Big Savings?

I know blog postings have been sparse the past few weeks as we prepare for the baby, work overtime, get ready for another semester of online class (I'm teaching again for the 12th semester, and of course I have a record number of students this time around), and just sit and be exhausted in our downtime.

I did want to share a highlight of the week that truly made my day. I spent $8.90 at Walgreens and walked out of the store with $98.45 worth of merchandise. No, I didn't steal any of it, but rather matched coupons to sales to net some free stuff. This is the best I've ever done.

If you play your cards right and use Walgreens Register Rewards program, you can net some great deals. Since becoming a pseudo-part-time-consumer-reporter at my place, I've learned alot about "playing the game" and as a result, have created quite the stockpile of free goods in my basement. I've learned how you should never pay for toothpaste or dish soap, and you should never pay more than a buck for things like Cheerios, cereals, canned goods, pasta, aluminum foil, ziploc bags, deodorant, razors, and kleenex. I give to the food bank every 6 weeks or so, and Dave says it looks like we're preparing for the end of the world in our basement.

Nope, just a baby.

But I probably do have enough dish soap stockpiled to last until the apocalypse.

What are we doing with this extra dough? Are we doing the fiscally responsible thing and saving it? Not as much as we should. Someone told us to go out to eat and on "dates" as much as we can before the baby..... and for us, that's about like telling an alcoholic to drink up because you are going to go cold turkey later. We love, love, love to eat out--a waiter, no work, no mess, and you can send it back if you don't like it....and as a result, all that money is going right to support our bad habit.

Here's to fewer meals out in about 7-9 weeks!