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I love a good deal. I mean I REALLY love them. But something has been happening lately. I have been feeling trapped, anxious and bit overwhelmed by my own deal hounding.

I follow several daily deal sites like Groupon. They send me an email, I look through the offers and sometimes buy. In the past we have gotten some great deals, some good deals, and some 'I can see why they needed to offer it at half-off' deals. It was fun trying out new products and experiences.

Lately though I have been wondering if it was all worth it. Because after I buy the deal I have to remember to use it. Now, I am no stranger to coupons and expiration dates. I use coupons every week to grocery shop. And granted, lately the coupons/deals have started retaining their paid value even after they expire.

Bottom line: it is stressing me out.

Eric's take on the whole thing is that many times we are making plans (in other words spending money) we would not have JUST to use our coupon/deal. I am starting to see his wisdom (can't you just hear Eric yelling out loud FINALLY!!). I think there was a time when we needed more ideas about what was out there to do but I'm thinking that season is starting to fade.

As a result of both these thoughts and a recent challenge in Sunday School to 'create margin' in our lives, I am unsubscribing to most of these emails. I will leave the deal hunting to Eric. What are you doing today to make life more simple and manageable?

Photo from here

Zero Cost Makeover

I rearrange my furniture a lot. Like it might be an illness. You should never walk around my house at night without a light. Things are NOT where they used to be.

After many wasted hours looking on Pinterest  I decided I needed some bookshelves. I have avoided bookshelves for years because they just hold stuff I have to dust. I'm more of a 'closed storage' girl. But, I realized I needed height along my super tall wall and bookshelves were the only answer I hadn't tried. 

I checked out some retail sites for a baseline price. I love garage sales but furniture goes FAST. So, I thought Craigslist might be an option. I scanned the local listings for two days and found very little. Then on a whim I decided to look in the free section, figuring it would be total junk. Lo, and behold, someone just a few miles away from us had listed FREE bookshelves. I looked at the posting time....20 minutes ago! I threw Everett in the car and we got them! Here are my beautiful free shelves!

Problem: I had NO idea what to do with them! I had never worked with shelf arranging. I sat and looked at them empty for a few days. Then I couldn't take it and went through the house looking for bookshelf worthy items. Below is my pathetic attempt at shelf arranging. It's...fine....ok....a little bland.

Fortunately for me, I recently made a new friend and it turns out she LOVES to do stuff like rearrange furniture and organize stuff on shelves. I asked her to help me! And, you know what? She did! It looks WAY better now. You can see for yourself below. She actually pretty much rearranged my whole house. She likes to do it as much as I do. We were giddy. :D

I have some more tweaks to make. Like, you know, actually hang pictures. But, it was so fun and everything we did so far was zero cost (not zero work, I worked up a good sweat several times). She had some suggestions for purchases but those can all wait till the budget allows. I am enjoying my zero cost makeover!

What has been your best free/cheap find? 

I'm Not An Engineer

I'm not an engineer, but, I play one on the night before birthday parties. I get to make the cakes!

In the past, perhaps coincidentally, our children have chosen a cake from a source with instructions like Family Fun. Eric and I have spent many happy evenings doing these cakes together. It is something we enjoy and it saves us a nice bundle on the price of the cake. (Eric has his 'George Banks' moments and I'm not opposed to saving a buck!)

This year Everett picked one out of the book in the Target bakery (pictured below- but he wanted Lightning with Francesco and a 'winners circle' theme rather than a 'pit stop' theme with Guido). I snapped a pic with my phone. I showed Eric. He said 'No problem' (foreshadowing folks, foreshadowing). I gathered the supplies and on the appointed evening we tucked the kids in bed and met up in the kitchen for a fun cake creating evening.

This was pretty much the first time it occurred to us that we had a picture and no instructions. As we looked at the two 13x9 pans of cake we began to wonder HOW we were going to create a tall sloped grandstand from these. (Imagine us both with our heads tilted quizzically to the side). Eric had two years of architecture at Texas Tech and I waited for him to take charge-- cutting and stacking cake........silence. Eric now proclaimed "Yeah, I have NO idea how to do this".
Let's just say that in the end the ratio of cake to icing was....um....weighted heavily on the icing side. But, it all came together.

The important part is that it held together until after a certain small boy blew out the candles!. Everett was thrilled with his cake and that is all that matters, in the end.

As for Eric & I, we will be forcing steering our children in the direction of cakes with instructions (for goodness sake!) and I think we also might be ready for the Amazing Race!

Photo from here and here

Total Coldwater Creek & Groupon DEAL!

Ok, now THIS is a deal! I just got these two items shipped for $14. (Linen Swing Jacket & Placed Petal Tee)

What makes this deal SO sweet is the Coldwater Creek Groupon that was sold earlier this week.

There is a 30% off and free shipping sale going on now that seemed to automatically apply to my order but there is also a code availiable WZH5340. Many thanks to Tiffany at http://www.mylitter.com/ for hooking me up with this awesome sale + Groupon combo!

This combined with the free full size Origins givaway for earth day yesterday and this has been a great week all around :)

What deals have you found this week?

photos: top & jacket

I can't buy that. I don't have a coupon!

I love coupons, groupons, slick deals. All of it. Here are some of my favorite sites:
Groupon, Living Social, Houston Chronicle Daily Deals

Now I have a dilemma. It's Grocery Game. I have done grocery game for 5 years. I don't mind paying someone to do the work but it seemed like I was buying less and less stuff off the list. So I thought I would try some of the competition sites out there that are free. First up was the Kroger list at Southern Savers. It was pretty straightforward to figure out. Similar enough to grocery game BUT it wasn't nearly as accurate. Alot of items were not actually on sale or were not on sale for the price listed. That was frustrating. Next week I will give coupondivas.com a try.

Who do you use if you are a couponer?

Photo from here