Tuesday, May 13, 2008

More Stockpile Pics

I have my stuff all over the apartment. Let's take a look, shall we?

My candles/air freshners and my pasta stash























My collection of toothbrushes and a very small portion of my toothpaste stash (I have most of them in a pile to be donated shortly)





My under-the-sink stash of toiletries I'll use shortly (everything else is in my garage) and my million free razors


Who Doesn't Love a Good Stockpile Pic


I live in an apt. but I'm lucky enough to have a huge storage area in my garage. Here's what it looked like last week (ugh, this makes me shudder!)

Notice the door frame on the left picture -- I could barely get in this room! My stuff was overflowing and such a mess.



My DBF was kind enough to come on over and help me clear out and organize this mess (thanks again hunny!). Here are the beautiful "after" pics:








Look at all that soda! The drawers on the right are perfect for holding foil, toilet bowl cleaners, sponges and tissues - that I got all for free! And the drawer is wonderful. I picked it up on deep discount. Ok, it was free. Ok, ok, I dumpster dived for it - but don't tell anyone!

Friday, May 9, 2008

My Car

My cars always seem to be prone to cracks, caused by rocks kicked up by trucks on the highway. My old car was victim to a flying rock, and so was my recent car – twice now, poor thing. A couple weeks ago, a rock really got me good (please disregard the filthy state of my windshield!). I was fully expecting to have to replace my windshield, and expected to pay around $500 for it (there goes the stimulus check!). Luckily, they were able to fill it for a grand total of $64.15. Even better, if the fill wasn't good enough and I end up having to replace the whole windshield, they'll deduct the $64 off my total for a replacement - how cool is that? I'm due for inspection at the end of the month, so we'll see what they say.

Furbabies

Today I had to pick up more food at the vet for my cat Gigi. When I walked up to the counter, there was an enormous shaggy dog sleeping on blankets behind the counter. Then I realized, that's no dog - it was a goat! It had just been neutered and I guess there wasn't room in the back for it to rest. Poor thing!

It cost me $19.89 for this 5.5 lb. bag of food, but it’s worth it for her health. She’s on a special diet because she developed a urinary stone last year and was slated to have an operation. I had everything all planned out, had spoken to the vet several times about what to expect, had taken her for tests, etc. The operation was going to cost me about $1300 and luckily I had just taught a course so I had the money to cover it. I dropped her off for the surgery and went home to anxiously wait to see how things went. An hour later I got a call from the vet – Gigi had passed the stone on the operating table minutes before the surgery! The vet couldn’t believe it and now they make it a procedure to do a final x-ray before doing surgery to make sure the animal didn’t pass the stone and they operate for no reason. She saved me a good chunk of money that day! Even my kitties are frugal!

The other day, my other cat Mousse was kind enough to knock over my garbage can to get the last bits of juice from the package of ham I’d bought. Waste not, want not. Thanks Mousse! (of course, it would have been nice if he’d also thought to clean up the mess, but I guess a girl can’t be too greedy)




These are my babies. Gigi's on the left and Mousse is on the right.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Quick CVS Trip


I stopped into CVS on my way home tonight for a few quick things:

Venus Vibrance razor $9.99
3 Aquafresh toothpastes $2.99 each
2 Welch's juice (filler plus I was out of juice) 2/$5
Total: $23.96
-$4 off $20 coupon
-$1.50 coupon for Aquafresh
-$2 two coupons for Aquafresh
-$4 coupon for Venus razor
-$12 ECB
=$0.67 - paid with gift card from Discover rewards so OOP was zero!
Earned $5 ECB for the razor and $8.97 for the toothpaste = $13.30 profit