Suzy Snaps

So, those of you on facebook already know all of this.. but for those of you that aren’t..

2 days ago Buster went missing.  I’ve put ads on craigslist, called all the pounds (going to go look at them tomorrow), put notices at all the neighbors homes, drove and walked all the streets multiple times calling for him,.. but nothing is working.   He seems to be gone for good.    We’d talked about getting a new puppy to keep Buster company during the day so we decided to get a new puppy today.   I’m still hoping Buster will show back up.. and if he does he’ll have a new little friend.    If he doesn’t.. this is going a long way towards making the kids feel better.   Brianna was beside herself for about 75% of the day.  The new puppy made it better but she’s still so sad.  So far today she’s cried for buster, cried because he’s gone, cried because it’s cold outside and Buster doesn’t have his dog house and pillow she made him, cried because I just gave him a haircut so he won’t be as warm, cried because it’s raining “and Buster HATES the rain mom!”, well..  you get the picture.   I’m just hoping he’s safe and someone recognized a pricey little dog running down the street and took him home.    Lorien misses Buster but moved onto the new doggie quite quickly.   Rohan misses “dog-dog” but loves the new one.

So.. I’ve always wanted a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel… I had researched those before we decided to get Buster and love them.    We all loved Buster but maybe I’m weird.. but Buster was just such a good dog that I was afraid another Yorkie couldn’t measure up.  So, we got a Cavalier Spaniel today.     I’ll take a better picture tomorrow.. but for now here’s one of “Lady” asleep in her bed.

And this may be silly but I’d love it if you’d offer up a prayer for little Buster.   He was such a sweetheart to have around for over a year and it makes me a bit sick to think he could be wondering around lost.  Pray that if he won’t come back to us someone will give him a nice loving home.

Yes, this is extremely late LOL

Thanksgiving day we had Esther and Curtis over for lunch (sorry.. no pictures)

Friday we went to the park..

The foliage was so pretty!

Saturday we went to the Homestead Heritage’s Annual Thanksgiving Fair.

Was tons of fun!  We got there just in time for the barn raising which Jesse got to help on.

Laying out the wall..

putting everything in place

Hammering the joints together.. check out the size of that thing!

They then had to lift the wall to hammer the stakes in from underneath..

the wall is assembled and ready to lift

Ready to lift.. and 1.. 2.. 3..

Once they get up past their own reach the “pikers” come in..

they then take over and push it the rest of the way up.

and another wall has been added to the barn (or put back on LOL.. this was a barn built over 100 years ago that they were moving to their land)

After the barn raising we went across the road to watch sheep herding (done with goats LOL)

and yes he DID throw his dog-dog over the fence before it was over.. why do you ask?

So, after that we went and listened to the singing under the tent which the kids were terrified of..

okay, not really.. I have no clue what that face was all about.   It was gorgeous to listen too.   The kids did start to get a bit bored of sitting but they enjoyed it.

After that we watched blacksmithing..

Well I watched it for about 5 mins anyway.. Then Rohan got bored so we went outside where he ran from me and shoved rocks down drains.

We then walked through the exhibit halls and made our way to the food court.  On the way we passed up one of the horse and buggies.

This is my style of food court!  Huge selection, reasonable prices, and ALL HOMEMADE, ORGANIC, GROWN ON THEIR HOMESTEAD food!  The meat was even raised and butchered there.   SO yummy!!

Brianna had sausage on a stick..

Lorien and Rohan had pizza..

and Jesse and I had greek gyro’s.   Yummy!

It made for a wonderful weekend.

So, I went to Walgreens and CVS on Sunday..

I got this. (ignore the bad cellphone picture)

Retail would have been about $34

————————————-

I paid.. 2 boxes of cereal =  $1.40 each

4 cans cream of chicken soup= .40 each

ALL laundry deteregent  =  FREE

2 tissue paper packs = FREE

2 packs of gift bows = FREE

3 cans of tomato sauce = FREE

razors= FREE

So… we have water again!  Long story that I’ll explain later but everything that could go wrong yesterday did.. including having no water at our house.   So, we spent pretty much all day in town today.  Having no working toliets, no water (or anything else) to drink, etc.. makes it pretty useless for us to be home.

I did some more couponing today though and here’s today’s deals..

So, for 2 dozen eggs,

1 gallon milk,

1 bag of (overpriced) dog food

1 thing of pads,

1 of hairbows,

1 neutrogena shave cream,

snuggle dryer sheets,

2 packs of filets..

total spent today = $10.23

And $5 of that was dog food (which seems really high for the store brand to me?), most of the rest of it was the eggs and milk.. all of which I didn’t have coupons for.

So… after watching that video where the lady feeds her family for 4 CENTS a week I got inspired.    I know I won’t do THAT good but I’m going to see how well I can do.    So last night I bought a sunday paper, sat down at the computer and spent 2 hours trying to figure stuff out.  Most of that was spent trying to figure out store policies, find good websites, etc.  That won’t be needed next time around.    A fun fact I noticed was that my savings will get much better every week.  Several of the deals needed past weeks coupons and since I just started doing this I don’t have those.  BUT.. in the future I will!

Interesting things I found out.   You get the best deals by STACKING coupons.  This is done when you use

1- a manufacturer coupon and a store coupon at the same time.  You can’t use 2 of either of those but you CAN use both types on the same item.

2- combining a coupon with a store special

So.. some of my best deals this week were

1- Walgreens has some of their Kelloggs cereal on sale for 1.99 a box.   If you then go to the Target coupon center HERE you can print off a coupon for $5.00 off 4 boxes of Kelloggs cereal.  Brings the total to about 74 cents a box!   Now.. this coupon has the target logo on the top.. HOWEVER.. it says across the top in big letters manufacturers coupon.   It is NOT a store coupon or it would say TARGET coupon on the top.   However, the first walgreens I stopped at (the woodway one)  refused to take it.. He was a grouchy older man and I was worried when I saw he was the one checking me out LOL.  Sure enough.. he INSISTED that it was a store coupon, called the manager who looked at it blankly and pointed at the target logo saying “see it’s a target coupon”.   GRRRR…..    If I would have thought at the time I had an actual TARGET store coupon I could have gotten out to show them the diff.  Oh well.  I went to a diff. walgreens and had no problem at all using it.  But, it’d suggest maybe bringing an actual store coupon to show them the diff.  Or just go to the one by target.

2-CVS-

complete contact solution..  9.99, you get 9.99 in register rewards.. makes it free after rewards!  (you pay out of pocket for it but get rewards.. so if this is you first time doing it you will pay.. however, if you HAVE rewards you can use your rewards to cover the purchase.. then you get 9.99 in rewards put back on your account.. so it’s free!)

zantac- 9.99, you get 9.99 in register rewards making it free.. PLUS go HERE to print out a coupon for $1.00 off… SO.. I got a 30 pack of zantac and after bonus bucks I MADE $1.00

3- Target – buy 5 of the keebler products covered and get a $5.00 gift card.

THEN.. combine that with coupons to get them at about .60 a box.

.. here’s a link with all the details..

So.. the original price  would have been 117.44

Instead..

, after sales, coupons, and rebates..

I bought..

4 boxes of cereal,

1 bag of chocolate chips,

2 containers of body cream,

1 contact solution,

zantac,

3 one day redbox rentals,

3 boxes of quaker instant oatmeal,

big box of trash bags,

orange juice,

7 containers of cookies (non of which we will probably eat LOL.. however, we have a ton of church dinners so these will come in handy then)

2 packs of gronola bars

hot chocolate,

8 lightbulbs,

3 boxes of crackers..

all for the grand total is $27.02!