Date Night!!

Hubby and I are going on a date night tonight!!!

We are driving to Raleigh and are going to enjoy an early dinner at The Melting Pot.  If you have never been to a Melting Pot, you have to go, they are so fabulous!  We went for our very first time ever for Valentine's Day.  The food was amazing and we walked away stuffed.  It is a bit on the pricey side...which is why it took so long before I could finally get him to go to one LOL, but it is so worth the cost.  This week (ending  tomorrow) is the triangle restaurant week (for those who don't know, the triangle is in reference to Raleigh, Cary, and Durham, here in North Carolina).  Because of restaurant week, the Melting Pot is offering a special 4 course meal for $30 per person.  That includes the cheese fondue at the beginning, a salad, the main course, and of course the chocolate fondue for dessert, yum!!  Since we were already going to be in raleigh tonight, I was able to convince the hubby to go to the Melting Pot (tho I have to admit, there wasn't that much arm twisting involved lol).

Tonight, after dinner, we are going to the Brad Paisley concert in Raleigh!!!  The concert will be Chris Young, Lee Brice, and Brad Paisley.  Brad Paisley has been on the top of my list for country artist's that I have wanted to see in concert for a while now.  I bought these tickets back in March, when they went on sale...ok, I actually did pre-sale for them!  We got phenomenal seats at a great price.  It is a joint Mother's Day and Father's Day gift for the hubby and I.

Are you doing anything special today?

Bubblews

You are probably asking me, "What is Bubblews?"

Well ,let me tell you, it is a pretty new site that I found recently, that is different from most sites that I do.  I get paid for writing articles, about whatever I want!  They of course earn ad revenue, and they share those earnings with you for you writing content.  You get paid for every view, like, comment, and social media share that you get!!!  You know me, after I write a post, I like it, and I share it on google +, Twitter, and Facebook so I can boost my earnings a bit!

You can make connections with other people too,  So as you read and like and comment on their posts, they in turn will do the same for you.  If you make a connection with someone it will let you know when they post new content.

Cash out is at $25.  I am already up to $9.85 after 1 week.  I am noticing too...as you make more connections and interact with more people, you in turn have more people interacting with you....and you earn money faster!

You are not allowed to ask other's to like or share your content tho, that can get you in trouble.

When you refer someone you do get something when they do their very first post, but that is it.  A few days ago it was $.20, right now as I write this it is $.50.

So, why don't you check it out and see what it is all about?

http://www.bubblews.com/?referral=51a8b17e6d7b40.27587890

Biting the bullet

Ok, it's time for me to just bite the bullet and get to work on these receipts of mine!  I WAS going to go through them all and organize them by date...the OCD part of me wants them all to be entered into excel in order by date.  The lazy part of me sees the huge stack and finds that task too daunting.

Of course the lazy part of me is going to win.  I am just going to start to enter them in and then do all my totals after all the receipts are entered.  This will stream line it and take a lot less time to get it done, and then I can just toss all these receipts as I go.

I am anxious to see what my spending and savings for March, April, and May was!  Man am I behind!  I have to make sure I don't drop behind again, because I am really anxious to see how my spending is compared to my savings.  I already know from the last year that I am saving thousands of dollars, now it's time to see what I am spending too!

Cartwheel

Cartwheel is a new 'application' from Target.  It's not an application you can download on your phone, tho you can use it on your phone via your phone's browser.

The way Cartwheel works is you sign up using your Facebook account, then you can browse their deals and add them to your cart.  For example, yesterday I added a save 20% off graduation cards, save 20% on Father's day cards, and save 15% on Suave hair care products to my cart.  Then once you do this, you can either chose to print out the page with the barcode on it to take with you, or you can load this page in your phone's browser.  It gives you 1 barcode for all your items in your 'cart'.  You can use cartwheel on up to 6 items in the same transaction, the 1 bar code will automatically deduct for all the items.  PLUS, you can use cartwheel, with a target coupon and a manufactures coupon on a single item, so you can triple stack it!

Yesterday I used Cartwheel for the first time.  I bought 2 suave shampoos (which I also had manufacture coupons for), 2 father's day cards, and a graduation card (amongst a few other things).  I gave the cashier my phone to scan first, and she scanned the barcode and it took off $3.68!  Then on my receipt it shows in the breakdown what the price was before and after Cartwheel, so it breaks it all down on the receipt for you too!  Cartwheel is free to use and another great way to save money, so what are you waiting for?

Summer Fun

June 1st...

Tho technically not the official first day of summer, it is considered the first day of summer by many. Most kids (tho not my own, they have 4 more days!) are out of school.

With 4 kids I want to make sure that we have fun this summer....but I also don't want to break the bank doing it!

I went to Dollar Tree today (only the best dollar store ever, they are a true dollar store where things are actually a dollar). I bought a TON of stuff for the kids for over the summer. I figure each week I will pull something new and exciting out for them to have. We have new bubbles, sidewalk chalk, puzzles, coloring books, and more.

I started today off by giving my two youngest some sun glasses to wear outside while playing on our swing set in the back yard. My older two are over at a friends house and staying for dinner. The friend is originally from Australia and this coming week when school gets out they are going with their Mom back to Australia for 2 months to see their family and friends back home.

For today tho, I pulled out some finger paint we already had in the house and I let my 2 toddlers have some finger painting fun, followed by a bubble bath. They had a ton of fun, painted some great pictures, and themselves (tho my 4 yr old told me he did not paint his leg...even tho I saw him do it LOL). They made sure to use every single last drop of paint I gave them too!

Here's to more summer fun and making more memories with my kids.

 Riley painting

 Aislinn painting

 Dirty hands....no Mommy, I didn't paint on my leg....LOL

They used ALL the paint I gave them lol

Coupon Ethics

Coupons themselves have rules and regulations that guide them....they are printed ON the coupon itself!! Yet day in and day out we see people violate these rules and not care.

"Everyone else is doing it".

"I saw at least 3 other people do it to".

"Other people are posting pictures of their hauls too".

These are common phrases tossed about in a few of my couponing groups.

Guess what people, just because other's do it, it doesn't mean it is right, and it sure as heck doesn't mean that you and everyone else should run out and do it too! 

People mis-using coupons effects everyone who uses them. We are seeing lower coupon amounts, for example $.25 off of charmin...I mean seriously, $.25 off of a big pack of toilet paper? It's one of the worst coupons out there, it's a nice bonus, but I base when I buy my toilet paper based on the sales I find, because the coupon itself doesn't even really help me. P&G coupons use to say 4 like coupons per transaction. That means you could do more then 1 transaction to buy more then 4. I am not a huge fan of multiple transactions, but I have done them before, when needed. Unilever products are all no more then 2 like coupons in a transaction, and let me tell you, THAT limitation stinks! But now P&G has gone and changed their rules again. Now their coupons say no more then 4 like coupons per household, per day. That's right folks, 4 per day, that means no more multiple transactions at the same store to get all your deals at once.

Yet here we are, in some areas there is a great deal on a P&G item, everyone in that area who coupons is running out to buy it. I am seeing pictures of 20 of the item with the title "I did 5 transactions", or 28 in the picture with them saying "I asked the manager and they said I could do more then 1 transaction'. Guess what, you just violated the writing on the coupon and that my friends is coupon fraud. It does NOT matter what anyone else is doing, it does not matter what the manager of the store said. It is wrong, and you are just hurting all of us when you do it.

Maybe if everyone tried to actually follow the rules, the rules wouldn't be getting worse, and the stores wouldn't be so strict against us couponers.

Such a slacker

I have been such a HUGE slacker these last few months.  I have wanted to write a ton of blog posts and I just haven't done it.  Not to mention, I haven't been doing my savings!  I've kept ALL my receipts, so I am going to try to catch up on it.  Gonna work really hard this summer to stay active!  In fact, I even have a few blog posts I'm about to write and post.