Fugal Friday.....the January 22nd Edition

 Not much this week that was frugal but one really big win!  Let's take a look........

*  I only did the gift card glitch deal at Rite-Aid so far this week....

Plus there are two different Spend $50 Get $15 BC coupons(they have different barcodes)so you can do the deals twice on each card and get the $15 BC if you have a mind to(I haven't.).  I used gift money to buy the Rite-Aid gift card so that's a bonus win too. ;-)

*  I did the Ibotta Midweek Bonus at Walmart.......

After ALL rebates the above cost me MINUS $6.13. 8-)))

*  Hubs took me out for lunch yesterday on my Birthday. Of course I found and printed a coupon(10% off)to reduce the cost. lol

*  I found money!

Not much to report in for this week.....

This penny found in front of the beer cafe/bakery register at Weis(PMITA)Markets on Tuesday.

And this penny found at the register in Rite-Aid when I went in on Thursday.

Found Money This Week..... .02¢
Found Money This Year.....  .19¢

*  I actually sold something on eBay this past week!

This Osbourne Family(from their old MTV reality show)Throw blanket still new in the package.
Back right before Christmas I had an eBay user who sent me the same Offer on it three times(that's the limit on offers you can send a Seller).  They kept sending the same $ amount offer and it was a lowball one so I just ignored them.  Ignored for the low amount and because it was so close to Christmas and with the USPS so backed up I know I'd have problems with it getting to them in time.  So this past week another buyer paid full asking price for it and it's on the way to them.  Sometimes it pays to hold out for full price.  And they still got a good deal first because this item is long ago discontinued and it still has the retail price of $59.99 on the package. 8-)

*  And my big frugal win for the week considering I HAD TO spend money on it.......

My computer is coming up on 8 years old and on it's last legs so I needed a new machine.  I got input from my tech support guy(Ex-College Boy)and we decided on this one as it had most of what I needed(the only flaw is the screen isn't as big as the one on my old laptop but I can live with that).  So I bit the bullet and ordered it.  This bad boy retails for over $1,100.

But the cost wasn't as painful as you'd have thought.  I have been saving our credit card points for a few years now(use to get gift cards with points for Xmas presents to give out to the kids)and I had $641 worth of points to put toward the laptop so it only cost me $400 and some OOP.

And guess where that $400 and some came from?  Yep, my stimulus check, so in the end this cost me NADA OOP.

yay. me.

That's about all I've got this week.........

What frugal wins did y'all have this past week?

Tell us all about them!

Sluggy

A Brief List of Accomplishments

I feel like I accomplished a lot this past week.
So if I really didn't in your estimation, please keep it to yourself.  ;-)

*  I paid all the bills for the month except one(which hasn't arrived yet).

*  I got the garage de-cluttered and organized.  This includes the stockpile.  Not much de-cluttering, more organizing than anything else.  I went through boxes of old merchandise(mostly toys)and I separated out items that aren't worth selling online but things I want to keep for my potential grandchildren.  Yes, hope springs eternal here. lolz   The rest is segregated and waiting on me to have more time to list them and off to Salvation Army they will go, hopefully before the New Year.

Of course the house and my desk are a mess but hey!, I'll take the wins were I can find them.

*  We got some shopping finished and I am done with Christmas, at least done with the having to go to the stores part.  While out we saw some Xmas shirts......

and my favorite.....

If only they would have had that one in my size. lolz

*  I got my Black Friday Rite-Aid scenarios written and all coupons gathered.

*  All Turkey Day foods are present and accounted for.  "All" that is left is the cooking. hahaha

*  I got all the presents I currently have wrapped and tagged.  Bows will come later after we decorate for Christmas and I can put these under the tree......

For now they will live under the sofa table.

*  I got another load for Salvation Army ready to go and in Hubs trunk.  5 boxes of stuff outtahere!!!

*  I went to the bank and cashed out my sealed pot coin rolls......

$164.50 to put toward Christmas spending.  8-)
Add in $900 worth of gift card credit card points and what I have pulled in from selling old fabrics on Etsy and 1 book I sold 2 weeks ago on Amazon(I had forgotten I had anything listed there until I got a "Ship this book!" notice lolz)and we have enough to fund Christmas.

*  Of course as soon as I have this win with money, Hubs car needed some work so we took it in and paid $1K+ to get it back in working order. ugh
Have I mentioned lately how much I hate cars? ;-)

*  I dropped off a fabric order at the PO.  There was no line, AMAZINGLY!, so I got my wallet and went back in to buy stamps for Christmas card mailing.....

*  I did a little genealogy hunting Friday and got a bit further back on one family line and I will say it's quite the story and now extending back into the 1500's.  More on that another day.

*  I listed that Longaberger basket on eBay that I got this Summer at the thrift store.  Cross your fingers someone buys it soon.  As I went pawing through completed auctions on eBay to see if I should try to sell anything else it looks pretty dismal out there. 

*  Part of my cleaning out nooks and crannies this past week was an effort to find my dining room drapes.  I thought they were packed up in the boxes in the garage with my china and tablecloths when we emptied out that room last Winter.  An exhaustive search turned up nada in the curtain department.  sigh.  It's hell getting old and losing your memory..... 

Now I am off to a doctor's appointment for my armpit, hopefully I'll get the "all clear" this time and be done with this episode.

Then tomorrow I am the chauffer du jour fetching #2 Son from school for the holiday.

So what's been going on with you lately?

Sluggy

The Good, The Bad & The Not-So-Pretty

First the good.....
If you haven't seen this on my Facebook already, #2 son's Marching Band had a big regional tournament Sunday in Hershey PA.  The band performed very well and they won their Division!  In addition they were awared top honors in 4 individual areas.

I am so glad to see them do well finally.  Our Band Parent's Association hosts one of the big local Tourneys at the high school.  Our band finished last in the 'open' division at that.  Our band is very small.  Our band gets next to zero $s from the school district, so the parents are saddled with most of the costs to cloth, host competitions, travel to competitions, etc.  This lack of resources puts our band at a large disadvantage next to other schools who have much larger parent associations as well as more funding.  We usually compete in the open division but with the big glitzy bands the kids have to compete with, they never finish very high up the food chain.

There is one local band that we have a David and Goliath type competition with.....to put it into GLEE SPEAK(for those of you who are "gleeks", we are New Directions and we compete with Vocal Adrenalin.
And after working the tourney our band hosts and seeing the directors and parents and the kids in this Goliath band up close and personal, I can honestly say that most of them that I have had to deal with are NOT very nice people.  They are rude, the universe revolves around them and their needs, and they have no class.
So seeing as we really can't compete on an equal footing with the Mega-Bands, we now compete in a different division.  And it seems to be paying off.

Speaking of people who think the universe revolves around them.....
We are having large problems with our Daughter.  She has always been too smart for her own good.  Getting good grades, etc. has been a nice result.  But she has "too big for her britches" syndrome and has had it for the last 5 years or so.  She feels she is the center of the universe and she treats other people(her family)like dog poo....unless of course, she wants something from you, and then she treats you nice until she gets her way.  She no longer wishes to be associated with our family except for us to do for her and give her her own way in things.  She doesn't feel the need to respect her parents or her siblings, or to lift a finger to help the family.  It's all a big she takes and we give.

If fact, she is making life so stressful for her parents and her younger brother when she is home that we are at the point that once she turns 18 next month, she may be asked to find someplace else to live.
I love my Daughter and I thought we could make the current living situation work well enough to get her graduated and off to college(which would have her NOT living here then), but I'm not so sure we can make it until June.  My health is suffering and she is becoming verbally abusive toward me.
Unfortunately we don't have any family locally who we can pack her off to for awhile until things cool off or she grows up a tad so I don't know what you are going to do.

In other news.....Daughter got her acceptance to Ohio State today.  I have no clue WHY she applied there.  We aren't big OH football fans and we don't live in Ohio.lol
But she did and she got in.
We are still waiting for the "yeah" or "ney" from the one school we haven't heard back from....Penn State.
Hopefully soon.

I have reopened my eBay store for the Holidays. SSP(aka Shameless Self Promotion) link is HERE.

I'm hoping even with the economy and the sluggishness of eBay, I can unload some goodies to the Holiday buyers.  I am concentrating on listing toys and collectibles since it's the gift buying time of year.  Even with this heavy stuff at Christmas someone might overlook the shipping expense more and I can get some of these large weighty items outta here!lol
At any rate, my living room and dining room now looks like a postal warehouse has exploded in there with all the bubble wrap, boxes and merchandise everywhere.  Throw in a few boxes loaded with fabric since I store those in there and it's such a lovely sight.lol

The one thing that all my years doing eBay has done for me?  It has made me an expert at re-cutting and gerryrigging boxes for shipping.  Now, if there was some industry where I could put this skill to work for me as a career....besides eBay that is.lol


I cleaned the interior of my minivan on Sunday.  It was LOOOOOONG overdue!  For the past 2 years I have told the kids that if they wanted to make some extra money that cleaning my car was tops on that list and the money was available at any time should they undertake that chore.
2 years and it was still undone.
So I hauled out the vacuum cleaner, clorox wipes, windex and newspaper and just got it done before winter weather sets in.

Saturday was the last day to qualify for the Thanksgiving Deal at the local independent grocery store.  If you spent a minimum of $300 in 5 weeks' time you got a $15 gift certificate.  It wasn't even a free bird deal but the best thing going in these parts.
I made a run to the grocery store Saturday evening and we ended the qualifying period with $115 in purchases....so not EVEN halfway to the amount we needed to spend to get that $15 certificate.
Oh well.
Last year I ended up doing the Price Chopper Turkey Deal....spend $25 in one transaction and get a free bird.
This year Price Chopper has upped the ante tho....spend $50 in one transaction and get a free bird.
Egads!
Doubled the qualifying price!!
And I don't even like turkey so I am so not liking this deal and tempted to eat chicken this year instead.lol

That's about it for now from  my corner of the world.
What's new in yours?

Sluggy

eBay....Again....WWYD?

So I sold 2 items to some guy on eBay.  He contacted me twice to get an Invoice.....the 1st time he said ship to China, the 2nd time he said ship to somewhere in NY.
So he pays me and the Paypal page says the shipping address & the place I should ship these items is CA!

Now if I don't ship to the CA address(User is telling me to ship to the NY address and the shipping quote is for that location), and then this guy turns out to be a scammer and does a chargeback on me through his cc company, I have NO Seller protection through eBay.  This means he gets my items, I get the payment yanked by eBay from my account PLUS a chargeback fee eBay will charge me and I will have no recourse....I lose my items, I don't get paid for them plus I lose $10 of my own money.
(I was part of a serial scammers game a few years ago.  He bought lots of things off of lots of sellers and a month later told his bank he didn't buy any of the items and the bank & eBay yanked all the payments through Paypal. At least this guy's shipping address and Paypal address matched up so I did end up getting the chargeback reversed and my payment back.)

And this User just joined eBay on April 9th, bought some thing from someone else on April 11th, so they have no track record for me to refer to or take comfort in the fact that they have a history as an upstanding eBay member.

So if I decide this isn't worth the potential trouble and I cancel the transaction and refund his money, I can get back the $ eBay/Paypal take for letting me sell it.  I will be out .40¢ for the listing fees and then this guy can leave me negative feedback.

I wouldn't be so concerned if this was a $10 item, but it's just shy of $100 worth of stuff!  So my scammer radar went off...lol

So.....what would you do if you were me?

Sluggy

Shameless Self Promotion.....turns into Bah Humbug-ness

I use to sell stuff part time on eBay.  Long story short, I stopped back in February of this year.  Just needed a break I guess.  That was about the time I threw myself into 'Extreme Couponing'.  eBay got pushed aside....

I still have tons of 'new in the packages' stuff here & in storage to sell and it IS the Season that folks loosen the purse strings and buy gifts, right?
So I opened my eBay store back up this past weekend.
It's located Here if anyone is interested and is in the market for overpriced collectibles and toys.

I figure eBay is a way to keep me out of the stores BUYING if I am home SELLING.  And I'd much rather make the money than spend it.  ;-)

While I don't recommend selling on eBay anymore(it use to be profitable for most everyone in the early days, not so now), I use to enjoy having it available as a way to bring in a little spare cash to provide for 'special' things the family enjoyed.  And being able to work when I wanted to from home in my housecoat was a big plus too.

But I'm having a rough time listing items using my auction management service.  The AMS has changed things around in the last 9 months I haven't used it, so it's slow going.  That and I am having to retake photos and dig out the items I had listed in Feb. when I shut down the store.  And I am under a time crunch to get everything up, seeing as tomorrow is DECEMBER!
December.....Already!
EEK!!!

So it's going slow and I'm getting the inevitable "I-can't-be-bothered-to-read-your-description-or-terms-so-I'm-going-to-pester-you-with-redundant-questions-and-waste-what-little-time-you-have" customers/potential bidders sending me emails.  How many times must I tell you I can't ship something to Singapore before you'll stop asking me??!!lolol

Then I got a person incredulous at the cost of the shipping of an item and asked if the shipping quote that appeared on his page was a misprint.
Excuse me, but this package weighs 19lbs. and measures 34x29x9(an oversized parcel), so yes, it will cost more than $4.95 to ship halfway across the country.  I am not Amazon dotcom and I don't offer free shipping. 

Now I went to double check the shipping quote on that item I just mentioned and the automatic shipping calculator on eBay is WAAAAY messed up for this listing.  eBay is giving me a $15+ quote to ship it to an address near me, while the PO website says it will cost over $60 to ship to that same address!
And eBay is showing that this package CAN go via Priority mail, while the PO website indicates that it is too large in size to go any other way but Parcel Post.
Boy, Mr. Incredulous Shipping Cost Buyer would pee his pants at the REAL shipping quote according to the PO Website!LOL
Wait!....I think that Sonic Boom I just heard was Mr. ISCB's jaw dropping on the floor....

The thought of having to contact eBay(always a FUN TIME!ha)and find out what the heck is going on since their shipping calculator is obviously ON DRUGS, has me so stressed out to the point that it is NOT WORTH IT.  So I just unlisted the item rather than deal with all this.

I guess I'm frustrated here.  And it's slowly turning into depression and I am losing my holiday spirit.
Now I remember why I use to close up the eBay store in early December....so I wouldn't have to deal with the Holiday Rush Buyers.lol

Maybe I'll just say the heck with it and haul everything up to Salvation Army instead and then go sit with my sullen unappreciative teenagers who don't want to decorate or listen to Christmas music but just want the parental units to dole out stacks of cash to them Christmas morning so they can go immediately back into their caves, lest they be forced to socialize with us old squares.
*Sigh*
Ho-Ho-Ho....

Sluggy