My Savvy Life This Week - Getting The Best Deal

I was so excited earlier this week when I took my sister shopping at the grocery store.  We found several unadvertised deals and clearance items, which when paired with coupons = awesome deals!  I should say I was sooooo excited until... one of those deals turned up even cheaper yesterday at another grocery store - UGH!!!!

I bought Malt O Meal 50 oz bagged cereal for $1.50 after coupons on Monday which works out to be about $0.50 per regular size box of Kelloggs Frosted Shredded Wheat.  (Honestly, there's not a big taste difference between Malt O Meal and Kelloggs in my opinion, and we love the Mini Spooners!) I bought 10 bags because after doing the price per ounce calculations I KNEW it was a hot deal.

But, low and behold, Reams in Springville is offering the identical cereal for $1.99 - $2.00/2 (Smartsource 1/2) coupon, or  $0.75/1 Malt o Meal Coupon or $1.00/2 malt O Meal coupon.  This works out to be as low as $0.99 for 50 oz or like $0.33 per regular size box!  Oh My Word!  I've spent $0.51 too much per bag for a total of $5.10.  Truthfully, I've been a bit annoyed by this all day because I always want to get the very best deal possible and Reams Springville is a store I frequent often.  Had I just waited 3 measly days longer....  And then I remembered what I tell shoppers all the time - "Was it a good deal when you bought it?"  Well, of course it was!  I mean $0.50 per box of cereal is a SCORE!  "Then it WAS and still IS a deal!"

Guess I should take my own advice huh?  Just because you don't get the very lowest price on products every time you shop doesn't mean you didn't score too!  I suppose I could have used only part of my initial $2.00/2 coupons and hoped for a better deal but A DEAL IS A DEAL, no matter how much you could have purchased it for later. And, waiting too long for the rock bottomest (totally not a word) price can also mean your coupons could expire before that elusive "better" deal comes around!  Plus, I can still use the printable coupons to buy up to 8 more bags at Reams and still stock up for my family at a great price!  (I'll try not to break down and let you see me cry in the middle of their cereal aisle as you snatch up the $0.99 Malt O Meal.)  So, I'll be happy with my $1.50 a bag cereal and move on to the next deal, because there's always another deal lurking around the corner!

My Savvy Life This Week - In Stitches & Chocolate

This, the first week of the new year, was bound for greatness!  Having not eaten chocolate for an entire year, as last years New Year's Resolution, was a feat in and of itself and my pre-planned chocolate orgy was to be spectacular! Decadent Chocolate Cake was scheduled to be the centerpiece of this cocoa fete, served hot with vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, supplemented by Reese's Peanut Butter Cups, Oreos, M&Ms, Stephens Mint Truffle Hot Chocolate, Chocolate Milk and anything else I could find! At exactly 12:00 am and 1 second I planned to dive into my feast and make myself sick if possible.

The Carrot Top eating MY M&Ms 
on the way to the doctor

I was getting things ready when my two year old began to cry out from his bedroom.  Low and behold he had fallen on a toy, rounded none-the-less, and cut his eyelid open.  AHHH!  We rushed him to the Pediatrician who confirmed my little carrot top needed stitches.  Stitches on a 2 year old - not super  fun!  We opted for the numbing gel instead of a shot to avoid as much pain and screaming as possible. After papoosing my baby, he was stitched up and we went back home to get ready for the New Years fun.  We got home, loaded up the rest of the kids and headed off to Provo (via more Walmart 75% off Christmas clearance hunting) when my husband noticed the Houdini had actually pulled out his stitches.

Macgyver & The Carrot Top

Seriously?  You picked out those baby stitches without making a sound - how did you do that?  Another call to the Pediatrician.  Another office visit, after hours this time.  Would he keep the stitches in the doctor asked?  I hope so, I said.  This time we opted for the shot to make things go faster and numb the area better.  You may be thinking - How much fun was stitches the second time around on a 2 year old less than 2 hours after the first go round?  Priceless!  Interestingly enough, 2 year-olds have the memory of an elephant when it comes to doctors and needles - super awesome!  After some more, breaking my heart, pleading momma for help from the carrot top we finished with stitches round two.

Needless to say the cake ingredients remain in my fridge even now.  The moment had passed and then life continued.  In mourning, after having licked a melting Wendy's chocolate Frosty as my first chocolate of the new year, my sweet Macgyver offered to do anything that would make me happy so he dropped me off at good ol' Wallyworld a little after midnight.  Blue Bunny Peanut Butter Attack Icecream in hand (and a few more 75% off clearance items) I tried to find some chocolate joy still left in my heart and headed home.  I must say that even though the night approached and crossed over into dismal at many points...

Chocolate Heaven!

it did have one heavenly moment! And I'm calling a do-over on the chocolate cake this weekend!

FYI - the carrot top pulled out his stitches a second time the next morning.  It had glued itself shut enough to hold so we left it as it (besides the doctor said he had never had to stitch a child up 3 times before and I didn't want to be the first pathetic mom to have to do so).  By Friday the doctor said the stitches could come out so I thought we were home free... that is until he fell tonight and popped it partially back open again! Hope the Band-aid holds long enough.  C'mon, give me a little help here son!

My New Years Resolution this year - nothing fried! And you can bet I ate a super-sized Mcdonalds French Fry with some Hot Mustard dipping sauce Dec. 31st!

My Savvy Life This Week - Where's the beef?

My savvy life this week was filled with a little more excitement than usual when our cow had its calf.  Aww - so cute (except for the piles of manure, flies and other grossness).  Before you start getting all googly-eyed at these cuties remember that some day they could my dinner.  Yup - just like the 13 chickens I have running around the yard, I also currently have 2 cows, not to mention horses and cats. Anyone want a FREE Kitten - I'm serious!

#48, as my husband calls her, was one of our first 10 Holsteins and was also a twin.  Twin cows, with one male and one female,  are free-martins and apparently the chances of them having babies are pretty slim.  (But good 'ol #48 proved em wrong I guess.)   However,  sweet Tim The Toolman, unoffically Tim the midwife, decided that 1 week out from having my third child we ought to invest in 10 calves, including free-martins, and wouldn't it be so fun for the kids.  It wasn't really an investment, he said, because they were being given to us for free and there was also almost no cost for the hay in our fields.  He did forget to tell me the part about the back breaking labor of hauling hay! (On a side note, have you ever had to bottle feed an animal?  You guessed it, just like a baby they need to be fed constantly at all hours of the day and night. )

Tim, #48 and Baby Heffer

My husband was such a proud papa as he hooked twine around the calf's hooves to help birth the baby.  (I won't show you those pictures).  He exclaimed in delight how much milk that momma cow could give now.  "That's so nice" I said - "but who's gonna milk it"?  Not me! Seriously folks - not me!  Cows and chickens are his idea of food storage and frugal living while they're my idea of a hay devouring, poop making, fly storage living.

Truthfully, it is actually more expensive to raise your own beef than buying it at the store and I really can't tell the difference in taste - not a beef connoisseur I guess.  One might call me a city slicker.  And guess what, the calf is a girl and girls are more valuable! YAY GIRLS - except girls have more babies, which means more poop, hay, flies... you know the cycle!  So I've been wondering, can you "fix" a cow without your husband noticing.  Hmm, an idea worth looking into!

My Savvy Life This Week - Coupon Codes & Crashes

Ok - this week has been a bit frustrating to say the least.  About 2 days ago I accidentally threw a folder in the trash on my computer.  The folder contained every column I have ever written, phone lists, price lists, previous tax year statements, personal projects.  It was "Amy's Folder" - literally the most important folder I had on the whole computer.

I had uploaded a ton of photos for this blog actually and was trying to clean up my screen.  I accidentally selected the folder in that process.  Um... then I emptied the trash (Can you hear me screaming through the computer???).  Yah, not a good moment!  Where's the easy button when you need it?

I desperately googled, "I'm an idiot, can someone help me?" ok, really I googled "Help, how do I retrieve deleted trash files" which still means I'm an idiot please help me BTW.  I found 2 software programs that were potentially capable of retrieving my data and decided on Stellar Phoenix.  It appeared from the free download (yup, I'm a sucker for free) that I could get all my documents back so I decided to buy the full version.  But you know me, always on the look out for a deal, so I googled "Stellar Phoenix Coupon Code" and my favorite online coupon code site appeared - www.RetailMeNot.  Sure enough there was a 20% off code that save me $20!  Yes - at least there's some savings in this drama.

Retail Me Not is a great online coupon source for discounts on hundreds if not thousands of online stores nationwide.  If you need an online discount on anything from the Disney Store to The Gap, they've likely got a promotional code to save you some money when you checkout.  Just search www.retailmenot.com for the store you need a discount to, grab the code and enter it during the online checkout process at your selected retailers website.  It's totally free savings with the click of a mouse!

But, wait, my story doesn't end there - though I wish it did.  I used the software and was only able to retrieve 15 of the 300 documents I lost.  While I'm grateful for the 15, I was hoping for more.  But, what should I expect - I was the idiot who threw them away.  And then the nightmare really began.  I stayed up until 2 am last night prepping for my usual Friday Freebies & Deals email and all was well when I left my beloved 8 year old Apple to rest for a few meger hours.  But she greeted me this morning with a blown network port which would cost over $500 to repair.  And thus, with no coupons in hand, I forked out an obscene amount of $$ to buy a new computer this afternoon, a process which took over 6 hours to complete.

I was able to save all my current files and programs with a data transfer and yes, I did learn my lesson and buy an external hard drive this time to save my data for the future.  (You should have seen me trying to save my data to a 1990's floppy drive at 3 am, 2 days ago - hillarious!)

So in the end, my life this week was a little savvy and a little not.  Valuable lesson learned about the importance of backing up your data though and that certainly will make me Savvier for the future!

Update:  I just found out I can now print coupons from www.redplum.com on my mac again with the software update on this new computer - YAY!  (I'm trying to look on the bright side folks.)