Rain & Wind Can't Keep Me From My Appointed RITE-AID Rounds!

Yes, before the weather got bad here on Monday, I was up at Rite-Aid.
The cashier reported it had been nuts in the store all day......you know, with the people who wait until it's almost too late to get necessities like bottle water and batteries and flashlights.
Silly People......don't they EVER learn?

Me?  I was up hunting the deals.....

2 x Krave cereal on sale=$6.00
4 x Bounty paper towels BOGO sale=$2.98
2 x Pantene products on sale=$7.00
1 x Preparation H totable on sale=$3.99
1 x Lindt chocolates on sale=$3.00
4 x Hormel chili on sale $1.50=$6.00
SubTotal....$28.97

Coupons Used
2 x $1.50/1 Krave cereal IPQ(Kellogg'sReward Qs)=$3.00
2 x $1/2 Bounty ManuQ(P&G insert)=$2.00
1 x BOGO Pantene products ManuQ=$3.50
1 x $1/1 Pantene Beautiful Lengths product Rite-AidQ(from self magazine)=$1.00
1 x $1/1 Preparation H product IPQ(website)=$1.00
1 x Free Q Lindt's(facebook-no longer available)=$3.00
2 x $1/2 Hormel chili ManuQ=$2.00
Coupon Total......$15.50

$28.97-$15.50=$13.47
I used $13 in +Up Rewards and put the .47¢ on my Rite-Aid gift card.
I received $7 back in +Up Reweard($2 wyb2 Pantene, $2 wyb2 cereal, $3 Preparation H)and I have $9 tracking toward the Spend $12, Get $4 on select food items.


Analysis--

*Krave cereal.  This is among the cereals On sale for 2/$6 this week. Kellogg's has a Rewards program.  You save codes and get points and among the things you can get are coupons.  I joined, got some free codes and turned some in for this $1.50/1 on Krave cereal Q.  It printed 3 times so I have 3 Qs.  I used 2 and received $2 +Ups back for buying 2 boxes.  After sale/Qs/+Ups the cereal "cost" me .50¢ per box.

*Bounty Basic towels are BOGO this week, so $1.49 for 2 at my store.  Used the $1/2 ManuQ so each roll "cost" me .24/.25¢.

*Pantene on sale for 2/$7 this week.  I used the Buy one shampoo, get a conditioner or styler FREE P&G insert Q that expires on Wed.  So I paid $3.50 for the shampoo and got the conditioner free.  Then I stacked the Rite-Aid Q from Self magazine for $1/1 Beautiful Lengths variety of Pantene shampoo, making my total $2.50 for 2 after Qs.  Then for buying 2 Pantene products I received a $2 +Up Reward which made each bottle "cost" me .25¢.  Without the stacked Q, the total would have been .75¢ for each bottle.

*Preparation H totables on sale $3.99 this week.  There is a $1/1 Q on their website, making this $2.99.
There is a $3 +Ups for buying this item, so it is FREE or a .01¢ moneymaker after sale/Q and +Ups.

*Lindt's chocolate (small bags) on sale this week for $3.  There was a Free Lindt's Q offer(up to $3.99) on Facebook earlier this month.  I was able to get 4 prints of that Q.  Free bag of chocolate and it's a qualifying product for a "Spend $12, Get $4 +Ups back" Offer.  Free choccies and $3 toward that +Up Deal.

*Hormel chili is also part of that "Spend $12, Get $4 +Ups back" Offer.  On sale for $1.50 can, so 4 cans was $6.  I used 2 $1/2 ManuQs, making them "cost" me $4.  Add my $6(before Qs) spending to $3 for the Lindt's chocolate and I have $9 spending toward the $12 to get the $4 +Ups.
If I go buy 1 more bag of Lindt's with my Free Q, I'll have $12 spent, get a free bag of chocolate and a $4 +Ups back......so this what will happen in the next couple of days.  8-))

In the end I "spent down" $6 in +Ups but after buying another bag of chocolate(and getting another $4 +Up with no spending), I'll only be "down" $2 in +Ups.


Grand Totals for October so far......

Out Of Pocket....$0.00  cash
Value of items bought.....$322.35
Savings Rate of  100%
Single Check Rebate due....$0.00
Other Rebates due......$0.00
After SCR applied, Out of Pocket.... $0.00
Savings Rate  100%

+Ups at beginning of month...$25.98+
+Ups used....$98.98+
+Ups received...$83.00+
+Ups currently...$10.00+ 

Sluggy

Reporting In From Eastern PA

We made it through the night.
Loss of power intermittently but nothing major.  I guess we lucked out here as PA was the 3rd worst hit with power outages.

We are down to light rain(which is going to continue until Friday)and some gusty winds.
Luckily, no downed trees around here either.....not even branches in the yard which we usually get with these types of storms.

The best thing is.....now I can go to Rite-Aid! lolol
Just to check on my friends/employees there......because I am concerned for their well being.....not that I want to shop for almost free or anything...... ;-)

I am just glad we weren't in Ocean City MD THIS week.

Hope everyone else made it through the night and is aok!

Sluggy

To My Neighbor....Have Fun Raking Again on Friday!

*I'm posting this Tuesday post now, as we will probably lose power at some point tonight.  I hope I don't see Antie Em and  Miss Gulch on her bike sometime tonight.*
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We have a neighbor who is not on friendly terms with us.
Meaning he wants nothing to do with us......as in he never initiates conversation, nor does he wave or smile or even acknowledge our existence.

I don't know why he is this way.  I'd like to think that it isn't his being a foreigner and wanting nothing to do with American ways and customs.  Our sons were friends when we moved here and remained friends through about the 3rd grade.  This kid's mother and I were Kindergarten parents together and she use to send her son over here to get homeowrk papers and forms he forgot from school.  Yes, I was suppose to scan and print out copies of homework papers for her kid but she barely spoke to me(her English is VERY good)and I never got a thanks either.

When our kids were young, they would play in their yard or ours.  Their kid had strict orders to never come inside our house and never eat or drink anything we offered to him.  Ok, I knew they were strict vegatarians and would never had given him a hamburger or something and I know how to read the labels on snack foods for gosh sakes!  But I didn't get too offended by him not drinking a juice box, etc.

But this not allowed inside our house?  I guess they figured we had a regular house of sin and decadence that would lead their son off the path to Allah.  Being typical Americans they probably thought we ran a house of prostitution or maybe even a Crack House.
Playing Pikmin on the GameCube in our den is just the epitome of evil, is it not?

My oldest asked their daughter out on a date many years ago.  She declined not because she didn't want to go, but because her parents refused to let her date.  I believe she has an arranged marriage but don't quote me on that.
It was to be a group date thing....more a teens going out together rather than pairing off, but even that she was not allowed to take part in.
I understand folks hanging onto their cultural identities but sometimes, if you refuse to mix with those in your community ON ANY LEVEL, who are not of your faith or racial group or cultural heritage, it appears that you don't want to belong to our American society.  You want all the perks but you don't want any of the responsibilities of being a member of that society. 

Anyway, relations went awry with this neighbor some time ago.

And He is anal about his yard.  That, right there, drives a wedge between him and us. lol
It's not so bad, except in the Fall when the leaves start falling.
If this neighbor had his way, he'd cut every tree in his yard, as well as in a 2 mile area around his house down.
He has taken down a couple of trees already.....small ones he's been able to cut down himself for free. 

There are some very large trees though and they are right on our joint property line.  He wants them taken down but he's too cheap to pay to have them removed.  I know because he asked us to take them down(meaning we should pay to have them removed)and he said he'd be "ok" with that even though the trees in question are partly on his property.

It wasn't broached as, "Let's do something about these trees together."  No, he clearly doesn't want the trees and he isn't concerned with if we want them to stay but he wants someone else to pay for the pleasure of having the trees removed.

Because of this, I am all for keeping those trees into eternity.  Even though one of them releases an ass ton of leaves into the swimming pool.  If we still live here when I die, I might just have a trust fund set up for the trees here, you know, to keep them happy and healthy and dropping leaves every Fall onto his yard into perpetuity.

So Mr. Neighbor gets out there in the Fall with his noisy ass leaf blower.  He can't be bothered to rake leaves, he has to wake the dead with that infernally loud machine.  What a waste of fossil fuels too!

And he blows the leaves into a long pile and then bags them so the municipality will cart them off.
When he blows, he starts about a foot or more inside his property line and blows them into a pile toward his house.  And that foot or more at the property line he doesn't blow into his pile?  He blows that over into OUR yard.  I guess he figures that since we have more trees on our lot, most of those leaves were ours to begin with anyway.
He doesn't think I notice but oh!....I do.....

We try to coordinate with our other neighbor who's property borders ours, so that we attack the fallen leaves on the same timetable.  What's the point of raking leaves, when your neighbor hasn't done his/her leaves yet, so that the next wind storm you get more leaves in your yard and you have to spend another day dealing with the leaves again?

Since we've been gone for the last week on a beach vacation, we came home to trees that look like this....

And here is what our yard looked like....just one little piece of it.....

And here is what our uncommunicative neighbor's yard looked like on Saturday.....

It appears that he is rimming his yard with bags of leaves now, huh?  Maybe he thinks he bags of leaves will act like sandbags against Hurricane Sandy's winds?

Notice how the other neighborhood adjoining his yard hasn't raked his leaves either? lol  I bet he blows a foot or so of his leaves onto that neighbor's yard too!

Anyway, it's a shame really.
A shame that our neighbor will be out there reblowing/bagging leaves after Sandy blows all our leaves into his nice leaf-free yard.
Friday is suppose to be a nice, partly sunny dry day.....the perfect weather for raking blowing leaves.
I will NOT be grinning evil-y......nope......not me......

Sluggy

Food spending OCTOBER Week 4, Meal Planning Week 4+ & NOVEMBER Week 1

When a weather emergency happens, we frugal, stockpiling mavens don't need to run to the stinkin' store for water, milk, bread and batteries!

We have the essentials in our stockpile already!  We are magnificent role models for society during emergency situations!

Having taken care of the basics, we can then concentrate on running to the liquor store and the snack food aisle of the grocery store.

Priorities people.....priorities!!

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Since Hubs and I were down at the shore celebrating our 30th Anniversary, I have no CLUE what meals at home consisted of last week!  I left the almost 20 yr. old and 16.5 yr. old with many food options(most requiring little if any cooking), but other than some Ramen noodles they don't seem to have eaten anything!lol

Daughter got chinese take-out 1 night and #2 Son went and mooched off his friends and their family at least 1 night.

Oh, I forgot that 2 pizzas ARE MIA from the freezer.......of course they are! lolz

As for food spending......Hubs and I had a room with a kitchenette so we did do some food shopping on vacation.

We had breakfast in the room all but 1 day.

We had dinner in the room 1 night and we skipped lunch a few days and had toast or fruit in the room to get us through to dinner.  I spent $37.30 on groceries consumed last week.

We spent $24.94 on country ham to bring home for later(can't get it here).

Then we we got home, I went crazy Saturday at the grocery store and spent $109.81.  The local Shursave affiliate store is doing their Thanksgiving promotion(Spend $XXX, get a $XX gift certificate Deal)for the next 3 weeks.  I am using this time to stock up on sale items that are mostly nonperishable(canned/boxed/paper products/etc.).  Things I would need to buy anyway, so why not buy them in these 3 weeks and get credit toward the gift certificate.  

Since changing my shopping habits about 4 years ago, I haven't spent enough toward this Promotion to actually earn a gift certificate except for last year.  I may have a shot at a $15 certificate this year.  There is also a Baking Goods Catalina promo running concurrently with the Thanksgiving Promo....Spend $30 on select items and Earn a $10 Cat Q.  These baking promo items double dip with the Thanksgiving Promo.

So if you add up Week 2's spending of $52.68(which I didn't report last Monday), the $37.30 I spend for groceries on vacation, the $24.94 on ham we hauled home and the $109.81 from Saturday, that makes $224.73 used for 2 weeks worth of food spending.

Added to the $247.63 from the first 2 weeks of October and my grocery bill for October to this point is $472.36.

Over again this month by $72.36.

If I were to take out the money I give Daughter to buy convenience foods for lunches at work/school and the non-perishables I bought on Saturday to get the Thanksgiving Reward, I would have been under or on budget for the month.

Oh well.....there is always next month, right? ;-)

At least going over doesn't mean we go into debt to eat here.  While I don't have to keep under to stay solvent with the finances I still like to keep my thumb on the food spending.  If I ignore it and just spend whatever/whenever, the bottom line gets out of hand real fast!

Next month I plan to keep my $400 budget and PLEASE come here and wag your finger at me about that!  I am serious people!!

I still need to purchase about $200 for the Thanksgiving Promotion so half my Nov. budget will go for that.....buying items that will be needed for the month and/or good to have in the stockpile.  Another piece of my budget will go to Daughter for her lunches for work/school.  

As for Turkey Day, the only items I need to purchase for the Thanksgiving meal are whipped cream(for pies), celery, rutabaga and a turkey.  I have everything else--for stuffing, for making rolls, for pies, for cranberry sauce, for 3-4 veggie dishes.  I even have a few cans of GRAVY from last year.....yes Judy, I said GRAVY!!!lolz 

 I don't plan on stepping foot into Weis(Pound Me In The Ass)Markets in November so no GRAVY SCAVENGER HUNT this year for me!  More on the 2011 Great Gravy Saga HERE and HERE and HERE and HERE.  

If Weis does that Gravy Deal again and I start to waiver, please come here and tie me to my chair! ;-)

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This week's menu.....taking power failure possibility into account.....

Sunday--Pot Roast, Carrots, Potatoes, Mushrooms, Onions

Monday--Sloppy Joe on Onion Rolls, Corn(can cook ahead Monday a.m.and reheat on grill burner should power go out later in day)

Tuesday--Grilled Steak(planning on no power), Kraft, Salad, Ice Cream LOL

Wednesday--Marinated Chicken Breast on grill(planning on no power), grilled Potatoes, thawing frozen Veggies will be heated on grill

Thursday--Beef Stew(from leftover Pot Roast-made on grill burner if no power), Homemade bread(if the power is back up)or store bought bread here(in no power)

Friday--Salmon, Rice, Broccoli (if power is up)--if no power, whatever is in fridge that has to be eaten

Saturday--Leftovers or TBA if still without power

 

What I need to buy this week to serve this menu?.....Not a single thing.  Ok, maybe some salad.

So what are you cooking at your house this week?
If you are in the path of the Sandy, do you have a contingency plan for meals?

Sluggy

It's Heading Up the Coast Now!

Here's some photos from a friend on Facebook, down from where I am from.
These were taken on Hatteras Island today.  This is the second cycle of high tides since Sandy got offshore there.
That's the Frisco Pier, or rather what's left of it.......

And here are some homes about to be reclaimed by the sea......

Highway 12, the only road through the Outer Banks down to Hatteras is impassable in sections due to flooding and overwash from the sound and the ocean.   Widespread power outages in Eastern NC as well.

The low lying and underpass flooding has commenced in Norfolk VA according to friends in Hampton Roads.

Please don't be an idiot and go wandering out to the coast to see this people.
Stay home and let the adrenalin junkies on the Weather Channel go out in this and show you the pictures.

Sluggy