Good Day/Bad Day

It's been a mixed day. Ethan woke up at 5:15 this morning, screaming his head off. I couldn't even nurse him back to sleep, so I finally gave up at 6. He was fairly happy this morning, despite almost 2 hours less sleep than usual, but I was admittedly grumpy. After his morning nap, we headed south to do some final Christmas shopping for the in-laws, go to Fresh Market, and go downtown to the sheriff's office to apply for a concealed weapons license (back story on this to come in another post about our past two weekends). In short, a lot of time in the car and not a lot of running around time for Ethan. By the time we got home, it was past 2, we hadn't eaten lunch, and we were all a bit worse for wear.

After a quick lunch, I left to go to Harris Teeter to see if Ethan would finally agree to nap in his crib if he realized Mommy wasn't an option. He's been refusing to sleep in his crib during the day since Sunday, probably because he spent most of Saturday away from me and has been clingy ever since. I was gone for almost an hour, and I could hear him screaming before I even got inside the house. So I dropped my bags, ran upstairs with the wrap, and he was asleep within 5 minutes.

By this point, it's 4 PM, I'm hungry from not eating enough from lunch, and I'm just worn out from a long day. SOOO I cracked open a $6 pint of gourmet ice cream that I got for free. Whoever said you can't eat your feelings was full of it. I felt much better after I ate about half of it. Ethan woke up screaming after about 40 minutes, but I nursed him back to sleep and he slept for almost another hour, waking just before 6. He was ridiculously clingy all night, but I still managed to fix dinner, eat dinner, and snap the following picture of the day's grocery purchases:


Thanks to coupons, I only paid $2.30 for everything above. The picture makes me exceptionally happy, which is probably sad, but I don't really care.

Before bed, we put up the personalized growth chart that came in the mail today. It's a fabric decal that has reusable adhesive so it can be moved when Ethan graduates to his big-boy room. It retails for $29, but I had a coupon code that allowed me to only pay shipping. It matches the room perfectly! Pictures to come later, perhaps.

Ethan screamed for a minute or two when I put him down, which he doesn't usually do at night, but after his fussiness all day, I wasn't exactly surprised. He's been asleep for almost an hour now, so I can only hope he'll sleep better tonight.

It's been a bit of a rough day, but there have been small happinesses that made it bearable and even enjoyable at times. And, really, I guess that's all you can ask for.

Christmas Deals 2011

It's been a while since I posted about couponing, so I figured I'd do a bragging post about the deals I found for Ethan's Christmas gifts. Last year, I was very proud to have gotten him just over $100 of gifts for less than $10. This year, I paid more out of pocket, but I got him about $120 worth of gifts for just over $25. So let's break the deals down in general terms:

- Toy from Barnes & Noble: Retailed for $34 but used 40% off coupon on top of 10% membership discount
- Book from Barnes & Noble: Retailed for $9 but used 50% off coupon on top of 10% membership discount
- Book from Cokesbury: Retailed for $8 and used $10 coupon to buy it plus two reusable shopping bags, totally free!
- Six toys from SmartMomma, a local baby goods store: Retailed for about $70 but all toys were 20% off during Black Friday weekend. Plus we went on Small Business Saturday and registered two separate AmEx cards, doing two separate transactions, for a total of $50 in credit on our next statements. Total cost? $5.60.

In addition, I used a LivingSocial voucher for Whole Foods to get treats for his stocking totally free (since the groceries I was buying anyway used up the paid value of the voucher).

So we were able to fill the space under the tree and his stocking for less than the retail cost of the first toy we bought him. I'm pretty pleased with myself, especially since I didn't expect to do as well as last year since I had less time to research deals due to school.

Edited to add: As an added bonus, I made $30 in November by filling out a TV diary sent to me by a survey company, so that alone took care of all our Christmas shopping for Ethan costs! Not too shabby!

Did anyone else find any good holiday deals they want to brag about?

Coming Out of the Coupon Closet

I've always liked coupons. I remember helping my mom clip them when I was little so she could put them into the blue velcro wallet set aside for that purpose. I remember her bringing that wallet out at checkout and being fascinated that those little slips of paper counted just the same as money! Once I became responsible for making purchases, I clipped coupons on occasion, even though my mom had gotten out of the habit, but I only clipped products I knew I wanted to use and I never went to any trouble matching up deals, etc. This continued for years, and it wasn't until Ethan was born that I became more deal-savvy.

By the time Ethan's first Christmas rolled around, I had yet to really get into couponing, but I was always looking out for deals. I was proud to boast that I bought Ethan over $100 of toys and gifts for Christmas for less than $10 out of pocket. Since I was doing so well saving money on irregular purchases, what in the world was stopping me from saving money on our day-to-day needs? And thus the coupon obsession began in earnest.

Now, I'm not quite like those people you may have seen on TV. I'm not generally going to buy things just because they are a good deal if I'm not actually going to use them (unless I'm going to make money on the transaction). I don't have a room full of toilet paper, and I have yet to purchase an extra freezer. But I do have a binder full of almost every coupon that's come in the paper, carefully clipped and sorted according to type (The only ones I don't clip are for dog food, hair coloring, weird supplements, and diapers since I will never use any of those). And I do spend time matching up coupons with in-store deals in order to make the most of my stash. I've even gone to more than one store location when the first one was sold out of a certain desired item. But it is definitely worth it! Just today, I was paid $2.51 for taking a bottle of pain reliever and two large tubes of toothpaste out of the store.

In just the past month, I have gotten the following absolutely free (or made money on it!):
- 2 packs of 500 sheets of copy paper
- 1 roll painter's tape
- 3 bottles hand soap
- 4 tubes toothpaste
- 1 12-pack of pens
- 1 6-pack of mini-legal pads
- 4 granola bars
- 5 packages of feminine products
- 1 bottle of pain reliever

And here are some of my favorite non-free deals from just the past week:
- Wisk detergent - Retail: $11.59; Paid: $0.99
- 2 bottles of John Frieda shampoo - Retail: $6.49 each; Paid: $0.49 each
- 2 Degree deodorants - Retail: $4.79 each; Paid: $0.44 each
- Nexcare Bandages - Retail: $1.87; Paid: $0.32
- Sally Hansen nail polish - Retail: $2.54; Paid: $0.58

As you can see, it doesn't take long for the savings to add up! And those are just the ones I remembered off the top of my head, so I'm sure I've gotten more for free in the past month. For a growing family, it just makes sense to save wherever possible, especially when one person is staying at home. It requires you to relinquish some level of brand-loyalty to take advantage of the best deals, but already, I probably won't have to buy myself shampoo, toothpaste, or deodorant for at least a year. Who knows how much I'll end up saving in just the first year of Ethan's life?!?