June Giveaway Time is HERE!

Ok, this month I am putting this up and it will run while I am away in the North Woods of NH conferring with fellow porcupines.
I may not have service up there among the trees and critters so if I don't put your entry(or entries)through in a timely manner don't worry.  All the comments will be put through before I do the drawing when we get back.  ;-)


Here's what you can win if you are selected this month.........

1 x Ocuvite gummy vitamins
1 x Skintimate shave gel
1 x Crest mouth wash
1 x Pantene shampoo
1 x Degree women's deodorant/antiperspirant
1 x Aquaphor skin cream
1 x Wet n' Wild concealer stick
1 x Colgate toothpaste
1 x Wen n' Wild nail polish
1 x Yes2Cucumbers mud mask
1 x Trident wintergreen chewing gum
1 x Bic soleil disposable razors
1 x Cover Girl mascara
1 x Wet n' Wild lip liner pencil
1 x Almay mint green eye shadow
1 x Almay lilac lavender eye shadow
1 x Fig Newtons 2 pack
1 x Belvita blueberry breakfast cookie pack




Close up shots of the goodies..........

Around $60+ worth of regular retail goodies(depending on where you shop for this sort of thing).
Lots of June necessities here--things to get you ready for Summer(razors, hair, deodorant, make-up, dental needs), vitamins for all that outdoor activity coming up and gum and cookies to feed your soul.

* This June Giveaway Box of goodies is open to any and all readers, non-winners yet and previous winners.

There is a limit of ONE ENTRY PER PERSON PER DAY for this Giveaway.  Come back every day and enter though!

I want to hear all about your Summer plans if you have them....travel, staycations, Summer indoor and/or outdoor projects, family Reunions or get-togethers, gardening.  If you have travel tips(your fav places to eat/see/stay), places you want to go but haven't gotten to yet, etc.  What is the thing in this goody box you most want to have and why?  Give me ideas for what to put into July's box of goodies.


I'll leave these giveaways open until Monday, June 24th at 11:59 pm Eastern Daylight Savings Time. On June 25th, Tuesday,  I'll mark all valid entries on slips of paper and have Ex-College Boy draw the winner.

*Please note these rules*
I'll post the name/ID of the winner on this blog on June 25th and that person has 48 hours from the time stamp on that post to contact me privately via email(my email addy is listed on my "About Me" page, as well as on my side bar).

If I am not contacted via email, I'll attempt to contact the winner via the email they supplied with their entry(or gave me to add to the Giveaway Data Base)and if that email is not responded to within another 48 hours I'll pick another winner.

Disclaimer--This giveaway is open to those with mailing addresses within the US only.  As the cost of postage to foreign countries has gotten too high I am sorry to say I can no longer afford to mail boxes outside the US.  These giveaways are not sponsored by any companies.  I pay for it all(the cost of items given away and the postage to mail it all)out of my own pocket.

***PLEASE NOTE***

Please make sure there is a way for me to contact you in your comment.

If you're not a registered Blogger User with your contact information on your User page, please put your email addy in your comment or email me your email addy privately when you leave a comment so I can get a hold of you. If your Blogger associated user profile is a GOOGLE one make sure your email info is linked to your profile.

If I can't contact you then you can't win.  I am still having to disqualify entries due to this issue and I sure don't like doing that.  Thanks!

So let's get the JUNE Giveaway started.  Good Luck to everyone!!!

Sluggy

This Week on the Dining Table

The "Things Are Moving Along If Not Slowly" Edition........

Well the folks came out and measured the room and the carpeting is ordered and paid for now(I put it on my Lowe's card and got a 5% discount). We are waiting on it to arrive and for the install to be scheduled when we get home from vacation.
They measured Hubs' room while they were here so when we pull the trigger on carpet for that room we have the sq. footage on record.  But that will have to wait until my new room is finished first.

Moving On....

Onward to the meal planning!

This is what was planned--

1. Sunday--FFY/Leftovers

2. Monday--Chinese Take-Out(lunch entrees)

3. Tuesday--Turkey Breast, Stuffing, Broccoli, Rolls(for them that wants 'em)

4. Wednesday--Pork Chops, leftover Zuke in Sauce and Rice OR Grilled Sammies

5. Thursday--Stuffed Shells, Caesar Salad

6. Friday--Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches, Brussels Sprouts
7. Saturday--Leftovers OR Grilled Sammies w/a side TBD

And this is what actually happened--(everyone else here not me after Tuesday)

1. Sunday--FFY/Leftovers

2. Monday--Chinese Take-Out(lunch entrees)

3. Tuesday--Turkey Breast, Stuffing, Broccoli, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy

4. Wednesday--FFY

5. Thursday--Stuffed Shells

6. Friday--Pork Tenderloin Sandwiches, Brussels Sprouts
7. Saturday--Leftovers

Last week saw 3 nights of home cooked dinners, 3 nights of leftovers/fend for yourself, 1 night of Eating Out/Take-Out. 
Lots of leftovers so no need to cook a fourth night last week.

What got put into the freezer last week.....

* a bag of cheese(I had a partially used block that was going moldy so I cut off the bad spots and shredded what was left and put it into the freezer for later.)

What got taken out of the freezer and used last week.....
* that bag of cheese from last week

* a turkey breast
* breaded pork tenderloin 

A small trip to Aldi's, Ollie's, Shursave, CVS and 3 items from Weis(one was free)brought the food/toiletries spending last week to $45.45 and my June total to $158.36.  

My savings percentage last week was 69.54%(without Rite-Aid trips)and June's monthly savings total so far comes to 56.11%(w/out R-A). 

I have 13 more food shopping/spending days in June.

Leftovers going into this week.....corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, turkey breast, stuffing, gravy and stuffed shells.

Here is this week's "food plan".....

1. Sunday--Grilled Steaks, Corn on cob, Mac and Cheese

2. Monday--Eating out w/my cousin

3. Tuesday--?

4. Wednesday--?

5. Thursday-?

6. Friday--?
7. Saturday--?

This week will see 1 new meals cooked, ? nights of leftovers/FFY, and ? nights of Take-Out/Eating Out.

What needs buying for this menu?  Nothing whatsoever.  Ex-College Boy will be eating leftovers and/or fending for himself.
There will only be a little bit of food shopping this week, just bits and bobs we buy in NH.

What is getting fixed and served at your house this week?

Was last week's plan successful, did you go off plan or did you not even plan what was going to be eaten last week?

Any great deals on food at your stores this week? 

Sluggy  

Our Vacation in New Hampshire

We leave soon for our vacation.
We are staying with and visiting one of my three cousins in Maine.
Then we head up to the North Woods of New Hampshire.

Lancaster NH is right over the Connecticut River from Vermont and under 50 miles South of the Canadian border at Quebec Province.

We are going to PorcFest.
The porcupine is the mascot of the Libertarian party thus the reference and the name PorcFest.




Hubs has wanted to go for a few years now but it never worked out with our schedules.  Now that he's retired I told him now or never so we pulled a plan together.

It's a 6 day Festival for people who love liberty and advocate for personal freedom.
Most of the attendees have Libertarian leanings so this is my tribe(other than my frugal online tribe).

There are round table discussions and lectures on everything from economics, political activism, legal issues, bitcoin, technology, political satire, home schooling to branding and marketing.
But it's not all serious stuff.
It's also a big party with lots of fun social activities like RPG and LARP, something called beergasm, demonstrations about beekeeping, a shooting field trip to a range, tiny homes, green practices.
There is a bonfire at the end where we have Burning Porcupine(similar to what they do at Burning Man).

But the one thing I am most looking forward to seeing is Vermin Supreme's show.

If you don't know whom I am referring to, watch this...........




I confess that I am nervous going to this thing.  I won't know anyone there but Hubs.  I am not into politics really so I am going for the social aspects mostly.
Hubs in the political animal in this family so he'll be in his element.
 All the folks on the closed chat group seems very young so in terms of making friends I may be way out of place at this thing.

I'll report back next week on how it was and the wifi may be iffy up there so I may not post much in the coming week.

Wish me luck!


  Sluggy

Frugal Friday....the June 14th Edition

Some good frugal things happened around here this past week.............

*  Since the weather has been so cool and rainy I went ahead and planted some lettuce.  It's a bit late for that around here but I had some old seeds sitting in a bag so no money spent!

And they've already sprouted.  We may get something big enough to pick by the time we get back from New Hampshire.  I love getting almost free veggies!

*  I ordered my bi-pap supplies this past week.  There is a tubing length I need that runs from the oxygen concentrater to the bi-pap that they aren't allowed to order for me.....it has to be ordered from the "oxygen" department of their company so she transferred me to that department.

Twenty minutes later that CS person still couldn't find the item I needed and then they dropped the call.  Not wanting to get caught up in that frustrating crap again, I just went on eBay and looked for the item(you don't need a Rx for it and it's something you can sell there).

I found a listing for TWO of what I wanted for $5.95 w/free shipping.  I also had a $5 off Q from eBay so 2 lengths of tubing cost me $1.95 OOP.
The DME company was selling me 40 ft. of tubing(I only need 10 ft.)and after insurance was charging me $10+ per length of tubing for a copay.  Can you say rip-off???

And even better my eBay(from an Alabama DME no less)tubing showed up a day earlier than the order I places with my insurance's DME company. lolz

*  I found money!

A quarter under a display I saw while checking out at Walmart.

And a penny while walking out of Walmart.

*  And speaking of Walmart, I found these for cheap there...........

Cotton blankets.  We've been looking for a deal on lightweight blankets for our beds.  Went around a corner and these were on clearance; the king and full/queen were $5 each and the twin was $4.50.

Regular price on the shelf for the king was $29.96 though the clearance tag on the package was $24.96.  At either price, paying $5 was a great deal!  Not the colors I would have necessarily have picked(these were all they had)but we have one of each of these sizes of beds here now.

*  Then I found more money!

I went into Dollar Tree to pick something up for Hubs and found three more pennies!

*  Since I was driving right by this store, I went into Dollar General for this deal.......

$5 off wyb 2 of these gift cards.  The lowest amount available was $15 so I got $30 total in gift cards for $25 so somewhere between 16%  and 17% off regular price.  This wasn't a great deal(sometimes the discount is more)so I only got a couple gift cards to use on our trip.


*  Remember that free specialty burger I got from Mickey D's last week?.....

Since I knew we'd be going to Mickey D's for breakfast when we left for New Hampshire next week I did the survey on the receipt and got a validation code.
Now we can get a BOGO free deal on our 2 breakfast sandwiches when we leave for our trip.

*  I picked up some FREE nail polish at Rite-Aid............

The Kokie Cosmetics website has a $4/1 Q good at Rite-Aid. Don't know if it's still there but go check it out.
R-A Q.  It's a PDF so save it to your computer to print it out.  TIP-The register WILL take multiple of that Q in one transaction ,if your cashier will let you, otherwise, you'll have to buy them 1 at a time.

Anyway, Kokie items are Spend $12/Get $6 BC this week and if you have the 20% Wellness discount level the $4.99 nail polish is $3.99.  Add in a cheap candy because there will be .01¢ of overage you need to cover.
I got 4 bottles(to get to the $12+ level so the $6 BC would print)and 3 candies. 
4 x $3.99=$15.96 + 3 candies at .57¢=$16.53-$16 in Qs=.53¢ OOP.
Cost was .53¢ after Qs which was paid with my Bonus Cash and I earned $6 in new BC back making this a $5.47 moneymaker.

If you have Silver level discount(10% off reg. prices)the nail polish will be $4.49 and you'll only need 3 bottles to hit the $12 mark and won't need a candy because you won't have overage.
3 x $4.49=$13.47-3 x $4/1 KokieQ=$1.47(plus tax if applicable)and you'll earn the $6 BC so a $4.52 moneymaker which is still pretty nice. 8-)

*  I had $5 in ECB expiring on Thursday so I hit CVS too........

I already blogged about this trip yesterday.  All of the above was free and earned me $5 in new ECBs.

*  I had a 15% off chit for Ollie's(Good Stuff Cheap!)that was expiring this Sunday so Hubs and I went to the one that usually has a large clearance section in the town South of us and they did not disappoint!

Most of the discounted stuff but not all of what we bought.  These were the items that were clearanced, 50%, 60% or 75% off.
(Plus 2 more of the gallons of peach iced tea not in the photo.)

The Thinster's cookies were .50¢ea., the bread crumbs were .40¢ea., the pop-tarts were .50¢ea., the tea was .52¢ea., the slow cooker sauce was .25¢, the caramel cookie chips were .50¢ea., the caramel popcorn was .99¢ and the pb crackers were .89¢.
There was also another snacky thing, 6 jars of spices, 2 microwave mug items, a lb. of roasted almonds, a canister of french fried onions, a can of pie filling and 2 bags of pretzel rods.
$71.74 reg retail and w/the 15% off Q, and the 40-75% off on the clearance stuff I paid $24.13 OOP for all of it.
8-)))


*  I also found money at Rite-Aid........

A dime under one of the chairs in the waiting area by the pharmacy.
I finished the week at finding a total of .39¢ in change.
Nice.

*  There was NO Weis(PMITA)Markets freebie for me this past week.  It was pre-cooked, packaged hard boiled eggs so I took a pass.  Heck I didn't even darken Weis' door all week!

What frugal goodness happened in your world this past week?
Tell us what wins y'all had! ;-)



Sluggy

A Comedy of Errors at CVS

We were out and about in the town South of us on Tuesday and I remembered that a new CVS had opened there which we would be passing right by.  So we stopped in after hitting Ollie's.
I had planned to go to CVS on Wednesday to use some expiring ECBs but why not do it Tuesday and be done with that chore, right?
Ha!

I had my scenario all planned out.
Buy a gift card and earn $10 ECB to add to the $5 one that was expiring.
Then buy: 2 Softsoap Body Wash, 2 Dove shampoo, 2 Speed Stick deodorant and 4 Arizona iced tea drinks(for our trip next week).
After Qs and ECBs I'd pay .76¢ plus any tax due.
I'd also get back $5 in new ECBs.

So I went in and scanned my EC card.  The machine made some noise and nothing printed out....so I waited a few minutes because sometimes these machines are very SLOOOOW!
I looked and someone had flipped a homemade sign taped to the machine up onto the top of it.
It said, "Out of Order".
crap.

I needed a $3/2 Dove Q that was suppose to print out at that machine so I couldn't do my scenario but I could buy the gift card and get the $10 ECB.
So I did that much of it but the ECB didn't print.
I showed the cashier(who happened to be a manager of sorts)it didn't print and the ad in my hand showing it was suppose to print.  She worked her magic and made the register print it out for me.

So on Wednesday I had to run errands down the valley so I hit the CVS along that route.
I scanned my EC card at the machine and here's what printed out............

A whole lot of nothing!  I tried again and nothing.  I guess the out of order machine "printed" out my Qs for this week(even though it didn't)so now subsequent machines were not going to actually PRINT my Qs.
Ugh ugh ugh
Not wanting to have a big to-do with the store employees over this(and not knowing if they can print the machine Qs out for me or something because really, I know NOTHING about CVS!)I just decided to punt and make up a new scenario working with what I had(which was very little).

Here is what I decided to get.......

I got the 2 Speed Stick dodorants and the 2 Softsoap Body Washes as planned.  According to my calculations I needed to "spend" another $6.14 to use my $15 in ECBs fully.
I hunted around and tried different combinations and finally hit on these Ajax dish soap bottles as they were 50% off so .74¢ each.
I grabbed a bag of generic CVS brand Cheetos(good for the car ride next week)for $1.29 to round it out.

2 x Softsoap BW BOGO50%=$7.78
2 x Speed Stick deos=$4.98
7 x Ajax dish soap=$5.18
1 x Cheetos=$1.29
SubTotal.......$19.23

Qs Used
1 x .50/1 Softsoap AppQ=.50¢
1 x $2/$6 body wash CRTQ=$2.00
1 x .50/1 Speed Stick AppQ=.50¢
1 x $1/2 Speed Stick ManuQ=$1.00
Q Total.........$4.00

$19.23-$4.00=$15.23=$15 ECBs=.23¢ OOP(plus any tax)

But that's not exactly what happened since 2 x .50/1 Speed Stick APPQs came off so discounts were $4.50 making my total $14.73.
This meant I paid ZERO OOP and lost .27¢ on my ECBs value.
If I had known that Q would come off twice I could have gotten 8 bottles of dish soap and paid .47¢ OOP in the end.
No worries...I am not fretting over losing .27¢ worth of chit.

I did earn the expected $5 in new ECBs back though. ;-)

Moral of story......no matter how much you plan out your scenarios life and the unexpected will throw you curve balls some of the time so you need to have back up plans and roll with it and be happy if it all comes out well in the end.  8-)))



Sluggy