Toddler Electronic Ride-on Toy $8.00 Shipped!

Right now Wal-Mart has this cute little Kiddieland Ride-On toy for toddlers on sale for just $8.00 (plus tax in some states) shipped if you have it shipped to your store! That's a GREAT deal! This would be perfect for Christmas or just to buy a few to give as gifts for birthdays (if you have the space to store them)!

Don't want to have to pick it up at the store? Shipping on this is just $.97! That's probably a more economical way of getting it unless you know you're going to be heading to Wal-Mart anyway (which I know I eventually will).

I'm baaaaack! Did you miss me?

I missed you! I missed the deals. I missed the rush of knowing I was able to share the scores with others! At the urging of a great friend going through deal withdrawls I'm back to blogging. The moving is over and the house is somewhat settled so I'm going to do my best to keep you updated on what's HOT in the world of kids, kars and koupons!

Today I'm going to talk about reward programs.


First up, my favorite - Swagbucks. If you search for things on the internet and aren't earning FREE gift cards from places like Amazon.com and Target then you're walking right past free money! In just the last month I've redeemed points for $15 in Amazon gift cards!


My next rewards program for you to join is Disney Movie Rewards. Did you join? Okay, great! Now go raid your Disney movie stash and enter in all of the codes from the movies you have (mostly ones from the last couple of years...older movies won't have them) and see how many points you have! I had over 600 points from various movies that still had the little "inserts" in them! Did you sed Tangled last week? You can mail them your movie ticket stub for more points! Hooked yet? Well, starting today and everyday from now until Christmas you can earn free points as part of ABC Family's 25 Days of Christmas Event! Just click here. Go to the middle of the page and look for the red and yellow DMR star logo and click on that. Log into your account and you should get 5 points! Even if you never buy (or go see in the theater) a Disney movie you can still earn points on a somewhat regular basis just from the free codes they publish!

On the local "homefront," I was at HEB today and they had the Glade air freshener spray in Apple Cinnamon scent on sale for $.97 and there were tearpads with coupons good for $3/3 Glade Holiday Scent items so they were better than free! Randall's has ALL of the scents on sale for $.99 this week. There's a vanilla scent that's part of the holiday collection so if you can get your hands on some of the $3/3 coupons to use there, you could stock up on some for FREE that could be used year-round!

That's all for today. I'm busy getting prepared for making 3 cakes this weekend. That's another story, another day.

It's going to be sketchy for a while

Wow! Has it really been almost 3 months since I last blogged?!?!? My how time flies!!!

Well, a quick update on my life...

Hubs and I sold the house. The good news is just that, we sold the house. The bad news is we didn't sell for what we had hoped to sell it for but I suppose we will just chalk that up to the cost of "getting out" when we did. And are we glad we got out when we did! When we first put the house on the market last year there were 4 foreclosures in our neighborhood (several more than that if you factored in the 'hoods that were attached to ours). When we closed over a week ago there were 14 foreclosures. Yes, FOURTEEN and that isn't even counting the neighborhoods that are adjacent to ours! Most of these were priced well below market value so I honestly believe these would only have hurt our value even more and we are truly blessed to have gotten out when we did and walk away with cash at closing versus having to bring a check to "pay someone to buy our house" like a lot of people.

Unfortunately, we are now what I am calling "houseless." We aren't homeless because home is wherever WE are but we don't have a house to call home right now. Hubs and I looked and looked. We decided not to commit ourselves to buying another house until we knew the sale of ours was an ace-in-the-hole. We just felt that was a smart thing to do. God forbid the deal on our sale fall though. Anyway, we "lost out" on several houses and were never able to make any of the deals work so here we are sold, closed and funded with no "new" house to go to.

Granted, there have been offers written and houses I have liked. Multiple offer situations and an agent who (I thought) wasn't looking out for our best interests and didn't know enough to "win" the game don't equate for a good outcome. We lost out on 2houses that I LOVED and I don't know that I'll ever be able to get over them. :(

But I digress...sulking over losing a dream home (or two) isn't getting us anywhere.

So the day after closing on the sale of our home I sent a (politically correct) email to our (old) agent and fired her. Ahhh...

We have a new realtor. A guy my mother's broker referred. He's been in real estate for over 25 years and seems to know his stuff. He seems like he's a much better negotiator too and that my friends is probably more important in this part of the process.

Anyway, the gist of it is, we have written 2 (very, very reasonable) offers on 2 different houses within the last week. We haven't nailed one yet but we feel confident that we are going to do that soon.

In the meantime, because everything we own (short a few "suitcases" full of clothes) is in storage and I have no place to put anything I buy much less any time to really research the deals (between taking care of the kids and the house hunting I have very little free time) but I assure you, once we get into the next house, I will be back and back in full force!

Until then, please cross your fingers and pray for us (and my sanity) that we find the perfect house...SOON!

One of those days...

Today was one of those days. Do you want the good news or the bad news first?

I'll give you the bad...

I'm sick. Yesterday I would've let them admit me to the hospital and stick needles in my eyes if it came with the promise of feeling better. I tested positive for the flu. Now before you start with the "well, did you get a flu shot" comments let me tell you that no, I didn't get one and not because I didn't want one or I forgot (remember, I have a new baby so it really was a necessity). I was on steroids for a respiratory issue and couldn't get one. So anyway, the flu it is. For that I have a new friend by the name if Tami(flu) and she's making me feel a little more human now.

The good...

Today marks the beginning of teen hood here in our house. Yep, it was 13 years ago today that I gave birth to my first. I'll never forget that day and how scared I was of it or how much it has changed my life. I am forever grateful for the precious baby the Lord gave me who is turning into an amazing young man.

Hubs and I swore we'd never get our kids a cell phone but honestly, it's becoming a necessity. Yes, we all grew up without them and somehow we managed to get by but I don't recall being involved in so many different things at overlapping times in the next town over with my mother having to dart from one to the next hoping that she didn't get stuck in traffic either. Yes, we are "giving in" to modern day conveniences and our son will be "keeping up with the Jonses'" but I think we are covering ourselves by implementing a contract he must sign before he activates the phone. It is our hope that while it will most definitely be easier to keep in touch with him, he can also learn more responsibility while also having something he NEVER thought he'd have until he was 30. I just hope we aren't hating ourselves 6 months from now. But hey, we've reared him well so we've got nothing to worry about, right? I guess time will tell.

Tomorrow is our anniversary. My most wonderful hubby surprised ME with a sleek new iPad. I'm in love with this thing. I mean I'm still I. Love with my iPhone (and hubs of course) but this is just well, some yummy tech candy! My only complaint so far is the printing issue but that's the beef I have with the phone and I'm still working out a fix for that so maybe it'll work for the pad too. Who knows? Either way, it's just nice to have something I can surf (blog) with that's a little bigger (fat finger friendly) than the phone. I mean since my laptop went on the fritz the phone was my only option until now. And let me tell you, this thing is cool...literally. I've been plugging away on it for over 2 hours now and it's not hot. At all.

The best thing is...

It's yet another way to print coupons (well, once I figure out the printing issue). And that my friends is just wonderful news!

Betty Crocker Coupons! HURRY!

http://www.bakesweetmemories.com/coupons.html

IHOP National Pancake Day - February 23, 2010 - Wake-Up Call Request

Get free pancakes on Fat Tuesday, Feburary 23!

IHOP National Pancake Day - February 23, 2010 - Wake-Up Call Request

Cheap (or possibly FREE) Puppy Food!

Eukanuba has a great offer right now where you can sign up to receive a coupon in the mail good for $10 off a bag of their puppy food. All you have to do is fill out a short form and answer a few simple questions and your coupon will be on its way! Click HERE to get yours!