My “savings” addiction

So I have a thing about saving money. I’ve always been quite frugal really. Kyle and i make quite a pair because we both are very “thoughtful” spenders. We don’t do too many impulse buys, everything gets thought about and talked about. I’ve always used coupons, but more so lately. I just wanted to spotlight a few of the blogs I frequent for heads up on coupons and match-ups. Some are local and some are basic savings/free things blogs!

Savingaddiction.com – Two moms who are addicted to saving money. They are Michigan residents, so they spotlight Meijer & Family Fare matchups and so many more!

WestMichiganMommy.com – Another local gal who gives great match-ups, free weekend events, and so much more!

Hip2Save.com – Blog is written by Collin, a Marine Corps wife/mom. She seems so fun and quirky – love it! She has so many great freebie links and coupon heads ups!

CouponingToDisney.com – This mom saves throughout the year just to pay for her annual Disney trips! This is not really all Disney related, she just has a wealth of information and different ways to save money!

There are definitely more that I check every once in a while, but these are my main blogs to check! It is quite easy to get addicted to really. I LOVE getting free lotions, body washes, tampons, diapers, etc… in the mail – I usually get a couple free things a week! I also love seeing my regular grocery bill have a higher savings number than the actual amount paid number. The other week I got a TON of groceries (things I buy normally anyway – name brand stuff) for $61. I saved $76 on that trip! That means my bill would have normally been $137 (which is usually what my weekly bill is!). If that doesn’t get you a little excited, then I don’t know what does! ;)

Another one of my new things is SWAGBUCKS. I was a little leery of this stuff at first, but it has been nothing but great and easy! It’s a search engine that awards you in the form of Swag Bucks (points that can be traded in for prizes.) You can chose from a variety of prizes including gift cards. My favorite is a $5 Amazon.com gift card. It costs 450 Swag Bucks. I just cashed in for 3 $5 Amazon cards!!! That will help me get the watch I have been wanting!

You get 30 Swag Bucks for joining and can win anywhere from 20 – 50 Swag Bucks a day if you search until you win in the morning and in the evening. I usually win within my first 5 searches. They also have Swag Codes out at least 5 times a week that can be worth 10 – 30 Swag Bucks. I figure I do searches on a pretty regular basis anyway – might as well get something for it! If this is something that might interest you just head on over here and sign up! You will see Swagbucks mentioned on each of the blogs listed above as well – sometimes they will give you a heads up on a swagcode out that will help you earn points! I’ve even done some of my shopping thru Swagbucks to earn extra bucks – like the last 2 Crocs deals that I just “HAD” to buy because Collin on Hip2Save spotlighted them. (honestly, who can turn down Croc flip flops for $5.95 shipped?)

So, that is just a snippet of what I have been doing to save money lately! I just try to really stick true to only buying things that I actually use on a regular basis, so that I am not just buying because it is a deal. Then it wouldn’t really be saving me money! I have a little stockpile of certain things, but I don’t go too nuts. Even before all of this major couponing we would buy things only when they were on sale for the most part at Meijer, so we are used to doing those type of things already. Can’t do that with everything obviously, but with a lot of things you can and we do! You should see the stack of coupons I have been handing the lady at check out – yikes – I kind of feel bad, but then I see my final bill and I just smile and give a great big THANK YOU! Sorry if you are behind me in line – I try to keep things moving quickly so as not to be a bother to anyone! I have now become the crazy coupon lady, and I am super duper proud of it! :) If you have any questions feel free to ask!

MandaKay

(I know I know – no LO’s today – weird!)

And Spring Break comes to an end.

We come to the end of a fun spring break week. We stayed here of course, but we did a few little fun activities! I enjoyed not having to run the girls to school and gymnastics! I still worked my normal 3 days and work was fairly busy for this particular week – thought it would be pretty quiet since so many people headed down south. On Tue. I took the girls skating in the afternoon for 3 hours. My mom and sister took my 2 girls and my sister’s two girls on Wed. afternoon as well! Braelyn and Selah are really getting pretty good at skating! I grew up at the roller rink, so it is fun to watch them enjoy it! On Friday we went bowling! They had fun doing that as well! We’re ending the week by going to the free movie at the theater tonight – Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – they haven’t seen it yet and it’s free, so can’t beat that!

Running has been coming along for me. I’m saving up for a running watch that will tell me how far I have gone and also my calories burned and miles per hour info – I think that will help me a little bit! Today I ran what I calculated by car to be 2 miles – with maybe 5 minutes of walking total, so that is pretty good for me. My legs didn’t hurt too bad either, so that seems to be getting better as well! It helps when it is somewhat warmer out because then I get out and do it. I am not a “cold weather runner” at all – heck I’m not even really a runner at all.

Did you all snag the blog hop goodies?! I’d stay tune at the beginning of next month as well…National Scrapbook Day is the beginning of May! Can’t beat a day of celebrating a great hobby! Here are a few of my latest LO’s – this first one is a LO using Shabby Miss Jenn’s latest kit!

and this one is for the April One Word Challenge that I am hosting this month over at The-Lilypad (come and play along for a chance to win some TLP goodness!)

and another Disney one! (slowly but surely I am working on these LO’s! I just keep chanting “Just keep swimming, just keep swimming” by the ever so loveable Dory on Finding Nemo!)

and a two-page LO about my surprise birthday party

And finally here are just a few pictures from the week! I am still trucking away on the Project 365, although I am quite behind on the weekly LO’s of all the pics. I am not letting it bother me though b/c as long as I have the pictures I can do the LO’s later!

Have a great rest of your weekend folks!

MandaKay

Happy Spring!!!

Here in Michigan we have finally welcomed in spring. Well, actually it is feeling like summer. 81 degrees here. So many people are heading down south from here b/c local spring break starts tomorrow, and it is actually warmer here in MI today than it is in FL!!! I am so looking forward to having both girls home with me this coming week and not having to run out and about on my days off next week! Hopefully the girls and I can do something fun!

If you have been blog hopping, then WELCOME!!! I am LOVING these Lilypad Blog Hops! And isn't this newest BYOC just the best EVER??? If you know me at all you know I love a good quickpage or template! It's not that I don't scrap to be creative, but it definitely isn't my main reason, (I know some people think that using quickpages & templates means you aren't using your own creativity - not me!) so I love a little help on some of my pages, in the form of quickpages or templates!!! I had so much fun creating this LO, and it actually started from one of Amy Martin's templates from the BYOC collection! As you can see in my original I have added a title and some journaling, which I encourage you to do - I just left that stuff off of the quickpage obviously so that you can use whatever picture you see best fit! So have fun on the rest of the blog hop, and don't forget to post your pages so we can see your work!!!

my LO/quickpage:

Download links: ( I don't suspect that I will run out of download links, but start with download link #1, and then if that one doesn't work then go down to #2, and so on and so forth!)

Download link #1

Download link #2

Download link #3

And now you need to hop on over to Jacque's blog (one of our very own Pad Designers!!!), to grab your next little goodie!!! Enjoy the weekend and don't forget to visit the pad for some chats and sales!!!

(p.s. - the blog hop starts at Amy M.'s blog, if you are just visiting my blog and don't know where to start!)

Floating

I think the nice weather really helps with peoples attitudes! I know my attitude has been better since the last post and I now feel like I am floating and not having to tread water so much! Tonight is our last night of Wed. night program at church, and Kyle and I both taught this year, so it will be kind of nice to wrap that up for a while and not have that commitment! We have pizza supper, the program, and then ice cream social afterwards, so I look forward to that! I had a great group of kids this year and they were so much fun to teach!

I have a few LO's to share that I finished up recently!

a couple easter ones:

using SMJ's newest kit - Easter Bunny

using a template by Amy Martin, Jacque's He is Risen paper pieces and other TLP goodies

I am also still trying to bust out Disney LO's every now and again too! I actually kind of miss Disney as I do these LO's!!!

Should be an exciting weekend - seeing that Fri. is the first Fri. of the month, and over at The-Lilypad that means BYOC (build your own collab) time! This month does not dissapoint either!!! Stay tuned for a sale, some exciting "hopping" going on too if you know what I mean! ;)

Ciao,

MandaKay

Head is just above water

Do you ever feel that way?! I’m guessing if you are a mom (or even just human for that matter), then you have felt that way before. Just treading water, barely keeping the head above water – that’s kind of where I am at. I feel like there is so much going on in life, and it’s only going to get busier! It’s alot of fun stuff, don’t get me wrong, but chaos sometimes sets in. I really enjoyed the sun and warm weather we were teased with though – doesn’t that do so much to boost the moods here in MI?! And now I am looking out at snow again. Oh well – this too shall pass! It has put a little splinter in my 5k training though. I was doing so good on my training schedule and it was because we had somewhat warm weather to get out and walk/run! I don’t have a treadmill, and I’m not going to run in cold/snow, so today I didn’t do my run. Oh well – I will take a day off I guess. I have exercised for 19 days straight, which is really good for me, one day off won’t hurt. I will still have plenty time to build up my endurance for the 5k – I hope! I am so not a runner, so I think I am nuts for thinking about running a “race”, but I think it will feel good for me to say I did it!

My hubby threw me a surprise 30th birthday party last weekend!!! We had a church group skating party last Sat. afternoon from 4-6. At the end of the session my brother-in-law and sister-in-law asked if we wanted to grab dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings (which made sense b/c we were only about 8 min. from there). We said that would be fine, so we packed up the kiddos and skates and headed to the restaurant. When we walked in I had told the hostess lady that I thought our group had already checked in and she said - “oh the Huizenga group – it’s right thru those doors.” At that point I knew what was going on, because the group checking us in wouldn’t have been Huizenga, and I knew the doors she was pointing to were for parties. So she kind of blew it! So when I walked thru the door I gave a look of “you can’t fool me!” It was so fun to see all our friends there though and my girls got a kick out of the whole thing! My parents were there to take the girls home after eating, so that was nice too! Here are a few pictures of the night – we were in a party room that has the Buffalo Bowling – which is fun too and we had the whole room all to ourselves! I have a pretty great hubby and friends and family!

It was a super great night!

I have a few LO’s of course to share too!!!

As usual, full credits can be found in my gallery (link in upper left!)

MandaKay

Scrapping Weekend

I’m holed up in a hotel room this weekend just scrappin’ away! It feels good to get a little bit caught up! I’ve' got many many more Disney LO’s to do before I can ever print the book, but at least I feel like I am getting somewhere with them! So of course the post will be full of LO’s!

Starting with my 365 weekly LO:

Disney:

Misc.

I have a few more LO’s still in the works and just not able to post yet!

New SMJ Goodies

I had a lot of fun with these new kits out by Shabby Miss Jenn Designs!

My LO using the new Bella’s Attic kit

My LO with Oh Deer massive kit:

They just happen to both be about Selah, guess I felt like she has been left out lately, I don’t know.

Stay tuned to TLP for the new March BYOC coming out on Fri. – you will not want to miss it!!!