2 Years of Wedded Bliss

Yesterday, Marcel and I spent the day celebrating 2 wonderful years of marriage!  The day started perfectly was we both slept until 9am. The rest of the day was spent redeeming coupon after coupon ;)  We didn't exchange gifts this year because we had already boughten ourselves a new bedset, which was needed very badly.  Plus it fit in with the 2nd year = cotton anniversary.  We've followed that tradition both years now and I hope we continue it in the future.

We started at Jared's to get our rings cleaned.  What better thing could you do on an anniversary than to add a little sparkle to your ring :)

We then headed to TGI Friday's to redeem a free appetizer coupon.  Next on the agenda was clothes shopping for MaryBeth with some money she earned for completing online surveys.  2 pairs of jeans and 1 pair of shorts for $7.00 (the 2 jeans came to a grand total of $1.21!).  That's the best type of shopping: when you get new stuff cheaper than you could buy at Goodwill.  We went right down the road to Macaroni Grill for our free dessert.  We had a coupon emailed to us since it was our anniversary, how sweet of them!

Then we were off to Wahooz! for a round of mini golf that we got BOGO.  It wasn't until the 10th hole that I told Marcel I was out to win, which turned out to be a big mistake.  I had been beating him until that point, and then he ended up winning.

 

We headed home to watch 1 of our redbox rentals, The Other Woman, which was a very sad movie.  After that we headed to our local TGI Friday's and ordered a basket of fries and redeemed our last coupon of the day for another free dessert.  We both highly recommend their new Oreo dessert, but only if you have a coupon because it is a huge rip-off if you have to pay the regular price of $5.59.  It wasn't until this stop in our day that Marcel asked if I had taken a before picture of all the coupons we were going to redeem.  I LOVE that he is more than happy to have our day revolve around what coupons we have.  It was also here that we decided we're going to strive to spend $10 per year of marriage on our anniversary activities each year.  We'll see how that goes, but we were under our $20 budget for this year!

 

 

We finished the next with another redbox, Unstoppable, which was really good and kept me on the edge of my seat.  But as I've posted before I could watch Denzel Washington all day long, as long as I'm cuddled up to my own good looking black man :)

We spent time in bed before drifting off to sleep talking about this upcoming year.  The things we hope to accomplish, both individually and together, things we are looking forward to and, in order to keep strengthening our marriage, the areas we think we can be improving on. 

All in all, it was a very low-key day, but turned out perfectly for us.  After the busyness of Marcel finishing up student teaching, school, etc, it was nice to have one complete day with no distractions or interruptions.  We're so lucky to have each other!

Pictureless Post

Updates on The Bailey's

• MaryBeth LOVES spending her days with Lilli, who can finally army crawl good enough to get wherever she wants. If you hold her fingers to support her, she's an excellent walker.
• Marcel LOVES working at the Boys & Girls Club in Kuna. It's a lot different than the other 4 summers he has worked at a club, but he's still enjoying spending time with the kids.
• MaryBeth is just about finished with her first official week of training for a half-marathon. The training schedule will have her ready to race on or after September 4th, just in time for her 25th birthday, which is what motivated her to run a half-marathon in the first place
• Marcel is just about finished with his first year of graduate school. He is currently taking 3 classes (2 online only, and 1 on the Thursday night class session) so that they have the month of August off. When they start up again in September it's just 2 months before starting student teaching
• MaryBeth is still spending her free time couponing! She is loving how far she can stretch her small budget by matching sale prices with coupons.
• Marcel is still spending his free time at church. He recently auditioned to play drums and guitar on the worship team. He played drums in the Wednesday night service, which they use as practice before playing on a Sunday service. He'll slowly start playing the guitar, but the more he plays on the worship team, the fewer Sundays he has to run the sound board, which he has been doing great on. What it must be like to be so talented that people fight over where to use you!
• They are both getting very excited for th Bailey Reunion in Puyallup, Washington in July. It's just a weekend trip, but we're staying an extra day to make it down to Oregon to see some old friends. After the reunion, Snoh is coming to spend about 3 weeks with them. They plan to spend a day at the water park (because Snoh tells them everytime they talk that he's finally tall enough for the big rides), swim in Wende Lady's pool, play in the big sandbox, and other fun things to be determined!

My Trip To Walgreens

I had a good shopping week at Walgreens. My favorite part was that all of this was just 1 transaction. I wasn't going to get the Aquafresh because the printable coupon was out of prints so it was still just going to be $0.99 each, but when my transaction went negative, I needed to add something and at least the toothpaste was something we'll use!

I don't remember how much I had in RR to start with, but my total before tax was just $0.06, with tax $1.21! Now I have $9.50 in RR for next week.

Don't think Marcel has noticed the candy in our pantry. He'll be so happy when it shows up in his lunch he takes to work!

was also wondering if anyone has tried this jello?
I always use it as a filler but have yet to make any of it! Hope it's good :)

Random Updates

A random post with random pictures I've taken so far this month...

May 1st, I saw this outside the window while I was doing the dishes. It was a complete double rainbow! I had never seen 2 full rainbows like that. It was beautiful and it almost made doing the dishes worth it. I have recently decided that doing the dishes is my most detested chore of them all, and I do just about all of them. I decided even before starting to watch baby at my house, that if doing the chores allowed Marcel time to focus on his homework during the evenings after working all day, it is what I should do. It seems to be really working for us (he finished his first semester with a 4.0), and it makes it even more special when he surprises me by doing something I was expecting to have to do later.

I admit it: I am fully on the couponing bandwagon! I love it ;) I read coupon blogs a few times everyday, and always get signed up for samples to be mailed to my house. I now have a little box for all of them and am excited to use them for various things. This was the last trip I took a picture of. I was at Albertson's (with doublers), Walgreens and Target. I spent $14.07, which is more than I like to spend in a trip, but just the 4 body washes should have been $12! I love that it has sort of become my hobby, which sounds funny, but it does keep me occupied!

One day, Marcel got home from teaching and took baby into help him play drums. I thought it was so cute and had to take a picture. I think the look on her face just about says it all even though she seemed to actually be enjoying herself. Her mom was just saying the other day how I'm going to see all her "firsts" and wanted to have a video camera here, so now I'm trying to take pictures/videos to give them. This will definitely be in there!

I love the decoration you see there...I made it for Marcel in October 2007 on one of his old drum-heads. That was just about the time we had started FAEA: Forever And Ever Always, which I still use to sign all the cards/notes/emails I send him!

We got this a few days ago from Marcel's little brother, Snoh, who just turned 5 years old. He'll be starting kindergarten in the fall, but already has a great grasp on his letters! I love his "R" :) And we did get a little laugh out of "I like you"


And again, with baby. I had her on the blanket while I was doing the dishes and she made it under the chair on her back and loved the tab on the zipper of Marcel's jacket. When it was time for me to eat lunch, I moved her back to the blanket and a few seconds later she had rolled back over to play with his jacket. She seemed a little frustrated that she got there on her stomach and wasn't able to play with it again. No worries, though, because she had managed to bring a toy along on her journey. Next thing I knew she was asleep! It was a big milestone for us. Before this nap she had just recently sleeping out of the swing and still only fell asleep while being fed a bottle. And the blanket is all bunched up because she discovered it was light enough to pull on to bring the toys that I purposely put out of her reach close enough to play with. Pretty darn cute, this little girl is! It isn't working as birth control for me, like my aunt just asked me a few days ago, in fact it really leaves me with desire to be a mom, but for now this is as close as I'm getting!

I LOVE Cereal

Whenever I post something really important, I try not to post something for awhile to make sure that the most important thing stays on the top of the page. Hannah getting engaged is pretty darn important and while I know it deserves to be on the top of the page for quite a bit longer, I can't help but to post something new.

Turns out, I have a little thing for cereal. Actually that is a lie! I've had a thing for cereal for as long as I've ate solid foods :) I'd wake up and nearly cry for a bowl of cereal. Ask my mom or aunt Wayla to demonstrate it in their best MaryBeth impression. It's quite humorous. It still continues to this day. I wake up, go to the bathroom, and get myself some cereal. We joke at our house and in my family how easy Marcel has it to make me breakfast in bed. All I want is a big bowl of cereal! I'm always grateful when he makes me something else, like this week when I got served French Toast (it will never be pancakes unless that's what I crave while I'm pregnant, because that it a deal we've made...that's a whole different story) but I would much rather eat cereal!

Marcel and I were at Albertson's last week sometime buying Kellogg's cereal (Apple Jacks & Fruit Loops) on a super good deal that I can't remember right now, and the manager saw our cart loaded with cereal and said, "Next Wednesday, all POST cereal on sale for $0.78." Being a new couponer I knew that was a deal that would be CRAZY so I asked him what time they open and how much they were getting in. They open at 6 and they ordered over 40 pallets of cereal. It was my plan all week to be there at 6am to try to beat a lot of the crowd who can't shop much until they get their kids dropped off to school (I am not embarrased to be in the couponing community full of stay at home moms, while right now my family is just me and Marcel...I think of it as great practice for when we have a bigger family to provide for on just a teacher's salary!) But a change of events, mainly our fasting for church, meant I wasn't going until I ate for the day (Another post about fasting later). That didn't happen either because I was just sitting at the table watching the clock, waiting for lunch time. While our pastor warned us against grocery shopping while you are fasting, Marcel and I decided at least it would get me out of the house. Plus we were only going for cereal, it's not like we were going to make any impulse buys out of our starvation.

Turns out the deal went like this

Box of cereal = $1.59

Buy 4, receive $3.00 catalina for your next purchase

Buy 5+, receive $4.00 catalina for your next purchase

I also had $13.00 in catalinas from other deals that helped to pay for a lot of the cereal.

So we bought 30 boxes, in 6 transactions, always using 1 catalina as part of our payment and received a new catalina after paying each time!

We saved $132.86, spent $9.01 and still have $10 in catalinas to use again, so we really made $0.99 shopping for my absolute favorite food in the whole entire world. Couponers strive for money MAKING transactions. While I've gotten really close before, this was my first actual money making day of grocery shopping.

What the store looked like last night

Wish everyday was cereal day at the store!
picture credit: athriftymom.com

what we got for $9.01

only got the fruity and cupcake pebbles to use for Rice-Krispy treats. Are they still called that if you don't use Rice Krispies?

Just part of our stockpile of cereal

10 more boxes on a shelf you can't see!

We have 42 unopened boxes of cereal, most of which doesn't expire until February 2011, but I have no doubt in my mind that this will be gone way before then.

Stretching A Buck

I have gotten on the couponing bandwagon. I get super excited to get the paper from outside on Sunday morning to start the clipping :) Just like getting the mail I actually enjoy doing it everyday but on the other 6 days of the week, I just like the paper for the sudoku; I need something to keep my brain from rotting!

I check a handful of coupon websites a handful of times each day trying to decide what store has the best place to use each coupon to get the best deal! Haven't gone on too many major coupon shopping trips, but this week was really good.

Wednesday I took Hannah with me to Albertson's for the AMAZING fruit snack deal. I'm so glad I did since it was my first experience at feeling like a full-fledged couponer. We came home with 20 boxes of fruit snacks, 10 boxes of mac & cheese, 8 frozen juice concentrates and 2 frozen pizzas. Should have cost $98.99 but I saved 91.4% of that price! I wish I would have taken a picture of that shopping trip but it didn't cross my mind.

Thursday, I went for more juice and fruit snacks ALL ALONE! I managed to do just fine except they were out of the juice and I have yet to remember to get a rain check. This is what I did manage to get:

after I displayed the purchase, my real camera battery died, so I used my phone
15 boxes of fruit snacks (Scooby Doo & Fruit Gushers)
1 tub of frosting (to go along with the cake mix I got for $0.25 for the next time Marcel has to bring treats to school)
1 Olay lotion (to complete the $15 mail in rebate)
1 Snuggle dryer sheets (because we NEEDED them--learning that you should never need anything!)
2 sour creams
2 Vitamin Waters
2 bags of Rhodes warm-n-serve rolls.

The percentage of savings wasn't nearly as big this time, only 81.4% from original price of about $74 (I don't have the receipts right in front of me). I do know that my savings were $60.60! Plus I still have $7 in catalinas to spend on my next shopping trip!

I've been telling Hannah this week, that of course Marcel and I could definitely use to save money on groceries. The money I get for food stamps (recall from a facebook status that Marcel doesn't qualify since when I applied he was not working 20 hours/week which is required for college students to be eligible) isn't quite enough each month so it is nice to stretch it even further. But it has been really fun to see how cheap I can get laundry detergent and dish soap (have enough to get to Christmas I guarantee it, plus that supply cost less than I would have paid for 1 bottle of detergent before!) and other non-food household items. On top of stretching a buck or two, though, it is really nice that it does give me a few more websites to add to my list of ones I check regularly. I can only blog-stalk and be on facebook so much in 1 day :)

Hope this was interesting to someone else. While blog-stalking I always feel myself getting upset at people who haven't blogged in a really long time and then just tonight I looked at my own blog and it had been way too long for me and couponing is about the only thing going on lately in our life that I haven't blogged about :)

In case you are new to couponing, I LOVE:
thekrazycouponlady.com
athrifymom.com
fabulesslyfrugal.com
idahodealdivas.com
hip2save.com
I read plenty of other sites occasionally but these are the ones I check a few times each day!