a day with caleb...

involves:
helping Aunt Angie put on some makeup...

and playing with toys...


oh, Happy Day!

Loving summer, missing family

As I said before, I LOVE summer. In a few days to a few weeks we will get to see our niece and nephews, and our families. Until then, here is a shout-out to them!

My free stuff this week

This week I made a haul with free stuff (using rebates, coupons, and contests).
I even won a free movie ticket (and like 7 bags of chips) with the Subway Get Smart contest. I waited until today to take a picture, and then sure enough, I got another freebie in the mail.

I will probably be giving a lot of this stuff away.
I had never tried RiteAid (drugstores) before this week, but the rebates are super-easy and you do it all online.
Along that note, if any of you parents are looking for "Kids Eat Free (or almost-free)" deal at resturants...check out this master list from MoneySavingMom (thanks!)
Also...can I say "I LOVE SUMMER!"

Colorado Cowboy

John's dad (Jack) spent his Father's Day herding cattle in southern Colorado. I've never thought much about herding cattle (except chasing cows across a flat area). Well, as you may know, Southwestern Colorado is NOT flat! I can't imagine what it would be like to take cows hiking...well, it might look like this:

Or THIS:

Apparently there was an incident where a horse tried to buck off Jack, but that "did not happen" so the horse threw hismself on the ground with the Jack and the saddle still on. Happily there were no broken bones.

How YOU can get some good deals and free stuff

Here is my first of a few posts about how you can get some of the free stuff that I get:)
Deal tips:
1. Sign up with a separate e-mail account than your regular one.
a. If you are serious about getting deals I would make sure you sign up for most things with an e-mail account that you don’t use that much in case it happens to get spamed.
2. Install the coupon printer. Many coupon sites that I use ask you to install the coupon printer. I was very wary at first…but it is totally worth it! ( will talk more about printing coupons in another post)

My favorite deals:
1. $40 Digital TV converter box coupons here (https://www.dtv2009.gov/Options.aspx)
2. Office Depot free DVD 10pk here (http://ebm.cheetahmail.com/r/regf2?aid=1237020949&n=4)
3. Free Food links. Sign up at your favorite resturants for free food. Some send you and e-mail for a free birthday treat, some send you a deal for signing up, some send both! If you plan on signing up for a BUNCH of your favorite resturants, you may want to “change” when your birthday is for some of them. For example, my birthday is this week, and I have like 15 choices of where to go to eat, because I have deals for those places that expire 2 wks from when sent.
When you click on the link…be sure to look at the other posts (with resturants not just S-Z)
http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/2008/06/free-food-links-last-ones.html
Look at all the options I had during the 2-weeks around my birthday:

4. Sign up for Kohl’s e-mail updates and get $5 off any $5 or more purchace. http://www.kohls.com/upgrade/registration/sale_alert_signup.jsp
5. ***It appears that this contest has ended***Dr. Pepper’s more to explore. (first you regiser) then login, choose “need a code?” at the bottom of the page, and put in your e-mail. Go to your e-mail, copy the code, and paste it into the contest box. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t, but each time you get a coupon for $1.00 off two 12-pack or 2-liter of Dr. Pepper. You can only request a code once each 24-hours, but you could request codes to different e-mail addresses to have more than one chance a day. I won a $5 grocery store gift card the other day, but mostly I do it for the coupons (John drinks a lot of Dr. Pepper). http://www.drpeppermoretoexplore.com/
6. Blue Bunny $1 off any novelty coupon:http://www.bluebunny.com/coupons.aspx (who doesn’t love ice cream?:)

My favorite free samples: (you may have to look on the website where it says “try it free” or “request a free sample”)
1. True lemon sample: http://www.truelemon.com/sample.cfm
2. Free bottle of Coffee Mate http://www.coffee-mate.com/SpecialOffers.aspx
3. Drink mix samples: http://walmart.triaddigital.com/enhancedrendercontent_ektid41062.aspx
4. Kashi Granola: http://www.kashi.com/outreach/off_your_rump/free_sample
5. Yoplait kids free package: http://www.yoplait.com/products_yoplaitkids.aspx (look for the pop-up)(it didn't come up for me when I double checked the link, but I will leave it here-just in case)
6. Teddy Grahams sample: http://www.scholastic.com/teddytrail/
7. Nature Made(vitamins)-sign up for a 14 day free supply: http://naturemade.com/
8. Clorox2colors: http://www.homecleaningsquad.com/clorox_offer.html
9. Free Attune bar: http://stores.attunefoods.com/free_attune_daily.php
10. Free Playtex baby bottle (drop-ins): http://www.playtexbaby.com/bpafree/info.html
11. This blog lists some more that I didn’t list: http://freebies4mom.blogspot.com/2008/05/edible-freebies-roundup.html

New Challenge: How much can I save?

This week, as I read "frugal" blogs, printed Internet coupons, scavenged through Sunday paper store fliers, and re-read the grocery store ads...I made it my goal to see how much money I would save by shopping with sales, store deals, and coupons. When I unloaded all my bags today I was pleasantly surprised! I think I did pretty good.

Here is what I got for $20.07 (after rebates and coupons)
2-CranGrape 64 oz. bottles
2-boxes Honey Nut Cheerios
2-boxes Cinnamon Toast Crunch
1- Venus Razor
1-Schick Titanium Razor with bonus Edge shave gel
2- fancy paper clip pkgs.
1- pkg. clear Band-Aids
1-6pk. bottles Mt. Dew
2-4pk. Tava Sparkling Beverage
3-pkgs. taco seasoning mix
1-can Enchilada mix
1-bottle Fuze
1-pkg. Kashi Granola bars
1-pkg. Cheerios snack mix
1-box Honey bunches of oats
2-baby outfits (gifts)
1-baby bottle
1-bottle Excedrin Back&Body pain reliever
1-trial sized Gold bond lotion
2-pkgs. Kotex Pads
1- pkg. Electrasol tabs
1-can Baked beans
1-whole pineapple

And I got 2 Digital TV converters (using my 2-$40 card from the mail)and a wireless laptop mouse for a little over $25.
It's so much stuff that it needed 2 pictures!


I looked at how much the regular price was, how much I paid, and I figured out how much I saved.
Without the Converters and mouse I paid $20.07
And saved...............
$68.88 That's 71% if I calculated correctly.
Including the TV converters and mouse I paid $45.81
And saved......$170.87! That's a savings of 73%
WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may ask...did you buy anything else?
Yeah. I always put the cold stuff in the fridge/freezer right away. That was all on sale too.
I did buy a few other things that weren't on sale (shame-shame). Shaver blades that John loves, chapstick with 30SPF so I don't get cold sores from the sun, and sinus medicine without drowsiness. (I felt a sinus headache coming on before I left, so I took some medicine that "may cause drowsiness" because that was all I had...And I got very sleepy while shopping for deals:)
I still am planning to post my favorite deals, and tips for getting good deals on here sometime (maybe this week). Keep on the lookout. If you don't want to wait, check out MoneySavingMom or CentsibleSawyer (on my blogs list).

some digital scrapbooking

Here are some digital scrapbooking pages I made of my nephew for my sister.

Rainy weather, scrapbooking fun.

So I've looked outside (off and on) the last couple of days and I've seen this:

Rainy weather, very green lawn.
And if it's not raining, it is either very windy or there is severe weather around.
(see the lightning in the cloud!)


With all my free time now that school is out, and because I am not going outside, I have done a bit of scrap booking. These two include my nephew Caleb...it seems like I have so many cute pictures of him:)

In this "Aunt Angie" one, I only used the "hard light" portion of the picture so the faces look a little funny.

I changed the title on this one like 6 times.