Save on Hasbro Card Games
Thanks to a tip from Brandie at Free Sample Freak, I was able to save a lot of money on games. On coupons.com, Hasbro has several coupons for $4-$5 off games, including some for Scrabble, Sorry, Pictureka, and Monopoly, all of which are board games, but also card games. The coupons were also in the Parade section of last week’s newspaper, so I had three of those, in addition to the two of each coupons.com let me print. The card games run $4.50-$5.89 at my local Meijer, so this represented a lot of savings! So far we’ve purchased 4 Monopoly card games, 3 Scrabble, and 4 Sorry Revenge. Meijer is out of Pictureka right now, so we’re waiting until they’re back in stock, and we’ll buy 4 of them. With a $5 off coupon on a $5.24 game, we’ll be able to get 4 of them for just under $1 plus tax. It looks like we’ll be giving a lot of game night packages away as gifts this coming year!
See also: How to Get Stocking Stuffers for Free for more ideas on saving money on gifts.
Looking Forward to a Week of Savings
This is a week where we have the opportunity to save a lot of money, but still enjoy going out. Today we went out to Olive Garden for a Valentine’s lunch, where we spent just $4 on our food—the rest was covered by a gift card from Christmas. Then we went to a free movie using tickets I had one in an instant win game. That was followed by a trip to the mall where we got two shirts for my sister at Aeropostale where we had to do a mystery shop. We spent $18.51, and $14 will be reimbursed, so $4.51 for two shirts from my sister’s favorite store is a great deal. This will be her birthday present later in the year.
We have a supper out planned tomorrow for another mystery shop. We should be able to keep all of our food within the amount they will reimburse us for. At most we might have to spend a dollar or two on the tip, and that’s money I’m willing to pay for an otherwise free meal I don’t have to cook or clean up after!
For the rest of the week, meals are planned that should be easy enough to make, even after a long day at work. This should help us stay on track to spending $50 or less on food for the rest of the month, though we have been pretty good about eating at home so far this month. In January that was a struggle, but as we see our debt coming down, I think we’re becoming more committed staying in to save money to pay off our debts and then start saving for a down payment on a house and maxing out our Roth IRAs.
Using Up Our Stockpile
I had an unexpected vacation this week due to snow (and looking at the forecast, might unfortunately be getting another one this week). For two days I sat around and did nothing but watch tv, write some articles for eHow, and read blogs, which was enjoyable for two days, but by day three, I was bored. That, coupled with the fact that my house needed some organization, led me to clean out my cupboards and go through my stockpile.
Organized cupboard
As I was doing that, I realized that our clutter problem is not just with stuff around the house, but also food and hygiene products. As I was cleaning, I had to throw away about $30 worth of food that had expired. I’ve known for a long time we probably weren’t going to eat it—it was stuff only one of us liked, but not stuff we’d make for just one of us—and I should have been more proactive about donating it, but I wasn’t. This motivated me to go through and remove any item I didn’t think we would use before it expired. I did the same for the hygiene stockpile. I ended up with three bags filled with items to be donated, in addition to the bag of items I had purchased specifically to donate to the food bank. It’s good to donate, but it’s bad to have that much stuff just sitting around my house.
As a result of my cupboard and shelf organization, I came up with a couple plans.
1. I will use $10 each month to get as many items as I can for the food bank. It’s not a lot of money, but it’s what we can spare. Plus, I think that between sales and coupons, I can make that $10 go a long way.
2. We need to use up some of our stockpile. Stockpiling items we use when they’re on sale is a great way to save money, but only if actually use those items. If they go to waste, we wasted food and money. So for the rest of the month, we have only $50 to spend on food. This will include the $4 we spent at Olive Garden today (the rest was covered by a giftcard) and the $3.88 cents I spend when my coworkers and I go to the gas station for lunch each Friday (we really go for the fancy establishments), but it won’t include the four mystery shop meals (three suppers for both of us and one lunch for just Josh) unless we go over the limit they’ll reimburse us for. Hopefully that doesn’t happen. I’ve planned our suppers for the month, and we have everything we need for those except ¼ of hamburger we’ll need at the end of the month. Pretty much all we’ll need should be perishable items like milk, eggs, bread, yogurt, fruits, etc. However, if roasts and lean hamburger go on sale in the next two weeks, I’ll break my $50 budget to stock up on them, but I don’t think that will happen. They shouldn’t be on sale again until March or April, at least not a huge sale. By spending only $50 for the rest of the month on food, this is a great way for us to save money, and it’s something I think we can modify a bit to carry on into March as well. This will put as at an even better pace for paying off our credit card bill by the time Josh’s semester is over!
Vinegar
Saturday’s Super Stuff: Vinegar
Vinegar is one of my favorite super products. It’s cheap, and it’s got so many uses! Here are my top 10 uses for vinegar.
1. Flavoring cucumbers. My favorite way to eat cucumbers is sliced up and then soaked in equal parts apple cider vinegar and water. Yummy!
2. Making “buttermilk.” I have a few recipes that call for a cup of buttermilk, but I don’t want to go out and buy some when we won’t drink it and very few recipes call for it. Instead I add a tablespoon of vinegar to a measuring cup and then fill to the one cup line with milk. Let it stand a few minutes, and you’ll have a great substitute for buttermilk.
3. Cleaning carpets. We’ve always used equal parts vinegar (white tends to be the cheapest) and cold water to clean up pet stains. Soak up as much liquid as you can, and then using an old scrub brush or rag, use the vinegar and water solution to clean the carpet and neutralize the smell. The resulting vinegar smell should disappear as it dries.
4. Cleaning showerheads. I did this just this past week. Our showerhead’s pressure was getting low because of hard-water build up, so we removed the showerhead and soaked it in a bowl of vinegar and water. It was far cheaper than chemical cleaners you can buy at the store, and I liked not having to use a harsh chemical at all. This is like natural CLR.
5. Cleaning drains. This won’t clear a clog, but it can help keep your drains clean. Just pour some vinegar down the drain once a month or so. Vinegar is naturally anti-bacterial, so it will kill anything lurking in your drain. For added fun and to better get at gunk starting to coat the sides of the pipes, pour some baking soda down the drains first. This is lots of fun, especially for kids. It’s like having a volcano science experiment in your drain!
6. Making rocks bubble. Yes, I admit that this is really dorky, but it was fun when I was a kid. It seemed like magic. My dad used to take pieces of limestone and put them in vinegar for us. The rock would then bubble because the vinegar was eating the lime (same concept as cleaning the showerhead—vinegar eats lime buildup, which is what limestone is made of).
7. Soothe a bee sting. Put a bit of vinegar on it to relieve some of the pain. Another option is a paste of meat tenderizer and water.
8. Laundry softener. As an alternative to expensive products like Downy or Bounce, you can add ½ cup of vinegar to the rinse cycle. The vinegar smell will be gone when the clothes are dry, and they’ll be left extra clean because the vinegar will get rid of any lingering soap residue.
9. Disinfect a cutting board. It’s important to disinfect cutting boards occasionally to kill any bacteria that might be hiding in the knife marks. Many people recommend bleach, but an alternative is vinegar, which is anti-bacterial and better yet—won’t stain your clothes if you spill it!
10. Clean the dishwasher by pouring 1 cup of vinegar into the bottom and then running it empty.
February Goals
Our main goals for the month as a couple are to create a budget and to pay off as much debt as possible, but we also set some personal goals for the month.
Lindsey:
1. Read at least 5 books. Listening to audio books during my hour roundtrip counts as reading, so even though this month will be super busy with grading student essays, this should be doable.
2. Walk at least 100 miles. I wear a pedometer and track my walking everyday. I’ve averaged over 4 miles the past few days. If I keep this up, I can definitely meet this goal.
3. Lose at least 2 pounds.
4. Make extra food at least once a week to put an extra meal in the freezer. I met that for this week already when we made a huge batch of mini pizza meatloaves. It was our supper last night, Josh’s lunch today, and we have 5 servings left in the freezer.
5. Generate at least $100 of extra income (which can come from selling stuff or extra work). This is going to have to be actually $170 because I want $100 profit, and I’m budgeting this month for the breakfast I provide all 90 of my students the morning of our big state standardized test the first week of March. Last year I fed 93 kids on $100, and they were well fed. They were still full at lunch. This year I think I can do even better and spend even less. My budget is $70.
6. Write at least 10 ehow articles.
Josh:
1. Be all caught up on grading
2. Do 10 mystery shops (he’s already done 2 for the month and has some really good restaurant ones lined up–2 at Buffalo Wild Wings and 1 at Applebees. I’m excited!)
3. Listen to 2 audio books
4. Lose 9 pounds
5. Sell at least 10 things and earn a minimum of $70
6. Figure out what he’s doing this summer and fall
7. Not buy more than 3 fountain pops (his very favorite)
8. Have 1 day a week of not yelling at Mauer (one of our dogs; he’s the crazy neurotic one, but we I love him anyway)
9. Apply for at least 3 full-time jobs
January’s Successes
We’ve said many times that we need to get our acts together, start being more responsible, etc., but in January we finally made a real commitment to it. We still have a long way to go, but we’re off to a good start. Here’s what we accomplished:
1. We established our emergency savings account of $1000.
2. We paid a decent chunk toward our credit card bill. We plan on being credit card debt free by our first anniversary on July 3. It will hopefully be sooner, but that’s our deadline.
3. We started decluttering. We both have hoarding tendencies we need to keep in check, and we started getting rid of stuff (though we still have a lot more to get rid of). The stuff is either getting sold, being given away, or going in the garbage.
4. I got free stuff! I love free stuff. This month I got several samples of things, but, more exciting, I got several non-sample items: 1 free pair of Lee jeans, 1 free pair of Champion workout pants (now I just need to work out), Tide Swash (which I tried for the first time this morning and was amazed at the results), and a full bottle of Suave Rosemary Mint shampoo and conditioner (a much cheaper version of Aveda’s expensive stuff). I also won 2 free tickets to Valentine’s Day.
5. We made extra money selling stuff! We got $49.92 selling video games on Half.com and $150 selling stuff on Craigslist.
6. We got about $45 worth of free food. Most of it was from Arby’s (see my eHow article on how to get free food from Arby’s), but we also got free fresco tacos from Taco Bell, a free half gallon of chocolate milk thanks to a coupon I got from the Great Gallon Give, and we earned enough points at QDoba to get Josh’s chicken quesadilla free.
7. I made my nerdy spreadsheet to track my free stuff and extra income.
Great deal at Office Depot!
In years past, Josh has paid our taxes using the free edition of Turbo Tax, but this year we decided to purchase Turbo Tax Deluxe to try to help us find as many deductions as possible. We’ve been looking in the Sunday ads and had seen several offers for a gift card or money back with purchase, which looked tempting, but we just didn’t get around to going to the store to actually purchase it.
I’m glad we didn’t! Office Depot is having a great deal this week. Buy the Turbo Tax software for $50, get Quicken Starter Edition for free, a free dvd (he chose House Bunny because he knew my sister and brother-in-law like the movie (Happy Birthday!), and they also have up to $1100 worth of free software that you can get. Josh got Defender Pro, which is an anti-virus software we’ll use when our current subscription is over, and Digital TV for PC2 (we’re considering getting rid of satelite and streaming Netflix and other programs through Josh’s XBOX 360 in the living room and a roku in the bedroom and also watching on my desktop). The only catch to all of the free software is it’s all rebates, so if you’re not willing to fill out the paperwork, it’s really not a good deal for you. We’re willing though, so we’ll gladly take our free stuff! 
We spent $181.85. Of that, $11.90 was tax, the Turbo Tax program was $49.99, and the rest will be refunded with rebates. Josh also signed up for the Office Depot rewards card, which means we’ll be getting 10% in a rebate from them. So for a about $45, we got a lot of stuff! I just hope we’re able to save that much or more on taxes with the Deluxe Edition!
