Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Mmmmmm.....Bacon! + Price Chopper=Love

Well the Couponing Powers-That-Be heard my whining last week about the price of bacon and the lack of any deals for said porcine goodness.

Price Chopper and Hormel have come to my rescue!!  *see Sluggy bat her eyelashes furtively at her heroes*

I don't have a picture but yesterday after hitting up Rite-Aids I cruised into Price Chopper to start the ball rolling, er, I mean the Cat rolling.
I bought 4 packages of Hormel bacon and half a dozen fresh bagels.
Not only is the bacon part of the Cat deal but did I mention it's on sale for BOGO?
So 4 packages of bacon was $10.98(reg. price $5.49)after the sale.  Unfortunately there are NO Hormel bacon coupons currently....*sniff*.
The bagels are on sale Buy 3, Get 3 free this week so my bagels cost $1.99 for 6.
Grand Total for my 1st transaction at PC was $12.97.  For this transaction the bagels cost me $.33 each and the bacon was $2.75 a package.  Even at that price it was pretty darn good.....but now it would get much MUCH better!


Because the machine spit out a precious $7 OYNO Cat Q for buying that bacon.
Yay!

So I cruised over to Price Chopper this afternoon to roll it....

Transaction #1
4 x Hormel Bacon on sale BOGO=$10.98
1 x 6 Bagels on sale 1/2 price=$1.99
2 x Grands! Biscuits on sale $2=$4.00
SubTotal....$16.97

Coupons Used
2 x $1/1 Instant Store Q on the Grands!=$2.00
1 x $7 OYNO Cat Q=$7.00
Coupon Total....$9.00

$16.97-$9.00=$7.97 OOP
And I received another $7 OYNO Cat Q.


Transaction #2

4 x Hormel Bacon on sale BOGO=$10.98
6 x Libby's Veggies on sale $.67=$4.02
SubTotal....$15.00

Coupons Used
2 x $1/3 Libby's Veg. ManuQ=$2.00
1 x $7 OYNO Cat Q=$7.00
Coupon Total....$9.00

$15.00-$9.00=$6.00 OOP
And I received another $7 OYNO Cat Q.

Basically with spending $14.00, the bacon & whack biscuits were $1 a package, the veggies & bagels were $.33 a can/a piece.
Plus I've got the $7 Cat to keep rolling into more cheap bacon. ;-)

But first I need to clean out the freezer a bit so I have a place to put it all.

Sluggy

Monsters Revisited....


Remember the Youtube Video I shared awhile back?....This one HERE.

Well I found out this group of guys is a bonafide student a capella group affiliated with the U. of Oregon. 
They are called "On The Rocks".
And they have been around for some time.
They have released a few records....ok, I guess you don't call them records because they don't make records anymore, so they have released albums or recorded music or whatever the terminology is nowadays. ;-)

They also re-recorded this particular GaGa video with actual production values.
So if you liked these Monsters the first time, go have a listen to this version....



I still say one of the lead singers, the one in the baseball cap, looks a bit like a young Seth Rogen....

And I'm having a debate over which video is better with a friend.
Do you prefer the impromptu one or the cleaned up "professional" version?
Leave a comment and let us know which side you weigh in on!

P.S.
I so hate you Joe because you have tickets to the tour!

Sluggy

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Simplifying the Holidays...How to Get off the Santa Express


Do you dread the approaching of the Month of December?

Do you tense up and stress out over all the extra work that is expected of you during the Holidays?

Do your kids turn into Self-absorbed Robots at this time of year, demanding a neverending list of toys?

Maybe you need to consider stepping off of the Madison Avenue Christmas Express and start destressing, reducing and simplifying how you celebrate the Holidays!

That American Popular Culture Christmas Express train you are on, makes stops in the State of Exhaustion, the Land of Disappointment, and ends up delivering you right to The Poor House in January when those bills come rolling in.
Make this season the one where you change up the game and play it by Your Rules, not Madison Avenues!

I'm going to do a little series about Simplifying the Holidays.  Each Week I will post about some aspect of the Winter Holidays where you could make changes in your life and in how you celebrate this year.

If anyone has any thoughts, questions or some aspect of simplifying your holiday season you would like to see me cover, just leave your ideas in the comments and I'll work them in and address them in subsequent posts in this series.

Sluggy

Monday, October 18, 2010

Randomly Yours Monday

**My sleep schedule has been off for a week now.
I am wide awake at the crack of dawn.....so unlike me.
Then I crash and nap by noon and wake up again around 2 or 3pm.
Then I am wore out by 9pm and crawl back into bed.....and it starts all over again the next day.

I know this schedule is like most people's out there but my usual schedule is to to go to bed between 2 and 7 am, sleep until 2pm, nap again around 7pm for 2 or 3 hours and then up by 10pm until 2am or later and start it all over again the next 24 hours.
I have always been a night person and find I am much more productive at night.

Anybody else have unusual sleeping/waking patterns?

**And no, I haven't been to Rite-Aid this week yet.....but the week is young yet!lol
Anybody else been yet?  What did ya get??

**I have a Meal Plan figured out for this week to as far as Tuesday.lol  Last week I hardly cooked at all.  Only one night getting take-out too.  Seems the teens have hardly eaten here all last week so when I cooked something it lasted for 3 meals or so for just Hubs and I.....meaning I didn't need to cook but 2 times.

**I just found 2 high value coupons over on AllYou dotcom.  1--It's a Scott products Q for $2.50/1 on the purchase of 8 or more roll package of Scott Extra Soft Bath Tissue or a 4 or more roll package of Scott Towels.   Print it now for any upcoming TP deals.  2--It's a $2.50/1 Kendall/AMD Wound Care Product(they make bandages, etc.) Q.  Rite-Aid has a sale/+Ups deal coming up on Kendall/AMD products in a week.

**After slacking off on the decluttering/donating the last couple of months, I sent 2 loads to Sallie's last week.  No pretty pictures though....

**And from the annals of "The Grocery Store Powers That Be Heard Me"......I saw a Catalina Deal in the Price Chopper(northeast) Sales Flyer from my Sunday paper yesterday involving.....BACON!
Woohoo!!!
It's a Hormel Catalina.....Spend $10-$14.99/Get $3 OYNO Cat Q, Spend $15-$19.99/Get $5 OYNO Cat Q, and Spend $20 or More/Get $7 OYNO Cat Q.
Price Chopper has historically gone off of the reg. retail shelf price to figure spending threshold levels(not the sale prices on the participating items),but I haven't been in awhile so I'll be taking a trip to the store tomorrow to test the waters.  When my coupons arrive in the next couple of days I'll be all ready to stock-up then on some Pork Love. ;-)

**I got something rigged up for my Eggplant plants, in hopes that I could keep them alive long enough for the tiny eggplants to grow enough to be edible.
First I took a clear plastic gallon milk jug and cut the bottom off of it so I could put it over the plant.
That would have been quick and easy but the plant was too tall.  I then considered taking more milk jugs, cutting the bottom and tops off and leaving the sides(making a big plastic square)that I could duct tape together to make the 1st milk jug taller.  But that idea fizzled out once I started the cutting.lol

Then Hubs and I came up with this.....

We put a tomato cage on each plant.
Then we took a drum liner.....it's a HUGE clear plastic bag(used to line metal drums, like oil drums).....and put it over 2 cages at a time. 
Then we used pieces of bricks to hold down the edges of the liner to keep out the cold and keep the liner from sailing off with the first stiff wind gust.
It turned out to be a quick and easy fix with no cutting or taping involved.  Plus we can reuse the bag. ;-)

Two days out and so far so good.
I don't know how much time I can by these eggplants though since we will probably get our first freezing night later this week. 8-(

**October is almost 2/3 over!  I was adding last week's grocery spending to my budget book and realized that.  Speaking of grocery spending, I spent $37.89 last week.....fresh fruit, produce, 1lb. of butter on sale and about 16lbs. of meat/chicken.  Ok...I also had an impulse buy and picked up a bag of cheese curls for $2 on the spur of the moment.  Yes, my one wild and crazy purchase for that week!lol  Sometimes junk food calls my name.....well, it seems to SCREAM my name loudly and often.....and I just give in.  Ah well......
Anyway, I haven't even broken $100 for food spending in October yet.  Yay for the freezer and the stockpile!! ;-)

So what has everyone else been up to lately??

Sluggy

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Sluggy's Boring Blog Box #4 Giveaway....WINNER!

There were 42 valid entries to the 4th Boring Blog Box Giveaway.

I listed the names in order of them being received and assigned a number to each entry.
Then I plugged the parameters into Random.Org and it spit out the Winner.


And the winner is......

Entry Number 2
SonyaAnn said...
Hey, I should just win hands down cuz I'm a sci-fi nut! Not to mention all the probs that I'm having lately, I deserve a little trek love!
September 17, 2010 7:55 AM

Congratulations SonyaAnn.  The sci-fi gods must have heard your please from outer space.lol
Please email me your snail mail info. within the next 48 hours from this time stamp and this lovely box of assorted Boring Blog Stuff will be on it's way to you!

And thank you to everyone who entered!!  We picked up a couple new readers along the way during this Giveaway and I'd like to say Welcome to You! and I do hope you all stick around and keep reading and participating.  If you have any questions or want me to blog about some specific issue with couponing, frugality, decluttering, stockpiling, cooking, sewing, personal finance or dealing with those alien lifeforms called teenagers, just leave a comment or email me.

More Giveaway Fun coming soon....

Sluggy