Piggly Wiggly Greenbax Deal

I probably should have posted earlier, but there is an awesome deal going on with Piggly Wiggly right now.  If you use 10 coupons (up to 10) per visit there, you will get an extra Greenbax per coupon used! 

This goes through the end of April. 

I'm SOOO close to getting a free car seat (convertible).  It's one of the ones I've been looking at anyway, so that's kind of cool.

Crock Pot Monday this week: epic fail

Didn't get in my crock pot post this week.  Boo on me. 

Hopefully I'll get one (maybe two) in next week.

Tales of Negotiation

My husband and I recently decided to do a few home improvements to make way for baby!  We needed a new storage shed to keep all of the odds and ends Jackson is ultimately going to outgrow (that we want to hold on to just in case we decide to have another munchkin).  Since we're starting to outgrow things now and we are running out of indoor storage space, this jumped up on our priority list. 

I went and got a quote on a new shed.  It was kind of expensive, but not as bad as I thought.

While we were brainstorming, we thought "hey - we really need a new fence too."  Ours is very  old and has old wood and nails and it screams TETANUS.

I called up the place that quoted us for the shed.  I explained what we wanted and they sent out an estimator.  The guy told us how much the fence would cost.

It was actually MORE than I thought (I had no idea how much a fence would cost). 

Fast forward - I called and told them we were thinking about doing both and wanted to see if, in doing both, they'd give us a price break. 

Several conversations later, basically for a little more than the price of the fence we're also getting the shed.  And they are going to tear out our existing stuff and haul away the old.

That's going to save us about $1000.

Vera Bradley Deal Alert

The Vera Bradley Stephanie bag is on sale today for only $29!  I own this style bag already and use it as my every day purse.  Only when I bought it, it was "on sale" for $45.  It is very roomy and has lots of pockets.  I am tempted to buy a new one at this price.  If you are looking for a new bag, this one is cute and $29 is an excellent price for this.  Now if only Vera Bradley came out with more free shipping coupon codes...

Crock Pot Monday: Grape Jelly Meatballs

Grape jelly meatballs are an excellent snack, appetizer, etc. that you can prepare in your crock pot.  They are easy to do.  Make them healthier by using turkey meatballs - no one will know the difference.

1 package frozen prepared meatballs (usually a package has around 60).
1 bottle Heinz 57 chili sauce
1 jar grape jelly

Heat grape jelly and sauce in crock pot first and stir every few minutes till the jelly is more liquidy.

Once it is liquidy, add frozen meatballs and cook on low for 4 hours. 

I also usually keep an extra bag of meatballs handy because I can usually add more to the sauce afterwards for a second round.

Tuesday Tales: What NOT to do when you want to save money on photos

This is just a short story about how I thought I was going to get a good deal and ended up dropping more dough than I wanted to:

I had an appointment to go to Sears on Saturday.  I had received a coupon in the mail for a portrait package there for $4.99.  I thought "gee - that's a lot of photos and I'm SURE I can just get one pose...I mean, Jackson doesn't like the camera anyway so I'll probably only get one really good one."

What a joke.

I went in there with Jackson and he proceeded to take the best pictures ever.  Which meant I ended up walking out of there with $150 less than I had before.

Moral of the story:

When it comes to photos of your kids, be prepared to be suckered into spending more than you think...

Crock Pot Monday: Coke BBQ

This could be one of the easiest recipes that ever existed.  Two ingredients.  No real prep.  But this recipe yields tender, fall off the roast BBQ.

Ingredients:

1/2 boston butt.  (if you have a big enough crock pot you can do the whole thing, but I like the smaller portion of using half of the full "butt")

1 20 oz coca-cola

1. Put the butt in the crock pot.
2.  Pour the coca-cola over
3.  Cook on low for 8 hours.

That's it!  Once it is done, you pull out the meat and gently pull apart with a fork.  Serve by itself or on a bun, with bbq sauce if you'd like.  Delicious!