It's a Shining Miracle!

I'm a night late but I want to give a shout out to my Friends who are MOT and celebrate the miracle of Hanukkah.
It's a great holiday.....all about the underdog defeating the mighty, freedom from tyranny, and celebrating your culture, your religion and a miracle.
Even if you aren't Jewish, there are lessons to take away from this celebration of the Festival of Lights.
And the food!......Paula Deen has nothing on the deep fried latkes and doughnuts and chocolate gelt that are part of the celebration.

What's not to like?!?

So on this the 2nd night of Hanukkah, I wish you freedom, may your oil supply never run dry and may your latkes be the fluffiest....except for those nice crispy edges....Mmmmmm

Chag Sameach y'all!

Sluggy

Cookie Mix Fixed & The Rest of What I Got at Rite-Aid Last Week

Here is some more Rite-Aid shopping from last week.
I talked about the BC Cookie Mix/+Ups printing problem I had but I neglected to post that trips total/spending....

2 x BC cookie mix on sale $2=$4.00
1 x Pentel Mechanical Pen $4.99 but w/Gold discount=$3.99
SubTotal....$7.99

I used a $1/2 BC Cookie Mix IPQ=$1.00

$7.99-$1.00=$6.99+.04¢tax=$7.03
I used a $6 +Up Reward to pay and put the $1.03 in my gift card.
I received a $4 +Up Reward back for the Mechanical Pencil, which made the pencil free.
Didn't get the $2 food +Ups however as you all know already.

*The Pentel Pencil Deal is a monthly one.  The "Twist Erase" Mechanical Pencils are one of the varieties that gives the $4 +Up Reward.  I found Bonus packs of them at one store....2 Pencils and an ink Pen.  They or the regular pack with just 1 Pencil are both part of the Deal.  If you have a Gold Wellness discount, after +Ups this makes them free.  There is also a Pentel Gel Pen that goes for $3.19 after Gold discount that is generating a $3 +Up Reward, so that's a cheap, but not free pen after rewards.  The Limit on the Pencils is 4 per card and it goes all month so keep that in mind if you have a week where you need to roll +Ups and there is little else you need.

On Friday I also did this transaction....

1 x BC Cookie Mix on sale=$2.00 *not pictured, you saw it already
5 x Dana brand Fragrances $2.99 but w/Gold discount $2.39=$11.95
1 x Pentel Mechanical Pencil $4.99 w/Gold discount=$3.99
SubTotal....$17.94

Coupons Used
1 x .50¢/1 Betty Crocker Cookie Mix IPQ(smartsource dotcom)=$.50
5 x $2/1 Dana brands fragrance IPQ(from their website)=$10.00
Coupon Total....$10.50

$17.94-$10.50=$7.44+.01¢tax=$7.45
I used $7 in +Ups and put the .45¢ on my gift card(had to break out a new gift card finally).
I received back $4 in +Ups($4 Pentel) and then when I returned and rebought the cookie mixes Saturday evening, I got my $2 +Ups for that, so I received $6 +Up Rewards in total.

I also bought a $50 Kohl's gift card on my Wellness card and another on the BIL's card on Saturday evening.  The $100 I spent for those comes out of a fund for clothing, so basically it was just converting $100 of that cash into gift cards, which will be spent in 2013 on regular clothing needs for the family.
This wasn't regular Rite-Aid shopping.
But.....buying them at Rite-Aid did give me 2 x $5 +Up Rewards for the purchases.
These are a "bonus" and get rolled into my pile of +Ups. 8-)


These trips--
OOP....$0.00
Value of items....$34.50
+Ups coming into this trip....$47.00
+Ups used....$13.00
+Ups earned.....$10.00
BONUS +Ups for buying gift cards for Kohl's.....$10.00
+Ups at the end.....$54.00

*And here are my MONTHLY TOTALS*
 
GRAND TOTALS FOR DECEMBER so far.......

Out Of Pocket....$0.00  cash
Value of items bought.....$294.31
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...$47.00+
+Ups used....$108.00+
+Ups received...$115.00+
+Ups currently...$54.00+ 

Sluggy

I Need A Little Christmas

What a busy day Saturday was!
I am pooped.
Going to Rite-Aid(to rebuy cookie mix...oy!), Christmas shopping with Hubs(2 places and then I said, "Enough!"), the Grocery store(for the 3rd time this week!), writing and posting eBay listings, packing eBay items that sold, dealing with eBay Deadbeats(already?!), filing receipts, putting away all this stuff I've "bought" at Rite-Aid lately, straightening the garage stockpile, dealing with the dogs and the teens.
I was so ready to put my feet up, pop open a Woodchuck Hard Cider and watch a little tv.  Nothing on but Suze Orman(those "Can I Afford It?" Segment people are a hoot!).

Where did the day go?

And as for Christmas here?
Well all I can say is that the tree is up and is no longer 'totally' nekkid......

Perhaps some ornaments will make an appearance soon.  Not that anyone other than Hubs and I even care to decorate the thing. 
If Santa doesn't see the youngins around here scare up a little more enthusiasm than they are displaying now, he might just take a pass at our house this year.

I'll be breaking out the fruitcake tomorrow.
I have self-diagnosed myself and the result is that I am suffering from a candied fruit and nut deficiency.

That and this clip should get me right......


Lucy is no Angela Lansbury but it will have to do. ;-)

Sluggy

Well Color Me Informed, If NOT Annoyed with Rite-Aid

You may recall that I bought 2 pouches of Betty Crocker Cookie Mix the other day at Rite-Aid.....

These pouches are part of a Food Deal at R-A this week....."Spend $6 on select Food items, Get $2 +Up Reward back" Deal.
These mixes are $2 a bag this week, so I had spent $4(before Qs)for these 2 and I was expecting my $2 +Ups to print out after I bought 1 more bag.
Famous last words, right?

Well I sashayed(yes, us Southern gals sashay!)back up to Rite-Aid today to buy a third pouch of cookie mix and claim my $2 +Ups.

Only, that danged +Ups had the Audacity to NOT print out!
So I had me a nice little online chat with Corporate CS when I got home to see if they could mail me my +Ups.

And that is when I found out something.
First off, the CS gal was NOT going to mail me my $2 +Ups!
Further more, she told me that if I wanted my +Ups I would have to go back up to Rite-Aid, return the 3 bags of mix and then rebuy them in a single transaction.
Well, THAT was my suggested solution anyway.
Miss CS didn't seem to care one way or another if I got an +Up Reward or not.
She was Miss "they don't pay me enough at this job to make me want to care about you and your +up reward" about the whole thang.
I can't blame her really but I was very pleasant the whole time and didn't talk in CAPS to her at all.
8-(

So you know that some times at Rite-Aid, when they have these +Up Reward Deals that make you buy multiple items as in multiples of an assortment of items to choose from(I don't mean the Deals where you buy 2 or 3 of one particular item to get an +Ups). 
And you know that sometimes these larger Deals will track because R-A figures you have to purchase everything to satisfy the Deal in MORE than one transaction(especially since R-A is known for not having enough stock on the shelves to satisfy demand for +Up Reward Deals MANY MANY TIMES!), but other times these larger Deals don't track at all and you wonder why it doesn't and why you never get your +Up Reward(s)?

Well, I may be the last person on the Planet Earth to learn this but, straight from the mostly unengaged and BORED CS person to my monitor screen, I learned that.....

In order for a Rite-Aid +Up Reward Deal to track, it has to be one where you are required to spend $10 or MORE to get the Reward.
If a Deal requires you to spend $10 or MORE, you can buy the items in multiple transactions and the Reward will print after you hit the spending requirement.
If a Deal requires you to spend under $10, you have to buy the items in ONE transaction to get the Reward to print.

When I learned this on Friday, the skies parted and I heard angels sing.  Finally, a definite rule from Corporate on which Deals track and which don't.
Definite until it doesn't happen that way in real life when I go back to the store. ;-)

So I'll be hauling these mixes back up to my Rite-Aid to return and rebuy and get my $2 +Ups.
Really, how difficult would it have been for the CS to mail me that Reward?
So I get to let my store's employees generate more paperwork and work for themselves, during the Holiday season when they have NO time for extra work!, instead of making an online CS person, who has no customers lined up 20 deep at a register glaring at her/him like the store employees do, put my name/addy on an envie and stuffing a $2 +Up into it and dropping it into the "outgoing" mail pile.

Geez.
Ho-Ho-Ho Rite-Aid......

Sluggy

$20K Savings Challenge.....NOVEMBER Update

Ok, here is my NOVEMBER Savings Challenge Update post for 2012.

This post is NOT about bragging or showing off.  It's just what we are able to save given our income and being able to hang tough against "unconscious" spending.

Just to update, My Savings Goal for the Year in 2012 is $20,000.  It's well below what I've saved in previous years I know.  But we also have a goal of paying for 4 home improvement projects at Chez Sluggy this year.  We plan on cash-flowing these projects with the additional money we save and/or our income tax refund.
Our background info--We are a family of 5(kids are 21-16)with one living away from home.  We have 2 dogs. We own 4 cars at present and live in/own free & clear a 4 bedroom house in a small town.

On to the November report.....

I have posted my NOVEMBER End of Month $20K $AVING$ CHALLENGE Totals.
Check out the side bar to your right for the specific numbers.

I have 2 goals each month.....
The 1st is to actually finish each month in the black and not the red.
The 2nd is to hit the targeted savings amount of $1,666.67.

I have to report that we finished up November in the black!
The extra cash amount we ended the month of November with?.......$6,762.91

Income
We had $6,752.37 left over from our income after our monthly expenses were deducted. 

Add in a teeny bit of interest at $.54 from the interest bearing checking account and a rebate check worth $10.00 and it brought our gain to $6,762.91 for November.

Outgo

As for the expenses this November......

HERE are the GOOD THINGS

* The water bill was the same as last month.

* The credit card bill decreased by $270.
* The cash withdrawals were $50 lower.

*  Music lessons went down.

And the big one....

* There were NO car maintenance/repair bills in November.

HERE are the BAD THINGS

*  The medical/dr. bills were $125 higher than last month.

*  The electric bill went up by $72, mostly due to the heat being on fulltime now.

The Food Budget costs for NOVEMBER are in another post, which is located HERE. 

We managed to stay within our $400 food budget in November.

YEAR-TO-DATE GRAND TOTAL.....
With 11 months behind us, our Savings Grand Total for 2012 is at  $26,351.38!

We have hit our target for the year and then some.  That 3 paycheck month in November put us well over the top.

And there is one more month to go!   Even though we have passed the Challenge Goal, I'm going to keep with it to the end of the year.  Maybe I can add another thousand or two to my Grand Total for 2012.
 ***************
I'm so happy we hit the Goal before we end the year.  We were lagging behind on the targets for each month so many times earlier in the year.
And don't think I didn't have one BIG URGE to just take that extra 3rd paycheck in November and not count it and put it toward this savings challenge!
With Christmas so close, I could have seen myself take that big wad of paycheck cash and blow it on one massive Mother Of All Christmas Spending Sprees!  Like a blast from the shopping/Xmas spending past it would have been!
So sweet.....especially with where financially things are heading for us little guys after we jump off the fiscal cliff in 2013 and beyond.  It would have been a last hurrah of blatant consumerism, right? ;-)

But I kept it together and didn't go back to those old ways and kept my grimy little fingers off that check and sent it to savings to keep us that much more solvent in the coming years.
It's not as flashy and fun but it helps me sleep well at night, which is worth all the new trinkets and gadgets in the world. 8-)

*******************

As for a look ahead at DECEMBER.......

*  No irregular bills are due this month.

*  Normal monthly bills only are expected.
*  We may have a car repair bill this month.

Be sure and check back with me after 2012 ends on our final tally for this Savings Challenge.  Let's see if I can run through the tape at the finish line! 8-)

So how was your November financially?
Did you spend less than you made?
Did you stay within your budget or not?
How much of your income did you save in November?  And did you use it to pay down debt or build your Emergency Fund?

Even if what you are able to save each month doesn't look like a lot of money, figure out what percentage of your income you saved.  You might feel that it's a more substantial amount in those terms!

We saved approx. 74% of our take home income in November.  My goal is to shoot for 50% each month but that extra paycheck made my percentages shoot quite high.  It's too bad I can't get it that high in a normal month.  We do have 2 kids in college and another one headed there in another 18 months.....so we NEED to be saving like crazy.

But most months aren't this insanely good.

Leave a comment and share with us what you did with your money, both the good and not-so good.
Did you have debt you were able to pay on?
Did you pay off a car, a house or a credit card?
Did something financial blow up on you last month?
What are you doing financially to change your life?

If you posted your financial progress on your own blog, leave a link in the comments so we can go check you out too and cheer you on!

Sluggy