My Birthday Freebies & Get Stoked for Summer with Old Navy Shorts!

Shorts season is here! Okay...well, actually it has been here for months, but officially it is only just now the end of May. Mother Nature has decided to mix things up a little this year with some crazy weather- or at least it has been that way here in SC. I seriously don't think we ever had our winter! Boohoo! I love the cold weather, probably because the sun is not my friend. The sun is...well. Hot. LOL. My skin tends to burn very very very easily. And, then I get weird rashes from being in the heat, too. Anyway. You can see why I don't like summer very well. With all of that being said, I do have some things I like about summer. I just can't think of any right now......Just kidding! :D  I love the pool, bbqs, shorts, summer dresses, and how a cold shower feels on sun kissed skin. I used to love the time that I got to spend with family and friends, but this summer is going to suck for that as I started Nursing 101 (clinicals) last week. I'm already living on sugar-free Red Bull, Starbucks Refreshers, Mio Energy, and 5 Hour Energy and I've only had class 3 times so far! My summer will be nonexistent except for my nursing school buddies. *sigh*

Okay, so on to the shorts! Crowdtap, as most of you know by now, is one of my favoritest Word-of-Mouth sites, and I was chosen once again for Old Navy's Style Council for me and a friend to sample some shorts and review them. It just so happened this sample & share program fell right in line with my birthday, so on top of getting to spend a great day with my best friend on my birthday, I actually got a ton of freebies and got to go shopping for real (not just for the free shorts, lol).

So, to start the day off, my bestie and I went to Chick-fil-A. We decided since we had the little ones with us- it would give us a chance to talk while the kids played for a bit. Plus, apparently, you get a free dessert for your birthday, so that was pretty cool. First, birthday freebie! Next, we hit up Old Navy to do the serious shopping. There was a lot of really neat summer displays and a lot of summer outfits that were on sale. I had a hard time deciding, but in the end, I came home with quite a few new summer outfits, and most importantly SHORTS! We will get back to those in a moment, but I got more birthday "freebies" here. A email came to me for my birthday for $10 off of 50, so that was really cool to get that discount on top of the one free pair of shorts from Crowdtap. So, next we hit up my favorite girly store- Victoria's Secret! For my birthday, they sent me a $10 off any purchase card, so I went in and got some new panties in their 5 for 25 deal. What was even sweeter- my bestie and I split the deal and the leftover amount due, so we got some almost free VS panties for my birthday- SCORE! Last, we hit up the Ulta Benefit Brow Bar, where I got my eyebrows waxed for free! Of course, I left a tip, but still- free eyebrow waxing is super awesome! All in all, we had an awesome day and to top it all off, we meet my family at Chili's for dinner and I got my last birthday freebie- a brownie sundae! Yum!

How old am I? 29.99 and holding! :D 

Okay, so to get back to the shorts (again). After trying on a huge pile of clothes, I decided to go with the Women's Canvas Printed Shorts in Caspian Sea Blue. I went with a few different tank tops to match it up with, like, Women's Crochet-Yoke Tank Tops in Caspian Sea Blue and the Women's Rib-Knit Henley Tanks in Try Wizard Teal and in Purple Mania (I also bought it in Blue Stripe to match with other summer shorts). I also purchased the Women's Perfect Khaki Shorts in Black Jack and a black and white shirt with Audrey Hepburn on the front. I also updated my Old Navy Activewear with some shorts, tank tops, and matching sports bras. And, I'm hoping these new summer additions might inspire me to get back on my exercise regimen back in line *sigh*. But, I've worn both pairs of the summer shorts already and all of my new tops from Old Navy, and I can't wait to head back up there to continue to add more of these pieces to my summer wardrobe! I love the way both pairs fit. The printed pair is a really nice length for lounging and casual wear, and the black pair are really nice feeling and longer length. These are perfect for dressing up slightly or even just casual. Thanks Old Navy and Crowdtap- you helped make a birthday girl feel special!

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Grocery Store Finals 4/18-4/24

Grocery Store Totals

Subtotal $233.01

Savings & Coupons $164.23

Total Out Of Pocket $68.78
Savings of 70.5%

This is one of those weeks that the grocery stores actually make me happy. I think by now, most of you know that my favorite shopping is always done at the drugstores. I think the grocery stores aggravate me because I see shoppers holding their coupons & shopping lists tightly while swiping shelves clean. You don't have to be a shelf-clearer to create a stockpile. Anyway- we won't get on that again! LOL

Bi-lo
Subtotal $85.13
Savings/Coupons $63.02
TOOP $22.11
Savings of 74%

Publix
Subtotal $147.88
Savings/Coupons $101.21
TOOP $46.67
Savings of 68.4%

Due to my time limitations with school, I've missed going shopping on the first day of the grocery store sales for a while now, so being able to hit the stores early on the first day- WOW! Everything I wanted on my lists was still well-stocked and I had plenty of flavors to choose from. I was really excited about how well the grocery stores have turned out this week for me- how did you do? Post a comment with your totals below! :)
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i *HEART* Q-pons!

As most of you know, my life is crazy insane busy. So, just finding time to go to the grocery store sometimes is ridiculous. Other than saving money, this is probably one of my biggest reasons on why I love coupons- Stockpiles. I no longer have a NEED to go to the grocery store. There is always something in our pantry, cabinet, fridge, or freezer that will provide a nutritious yummy and quick dinner for the family that not only *I* can make, but so can my husband!

I just recently started reading the Kindle edition of Pick Another Checkout Lane, Honey and while I do like the book and strategies, I don't always agree with a lot of people on how they stockpile. This isn't the first time I've been through this- some couponers teach to stockpile for 6-8 weeks, others for 6 months, and others still for a year. I simply say- stockpile where you are not cleaning the shelves. I have a family of 5 and we have a grocery budget of less than $350 a month. Our toiletry/household needs budget- well, let's just say it needs to be as small as possible. Living solely on my husband's disability check leaves us with no other choices- we never stay out of the red at the end of the month. So, stockpiling can be limiting for us- but like a said, it's just nice knowing we have food to eat, soap and toilet paper to keep our butts clean, and the other necessities. We even occasionally get to splurge on a few things. I'm not one of those couponers that ONLY buys the sale items with coupons. *GASP* For instance, my husband likes John Derst bread and Snapple juice drinks. I very rarely buy them when they aren't on sale, but I don't think I've ever seen a John Derst bread coupon, and no one carries Snapple Apple & Snapple Fruit Punch in the 6-packs, so I buy them without coupons...*GASP* again. But, on a serious note, I think that's why I coupon- to have the luxury of knowing my family has food & necessities even if I don't go to the grocery store every week and so we can afford those few things that don't always have a coupon.

Okay, so I'm rambling on like usual. Here's the totals:

Bi-Lo (Week 4/11-4/17)

Bi-lo
Subtotal $144.96
Savings/Coupons $97.90
TOOP $47.06
Savings of 67.5%

Walgreens (Week of 4/15-4/21)

Walgreens
(3 Transactions)
Started out with $16 RR's.
Subtotal $91.72
Savings/Coupons $86.79
TOOP $4.93
Savings of 95%
Left with $14.99 RR's.
(plus 2 more Catalina coupons!)

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Review: Love and Logic

Kids should come with instruction manuals.

I think as a parent, almost every one of you can agree with that statement. Now, I want to say honestly that we don't have bad kids. For the most part, we don't get bad notes home from school, they all make good grades, and they all generally listen. But, here recently it seems our almost 12 year old daughter has gotten a little attitude about her that makes me want to rip my hair out and scream and stomp my feet. But, I'm the adult here...and that's not adult-like behavior. So I refrain. Most of the time (lol). My almost 8 year old daughter has NOT grown out of the whining stage yet and it is starting to influence my 5 year old son. And I absolutely can NOT deal with TWO kids whining. And don't get me started on the bedtime ritual. So, needless to say, combine this with  me in college full time, my husband disabled on dialysis, 3 kids playing soccer (of which two teams that my husband coaches and I'm team mom),  million other "life" things. and you get one crazy, frazzled parent. So, when my kids' elementary school sent out a notice about getting your kids to stop their bickering, start listening the first time, and a million other things, I was ALL over it!

It was scheduled over three Tuesdays over the past four weeks, and luckily this is not a dialysis day for my husband, so he was  dragged by his hair more than happy to attend with me. ;) The information that was provide was absolutely gold! I can not even begin to tell you well it is working in our household and it makes parenting fun again. I don't have to feel like I'm the "bad guy" and I've learned that letting my kids make their mistakes is actually the best thing for them. The basis is to provide a heavy dose of empathy to match the consequence therefore, making the "bad guy" their own bad decision, not the parent punishing them! Genius! The program is called Love and Logic. It has helped me to realize that my angry yelling really wasn't affecting them. They really are just thinking I'm a crazy lunatic. And now I know how to handle the situation without the angry yelling and they are the ones learning from their own mistakes, essentially giving them back the chance to gain the values they deserve. Okay, so I'm still being very vague here, so here is a few better examples, but keep in mind that these do not even begin to touch on the vast quantity (or the quality) of information from this program!

• Bedtime. In my house, that means I yell at them to "go to sleep" for at least 30 minutes. Note that I said "at least". *sigh* But! All is not lost! The Love & Logic bedtime ritual is different...Instead of me yelling at them to go to sleep, instead I tell them to get ready for bed, brush their teeth, etc. and then they are allowed to get in their beds and either read a book, play their DS, or do any other quiet activity. The compromise is that they are not to come out of their room and they must be quiet. I don't care when they go to sleep, but they must remember that they will be getting up the same time as always and they will not be taking naps. I do expect them to behave properly at school and their grades must stay at all A's & B's. I'm sure some of you are thinking, yeah right, but believe it! All THREE of my kids are asleep at least 30 minutes after we put them in the bed. Sometimes sooner- my son has barely been making it 15 minutes! Needless to say, I'm impressed if for no other reason than bedtime is no longer a stress for me. 
• Fighting & Bickering. This generally goes on either between my son and my middle daughter or my middle daughter and my oldest daughter. And this is one of those things that I absolutely can NOT handle. It drives me crazy insane batty. I become a mommy yelling lunatic, screaming at them to behave and stop fighting. Does it work? Never. They continue to fight and argue, and I continue to loose control. Who wins here? No one. They aren't learning how to handle themselves, and I'm certainly not portraying to them that I know how to handle myself. Instead, it comes down to removing the object and letting them know that you would appreciate if they could continue their argument somewhere that you won't be bothered by it because it is hurting your head. Again, I'm sure you are thinking, REALLY?! But, it works. Very well. And I'm not a crazy lunatic. Which is most definitely a good thing, lol.

Now that I've given you two examples of what has changed in our household, I'm sure you are wondering where you can get this information from. Well, to be honest, there is a hefty price tag on a lot of it. However, there are a lot of free resources available:
free articles
facebook page
youtube videos
Plus, check your local library, school guidance counselors, and school parenting areas! Also, Amazon offers some of the material and you can always buy it from the Love & Logic website. And I have picked up some of the books and materials in the past at some yard sales and thrift stores.

Essentially, I haven't seen anything that this program can't help you with as a parent, I only wish that I had paid closer attention to it sooner (my mother tried to tell me about it, literally, a few years ago). This program goes over the idea of how chores should be handled an whether an allowance is a good thing or not. It has articles on divorce, how to make the internet safe for your kids, and so much more. Even though this special program is over at my kids' school, my husband and I are planning to use the free resources available to us to continue to learn and revisit the values and ideas in this program to help us with our challenge of raising respectable adults out of our unruly kids. I hope you find it to be just as helpful as we have!Pin It

Printing Coupons, Ink Guzzlers, Facebook, and other general tips!

Quick post, then back to homework! A friend of mine is new to coupons and I'm trying to help her out, but my time is so limited.

First of all, she asked where to get printable coupons from. There are TONS of places, but one of the best places to start is simply coupons.com. There are more that can be found here from one of my favorite bloggers. Facebook and brands pages are also great places to get coupons. More & more "brands" are offering exclusive coupons only on Facebook. Since we are discussing printables, here are some tips for printing at home:

• Use cheap paper. It doesn't matter if you use the whitest brightest paper or the heaviest weight, they will still scan and they will still cut. LOL. Also, if you don't mind forking out a little bit, buy in bulk. A lot of office supply stores offer deals and coupons that will lower your cost. I've even heard some people use notebook paper, but I haven't tried that yet. I'm afraid my laserjet will eat it all up, lol.
• When you start saving some money, get a non-ink eating laserjet printer that prints only in black. Coupons don't need color to scan and neither do the stores.
• Switch your ink settings to draft or the lowest quality available. Don't let your coupons guzzle up all your ink- that stuff is expensive!
• Some coupons print on only the top portion of the page. In the past, I've cut that portion off, and used the half sheets to print other coupons I knew where only going to print on that top portion. I also keep a stack of the half sheets for my kids to use for crafts, drawing, etc.

 Okay, so now that you've "liked" tons of pages and blogs on facebook your news feed is all clogged up with hundreds of posts every freaking minute. You can hide them, but then you can't see when they offer a new coupon. Well, facebook actually did something right for once! You can create a "friend" list and put pages on it! So, what I've done is hide 90% of all my brands I like, stores, restaurants, and bloggers from my actual news feed and created a friend list for each one. This is much easier to show you than to tell you, so here is some visuals:

Okay, so one more HUGE tip. Create a new email address that you will use for only your coupons, blog subscriptions, sweepstakes, etc. I've even heard of people creating one for each, but I can't keep up with that many emails! LOL. I've also heard of some people doing the same thing for facebook, but I think it works fine with the above friend list idea. And one other tip, if you are entering contests, giveaways, and other things, check your SPAM frequently. If you happen to win, a lot require the winner to contact them within 24 to 48 hours and if you don't receive the email, you generally won't ever even know you won. I've had EVERY SINGLE thing I've won go to my spam filter, so make sure to scan them frequently.

Well, I hope this helps some of you out and if you have any questions, ask in the comments below or on my Facebook page, The Couponing Mommy!

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BzzAgent: Philips SatinPerfect Epilator

As a BzzAgent, I was recently chosen to share and review the Philips SatinPerfect Epilator. (Disclaimer: I did receive this for free, but all of the comments, thoughts, and ideas are solely my own and are truthful) As any mom will more than likely agree, shaving is one of those things that I never seem to do often enough. I hate every minute of it and it is what makes me dread the warmer months (besides the constant humidity here in SC). I have very fair skin that tends to be very sensitive, so I have to shave EVERY day and I almost always get bumps and itch. I've found a few products to help with it, but needless to say, I wish I was a guy when it comes down to needing to shave my legs. I've been shaving since I was 8 years old because even though I have more of a light brown hair, my leg hairs have always been BLACK and pretty thick. So, combine that with the ivoriest skin tone you can pretty much get and then add in pretty spring church dresses...Yeah, my mom recognized real quick that the fur on my legs was either going to have to go or else she was going to have to ban dresses on me, lol! So, 21 years later, I'm tired of it and I'm sure I'm not the only one that feels that way!

So, after being accepted into the program from BzzAgent, I was anxiously awaiting the epilator to arrive. When it finally did, I was ecstatic! I couldn't wait to try it out- till I opened the box. I hate to admit it, but it scared the crap out of me when I first saw it. It looked like some kind of weird torture device and there were so many pieces and the directions were HORRENDOUS! I really have to say, I think they should improve upon the directions. This is a MSRP of $149.99 so I would think a nice color booklet would be much more appropriate than the giganticly huge black and white poster size paper (see my smilebox to see it!). So, I packed it away to try to figure it out another day. If I had actually bought this in the store, well, I might be inclined to return it because it was just so confusing to me. Maybe it was just me, but I've never owned an epilator before, so this was ALL new. A week or so later, I finally decided to brave the device and its awful directions, so here it is:

So, here is some basic tips:
1. What is Epilation? Well, here is a basic definition- Epilate: To remove a hair from a part of the body by forcible extraction, electrolysis, or loosening at the root by chemical means. So, basically, we are removing hair at the root. I find this helpful, because now you understand exactly what this contraption actually is doing.

2. Put it all together. A lot of the pieces were confusing when all laid out as the came. You are going to want to figure them all out. After you get it all situated like below, it becomes a lot less confusing and easier to look at. 

Before

After

3. The Epilating Disc and all the caps are for your LEGS. The Shave, Trim & Style Attachment and Trimming Comb are for your underarms and bikini areas. So, don't expect to be epilating in those sensitive areas!

4. Epilating is somewhat painful- especially in the beginning. As you get used to it, it will become more comfortable. I recommend using those caps (as shown in the above picture) over the Epilating Discs attachment so that you can get used to it. Also, keep in mind your hair should be between 3-4 millimeters! If it is longer than that, then you need to either shave it down and epilate another day, or trim it down with the Shave, Trim & Style attachment and Trimming Comb cap. 

5. Your skin should be DRY!!!! It helps to do this right after showering or bathing because any type of hair removal is easier after being in warm water, but you can do it anytime of day.

6. Expect some irritation. Mine, surprisingly, only lasted about 20 minutes. I got some small red bumps and then they were gone, leaving smooth silky skin! :)

7. The directions, though hard to read, were helpful.

Okay, so back to my actual review- Overall, once I got past the "WTH is that?! Some kind of torture device!" and then the insane poster of directions in small black font, it really was a good little machine! I've used it a few times now on my legs and with the increasing warm weather here in SC (84 degrees today! We already didn't have a winter, are we loosing Spring too?!), I'm pretty excited about not having to shave everyday. It seems to last about 3-4 days so that is MUCH better than needing to shave everyday. The pain decreases with time and so does the sensitivity. I rarely even get the bumps anymore and even if I do, they are gone in about 10 minutes after using it. I love using the Shave attachment for my bikini area and underarms, very quick and gets very close! And we can't forget those awesome tweezers...My now sculpted eyebrows are thanking it! ;)

So where to buy?
Amazon
Use code BBUZZEP20 (last digit is a letter O) and get $20 OFF!
Philips Online Shop 

Walmart
Target

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BzzAgent: Smarterer

Whooooseeee Smarterer than me?

Sorry, couldn't resist! Okay, so as a BzzAgent, I've been included in a special campaign to help launch a new site called Smarterer. At first, I was like "yeah...okay. It's just a new site that tests you and gives you a score." But....as time as progressed, I've really found myself having fun with it! It does all kinds of sites, like BzzAgent, Facebook, Powerpoint, Excel...AND SO MUCH MORE! So far I've only had fun with the BzzAgent one, simply because my time is limited, but I'm currently taking a class this semester with Microsoft Office 2010, so I'm really interested in taking the ones on some of those programs and seeing if I actually have learned anything!~ LOL! So, what are you waiting for? Are YOU smarterer than ME?

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