Shaws, Shaws and more Shaws

What a week of Shaw's!!! Actually my week of Shaw's consisted of only 3 days, because even though the sale started on Friday, there was too much going on that I couldn't even dive in until Tuesday AM!!

The deal was buy $30 worth of participating products, and get $15 of catalina coupons good oyno (oyno = on your next order). And if you bought $60 worth, you'd get $30 worth of oyno catalinas. Sounds ok, right? Well, the two most important pieces of the greatness are that 1) The $30 (or $60) qualifying value is based on Regular shelf price NOT the current sale price!! and 2) You can keep rolling the catalinas, using them to buy more qualifying merchandise. Throw some coupons into the mix and you've got the makings of a perfect sale!!

Without all the nitty gritty details, here's what I ended up with.

10 Progresso Broth
7 Viva towels
12 Skippy PB
4 BC boxed potato
4 BC cake mix
7 BC Frosting
25 BC cookie mix
14 chex mix
1 Bisquik Shake N Pour
1 Qtips
3 Kleenex
1 Lipton tea bags
4 Shedd Spread
13 Lipton sides
6 Wishbone dressing
1 Gold Medal Flour
4 Lipton dry soup mix


1 gallon milk
2 cucumbers
1 pkg mushrooms
1 2lb salad mix
1 bag 5lb potatoes
1 Arm & Hammer baking soda
10 Maruchen Yaksioba
2 Mentos gum
1 20oz bottle of coke (got thirsty with the rolling!)
1 Heinz ketchup
3 Country Kitchen Texas Toast loaves (3.49 each reg. price! OUCH)

Shelf price Total is $324.30 and I spent only $39.56 out of my pocket AND I've still got $30 in coupons good on my next order. Not bad, although I know I could have done better!! And just think if I had the chance to go every day for 7 days AND had the killer coupons to go along with them!!!

Happy Halloween

Lots of ideas from the boys about what they wanted to be for Halloween - FREE
Spray paint, chain and hook - $15.00
2 smiling little boys who are thrilled beyond words about the finished creation - PRICELESS






If you've been patiently waiting to find out what my boys decided on for their Halloween costumes this year, wait no more my friend.

After much deliberating, the final decision came through as a tow truck for Steven and a log truck for Trevor.

Both costumes took our favorite tools of the trade. Cardboard boxes, spray paint and duct tape with a few other notions.

The log truck was easier to create - We just took a photocopier paper box and cut out the stake body and painted in black. The logs were swimming pool noodles cut to length and then painted. (They do not paint well - they took several several coats!). Another strip of duct tape became the straps to hold the logs in place, and a pair of suspenders were strategically placed to hold the box on Trevor's back. The front of the truck was a shoe box, painted green - the engine compartment was where he put the candy while he was trick or treating. Yellow. white and black foam sheets were cut down for the tires and headlights and a small strip of cardboard was covered in aluminum foil for the front bumper. To top it all off, we found a Peterbilt hat for him to wear.

The truck truck used the same idea for the front of his truck - just painted blue. The back of the body was a box cut down at an angle. We used a large cardboard tube and a foam pool noodle for the pistons of the tow truck with a little bit of crumpled up newspaper to hold the noodle in place, and everything was painted silver. A small link chain was strung inside the noodle with a small 'S' hook attached to the bottom, and then we attached a few toy tools inside the truck. More foam for the tires and headlights. Then we strapped it all on with another pair of suspenders and the costume was done.

The only out-of-pocket costs were for the spray paint at Walmart and the small chain and hook at the local hardware store. The pool noodles were graciously given to us after I posted a Wanted Ad on our local freecycle group.

Have a Diet Coke and a Smile and double your points today

Remember Coke's old slogan 'Have a Coke and a Smile? or am I showing my age here? lol

Today I'm changing that old slogan a little bit to 'Have a Diet Coke and a Smile!' or go all out and 'Have a 12 pack of Diet Coke and a Smile'. Then take that little code that you find, either on the cap of the bottle or on the 12 pk and don't delay - head on over to www.mycokerewards.com and enter that code. But make sure you go there today because for one day only they are doubling all Diet Coke codes. Cap codes are worth 6 points today and 12 pk codes are worth 20 today!!!

Halloween fun for the kids!

If you're looking for some Halloween activities to do with your children, here's a few!!

COLORING PAGES:

Jack-O-Lantern Scarecrow coloring page (compliments of www.SmallMemories.com)

The Witch's Brew coloring page and Mad Scientist coloring page (courtesy of FamilyFun)


CRAFT IDEAS:

Halloween Creepy Crawly Spider Craft

Witches Hat Craft

Spider Candy Holder

Spooky Eyeball Bucket

Creepy Crawly Spider and other crafts


If you have any other cool coloring pages or crafts to share, please reply with comments and links!!

FREE TRIAL OFFER - NETFLIX

Picture this:

It's Monday morning and you overslept because you were up late watching that movie that you rented that is due back today and now you're going to be late for work!! You grab your keys and your purse as you run out the door and hit the road. But you've got that nagging feeling that you're forgetting something. You get to work and suddenly you remember! That blasted DVD that you rented the other day is due today and you know darn well that the last thing you are going to want to do when this crazy day is over is have to go home, grab the DVD and head back to the video store.

Has that happened to you? If you say yes, then Netflix has got a great deal for you with their FREE 2 week trial offer.
Your free 2 week Netflix membership will begin when you click on "Start Membership" during the registration process. Simply cancel anytime during your 2 week free membership, and you will not be charged. To cancel, click on "Your Account" and follow the simple cancellation instructions. If you are enjoying Netflix, do nothing and your membership will automatically continue at the monthly subscription rate for the plan you selected. The FREE Trial offer is available to first time and certain former members of the Netflix service and cannot be combined with any other offer.

DVD's by mail!! How convenient is that? They have over 100,000 DVD titles to choose from but if that's not enough for you, you can also instantly watch movies (including some new releases) and TV episodes (including current season episodes) online on your PC or Mac! They have over 17,000 choices that you can watch instantly for NO additional monthly fee.

Go sign up for your free offer and then picture this:

It's Monday morning and you wake up, still laughing at the funny comedy that you watched last night before bed. You walk outside to get the newspaper and you take the movie out with you and drop it into your mailbox. What a great way to start the day, knowing that you won't have to make a trip to the video store after work. All you have to do is wait for your next DVD to arrive in the mail, watch it then mail it back. Watching the movies that you want, when you want - does it get any better than that? Ok, watching the movies that you want FOR FREE for 2 weeks - it definitely doesn't get better than that, so click here and get your free trial started.

And then come on back and let me know what movies you're watching so I can put them on my to-watch list!!!

Halloween is creeping up on us!!!

Here at our house we just don't do store bought Halloween costumes. There's just something great about having a costume that no one else has, but I will admit that it gets a little stressful trying to make an idea into a great costume. It also gets to be a little stressful when it's October 3rd and the boys still haven't fully decided what they want to dress up as. At this point, it could be one of several things. A tanker truck, a box truck, a tractor trailer truck, a 4-wheeler, a dirt-bike, a shark, an octopus, or maybe even thunder & lightning. This morning we told the boys that they absolutely had to make a final decision by tomorrow, so we can start planning how to make it work.

Whatever it is that they decide on, you can bet it'll be interesting!

The pictures above are from the past 2 years. In 2008 Trevor was a wrecking ball and Steven was a crane and in 2007 Steven was a railroad crossing and Trevor was a train.

Stay tuned in a few more weeks when I unveil this year's costumes!!!

Does the idea of cleaning your fishtank make you want to bang your head on the wall?

If the answer is 'yes', then this product may not be for you!!! lol And if you have a cat that can climb walls, this may not be for you either!!

An acrylic wall mounted fish bowl. Well, we don't have fish, but this is something I can honestly say I never knew existed. I saw it at www.Wrapables.com, which has all kinds of unique gifts. Check it out, maybe you'll find something else that you never knew existed that would be perfect for those people on your gift-giving list that have everything!