Ruh-Roh, Groupon...

So my hubby bought the Groupon last week for FTD. It was $20 for $40 worth of flowers.

Groupon made a boo-boo.

There were so many complaints. First, the prices were raised for the Groupon buyers. Not cool FTD. Then on top of that, the delivery fee is $15. If you don't buy flowers alot, you would not know this. My hubby doesn't have them delivered often...ever...like never.

So what's the lesson? I guess that Groupon is not always such a great deal. And we may have to do a little more research when we get a deal from them. I've never had problems with the local vendors I have purchased Groupons for.

For shame FTD!

I, however, still love my flowers!

Beating the Winter Blues

Maybe it was because I had a cold/flu combo that stuck around forever. Maybe it was the lack of sunshine starving me of Vitamin D.  Maybe it was because of all the snow I haven't gotten out of the house much and I got cabin fever. Whatever the reason, I had a bad case of the blues.

How do I cure that? What I want to do is go shopping! Filling carts and bags with stuff that I only want and don't really need would make me feel a whole lot better! But alas, for better or worse, my budget restrains me.

Gosh, that darn budget!

I had to use alternative methods. First, I did splurge a little...in the calories! That left me feeling like crap, honestly. Then I decided I was going to splurge and buy myself some tea. It was $2 but I had a coupon for $1 off and I love a cup of tea at night. Celestial Seasoning's Sleepytime is great before bed.

Next I started to run again. I haven't because of the cold/flu bug, not wanting to hurt myself. But this time I ran hard. I mean HARD. Sweat pouring, barely breathing, ready to crash hard. There's something about wearing myself out when I'm feeling down that makes me feel good. Luckily I have a treadmill at home, but if you don't, find a workout on tv or in your stash of videos. You know you have one! Make it a good one. Tae Bo always kicked my booty.

Open the windows when the sun is shining! Even if it let's in cold off the glass. Absorb that Vitamin D! There are so many health benefits. I just read how a deficiency is linked to Multiple Sclerosis. I have people in my family with MS. That is no joke.

The last thing I did was pray more. My spiritual life had been suffering too! It made me feel like my soul had taken a huge drink of water. Never underestimate the nourishment of your spirit.

Those were my blues busting steps. And they were fairly inexpensive! What do you do to beat the blues that's budget friendly? Yoga on YouTube? Coffee with your friends?

A Secret Stash

Every store has a clearance section. Some, like Target, have many. Target has one in the toy section, the grocery section, heck! Pretty much every section! The ends of many aisles at Target hold treasures and goodies that I love to look through. Sometimes you can find amazing deals.

My favorite grocery store (Reasor's) has a shopping cart that they put items in at random times that are marked down. Most of the cans are dented, but never expired. Well, I haven't seen expired items. I'm sure someone somewhere has.

It is not always a good deal though! One time they had a can of corn marked at $.45 which is not a bad price. Except for the fact that the regular cans were on sale for $.40 making them cheaper. That is when it's helpful to be conscientious of prices. If it's a good price and you have room in your budget then by all means stock up!

Tonight I made Tortilla Soup from my friend's blog Crumbs and Chaos (you'll love it, check it out) using some items I'd purchased over time from Reasor's shopping cart. One ingredient was enchilada sauce which I paid $.25 for. If I'd bought it regular price, I'd have spent over $1.

Take some extra time to explore the stores. Don't be afraid of asking sales clerks if they have a clearance section. Also, don't forget you can use coupons for these items as well!

Website Review: Restaurant.com

I have said over and over how I love a good deal. So when I heard about Restaurant.com I was super excited to give it a whirl.

Here are some things to remember:
-Look at the minimum amount you have to spend. Sometimes it's $35, sometimes it's $50.
-You have to pay 18% gratuity that they add into the bill. That's after the minimum that you've spent.
-Look up on RetailMeNot to see if there are promotional codes you can use to get your gift card even cheaper if you do not get restaurant.com e-mails.

About my experience:
-The first time I bought 5 gift cards between 2 different restaurants. Out of those 5 I only used 1. Both restaurants closed before I could use them all. My friend got to roll hers to a different place, I didn't log on in time to do that.
-I bought one for a different restaurant that we used shortly after purchase for a date. We spent $36 on food and soda ($35 minimum) and ended up spending $18 out of pocket including gratuity. While that is a great price for a lot of food- it was a lot of food! We don't normally eat that much, didn't have kids to share it with and were at a homeschool conference so our leftovers were wasted. I don't like to waste.

I think if you can get the gift certificate for cheap enough, it's a fantastic deal if you're going out anyways. What you shouldn't do, is buy into the 'Eat for only $2' hype, because there is out of pocket expense later. You should budget to spend at least $20 when using your gift certificates. Even at that, though, $20 including gratuity for a restaurant where you get $35 of food is a great deal! So find one you like, but don't go overboard and buy a whole lot...just in case the restaurant pulls out of the deal or closes!

Snow Days and Disneyland

Pshew, Monday! And a happy day it is indeed! Except for my daughter that has to return to school today.

With all the snow here in Oklahoma, we had school one day last week, haven't had any mail since Monday and have sucked the grocery stores clean. I am in awe of people. I went grocery shopping last Monday before the first wave of snow hit and people were shopping like they were going to be confined all winter. Sheesh! Plan people, plan.

It will probably be the same today, considering we are supposed to get another 5-10 inches tomorrow. We'll see!

I, personally, had a fabulous time! I made snow ice cream with apple crisp (which was A-mazing!), brownies and sugar cookies. My waistline is not thanking me. Plus lots of comfort foods! Chili, Ham & Beans, Fireside Nachos...YUM! Here is the link to the recipe for Snow Ice Cream from Paula Deen, 3 ingredients and pure delish. Here is the link to the recipe for the apple crisp, one of the best I've had!

Snow Ice Cream
8 cups fresh snow
1 can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Mix together and serve immediately!

Apple Crisp
4 cups sliced apples
1/2 cups light brown sugar (pack it tightly)
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup rolled oats
4 Tbsp cold butter (Half a stick)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Combine brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a bowl. Mix with the apples and set aside. In separate bowl mix flour, sugar and oats. Cut in the butter until crumbly. Pour apples into pan, pour crumble on top. Bake at 375 for 30-45 minutes, or until top is light brown.

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The complete opposite of cold is warm, and I was thinking about how nice it would be to visit somewhere warm. 3 years ago my parents took our entire family on a trip to Disneyland. It was their 30th Anniversary (which is the exact same day of Jon's 30th birthday!) and they wanted to celebrate! I, being the bargain hunter I am, wanted to try and save as much money as possible and ended up planning quite a bit of the trip. If you're planning a vacation to Disneyland, here are some things I learned:

**Disney Value Hotel vs. Non-Disney Hotel**
I was thinking I'd save us money by booking a hotel that has a shuttle multiple times a day to and from the parks. It was only about $20 cheaper, but with 2 rooms for 6 nights, that ends up being $240! Well, here's something you find out when you get there. You have to pay $15 a day per room for 'service charges'. There's no way out of it. There goes the big savings. The Disney shuttles came much more often, too. We'd see 2 or 3 shuttles come and go before we saw even 1 for our hotel.

**Dining Plan**
There's no doubt, it's hard to resist the temptation of buying food in the park. Disney offers dining plans when you purchase your tickets that can sometimes be bought at an extremely good rate. Unless you are very disciplined, buy the cheapest plan. We took our own food which worked out pretty great. BUT, there were a few meals that we ate in the park due to fatigue, or we were just plain hungry. What we spent in 2 or 3 meals could've bought a whole plan for half of us. If you have a stroller, it's not a big deal to take your food into the park. But if you don't, you keep the cooler in your car (if you drove) or in your hotel room. Sign up on Disney's website to get their monthly e-mails. In these e-mails you'll get information on the specials they are offering. When their meal plans are on sale, it's in this e-mail.

**Bibbity Bobbity Boutique**

Let me just say, I am frugal so this seemed like such a waste of money. But my mom wanted to do it for the girls, so I'm not going to protest! It is a fairy tale dream come true. From the moment the Fairy Godmother in Training takes your little princess to her makeover, until she leaves...it is an experience they won't forget. The bad? They are in hair, make up and dresses (optional) all day, and when it's hot that's not exactly ideal. The good? It's so amazing for a little girl. If you have $55 to completely blow, spend it on this. So. Fun. For little girls. You can bring your own princess attire so you don't spend an extra $100 on an outfit from the boutique.

**Airfare**
Make sure when you find a great price for a ticket (if you're flying) that the airport is close to you. We made the mistake of getting a great price on a ticket, but had to drive nearly 3 hours to get to the airport. Gas and parking extra cost $75. Unforseen expenses. Had we left from our home airport, we could've had a friend drop us off.

After re-hashing all of this, I want to go again!!!!! So if you're planning a trip to Disneyland, take some of these tips and have a great time!

To The Right...

I have a cool IPOD looking player on my blog now. My hubby's pretty awesome! I'd love to have the exact one. Except it wouldn't match my running shoes and I LOVE my running shoe colors. I got them half price plus 10% off and free shipping!!!

The reason I wanted to call attention to the player is for this reason: My First Half Marathon!!! This player has loaded on it songs that I am going to use when I run my first half in May. I would love to get song suggestions from you. The loaded songs are ones that I have been running to on my training runs. You can get an idea of what I'm looking for and help me load it up!

If you don't see your suggested song, keep suggesting! I won't put a song on until I have run to it at least 3 times, to make sure it matches my stride and speed. So let me have them! I have 13.1 miles to cover. My goal is to run it in 2 hours or less. That's a whole lot of songs!

Snowmegeddon 2011

Snowmageddon and Snowpocalypse. Two words that make me laugh when I read about the snow storm that has stretched over 2000 miles. We got a lot of it here! My kids have thoroughly enjoyed the time off of school and the snow. Here's what it looks like in our driveway.

Here's my hard working hubby trying to clear the 2.5-3 foot drift.

 I was busy making these delish bits of yumminess.

A bite of heaven. I got the idea from The Pioneer Woman a few weeks ago and have been waiting to make these when I can eat them. We did a sugar fast for 28 days. Yikes! It actually went great.

Maybe it's the snow that's got me thinking about budgeting. Well, who am I kidding. I think about it all the time.

And I'm okay with that.

No. Really. I am.

We are lucky to find something that we enjoy and can actually do well. Something I enjoy but cannot do well? Play the piano. But that will come with time.

What in particular was I thinking about? Well, cheap meals. Tonight I'll be making ham and beans with cornbread. YUM! Especially when you splash a little hot sauce in it. The bag of beans cost me $1.09 at Target. The bag of cornmeal cost $1.19 at Reasor's.  I'm extremely lucky that Grampsy sends me canned ham. But when we make a ham, the leftovers are endless and we never use it all, so I freeze the ham and bone for later. A little oil, salt, eggs and sugar later and I have a total comfort food meal. Perfect for this snowy night.

Enjoy! Stay warm, stay cozy and stay safe!