Being Green-er!

To me being Green is about recycling and reusing things you already have and conserving energy whenever possible.

I have purchased some energy efficient light bulbs and am using them to replace the old bulbs as they burn out. (I'm caught between going green and saving green right now). We also purchased an HE washing machine and dryer when we bought our house. We have a programmable thermostat and keep a/c temperature higher during the day when we're not home, so we are not cooling an empty house. I've also started turning on only the light in the room I'm in, turning it off as I leave the room, and opening the blinds during the day. (You must know, I have always been someone who turned on every light in the house because I was going to go back "in there".)

My latest "green" idea came for someone else's blog (sorry, I can't remember who). The question was asked about what people were doing with all of the plastic shopping bags you get from CVSing, etc. Someone wrote that they use them for their "smelly" garbage. Well, I had so many of them and nowhere to recycle them, I decided to start using them all the time. I even found a garbage can at Target specifically for those types of bags.



I usually only have to take one trip out to the "big" can a day.

Not only am I recycling the bags (being green), but I'm also saving money by not spending money on trash bags (saving green).

More home grown

I have been pretty successful with my Roma tomatoes, so I decided to try some more vegetables.

This time I bought seeds: cucumber, lettuce and baby spinach. In less than two weeks my cucumber seeds have sprouted and grown much faster than I anticipated.

While I don't have any buds on them yet, I am very optimistic about have lots of cucumbers to eat.

Small Talk

I am always amused by some of the small talk people come up with in short casual situations, such as riding in an elevator, in the check out line, etc. Sometimes its quite humorous and if you're at work, it breaks up the day, especially if you are having a bad/long day.

This brings me to the comment I just heard. I was walking toward the door to the building that I work in and there was a lady on the other side. I could tell that she was trying to push open the door. The problem was, she needed to pull. After she realized her mistake and opened the door, I jokingly commented "pull". She said "Yeah, the OTHER pull".


At least it made ME laugh!

Budget Shopping

I have put myself on a VERY strict budget (which includes DH, 4yo, 12yo & pets). I am only buying what is absolutely necessary.

That being said, you may not thing that the things I purchased yesterday as absolutely necessary, but...

BIG LOTS

I was browsing through the Big Lots thread at Hot Coupon World and saw that they had underwear for $2.00. It is a 3 pack of Hanes little girl underpants size 4T which we desperately needs because 1) 4yo is going to a sleep over camp next week and I will need to send extras because she still has "accidents" and 2) our dog is a magician and can find little girl underpants and chew them up without me even knowing how he got them.

Total spent: $2.18 including tax

OFFICE DEPOT

Since 4yo was accepted into "big" school, I hadn't even started supply shopping for her. I have almost all of 12yo's supplies, but I still have a few things to get and I'm meticulously scouring the weekly adds to see what's on sale so I can get everything at a reduced price.

4 transparent pocket folders - $.01/each
4 packs of 150 count loose leaf filler paper - $.15/each

Total spent: $.70 including tax

TARGET

While I was on the Hot Coupon World website, I saw that Target had shoes on clearance. 4yo NEEDS (and I mean NEEDS!!!) shoes for school. I found a cute pair of little tennis shoes for under $4.00.

Total spent: $4.00 + tax

More Coupons!

I have been extreme couponing for a few months now and am surprised at all the different places that you offer printable coupons. Well, I just discovered one more! BoxTops4Education has coupons. Click here for the link. The bonus is that all of the items you can purchase with the coupons have the BoxTops4Education on them that you can turn in to help raise money for a local school.

Even if you home school you children, I'm sure you know someone that could use them!

Shopping Saturday

Okay, so I lied in my Frugal Friday post about not shopping this weekend. Turns out, I needed dog food, so a shopping I did go.

As I was cleaning this weekend I ran across a $10 CVS gift card I had redeemed from MyPoints. Since I technically would not be spending any of MY money, and I couldn't let the dog starve, I decided to see what I could do to get some ECBs because I am going to need to get diapers/pull ups really soon. And I did really well!

Here are my freebies:




It's not a lot, but it was free. Here's how and the rest of my trip:

Olay Regenerist moist wipes ($5.99) minus $3.00 Mfr coupon and $3.00 CRT = .01 overage
CVS Pantiliners ($.99) minus $1.00 CRT = .01 overage
2 cans of Pringles (2 for $2.00) - treats for my girls as a reward to being good while shopping
5 cans of dog food @ $.99

Total after tax: $7.63 (on gift card)

Earned: $1.99 in ECBs
BONUS: $8.50 ECBs for Spring Spending.

I have a $2.00 ECB from previous purchase so I have $12.49 in ECBs for diapers and to roll over and earn more ECBs.

Home grown!

I've been meaning to post about this for a couple of weeks. I even took pictures, but I can't find them on my camera!

I bought a some vegetable plants a few months ago: a sweet pepper, a jalapeno pepper and a Roma tomato. To date, I have had 2 jalapeno peppers and over a dozen tomatoes. The tomato plant is still producing and I have about a dozen more in various stages of ripening.

Considering I usually kill the plant that I really like and/or have plans for, I'm pretty impressed.