4th of July Shopping

Today Matt and I did a lot of shopping in celebration of the fourth. There is an annual sale where our local book store is entirely 50% off. A great price for a couple of book junkies. Since we were on that side of town we stopped by Goodwill so I could look for some vintage fabric (sheets) that are vastly becoming the new sewing fad. And of course on the way home we stopped by CVS to round out the sales. Here’s what we ended up with.

CVS



4 bags of Lifesavers hard/gummie candies
1 CVS Tampon
1 CVS make-up removers
1 Bic Soleil Razor
1 Bic Soleil refill (4 count)
2 Trident Xtra Care
Total: $25.82

Coupons I Used
(2) BOGO Life Savers Coupon
$2/1 CVS Skin Care
$.75/1 Trident Xtra Care
(2) $4/1 Soleil Razor or cartridge refill

Total after coupons: $11.08
Used $10 in ECB’s and $1.08 oop.
Earned: $8.49 in ECB’s

Overall I received $30.20 in merchandise for $1.08 of my own money. All four bags of Life Savers were free, the razor and refills cost $.98, and I paid -.01 for the face wipes. The gum was the most expensive oop item at $1.23, had I done my math correctly I wouldn’t have purchased it but I thought it was a better deal.

Tomorrow I’ll post our finds at the book store and Goodwill. Until then check out the other great CVS finds at The “Cent”sible Sawyer

Also feel free to link your great CVS finds below.

Inside the Home Made Simple Guide

Earlier I told you I'd post what coupons can be found in the Home Made Simple Guide, well here they are. You can order yours here and I strongly suggest you do.
All coupons expire on 9/30/08

Swiffer
$1 on any one swiffer sweeper starter kit or two dry or wet refills.
$5 on one Swiffer Sweeper Vac Starter Kit
$1 on any one Swiffer Dusters Starter kit or Refill
$5 on one Swiffer WetJet Starter Kit
$.50 on any one Swiffer WetJet Refill

Cascade
$1 on any one size Cascade 2in1 Action packs
$.50 on any one size Cascade complete
$.50 on any one Cascade Powder or Gel
Free any one 8.45oz Cascade Crystal Clear Rinse Aid

Dawn
$.50 on any one size Ultra Dawn
$1 on any one size Dawn Simple Pleasures
$1.50 on any one Dawn Direct Foam Pump
$2 on any one dawn Direct Foam Refill

Febreze
$.50 on any one Febreze Fabric Refresher
$2 on any one Febreze Noticeables Starter Kit
$1 on Febreze Noticeables Dual pack or two refills
$.50 on any one Febreze Air Effects
$1 on any one Febreze Candle


Mr.Clean
$.50 on any one size Mr.Clean Magic Eraser
$.50 on any one size Mr. Clean multi surfaces liquid
$.50 on any one size Mr. Clean Multi Surfaces Spray
$.50 on any one size Mr. Clean Wipes or Power Multi-Surface wipes

Iams
$3 on any one Iams Healthy Naturals Product
$1 on any one Iams dry cat food or 6 cans of Iams Canned Cat food

I was a little skeptical that this book would even show up, but it did and its got some great deals inside. Make sure you sign up for yours soon.

How much of your day is really yours?

It’s no secret; I want to retire, and I want to retire soon. Its not that I have anything against working. I rather enjoy my field and seeing the people I help. I suspect that even after I retire (granting I can do it early) I’ll continue to work in some fashion.

What I don’t want to waste any more time on is working for someone else. I hate knowing that I’m working 45+ hours every week to line the pockets of a man I’ve never met. Its like Office Space. if I work really hard and save the company $5,000 (like last month) I don’t earn any extra money. Heck I don’t even get an acknowledgement. Yet, when I mess up you can bet your buttons everyone knows. This obviously bothers me.

I am giving away the prime years of my life for a few thousand dollars. Not only prime years but on a more basic scale also the prime hours. Think about it, you have 24 hours a day to work with. Actually, less but lets go with 24. In most cases a minimum of 9 hours are spent at work (8 hours working – 1 hour lunch). Hopefully 8 hours are spent sleeping. Figure you spend a bare minimum of 30 minutes getting ready in the morning; although, I bet it’s actually quite a bit more. Lets then say your commuting 30 minutes each way, that’s an hour of unpaid driving time.

So far just with these work and sleep related things you only have 5 ½ hours for you. How do you spend that time? An hour for dinner, paying bills, 30 minutes reading a book or magazine? When you look at it that way any you time you get in those 5 ½ hours is pretty precious huh?

In my case I have even less time since I work more than 40 hours every week. I average around 4 hours of me time every day. See why these hours are worth a lot to me? I work about 47 hours a week, almost a full extra day of work than the average person.

When you run the numbers like this less than 20% of your day actually belongs to you. I end up with about 16% of my time being mine. And Honestly, most days I’m so tired I just come home and veg in front of the T.V. When the weekend does roll around we’re at open houses, meals out, yard work, doing laundry/dishes etc.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that you own 100% of your time?
I think so.

Two more sweeps/ instant wins

Johnson’s is giving away $5,000 for an adventure of your choice. Best of all the instant win game is a version on Plinko. Enter once a day.

Clean up spills at the Scott Towels Leave Nothing Behind Sweepstakes and instant win. You can win a years supply of paper towels or gift cards for different amounts.

You really can win at sweeps

When I first started entering instant win games and sweeps I didn’t think I’d ever win anything, I’m not the lucky type. Two days later and I won a movie ticket. I was still skeptical thinking my theater wouldn’t take it or something. When they did, I was hooked.

Now I’m like the sweeps Queen. I love entering every day, most the games are fun, and its amazing the things I’ve actually won so far.

To date I have won two movie tickets, a $5 subway gift card, $5 Kroger gift card, a $15 Target gift card (from Spraychel still going on), and this morning I picked up a free pair of Adidas shoes from the Mt.Dew Old School New School Contest.

What do I have to do to win this great free stuff?? I play a few games online while watching tv or enter a few codes from the 1,000 Mt.Dew bottles my co-workers consume every day. There is no hoop jumping like I thought or scams, not even spam. It’s amazing really. I had no idea how easy it really is to win all these great prizes.

Just in gift cards alone I brought in $25 for the month of June. That’s not counting the cost of the free movie tickets, coupons, and other freebie samples I’ve received. My total is probably more around $100.

I just had to share how amazing playing these sweeps really are and how easy it is to win. If you haven’t played an instant win before take a look at my posting here and sign up for a few today, you never know what will end up in your mailbox.

Freebies in my Mail box

Since I started signing up for freebies a few weeks ago my mailbox has been surprising me with goodies every day.

Here is what I’ve received over the last two weeks.




Vaseline Men’s Body & Face Lotion
Hamburger Helper Singles – Cheeseburger Mac
Playtex Bottle
Huggies Pull up Training Pants & Shampoo
Crystal Light Mix
Coupon for a free Nuk bottle and $1 on pacifier 2 packs from Gerber
Planet Heros DVD
Febreze coupon
Home Made Simple $31 coupon Book (I’ll post what’s inside later)
Ban Deodorant
Wall*E Watches
- Another thing I love about our theater, often when we attend they are giving out freebies. Normally its free candy, popcorn or pop, but last weekend it was Wall*E watches by the box full. We took four, one for each of the nieces and nephews.
Playtex gentle Glide sample & coupon
- I love these kinds of samples. With my current position at work everyone to find when they are in need of one. This way I can still be helpful but without spending a ton of money out of pocket.

I can't wait to see what will show up next week.

Freebie Finds

Not too many freebies to report this week. I’ve been bad about keeping track of which ones I’ve signed up for.

Found free Sunsilk from Totally Free Crap

Walmart is offering free samples of Ponds cleansing towelettes

Also at Walmart free Huggies Supreme samples.

On Slickdeals I also ran by this rebate from Noxzema for free razors up to $3. This should lead to some more free products.

I’ll make sure to keep better track this week, I promise.