"Excuse me, but those don't double..."

I made my first trip to our local Harris Teeter for Super Double coupon week last night, and I didn't do great, but I didn't do poorly either. The Fayetteville Harris Teeter is not one to frequently restock hot items (like the Leland store did), so I guess unless you're there to beat the doors down at 7am on Wednesday morning, you're just out of luck. I ended up only using 16 of my 20 allowable coupons last night, but I was able to give tips and tricks to shoppers along the way. Grocery shopping would take half as much time if I didn't feel like I was somewhat obliged to help the clueless people clutching coupons in every aisle :)

I must have explained HT's rules and the "coupon game" 10 times last night - "No, you can only use 3 on any given item." "Here, see how this smaller package gives you a greater margin of savings?" "Just because that item is pictured doesn't mean that it's the only thing covered by the coupon....if it says "ANY" such-and-such product, you're free to go." and, my absolute favorite (to some people who I had been talking coupons with in the store...they decided to go for it by pulling the blinkies in the Pillsbury refrigerated bread section...) "Excuse me, but those don't double." (I then, of course, proceeded to tell them that coupons that begin in "5" double while those that begin with "9" never do. I also told them how you can go to Food Lion and pull their blinkies and then bring them to Harris Teeter.)

(UGH...Just lost my list that I had typed due to a Blogger error...not typing it again!)

Total Spent: $24.92
Total Saved: $54.83

Have a great day!


All my love,

Shopping at Walmart with Coupons

This will just be a quick post, but it has some points in it that I thought of while I was cleaning out my coupon book at Wal-Mart the other night.


1) W-M stocks just about EVERYTHING! You know those coupons that have been living in your book for months because you simply can't find the product??? You can probably find them there AND they'll probably be at a good price.

2) You can use as many coupons on an individual item as you would like. Harris Teeter only accepts 3 identical coupons. I used 9 tuna coupons at W-M the other night and walked out with 9 pouches of tuna for $.39 each. Not quite as good as a triples deal, but better than letting those coupons expire on 9/30/10 without being used!

3) Your margin of savings will be lower. It's about  50/50 shot as to whether the Great Value brand or the brand name item plus coupon will be cheaper. You win some; you lose some!

4) It's ESSENTIAL to carry a copy of W-M's coupon policy with you. I had it pulled up on my Blackberry the other night because I forgot to bring my printout and I almost had to use it. The cashier wasn't sure about accepting the blinkies I had pulled from Food Lion, but, thankfully, we were able to get it straightened out without me having to "prove" I was correct.

I hope that something here will help one of you save money! Have a great weekend!!!

All my love,

It's SUPER DOUBLES again...

and slacker me just went for the 1st time this morning.... :-/ There was just an overwhelming amount of work that I needed to do to my coupon book to get it back up to date and I was procrastinating! Last night, though, I made myself sit down and do it, so when I crawled into bed a little before midnight, I knew exactly what my plan was for today!!!

Here's the breakdown of deals I found:

*Hamburger/Tuna Helper (6) - Sale price $1/ea - $.75/3 coupon (doubled to $1.50 off 3) = $1.50/3 or $.50 ea
*Cinnamon Toast Crunch (2) - $2.50/ea - $1 off 2 coupon (doubled to $2) = $3/2 or $1.50ea
*Lucky Charms (2) - $2.50/ea - $1 off 2 coupon (doubled to $2) = $3/2 or $1.50ea
*Cheerios (2) - $2.50/ea - $1 off 2 coupon (doubled to $2) = $3/2 or $1.50ea
*Betty Crocker pouch potatoes - $.79 - $.40 coupon (doubled to $.79) = FREE
*Good Earth boxed dinner (2) - $3.50ea - 2 $1.00 off coupons (doubled to $2 off) = $3/2 or $1.50ea
*Progresso Soups (4) - $5.18 or $1.29/.30ea - $1.00 off 4 coupon (doubled to $2 off) = $.79/.80ea
*Campbell Chunky (2) - $1.25ea (and there was a coupon involved here, but I don't remember the amount :( )
*Smucker's Jelly ($2.75)+ Jif to Go peanut butter ($1.99) - $4.74 - $1 coupon (doubled to $2) = $2.74
*Chef Boyardee (3) - $1/ea - $.35/3 coupon (doubled to $.70) = $2.30 or $.76/.77ea
*Mini chocolate moon pies - $2.00 - $.55 coupon (doubled to $1.10) = $.90
*Libby's pineapple chunks - $1.85ea - $1/2 coupon = $1.70 or $.85ea
*Reduced angus chuck steak - $2.87
*Reduced angus chuck stear - $2.99
*HT Whole Chicken ($.59/lb) - $3.16
*Reduced HT "Pick of the Chicken" - $3.88
*Reduced HT "Pick of the Chicken" - $4.28
*Reduced italian sausage - $2.83
*Reduced apple assortment - $1.54
*Green grapes ($.99/lb) - $2.06
*Reduced bananas - $.95
*Romaine lettuce - $2.49
*Yellow onions - $2.99
*Baby bella mushrooms - $2.79
*HT Whole Grain bread - $.77
*Tombstone Pizza (2) - $6.67 - $1/2 coupon (doubled to $2) = $4.47 or $2.33ea
*Green Giant boxed veggies (6) - $.99ea
*Danactive yogurt (2) - $1.99ea - 2 $1 off coupons (doubled to $1.99) = FREE
*Activia yogurt (2) - $1.99ea - 2 $1 off coupons (doubled to $1.99) = FREE
*HT dozen eggs - $.79
*HT whole milk - $3.19
*Off the Bone lunchmeat - $3.50 - $1 off coupon (doubled to $2) = $1.50

And...because I purchased 20 General Mills products - $6.00 off at the register. Also rec'd catalinas for $3 and $2 off next purchase.

GRAND TOTAL SPENT - $74.34
GRAND TOTAL SAVED - $91.01 (<--and this does NOT factor in a lot of the reduced meats/produce I purchased!!!) :)

Abby and I will probably make a go at it one more time tomorrow...I hope that you have all had a great Super Double week thus far!

All my love,

Out of Sync

The past few weeks have left me feeling out of sync with my world of budgeting, couponing, thrifty shopping, and being frugal in general. I am now pretty much forced to shop at our local Food Lion or at the Wal-Mart, with special trips to Harris Teeter being made once, maybe twice, a month. I despise Wal-Mart, so Food Lion has been the big winner and now gets most of my grocery money. The little things though (my coupon binder isn't in line with how their store is arranged, they don't double coupons so I'm constantly stopping myself from seeing "$.60 off" and automatically doubling it to "$1.20 off," etc.) are driving me nuts and I just can't seem to get it together! I took Abby today and we got approximately 1 week's worth of groceries for $43, which is at least $15 MORE than what I used to spend at the Harris Teeter. The good news was that I was able to redeem 6 coupons...the bad news was, I forgot to buy a newspaper while I was there so I could get more coupons!!! I am expecting an envelope from my mom this week, so that will help and I've also been tipped off by my new friends at FayettevilleMommies.com that I should have Scott pick up a copy of Paraglide every Thursday while he's on base. Between getting those items and keeping my will strong, I think I can get back on track by Easter!

I wanted to share these here too:

March 11


March 13


March 16


March 17


March 18


March 21


What we've got there is seedlings of squash, zucchini, tomatoes, green peppers, peas, green beans, and pumpkins. I'll keep you all posted on these plants as the year progresses. After seeing green peppers for $1.59 EACH today at the store, this is a harvest I'm really looking forward to!

I hope that you all have a great week! I hope to have a successful week in the world of internet marketing and a quiet week with the kids. We had a big weekend and they'll need their rest. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and then we'll be headed to VA for Easter and then to Wilmington for the Montgomery Gentry concert and the Azalea Festival - time flies when you're having fun!!!

All my love,

Oh, The Places You'll Go!

Hello everyone!,

FRIDAY already! Woohoo!!! I can't believe we made it through another week. This will be our first weekend in many that we won't be hitting the road, so I plan to enjoy as much of it as possible with my feet kicked up, hanging out with my family, eating delicious food, and getting ready for next week. We've all been working so hard the last few weeks that it will be heavenly to just turn the phones, computers, and cars off and ENJOY being together.

The purpose of this blog post is to highlight some of the places that *I* go to save (and make) money so that you can decide what would work for you!

1) Obviously, I go to the Sunday coupon section of the newspaper each week, but did you know that I also go through magazines, the Parade section of the paper, the inside of every food box that I use, the store shelves looking for "specially marked packages" when I'm shopping, and the internet looking for great coupons?

2) I collect points...Huggies, Pampers, Wachovia Possibilities rewards, and etc. These kinds of things add up VERY slowly, but they do come in handy about once a year for a $10-$20 gift card. Worth it to me! I'm already buying the product, why not get the points?

3) I collected Swagbucks for awhile, but the search engine just didn't return enough relevant results for me and I haven't made time to do the daily treasure hunt for Swagcodes. This could be fun though if you had enough time to dedicate to it daily!

4) I play the stock market! Thanks to my little brother, I've discovered how much fun it is to watch the ups and downs of the stock market on a daily basis...thanks to text messaging, I also always know when he makes more than me on any given day! This game that we play serves multiple purposes - it teaches us about investing, it makes money (hopefully :) ), and it keeps us aware of what's going on in the broader spectrum of things so that we have an idea of what our other retirement accounts may be doing.

5) I am an Amazon Associate. This program allows me to provide links for specific products or for Amazon.com in general that are embedded with my "code" and that earn cash back on whatever is purchased from the site. I also have a banner ad at the bottom of the main page of my blog that refers you to my aStore, where you can purchase Virginia Tech apparel and accessories! From this program, I've made approximately $20, so it's also a slow earner BUT every $20 helps!!! I didn't have to "work" for that...they basically gave it to me just for referring people to their site! If you decide to do this, expect about a 4% cash back return on purchases. (And if you don't want to do this, but you plan to order anything from Amazon, let me know and I'll give you a link!!! :-D )

6) In addition to checking my receipts, I also check my bills, my bank account, and my insurance policies. I call vendors with any disputes that I have, negotiate with my phone and insurance companies whenever possible, and always ask if there's a promotion available or any other discount that we're not currently getting.

7) We run a household free of pay TV, and have since January 2009. Since making that switch, we've saved approximately $980! We watch free digital channels over the air (and the pictures is in high-definition when available from the provider) and stream other things from the internet. Scott and I both resisted this change for a few months before we made it, but neither one of us really misses very much about receiving a monthly cable/satellite bill. :)

I'm sure I could name a lot more ways that we save/make money, but these items should give you some brain food for today...what can YOU do to help your family?

All my love,

Is this really happening?

This week has been one of the longest, yet quickest, in memory. Let me explain. On Sunday night, we celebrated my husband's new job and packed his truck for the week ahead. That night, the monsoon rains arrived and by the time he left Monday morning at zero-dark-thirty, our street was completely flooded, there were branches down everywhere, and the wind was blowing so hard that the rain was coming down sideways. He did make it safely to Fayetteville though, and enjoyed his first day at the new job, though he did say it was sort of like a first day of school...

(taking a break to make some oatmeal for the girls...always fun being a mommy and a blogger!)

...where everyone else knew each other and he was on the outside looking in. Monday night brought a disaster of sorts when a hotel that I had chosen for him turned out to be in the slums (sorry sweetie!) and he had to spend time driving around town looking for an establishment in a better area. He landed at the Fairfield Inn (shh, don't tell the Holiday Inn Express!) and we got to video conference before bedtime. On Tuesday morning, the girls and I headed up to Fayetteville for our first trip to the city. We started at the Cross Creek mall for lunch, then headed out to Stedman and Wade. We didn't see anything of particular interest out there, so we crossed over to 401N and checked out North Fayetteville and Linden. There we did find a house that we liked and, more importantly, we found a school that rocks! Check it out here! After Linden, we went south through town and breezed through Hope Mills. We didn't have much time, but we gathered that it's a very typical suburban area with quaint neighborhoods and a few chain stores/restaurants. After Hope Mills, we headed back to the city to meet Scott for dinner and ended up getting horribly lost - lesson learned, 401 business is NOT the same as 401 bypass. We turned a 5 minute drive into a 45 minute one by making that error. We finally arrived at the ECS office and got to meet my husband's new boss (who seems like a really upbeat guy!) and see his work area. After the meet and greet, we took him out to dinner (one that included fruits, vegetables, meats that weren't fried...) and then got him settled in a hotel for the rest of the week (again, not a Holiday Inn Express...*they* wanted $139/night which is absolutely NOT in the budget). We left Fayetteville around 9:30 on Tuesday night and ended up getting home right at 11pm.

On Wednesday, I took Katelyn for her first dental appointment at the Cape Fear Community College Dental Hygiene Clinic. She was an awesome girl and very patient as my friend Katherine did her cleaning, and then Katherine's instructor checked her work, and then the dentist gave everything a final once-over. I didn't know if she'd be that patient or not! Here she is sporting her super sunglasses!



All in all, I think it was a good experience for her and for me too, because it was only $15 and you know how I feel about saving money!

We spent Wednesday afternoon negotiating with the future tenants of our house and getting all of the little details hammered out. By the end of the night, we had a lease written and they were ready to sign and send the security deposit (woohoo!!!!). Now WE can go to Fayetteville and rent a house with more ease because our home being officially leased here provides us with extra income. Katelyn and I had a girls' night on Wednesday and enjoyed a "sleepover" in Mommy's room complete with snacks, a movie, and lots of giggling!

Yesterday, I spent the morning straightening up the house and then went to the hotel for the afternoon. Last night, I went to the January Wilmington tweet-up at Outback Steakhouse and had a fabulous time seeing all of my old friends and making some new ones, all while promoting the hotel! There is to be a joint tweetup between people in Raleigh and people in Wilmington either in February or in March, and hopefully all of the Raleigh people will know where they can stay while in town!!! One of the most active bloggers in Wilmington, Bruce Brown, has already written about the event, so I'll let you check out his blog for all of the details and pictures.

Today is going to be another busy day as I wait for my husband to return from Fayetteville and then I will be headed out to Circa tonight to say goodbye to a friend who is leaving the Wilmington area. And then tomorrow, packing and cleaning will resume in earnest. On Monday, we plan to look at another rental house in the Fayetteville area. This house is currently vacant and hopefully, we will have it occupied by the end of next week!

I've spent much too long writing this post between chasing snotty noses, making breakfast, and getting small people out of trouble, so I'm going to wrap it up for now. Hope that you all have a great weekend!

All my love,

We Had Chinese!

BIG NEWS for our family! My husband has been offered a job!!! He'll start tomorrow even...so this whole week has been a whirlwind for us. He'll be working with a company called ECS in their Fayetteville office. Here's what happened: on Friday the 15th, we knew we had an offer for a temporary position. It would've been a 4-6 week job with a different company and there was no guarantee that it would become permanent, and even if it did, their benefits sucked :(. However, at 4:45, Scott's phone rang and it was the branch manager of the Fayetteville office wanting to know if they could do a phone interview that night at 6:30. He said yes, and the rest of us (wouldn't you know it was family night?) tried to keep quiet as the time approached for the phone call. Of course, in true Dowell fashion, when his phone DID ring, all you-know-what broke loose in our house and an almost comical situation ensued as we tried to get him set up in a "quiet" place while attempting to keep the girls away while attempting to prevent the smoke alarms from going off because someone forgot that they were making turkey gravy in all the commotion and it boiled over onto the stove and into the floor. By the time all was set, the girls and the pets had been corralled into the front of the house and I was standing under the smoke alarm in the kitchen repeatedly silencing it with a Swiffer handle and Scott had holed up in our bedroom. After about an hour of going "shh shh shh," and starting dinner even, he came out and said that they'd had a rather nice interview (as far as phone interviews go...) and that he'd been invited to come to the office on Tuesday the 19th for a face-to-face interview to discuss the position and salary in greater depth. We all said a little prayer and tried not to get our hopes up over the weekend. On Monday, we decided that we would spend the morning doing household chores and then hit the aquarium in the afternoon since it was free admission day. I stayed at the house with Kate while Abby went with Scott to Wal-Mart, and out of the blue, they called him and told him they'd had meetings with the clients of the first project he'd be doing, as well as with the principals of the company and that there was no question about it - he HAD GOTTEN THE JOB. All they would do Tuesday would be iron out the details and get him set up for a start on the 25th. WHEW! Big weight off!!!! And finally no longer living off the government! I am so proud of my husband for hitting the streets so hard looking for a job...he was unemployed for 1 day less than 3 months in the WORST economy of recent memory.

The only downside to him finding this job is that it IS in Fayetteville, so we'll have to move again. That means we've had to list our beautiful house for sale or rent, with more focus on finding a renter. Here's what it looks like:



We think that if we can just wait a year or two for the builder to get finished with our neighborhood then we won't get into a price war with them because we can't afford to play that game. If we list our house for sale, they'll drop their prices, and we can only drop our price so far before we go upside down. So we figure if we wait it out for awhile, we'll have more control over the price (and we'll have more recently sold comps to get price points from). Hopefully, we're figuring right! :)

I have been told that I will be able to keep my job and I am extremely thankful for that!!! I knew there was a reason I created a niche for myself in social media and internet management...LOL. I plan to return to Wilmington at least once a month to attend the #ILM Tweet-Up and re-connect with my friends and business contacts. Hopefully I will be close enough to Raleigh that the company will use me as an asset at their Raleigh hotel as well...or maybe that's just me dreaming :).

So today we packed up Scott's truck and he'll strike out tomorrow morning for a week in Fayetteville. I pretty much have my week already planned out so that I don't get too lonely during the first week. I am going to attend a Mommies dinner tomorrow night (at Flaming Amy's Bowl - YUM) and on Tuesday I'm going to Fayetteville with Jan (it'll be the first time either one of us has ever been to the city). Wednesday will be Katelyn's first dental exam (she's seeing a friend of mine who's in hygiene school - let's hear it for saving tons of money with great deals! - check it out if you have no dental insurance!). Thursday I get to work at the hotel on-site and on Friday, Scott comes home! And somewhere in there, I will probably show the house a few times...and I'd like to clean out my minivan. But tonight, also in true Dowell fashion, we got ready to send Scott off with a very special "we've had great news" dinner - we had Chinese!

All my love,

Hold up...exactly how much are you getting back???

This post is dedicated to any person who is anxiously awaiting a big fat refund check from the government. I've seen my friends on Facebook posting about how they're going to buy a new game system, a new phone, a new camera, even a new car with their refunds...and the only thing I can think of is biting my tongue so I don't scream "you could've had that money LAST year!" Seriously, there is an art to doing your W4s, but if you're getting more than a few hundred dollars back, your withholding is WRONG. Why give the government an interest-free loan for the year? Think of it this way - we're all strapped for cash right now and many of us are working hard just to keep afloat and pay down debt as best we can. How much would it help each month to have an extra $50 in your budget? That's what you'd have if you traded in your $600 refund. Expecting $1,500 back? Fantastic - that would've been an extra $125 every month! See how the math works? Personally, I don't like to play it too close to the wire, so my goal each year is to neither owe nor receive greater than $500 from the government at the end of the year. I'm not sure how we did last year because we've never factored in unemployment before, but I will absolutely keep you all posted when we sit down to do our taxes! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we guessed it just right!

In other news, Scott had a very busy Friday. He had an interview in the morning that led to a job offer for a temporary (4-6 week) position, with the possibility of going full-time if work was available). We also found out (after much hounding) that the Virginia Beach job was filled by a local candidate, but we didn't even get a chance to pout about it all that much because at 4:45 on Friday afternoon, his phone rang and it was the branch manager for the Fayetteville office of ECS asking if they could do a phone interview at 6:30 that night! Scott said yes, of course, and had a great conversation with the guy about the opportunity they have. They are seeking an experienced geotechnical/CMT EIT who will manage the construction of new barracks at Fort Bragg for the next 6 months. The position will also entail doing business development (marketing and taking clients out, etc.) and would lead to Scott acquiring his PE license and becoming the #2 guy in the office! It seems like a very exciting opportunity and they have arranged a face-to-face interview for Tuesday at 9:30. We're not counting any eggs of course, but as long as the branch manager likes Scott in person as much as he did over the phone, he said the job could start as soon as January 25th! Talk about a time to be anxious! Thankfully we got to spend this weekend being very busy and it went quickly, so all we have to do now is get through tomorrow and make sure he hits the road on time Tuesday morning. I'm keeping my fingers crossed about this as well!

I'm going to sign off for tonight, but please keep us in your thoughts and prayers for the next week or so. I will provide updates as soon as I know anything and hopefully, we will re-enter the world of employment soon!

All my love,