Ann Taylor Loft - Sale

Awesome Sale Going on right now.

I happened to be at my second mall of the day on the hunt for clothes for our upcoming trip and happened to run into one of my favorite stores... Ann Taylor Loft.

I purchased a few dresses at $25 (50% off), a few tanks at $10, a tee at $11 and a skirt for $25.

I am loving all of these sales today. They came just in time.

Gap Sale

5/25-5/29 IN STORES

All mens and womens shorts are on sale for $25 and childrens swim suits are on sale for $15

Scholastic Book Fair

Every year I find some absolute GREAT deals at the Scholastic Warehouse Event. They hold them all over the country.

For my Florida friends, here is your information. This would be a great way to read up on your 10 books for the Borders Double Dog Dare Program and the prices are fantastic.

And DONT FORGET to register on the website to get your coupon for $10 or $25 off.

Border's Summer Reading Program

This summer if your child is 12 or under, they can participate in this free event. If they read 10 books (any one they like), they get one free (from the list here)! All you have to do is list the books that they read, fill out this form, have the parent/guardian sign it and submit it to any Borders, Borders Express, opr Waldenbooks store to choose your FREE BOOK!.

Summer Activities to Consider

Well since Ava is not exactly into dance or gymnastics anymore, I am on the search for another activity. She really has shown an interest in swimming so this may appeal to her. But I need to find other families to participate so we can have this so close to home.

Swimming:
USA Swimming - Mighty Tots Swim Team.
It's ONLY $185 (or $166.50 for Ballantrae residents) for 2 months (June 16th - August 12).
As I can see, there is only 1 person signed up for this and there needs to be a min of 6 (max of 8)members in order for this to take place.


otherwise there is:
Berkley Prep Summer Camps - For swimming it would be $60 a week - 5 hours a week (an hour a day) 8-9am, 9-10am, or 10-11am for 4-12 year olds.


Still looking into Golf and maybe a Martial Arts.

Beach Season has arrived

Victoria's Secret Swim Sale is offering 25-40% off original prices on over 200+ styles. Lucky for me I ordered 3 swim suits to start the season. Let's keep our fingers crossed that they look half way decent on me.

For Free Shipping on orders over $100 Use coupon code = SHIPVS10

or the 3 Tiered ($15 off of $100 , $30 off of $150 , or $75 off of $250) Code = SP1021829

Cannot combine codes, so I just figured out which deal was going to work out best for me by putting in the free shipping code and continuing on, then went back a step and put in the other code and continued on to compare final totals and chose the free shipping.

Homeroom Mom Duties Call

Somehow, last year (when I wasn't even classroom mom by the way), I was recruited to make scrapbooks for each of the teachers in Ava's classroom. I dedicated 2 pages to each child in her class and included a picture of the student, a thank you letter from the parent, and a drawing from the student and then included a $100 American Gift Card to each teacher. Fortunately, we were able to have 100% participation (because of my "excellent follow up skills" as described by another mother) and collected $25 from each family, which helped pay for the scrapbooks, gift cards, breakfast and flowers during teacher appreciation week.

Anyhow, for those of you that know me, I am pretty novice when it comes to scrap booking. I don't have a creative bone in my body. I am described as a "left brained" person. If you want to read more go to this Scholastics site. However, somehow it turned out to be a fantastic present which lead me to being nominated this year. Of course, I want to try to make it even better this year and in saying that I keep drawing a blank. So lucky for me a friend turned me onto Studio Calico for inspiration. Who knew that there was a world of such beautiful art.

Poor Allan, loses me to another site to be addicted to.

Getting Started on Couponing

So you asked how I do coupons.

Here's what I do.

Invest in a 2 Extra Large Binders, and a box of clear protective sheets that you can stick into those binders. Both of which you can get very very cheap at Staples or Office Depot.

First, every Sunday get the newspaper, there is always at least 2 coupon inserts, 1 Smart Source, and 1 Red Plum. During the first week of the month there is also and Proctor and Gamble insert as well. The key to this is getting as many inserts as possible. So if you know of people (or your local Starbucks) who would normally just pitch the coupons, grab them. Once you have them, you don't need to cut out anything. What you do is stick the date on the front of them and file in your binder in chronological date order. I like to save at least 3 months of coupons total.

Every week in the Wednesday paper, is the Publix store ad for the sales that will begin on Thursday. Take the time to go through the ad and match the "Buy One Get Ones - BOGO" or the sales to this site: Coupon Mom (I think that you have to sign up, but it is free). Once you have done so, on the left hand side of the site is a button for "Grocery Coupon Database". Once you have opened it, select your state and then "Go". Once you are in the new window, start entering in what is on sale and see if a coupon comes up. For example, I searched for "Cottonelle" and this came up.


04-18 S 05-29 Kleenex Cottonelle Toilet Paper any two 4 pack or one 12 pack or larger $0.50 1


Which is your directory 04-18 S is the date 4/18 insert = Smart Source, 05-29 is the date the coupon expires, then it's the coupons description and then the amount of the coupon and the number 1 is the amount that you have to purchase.

Remember when I said that the key is to have multiples of each insert? It's because if Cottonelle every goes BOGO then you can use 2 coupons, one for the "Buy One" and one for the "Get One" making the deal that much sweeter.

The other key point, is to stockpile on the non perishable, After doing this for a while you will notice a pattern of when things go on sale. For example, Pepsi and Coke alternate weeks of going on sale. Thomas' English Muffins are usually BOGO every 5 or so weeks. So you purchase enough of whatever product you need to get you through the pattern.

So that is the basic system to couponing. Then after a while you get VERY addicting to saving money that it will become a game. Today I save 65% of my grocery bill by combining coupons to BOGO's.

The other sites that I love for saving money are:

Hip to Save (this women is AWESOME, this women makes it idiot proof, she breaks down Target, CVS, Walgreens and several other stores and tells you how to get the deals. She also tells you about EVERY freebie down the road. We get Glamour, Cosmo, Muscle and Fitness (yeah still trying to get the muscles and fitness into my routine), Road and Track, Baseball Digest, Elle, Metroplitan Home, Parents, Parenting, Working Mother, Golfer's Digest, Better Homes and Garden's, Oprah, Real Simple, and a TON of other magazines for FREE!!!!!

The thing that I love about her sight is that every week she breaks down Target's ads for me and so I can stockpile things like deodorant, soap, shampoo, paper towels, and toilet paper on the CHEAP!! The other key thing to her site is to check it often, if you can throughout the day.

IheartPublix.com ( If you don't want to match the ads yourself, she does most of the matching for you. Sometimes, she misses a couple of things so I like to use her site first and then go over the ad again for a review.)

The other thing to do is SAVE all the loose coupons you find in magazines, product boxes, and wherever else you find them and scan through them to see if you have any match up to the sale ads.

My personal next step is to conquer the CVS, Walgreens thing because I have heard that you can save TONS and get lots of free stuff there too.

I know that this seems like a lot of work, but saving $50 dollars or more is worth the amount of time it takes. Think of it this way, you will be making more than $50/hr if you take the time and you will spend less time wondering around the store. You will also, go into the store with a plan and spend less because you won't impulse buy.