Another Snowman

I just have to share my latest FIND. I collect snowmans, so when I saw this mug in the store, of course, I was drawn to it. It's a cute St. Nicholas Square hand-painted mug (not cheap), with a top (the head) to keep the contents warm. It was on a clearance rack only because it was a Christmas item, but it had no price tag. I went to the checkout and asked about it, and the cashier tuned to the manager wondering about looking up a price. He said to just give it 
to me for $1.00! SCORE!
It is so cute and a nice addition to my collection, not that I needed it. But when they're practically giving it away...
Believe it or not, I also had a 20% coupon which I wasn't ashamed to use. So my mug was only 80 cents!!! As usual, I'm a happy shopper!

Happy Birthday to ME

This past weekend, we went to our favorite store, Kohl's (big surprise), looking for a gift for someone else. But things were on clearance, and when they're priced so incredibly low, it's often cheaper to get new items than to shop at thrift stores for used ones.
My husband found several shirts, most retailing for $50-60, marked down to $4-5. I found a couple myself for about those same prices. I even found this cute pair of boots, not that I need more boots mind you. But they were retail $59.99 marked down to $5.99!!! How could I not get them?? :)
For all the shirts, the boots AND a pair of earrings, with tax it all came to only $58.53! The total savings off retail prices was $445.80!
Now we can go through our closets and bless someone else with some of our older clothes. What's not to love about that!?

Birthday Surprises

I may have written about this before, but if so, just count my post as a friendly reminder. ;-)
Just like stores, many restaurants have rewards programs, and if you like free food (who doesn't?), you should sign up at your favorite places.
My birthday is coming up soon, and today alone, I received three emails to come celebrate it at different restaurants offering a free bday surprise. Some offer a free entree, some a dessert treat, all free just for being in the program.
Of course, they know you most likely won't be celebrating alone, so they're still going to make money in the deal. But you want to celebrate somewhere, right? So you may as well get part of it for free. 
It's starting to make sense to me why I always seem to gain a few pounds around my birthday, and it's apparently not just from the cake! :P

Toy Score

You know how I always look for bargains, and pet supplies are no different. Food alone can be very expensive. I was in the store and there was a table of items on clearance. They all appeared to be for fairly small dogs, so I almost passed them by. But I decided to stop and take a peek, and sure enough, at the bottom of the pile there was a large SUMO bone and rope toy, perfect for Coco. It was apparently one left over from Christmas, so instead of $9.82, it was marked down to only 98 cents!!! 

The dog doesn't care what color it is, and neither do I. If you are familiar with the SUMO brand, these are very strong products which cannot be destroyed easily. So I was very happy to find it. Such a deal!

Coupon Value

I love it when I get "free money" coupons in the mail. I'm sure the stores figure you'll spend more if they can get you there. But the key is to stick to the coupon value when I go shopping.
For instance, I got a "$10 off $10 or more" coupon. So I went to the store and looked at several things on sale, some for less than $10 and some for a few dollars more. But I kept looking around and I found a little jacket, which I had tried on months ago when it was full price. It was marked down to $10. So I used my coupon and got it for NOTHING!!!

Don't Be Afraid to Ask

Many of you know how much I love to learn, and how I (very) often listen to and watch webinars. So yesterday I was on one, and it was a little tough as I was riding in the car and had to watch it on my phone. But still, I did and got a lot out of it.
The instructor had said in his promo email that one listener was going to win the course he was actually going to talk about at the end of the webinar. So I wasn't sure how he was going to choose someone, but I stayed on until the end even though I wasn't going to be able to buy his course.
Sure enough, he did talk about the course he was selling but, as he was getting ready to sign off, he hadn't said anything about picking a winner.
So I sent a question in via the webinar and asked if he was still giving a course away. He said he had forgotten all about that, and since I asked, I WON!!! It was a $197.00 course that I won, just for asking! WOOHOOOO!!

So the moral of the story is...Don't be afraid to ask questions! You just never know what can happen!

Cool Summer Hat

I often talk about checking prices. Even when a tag says one thing, what can it hurt to check it and just see if what it says is really correct? For instance, my husband and I were shopping, and I found a hat for him that was on clearance. The tag said it was $8, which seemed like a good deal. 
My husband looked around and found a display of men's hats, one stack of which was of the exact same hat as the one which was on clearance. Those hats were on sale, but were "Buy one for $25, and get one half off."

So he thought about getting the one for $8, but first I wanted to check the price. It was actually ONLY $3.50! Why it was priced so low is unknown, but it was just like the expensive ones and is a cool hat, especially for next to nothing.

New Boots

We were on a mini-vacation this week, and there's a favorite thrift store we like and try to visit when we're in the area. While I was checking out the book section, my hubby was over looking at men's shoes. He called me over and I thought he was going to show me something he had found for himself. But when I got there, he showed me a great pair of hiking boots in MY size. Who knew I could wear men's shoes! 

They are brand new boots and still had the tags. They are perfect for hiking and are waterproof and have Thinsulate insulation, but are fairly light to wear. They are very nice boots! He looked them up on the internet and they normally cost anywhere between $89-$119. But they were only $30!!! SCORE!

You just never know what you're going to find. It''s so much fun!

Buying Boxes

I wear a lot of hats and like to buy pretty hat boxes to keep them in. But let's face it, new boxes can be expensive. So I often buy them after holidays when they are drastically reduced. Consequently, a lot of my hat boxes have snowmen or snowflakes on them (which is actually okay with me!). But my husband doesn't understand what the draw is and thinks it's a waste of money, which also makes me want to spend less.
We went to the local Goodwill store this week looking for something else, and I found this pretty flowered box. It doesn't even look used and is perfect for my closet. It wasn't priced, but the cashier gave it to me for only $1.99! YAY!!!

More Free Movies

I have written before about movie reward cards. They are great because you earn points for every dollar you spend and then get free refreshments and movie tickets. But I also just received an email from the theater company offering an additional perk of a free screening of a movie before it was even released to the public. They are working with a company called gofobo, which is instrumental in coordinating the movies and all the attendees.

I received tickets again this week for another free movie, which is one I've seen advertised and that I am very excited to see, It's still difficult not to spend money while at the theater since popcorn is synonymous with movies. But I found that if you eat before going to the movie, you can resist the temptation.