Attention Ladies — Savings Alert!

Hey Ladies,

(Dudes, if you get grossed out by lady stuff, stop reading here.)

Target is having a special on certain Always pads and tampons today. With the purchase of three, you get a $5.00 Target gift card! You will be using these things every month anyways, (unless Aunt Flo no longer visits you) so why not stock up now? Hit the line a few times, stock up on a few gift cards, and buy yourself something fun — or go ahead and save on something else you need with that free money.

Check your local ads, because they have run this special before, and may again.

Ask and You Shall Receive!

If you walk into my home with a blindfold on and simply smell the air, you may think you are in a coffee shop.

I take my coffee very seriously. So when the travel mug I invested $27.00 in broke after only 2 months of use, I was hurt. (If you are thinking, ‘what are you doing spending that kind of money on a travel mug!’ please do not fret. I made this purchase pre-financial woes and with the mindset that it would last 10 years, as my previous travel mug did.)

I let this travel mug sit in my cupboard, broken and unused, and just let myself be bummed at the loss. That’s a lot of money!

Recently I got to thinking (dangerous, I know), even though I didn’t have a receipt, and I purchased it so long ago, why can’t I still express my issue? So I clicked on the ‘contact us’ section on the travel mug company’s website, entered in the products model number, and wrote the following:

I love this travel mug that your company distributes. It is the perfect size, and keeps my coffee hot for over 3 hours. Thank you! Unfortunately, after only 2 months of use, the spring mechanism on the cover stopped working. Would it be possible to get a replacement cover? Thank you. I appreciate your time and consideration.

Sincerely, Bergie Powers.

After just a few days, I received this response:

Dear Bergie,

Thank you for contacting the OXO Consumer Care Center.  We value you as a customer and sincerely apologize for the misfortune you have experienced with our product. We would like to resolve your issue as quickly and efficiently as possible.

As a courtesy, I will send you a replacement lid for your Thermal Beverage Container. The new lids come apart for cleaning.  Please follow the included instructions prior to use.  Please allow 10-12 business days for delivery.

Again, we thank you for your patronage and apologize for any inconvenience you may have experienced.

We are always happy to assist you.  Thank you for being a valued consumer!

Thank you,

L–

Isn’t it wonderful? I was so happy that I sent a reply saying:

Thank you so much. I greatly appreciate your response and help!

Bergie

To which they replied:

Dear Bergie,

You are very welcome!

 Enjoy.

 We are always happy to assist you.  Thank you for being a valued consumer!

 Thank you,

L–

I love this place!

Thinking Outside the Wallet

I did some digging and found several places in my community that offer free admission days. 2 museums, the county zoo, and a conservatory. It may be the first Thursday of every month after 1 pm, or every single Monday from 9 am til noon, or even just a handful of days out of the entire year. But they are out there. Free entertainment! It just takes a little bit of planning.

Yesterday, I enjoyed a visit on a rare weekday off to my city’s conservatory — a place I have not been in over 20 years! It was a great tropical getaway, even for just a few hours, from the snowy ground and chilled air. And it was completely free!

The experience was a break from this:

To the enjoyment of this:

 

Does your community have free days available at any fun spots?

Traveling for Work, Saving at Home

I traveled for business last week. Doesn’t that sound like I have an important job? But really I wear sweatpants to work and get quite filthy doing what I do, which is mostly just moving heavy, dusty boxes around a gigantic warehouse all day. Nothing too impressive, but my company did need me and my filthy sweatpants to help out with an inventory project in a warehouse far, far away.

I was so excited! I love to travel and, of course, have not had the funds in years to do so.  I was crossing my fingers in hope that putting in extra hours at the beginning of the week would allow for one free evening, before we left the far away land, to do super cheesy tourist things, something I see as a necessity when visiting far away places.

Unfortunately, there was no time for fun. Okay, well there was some time. But that time equaled less than one hour. The crew I was with used that time to catch some much needed sugar, after a mentally and physically demanding week, in the form of ice cream. Our team was a fun bunch and hit the local strip mall to a Cold Stone Creamery. Here’s how the orders went:

• Peanut butter, dark chocolate, and banana waffle cone
• Chocolate, marshmallow, and coconut
• Butter pecan and graham cracker
• Cheesecake, banana, and peanut butter cup

Even though any tourism was a bust, the week was still a great learning experience. Also, it was a money saver. I did not need to spend a penny on feeding myself  (a usually sizable expense in my household, proportional to the size of my phat ass). I also had no transportation costs and thus saved the $37.00 normally spent on commuting gas for the week. I’ll clink my ice cream bowl to that!

Free Books? What’s that Place Called? Oh Yeah, the Library!

There is something brown and crusty on my John Barrowman book. Ew.

I have always enjoyed checking out library books. However, scenarios like the brown crust are quite common. Another frequent occurrence is orange finger prints on pages that suggest the previous reader was eating Cheetos whilst turning pages.

It can also be common to have a very long wait for a new title you are itching to read.

These are all reasons why I love the kindle I received as a gift a couple of years ago.

But, library books are free! Okay, I did have to pay $1.00 last week to replace my lost card. After all, I hadn’t used the thing in over 3 years.

The reason for my return to the library was that I really wanted to read ‘Happy Accidents,’ by Jane Lynch. (As a bonus, I walked  by Barrowman’s book during my visit.)

Usually, such a new, hot title like Lynch’s  requires months of waiting. But I lucked out. I guess it was a ‘happy accident’ that I got to check out ‘Happy Accidents.’ Someone had just returned the book and there was no wait list. All of the other libraries in my city (libraries exist in branches in this metropolitan area) had the title checked out until the end of January, and wait lists at each location. I got lucky! Even though I practice the delaying pleasure method of saving money most of the time, it was really nice to not have to wait for this one.

I also checked out that John Barrowman book I walked by: ‘I am What I am,’ but realized upon getting home that not only did it have the gunky crust on it, but was also his second book to ‘Anything Goes.’

“I must read the first book first!” I thought.

I returned the crusty covered Barrowman book with the completed Jane Lynch book today. My library did not, however, have ‘Anything Goes,’ and the closest library branches that carry the title are each about a $4.00 trip away in gas and parking or bus money. I justified paying $7.99 for a kindle edition, and can’t wait to read it!

 

To Netflix, or not to Netflix

I miss video stores. I miss the satisfaction of fulfilling that instant craving to view a specific film. I miss getting in my car and driving 5 minutes to hundreds of shelves filled with anything I could possibly want to watch.

I recently had a craving to watch ‘Sex and the City 2.’

Too many places to check!

Instant streaming — not available. iTunes rental — not available. Red Box — the closest one carrying one copy is a twenty minute drive, in a sketchy neighborhood, and it is dark (only 8:45pm, but still).

It is at this moment I realize that I don’t even know where there are any open video stores in this town anymore.

I get in the car and drive the 2 miles to our neighborhood target. There it is. On sale. $9.00.

I know I should have been responsible and waited the 3 days to get a disc in the mail from Nextflix. But I was all kinds of crazy PMS-ing and needed that instant fulfillment.

What are your video renting habits? Do you have Netflix, or still go old school to a video store? What do you like best?

Light up the Christmas Tree

 

Guest post

By Kristin Berglund

One of my favorite things about Christmas, other than the baby Jesus, is decorating the Christmas tree.  When I was a little girl I remember going to the tree lot, with my parents and sisters, and looking through all of the trees until we found the perfect one.  Then we could come home, put on some Christmas music, and decorate the tree together.

Our family always had a beautiful tree.  It was a bright and colorful tree!  The lights that our Dad decorated it with shone so brightly that I remember my sisters and I would turn off all the lights in the house and sit under the tree just gazing up at all the shining colors- blues, yellows, oranges, greens, and reds.

One year, when we were still pretty young, our Dad decided that he wanted to change our bright and colorful tree into a bright RED tree.  That’s right… no more blues, yellows, oranges, or greens… but, all reds.  Now, the thing you need to know about our Dad at this point is that he is a very “thrifty” and “resourceful” man.  So, even though he wanted an all red tree, the idea of buying a whole new string of just red lights was something that he could never think of.  After all, he had a totally functional string of lights already- they were just all different colors- and he wanted all red bulbs.
So, every Christmas after we decorated the tree he would wait for a non-red bulb to burn out and then he would replace it with a red bulb.  The promise of an all red tree was eagerly anticipated… this went on for years.  A non-red colored bulb could not be replaced with a red one until it burnt out.  It was a process that our Dad prepared for every year.  He would stock up on red bulbs ahead of time so that he would be ready to put the red bulb in when a different colored one would burn out.

The tree of many colors evolved into a tree of not so many colors- a blue one here, a green one there.   A couple of years ago it was official! The tree was entirely red.  After 20 years of waiting for an all red lit tree it had finally arrived!  There was much rejoicing in our home and for the neighbors too as they had witnessed the transformation through the living room window during the past two decades.

When I moved away from home and got my first very own Christmas tree I was excited to decorate it and of course, all of the lights had to be red.  But, instead of following our Dad’s decorating technique, I went to Target and bought myself a string of all red lights.