The Hailee Marie

You remember this guy...

Mr. Chair

I almost gave up on him.
He was hard... esoteric... and obscure.
(I just looked those words up on thesaurus.com)
Too byzantine for my life right now.
That is... until Nat showed up (my besty from HS).Nice sketch, eh? We were in AP Art. I didn't pass.

Anyway, just her presence instilled in me a sense of creative percipience.
So Bowen and I got out our tools and just started rippin'.
Notice the concentration.After hours and hours of total reconstructive surgery Mr. Chair became and utterly glorious and fabulous splendor of femininity.
A 'pretty' if you will. (I just read the Uglies)I therefore dedicate this chair to Hailee Marie (Nat's 2nd born).
The Hailee Marie will shine as a beacon of effeminateness in a house full of machismos.

Let it be said that I will NEVER do that again.
(most definitely a lie).
It was operose, to say the least.

Sick to death...

I know you're sick to death about me talking about my 'Grocery Smarts' adventures but I really can't help myself.

Today I went and bought my Hunts Ketchup, PAM, RoTel Tomatoes, Enchilada Sauce, BBQ sauce, Flour, frozen veggies, etc.

I bought $188.14 worth of food.

Paid $87.91.

EXHILARATING!!!

Now if I could just get 55% off of something like THIS.....

Couponing Nitty Gritty

For all of you who are interested in couponing here's some nitty gritty...

• It takes A LOT of planning to get the kind of savings I got last night. I probably spent a good 3 hours figuring it all out. Of course, I'm still a newbie. I still experience confusion, frustration and delay (just being dramatic, here). ( : I predict I'm gonna get awesome at it and just start sailing through it.

• Fine Print: It's all about learning how all their little promotions work. For instance, this week most of my savings came from the Albertson's promotion where you "spend $10 on these items and get $4 off". So basically everything I bought was 40% off BEFORE I used the manufacturer's coupon. I also did their "spend $25 on these items and get a $10 voucher" promotion. And then I also did their "buy 10 of these items and get 2 free movie tickets" promotion. All of these items I had coupons for.
  
• Fine Fine print: all of their promotions have little 'rules' attached to them. For the $25 promotion you could only do one per transaction. For the 'spend $10 get $4 off' promotion you had to make sure your $10 worth of food were in their specified little groups (I know that doesn't make any sense but that's why it takes a litttle while to learn). Anyway, the movie tickets thing really worked. Yay for "X-Men Origins". ( :

• This is pretty much what I bought... Betty Crocker Cookie pouches, frosting, muffin mixes, Kraft frozen bagul-Fuls, Ritz, Wheat Thins, Triscuit, Pillsbury biscuits, Trix, Cheerios, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Raisin Bran, Crystal Light, Healthy Choice frozen meals, Microwave popcorn, Hunt's spaghetti sauce, Pop Tarts, Keebler Cookies, marshmallows.... ... All processed, some very high sugar, box dinner, pantry stock type items. I'm just excited to fill up my shelves. Normally I would never buy pop tarts or keebler cookies or frozen bagul-fuls but for that price... I'll take it. These foods are definitely not conducive to gourmet cooking but I'm learning more and more that when you have 2 kids (going on 3), just getting something on the table is more important. ( :
  

• I still have plans to go back and get Ketchup, Jell-O, Enchilada sauce, taco sauce, flour, frozen veggies, frozen pizzas, Pam, sloppy joe sauce.... All 40%off, most with coupons.
  

• One last thing... today I went to get Bisquick, ketchup, and the frozen veggie steamers and they were all cleared out. There were probably 4 or 5 items that were completely cleaned. Apparently the 'die hard' couponers clear them out by 8am Wednesday mornings sometimes. Luckily we have 2 Albertsons in this city, one of which is much less popular and more likely to have everything.

• Also, once your newspapers start coming it takes a few weeks to start having coupons that match the sales. For instance, last night I was using coupons that I got in my newspapers back in the beginning of March.
  

• Any other questions?
  

Busy Busy

I've been busy..... COUPONING!

Last night...

I bought $284 worth of food at Albertsons

Guess how much I paid...

...$71.00!!!

( :

Check Me Out

Vitamin Water
Regular Price: $1.49
On sale for $1 (Albertsons)
Manufacturer Coupon: $1 off
What I paid? TOTALLY FREE
That's a savings of.... 100%!

Quaker Quakes
Regular Price: $2.49
On sale for $1 (Smiths)
Manufacturer Coupon: $1 off
What I paid? ABSOLUTELY FREE

I also got these items...

Sobe Life Water
Regularly $1.49
I paid .40 cents

Berio Olive Oil
Regularly $8.59
I paid $3.99

Pasta Roni's
Regularly $1.99 (well, $1.50 at Walmart)
I paid .67 cents

Michelene Frozen Entrees
Regularly $1.79
I paid .59 cents

I'm totally hooked!!!

My friend, Micah, also told me about a website that looks TOTALLY AWESOME!
I added it to my google reader.
It's krazycouponlady.blogspot.com.

THE CRUISE!!!

Based on THAT title you're thinking we went on a cruise. That would be logical.
Well, that's what we tell everyone but in reality I was too pregnant and they wouldn't let me on the boat.
So everyone in my immediate family (15 of them) plus 9 of my cousins, aunts and uncles got on the boat while Bryan and I bid them farewell. (Picture me mentally hurling a champayne bottle at the boat, using undue force.)
I had my cry about it 4 months ago when I discovered the cruise rules that state you have to be less than 24 weeks along. Woops!
There are worse things that could happen... I'm just trying to think of them. just kidding

We already had our plane tickets so we flew out there with them. Then we were on our own for 8 days which has never happened before in the history of B & M B.

What do you do when you have endless amounts of time and money (just kidding, not endless amounts of money) and no kids for 8 days? ...

...take lots of pictures of yourself, of course.

For everyone who could care less about the details and just want to see pictures...

Universal Studios

Epcot CenterFort Lauderdale River WalkFort Lauderdale Beach(never underestimate the intrigue of PEOPLE: Style Watch)


Bryan's model pose. Isn't he hot? jk. (secretly I'm not)

Some Details (not to be confused with 'all the details'):

Alamo Rental Car:
AWESOME! Recommend with full force.
Plus we got a screaming discount with our Costco membership.
Imagine a 2009 Blue Ford Focus.
Pleasure in and of itself since we've never had a car more than 10 years old.
ALSO: Syrius Radio.
Imagine Lady GaGa: Poker Face and Elliot Yamin: Some People Die for Love.
Rockin' Out.

'The Hyatt Place'.
Not to be confused with 'The Hyatt'.
Also recommend with full force.
42 inch plasma screen TV's in every room.
Modern decor (which just makes me giddy).

Universal Studios: Slightly overrated. (Except 'The Mummy' was pretty sweet)
Epcot Center: Overrated.
Florida's Spring Break: WAY overrated.
Universal's Islands of Adventure: Worth EVERY PENNY.
Recommend: Spider Man Ride - worth the hour and a half wait.
Also recommend: Jurassic Park Ride - escaping Mr. T Rex was exhilirating.
Even more exhilirating was the fact that I did not go into labor upon our sudden and unexpected plummet.
Recommend: buying the Express Pass so you can skip to the front of all the lines.
Worth the $50 if you ask me.

Cheesecake at the Cheesecake Factory: BEST EVER!!!!!!!!!!!

Jack Daniel's Fried Shrimp at TGI Fridays: COULD NOT GET ENOUGH!!!!!!!!!!

And that's basically what we did. Eat. Sleep. and sit. Perfect vacation. Every once in awhile feel slightly melancholy that we weren't on the cruise playing silly games with the rest of our fam.
For a detailed account of their vacation go here.

One thing to note: coming home from these vacations to a fabulous home and great job is ALMOST as cool as going on the vacay in the first place.
A LOT different than coming home to a little apartment and SCHOOL.
AKA: STILL getting used to the post-school life.
Can't get enough of it. Is it for real?
Takes awhile to sink in I guess.
Going on 10 months now.

Grocery Smarts

Who wants to know how cool I am?

I knew it. You're all dying to know HOW cool I am.

Have you heard of Grocery Smarts? Have you?

I just went to Albertsons and bought this...Full Price: $37.78
Sale Price: $18.08
I Paid: $10.68

That's a savings of 78%.

"How, Marie? How did you do it?" you ask.
And I say, "Grocery Smarts, my friend, Grocery Smarts".

Grocery Smarts tells you whats on sale, when, and where to find the manufacturers coupon so that you can combine the store's sale price with the manufacturer coupon.

This is almost as exhilarating as buying a fabulous dresser at the DI for $15...

such as this one...
I was so stoked when I went through the check out line at Albertson's I gave the checker a high five. He said he couldn't be happier about my success.

DISCLAIMERS (this may be long. Stop if you're winded or uninterested):

• Grocery Smarts is an off-shoot of Pinching Your Pennies which I've been told about before but their website is SO CONFUSING I could not figure it out and I just gave up.
• When you go to the website you need a passport to get the local grocery stores' sales. The passport for St. George is g84ctb.
  
• Grocery Smarts has representatives who do tiny little seminars. When you go to it you're wondering what the heck you're going to have to buy or what the catch is. The catch is that the representative gets a little commission from all the newspaper subscriptions they sell. In other words... I subscribe to 4 Sunday newspapers so I can get 4 of every coupon that comes each Sunday. You can only use one coupon per item so I needed 4 coupons to get my 4 boxes of Duncan Hines for .65 cents each. Get my drift? The newspapers cost me about $15/month. Coupon savings this last trip?... $7.40... and I only bought 11 items. I'm just getting started.
• The whole Grocery smarts system takes awhile to get used to. AKA there's a learning curve... just warning ya. I've been chewing my nails for 3 weeks now trying to get it down but I think I've got it and I'm REALLY excited.
  
• You buy what's on sale. In other words... you make your grocery list based on what's on sale NOT based on what you want to cook that week. AKA you basically just fill your pantry with things that you'll know you'll use eventually sometime. I pretty much don't NEED bathroom cleaner right now but when I do I'll just go to my bomb shelter and get my fabulous new bottle of Lysol that I bought for .75 cents instead of going to the store and buying it for full price ($2.99).
  
• SOME people save hundreds a month, others just spend the same amount they always did but buy a lot more food. I'm guessing I'll be somewhere in between. I'll let ya know. And you know I will since I CANNOT resist blogging about something so cool.

IN case you wanted to know every detail of my last transaction...
Kelloggs Cereal:
Regularly $4.99.
On sale for $2.29.
Used a $1.50 off coupon.
Got it for .79 cents.

Lysol Bathroom Cleaner:
Regularly $2.99.
On sale 50% off for $1.50.
Used a .75 cents off coupon.
Got it for .75 cents.

Duncan Hines Cake Mix:
Regularly $2.29.
On sale for $1.
Used a .35 cents off coupon.
Got it for .65 cents.

THIS is the woman who taught my seminar. She was fabulous AND she didn't get any commission for it. She just did it for free as a favor. How nice is that?

Easter Cookies

Seriously. Hard to resist making sugar cookies for a Holiday like Easter.
Fondant is one of my favorite toys.
I am secretly bugged, though, at how much the cookies expanded while cooking.
Cute little bunny turned into Chubby Bunny.
Maybe the Easter Bryan, I mean Bunny, will bring me "The Top Secrets of Making Sugar Cookies" book.

I also wouldn't mind THIS...

And, um, maybe even THIS...

(well, you have to pre-order that one. It's having a hard time being released.)

um....................