advanced toothpaste is $2.99 and when you buy one you get $2 in Extra Care bucks.  So that right there is like paying for a tube for $0.99.  To make it even sweeter though, head to this link and print out a coupon for $1.50 off a tube of Colgate Total.  So what you do is print 2 coupons and buy 2 tubes of toothpaste as 1 transaction.  You will pay $2.98 out of pocket for 2 and then get $4 instantly to spend on something else you need.  That's like getting paid $1.02 to buy the toothpaste!

Maybe you need some vitamins or supplements?  Nature's Bounty brand vitamins are on sale for $4.49 and buy one get one free.  So 2 bottles for $4.49 and you get $3 ECBs.  Get a coupon for $2 of here and you pay 2.49 for 2 bottles of vitamins, and you have $3 ECBs to spend on something else.  Now you are getting paid $0.51 to buy vitamins! Cool huh?  I usually use my ECBs to buy something really exciting- like diapers ( ;

UPDATE-  Here is a link to print out a $3 off $15 purchase at CVS.  Expires 1/09/09

Hope you all are catching on and are able to use any of the info I'm putting out.

Free Walgreens 8x10

You can get a free 8x10 picture printed at Walgreens until tomorrow.  Just go to photo2.walgreens.com and create an account.  Upload your picture and enter code FREEGIFT at checkout.  You just have to pick which store to pick up your picture at the next day and it's all free.  They usually do this like twice a year and I have Russell do 1 on his account and I do 1 on mine so we get 2 free 8x10s!  They come out great!

Cheap food!

A couple of months ago I ordered some gift certificates from Restaurant.com that were on sale.  I got some $10 gift certificates for $2 and some $25 certificates for only $3.  They aren't actual gift cards that come in the mail- they are just certificates that Restaurant.com e-mails to you and you print them from your computer. I've already used a couple of mine and have had no problems.

Well now the deal is even better- now you can get everything for 80% off.  Get $10 certificates for $0.60 and $25 gift certificates for $2!  Just type in SANTA for the coupon code.

So I just picked up 4 more Qdoba $10 gift certificates for .60 each.  That means I'm only paying $2.40 for all 4!  Now there are some purchase requirements that vary by restaurant.  For example, for Qdoba there is a $15 minimum purchase requirement.  So you do have to pay at least $5 out of pocket to use the certificate.  Add that to the .60 out of pocket for the gift certificate and the way I see it, I'm paying $5.60 for $15 worth of food!

So head over to Restaurant.com and just type in your zip code to find out which participating restaurants are near you- there aren't a ton- but I always find 1 or 2 decent ones in whatever city I am looking at.

CVSing

So friends and family have been asking me about "CVSing."  This is how I refer to it when I am talking to my husband. Hopefully you have a CVS drugstore near you because if you do- you can get a lot for a little. I've been waiting for some good weekly deals to come up, but there hasn't been anything outstanding lately.  This week is okay though- so it is a good week if you are learning.  It can be a bit intimidating at first, but you get used to it.  I'm still no pro.  If you want a pro, check out "dealseekingmom"  She shows CVS scenarios every weekend on her blog. 

CVSing 101 - CVS has Extra Care Bucks (ECBs) that print on the bottom of your receipt after buying certain featured products for that week/month.  So I usually do 2 or 3 transactions when I check out so that I can rip off the ECBs from my first receipt and use it on my second transaction and then rip off the ECBs from the bottom of my 2nd receipt to use on my 3rd transaction.  Make sense?

So in the weekly add it will often advertise a product for let's say 3$ and then you receive $3 ECB that prints on your receipt.  So a very small step would be to buy that product in your first transaction and then use the ECB that print out to buy something in a second transaction. (It will be like getting the $3 product for free)  Now to take it a step farther- use coupons!  I keep any and all coupons (especially RedPlum and Proctor & Gamble inserts that come in Sunday's paper)  So if you have a $1 off coupon for that $3 product- now you are only paying $2 out of pocket for it, then getting $3 ECB for it.  So that's my little intro- hope it helps those of you who want to get started.

So here are a few of the good ECB deals this week at CVS:

• Buy $25 worth of huggies products and get $5 ECBs  (get 2 $2/2 coupons using coupons.com link on my left side bar) and don't forget about the caregiver's marketplace
  
• Buy $20 worth of Energizer batteries, get $10 ECBs. Use $1 off coupon here
  
• Buy Powerade for $1.59, get $1.59 ECBs
  
• Buy Schick Quatro or Intuition razor for women for $8.99, get $4 ECBs
  
• Buy $20 Hersheys candy, get $10 ECBs. Use this $1 off coupon for Hershey's Bliss
  
• Buy Colgate Total at $1.99 and pay $.49 after this coupon

Now here is what you can do this week if your getting started and you can use diapers and batteries! I had ECBs already from previous transactions, so this deal was even sweeter for me (you'll get there!)

1st transaction- buy 1 powerade (I like this stuff) for $1.59 and get $1.59 ECBs

2nd transaction- buy $20 worth of Energizer batteries (4 packs of 6-8 batteries, depending on the size- we use them so I like to stock up when opportunities arise!). These are all on sale for $5.99.  When I went each pack had an instant $1 peelie coupon on them so that brought the total down from about $24 to about $20. You can also print off at least 2 $1 off Energizer coupons here.  Use $1.59 ECBs and pay roughly $18.41, get $10 ECBs

3rd transaction- buy $25 worth of Huggies products. 2 jumbo packs for $10 each, 2 boxes of wipes for 2.50 each, for me.  That brought the total to the needed $25.  Now I used 4 coupons (1 for each product) So I used $3 worth of diaper coupons and $1 worth of wipes coupons and got all for around $21.  Used the $10 ECBs from 2nd transaction and payed $11 out of pocket and earned $5 ECBs for my next trip (basically a $5 gift card in my wallet now!)

So total spent on 1 bottle of powerade, 4 packs of batteries (like 30 batteries!), 2 packs of diapers and 2 boxes of wipes all for $31 out of pocket.  Minus the $5 ECBs for next time I need something from the drugstore and it is like paying $26 for all that stuff.  Diapers and wipes alone would have cost that much!  Believe me- this isn't even that great of a week for CVS- the deals are sometimes much better- like I NEVER pay for toothpaste, deodorant, or bodywash- seriously-free.  I'll let you know when some more CVS deals come out!

Hopefully I have written this in a way that you can understand- Comment with questions if you have any.  Save your coupons- often you can get stuff for free or better than free when they are featured at CVS!

An incomplete garage sale find

So I bought this adorable table and chair at a garage sale for 5 bucks!  So cute and in excellent condition.  The problem is- I have twins!

Anyone know where I can find another chair like this?  Even if I have to paint them both all white- that's fine.  We haven't brought these up from the garage yet because I can just imagine the biting and hair pulling and hitting that the one chair will incur.

Any Ideas?

Coupon Doublin' at Big K

For those of you who have a Kmart near you- you might want to take any good coupons you have over there and check things out.  They are doubling coupons through Saturday.  (So my $1.50 off diaper coupons are now worth $3!)

No internet coupons will be accepted, so hopefully you've gotten some through the mail or the newspaper!

Cyber Monday deal

Just thought I'd share that you can get a really great deal at oldnavy.com today only!

I just shopped around and got some Christmas presents for my family for 20% with free shipping. They have a lot of clearance stuff, so take a look!

You can use both coupon codes.  SAVENOW for 20% off your total purchase and ONEDAY for free shipping.

Happy shopping- hope you are finding some good stuff on Cyber Monday!

My New Nativity

Can you believe I found this nativity globe at a garage sale?  It was in the box and had never been used or opened and they gave it to me for $2!  It plays "Away in a Manger" and the star on top lights up and also the "Snow" and sparkle get blown around automatically when it is on, so you don't have to shake it. (Good thing 'cause it is HEAVY!)

I love it and it is perfect for us because Russell and I collect nativities. 

Yay for garage sales!

Huggies this week

So I am headed to Target this week for diapers. We found out after a few months with the twins that we only like the Huggies brand diapers after trying several other kinds.  Well Huggies this week are 9.99 at Target and if you buy 3 jumbo packs you get a $5 gift card.  SO . . . if you buy 3 packs and use  3 $1.00 off coupons or $1.50 off coupons it will be like getting a jumbo pack for $7.15-$6.82 depending on the value of whatever coupons you have! 

To save even more on Huggies, save your diaper receipts and send them in to the Caregivers Marketplace.  You will get $1 back per jumbo.  I usually save 10 receipts and then mail them in and get a $10 check back.  Count that into the equation and you can get your jumbo packs for $6.15-$5.82!

Buy the 3 packs of diapers in one transaction, and then use the $5 gift card right away on a second transaction to buy whatever other goodies you picked up at Target!

Ahhh.  Don't you just love saving money?

UPDATE-  Coupons.com has a coupon for $2 off 2 jumbo packs of Huggies.  Use the link on the left side column to get to the coupon!

Mirror, Mirror on the . . . Carpet?

So some of you probably think I'l crazy- but I LOVE this mirror.  I think it is gorgeous.  The frame is so intricate.  I think I might paint it black. Maybe. It is like 3 ft by 1.5 ft and it is a really heavy, high-quality mirror and I was lucky to get it.  I found this at Goodwill and it had just been put out on the floor.  A few hours later and someone else would have snatched up this beauty!  I don't even know what I am going to do with it yet- but I had to have it!  I keep telling Russell that I am just stocking up now so that when we get into a house someday soon (hopefully!) we won't have to buy everything at once to decorate it.  That's reasonable, right?

The First Find . . .

My first weekend back in the garage saleing world was super exciting.  I hadn't been since high school when I would go with my mom once in a while.  My partner in crime was Lisa.  Our husbands are cousins and we live in the same complex so it is very convenient and she is very kind to wake up before 7am on her days off to accompany me on these little adventures!  The first sale we headed to was fairly small, but I found a beautiful water globe nativity that hadn't even been opened and I got it for $2! (Russell and I collect nativity scenes)  I'll show you that one closer to Christmas when I put it out to decorate.

The next thing I found is my favorite one yet! (and Russell's too)  

Take a look . . . 

Okay I know it isn't that exciting to look at but it is PERFECT for a toy basket in my living room.  ALL the girls' toys fit into it so now the area in front of my fireplace looks so neat and tidy instead of having toys and small, insufficient baskets strewn about in front of it.

Ahh.  Look at all those toys resting peacefully and contained.  It's a beautiful site.  I got this huge sturdy basket for $5!

That day I also bought a couple of cute square-shaped shelves and 2 large sets of Stampin' it Up! stamps all for $5!

I am ecstatic because my mom is coming this weekend and we are going to go garage saleing together saturday morning! Hopefully it's a successful trip!

It starts . . .

Over the last few months I have become completely obsessed with thrift store shopping, CVSing, coupon/deal matching, cheap Do-it-yourself projects, trash-to-treasure, and garage saleing (that's what I call it even though "saleing" is not a real word-  Get used to is if you are going to read this blog!)

I've decided to start my own blog to share my thrifting with you.   Russell makes fun of me (but secretly loves it)  because I find it all quite thrilling.  It is like a chase for me- trying to retrieve the most stuff and the most unique finds for the least amount of money.  I'll be sharing any deals I come across with you here, and I'll be pointing you in the direction of many thrifty DIY women I have met in the blogging world as well for more ideas and deals.   Hope you enjoy . . .