More Cheap Christmas Gifts

I really liked how the scarf I made for Matt turned out and so I decided to make another one. This one is two different green colors, a dark blue, and a sparkly white color.

I loved this scarf so much as well that I decided to make another... and then another.. and then another. What can I say I really like the look of the scarf and they are so easy to make. Plus with each one costing about $4 (depending on the size) the price is right. I plan to give these away as Christmas gifts next year, I know I'm getting very ahead, but I really think everyone will like them.

I am having some problems with getting my ends to tuck in and stay tucked but I've got a year to figure it out. All the scarves are variations of the Laughing Purple Goldfish one hour scarf that I used for Matt's scarf. I made some of them longer, some wider, I like to experiment with it so each one is different. Now I just need to decide who gets which one and if I should make one for myself.

Working on 30% reduction goal

If you remember one of our 2009 goals was to Reduce our material possessions by 30%. I'm not taking that goal laying down. This weekend Matt and I went through our closets.

We were able to purchase a ton of nice wooden hangers when Steve & Barry's went out of business for $.03 a piece ($.50 cheaper than in the stores). I love our new hangers because they don't cause your clothes to bunch up and they take up more room in our closets which means we were forced to get rid of stuff.

It always amazes me that when you take the time to look for opportunity it always seems to find you. I've been wanting to update to wooden hangers for years now, but even when I was a shopaholic I wasn't going to spend $.50 a piece to upgrade. Yet, even now as a thrifter I can't pass up $.03 to go all wooden.

So yes even though I did technically bring in "new" hangers, we are getting rid of the plastic hangers shown above and we reduce our clothes collections. (pictures to come)

L'Oreal Lipstick MONEY MAKER

I wanted to highlight one of the deals I found at Meijer today.

This week they have their L'Oreal make up products on sale buy one get one free. There were coupons for $2 off many L'Oreal products in a recent insert. As you can see above this lipstick was originally priced at $8.64 the clearance sticker says $4.32 but my receipt shows they rang up for $2.16 before the buy one get one sale. If you only have one coupon you'll pay $.16 for TWO lipsticks. If you have more then you're getting paid to take them off the shelf.

Here is how my break down worked
2 L'Oreal lip sticks @ 2.16 (B1G1)

Total: $2.16
Coupon: (2) $2 off any L'Oreal lip product

Profit: $1.84

There were quite a few L'Oreal products marked down, including eye shadows and face powders. Had I know they were 75% off and buy one get one free I probably would have shopped harder. Maybe I'll have to stop back later this week.

CVS & Meijer Savings

It was only a quick trip to CVS this week. They didn't have any Soy Joy bars in stock so I just used the $3 off any 2 CVS products to get some free tissues (we need them right now). I also had a $2 ECB to spend and since I couldn't roll it over I bought two of their new reusable bags. They're so cute. I spent nothing out of pocket but didn't earn anything either.

The trip to Meijer was a different story. They're having another great 10/$10 get the 11th item free sale. I spent $30.90 but saved $54.79

10/$10 Sale Items (did the deal 3 times)
- 3 Tissues
- 3 Gerber 2nd foods - 2 pack
- $3 Gerber foods coupon (making them free)
- 2 Grands biscuits
- $.25 (doubled)
- 3 Hamburger Helpers
- $.80 on 3
- 3 Quaker Rice Cakes
- 3 Chex Mix snack mixes
- (3) $.50 (doubled) (Making them free)
- 4 Pepsi 2 liters
- 1 Tropicana pink lemonade
- 3 Brown N. Serve
- 4 Great start breakfast meals
- 2 Jeno pizzas
- 2 Meijer white bread


Other Items
- 5 Johnson's buddies soap $5.85 (Free)
- (5) $1 off buddies
- Meijer saltine crackers $1.99
- Detroit Free Press (not pictured)
- 2 L'Oreal lipsticks B1G1 $ 2.16
- (2) $2 off any L'Oreal
- 1/2 gallon of milk $2.29
- 2 Reusable bags $1.98

That's a 64% savings and enough food to feed us for quite some time.

FREE Gerber Baby food - 2 pack

There is a great offer this week which could mean free Gerber baby food for you.

Click your way on over to Freebies 4 Mom to find out how you can receive a free stainless steel Gerber educator or feeding spoon and $3 of FREE Gerber food.

This week at Meijer the Gerber 2nd foods - 2 packs are on sale for $1 (part of their 10/$10 get the 11th free deal). So you're getting 6 for free!

Earn free $$ from swagbucks

I just received another $5 Amazon gift card for doing something you do everyday for free. Why am I getting paid and you’re not? I have no idea either; however, I do know you should keep reading to find out how you can get paid to surf the internet.

Swagbucks is an internet search engine that pays you for searching the internet through their site. I know you’re already searching the net every day so why wouldn’t you want to be paid for it? Does this sound too good to be true, I thought so too, but trust me it’s not a scam. I received my second $5 Amazon gift card in my email box today.

All you have to do to earn your own Swagbucks is use their site the next time you need to search the intent. You can even download a browser tool bar and search directly from that. Their search engine is powered by Google and Ask so you receive the same results you would using another service.

I win on average two to three points a day and it takes me about two weeks to earn a gift card. If I continue on this trend I will have earned about $130 in Amazon gift cards in one year. That’s enough to pick up some great Christmas gifts next year. Best of all if you sign up right now you earn 3 bonus points to get you started on your own $5 gift card.

And as always if you sign up through my link at Swagbucks I win a few points as well. So sign up today and get your swag on baby!

Free Orman download

Right now you can download Suze Orman's 2009 Action Plan as an ebook from Oprah for free. But hurry the offer will end after one week (January 15th).

The download is a pdf of her full 209 page book. I just save them right to my desktop and read them at my convenience later.

When I first tried to download mine the site was running kind of slow but just keep with it, everyone is trying to get in on this great deal.

This book is currently selling for about $10 on Amazon.com and you can get it for FREE. What a great freebie for those of us with financial goals in 2009.