On Wednesday, I was super pumped to get home and head to the grocery store to do some saving. I had a pretty good hold on things to get at the store, and there were some seriously amazing deals going on.
Ryan and I went to the gym, and then we went over to Fry's to try and save more than 50%. Any other time we've gone, it's been hard with Ryan because there is always some random item that he has to have, and of course it's not on sale, and I don't have a coupon for it! This time, he was on my page, we didn't stray. I was super concerned about the Vitamin Water coupons, they would be free if all coupons could be used. So we got our cart all filled up, picked the nicest looking cashier and went to work. I seriously was like those people on Extreme Couponing, shaking and nervous my adding wouldn't work out. And finally as we scanned the last coupon...$30.56, a savings of 68%! Holy B, amazeballs!! The cashier told me I did good with my coupons, and all in all it was an exciting night!!
The smartest thing we've ever done is take the Monday off after Mexico. My original reason was I knew not being home all weekend would mean no cleaning, and I knew I wouldn't be able to handle that, so I took the day off as a sort of catch up day. Ryan decided to do the same, and sadly as we age, it was a good thing, because I don't think Ryan recovered from Saturday until late Monday!
We woke up, ate breakfast and then hit the road to Home Goods. When we went to those model homes, they had adorable plates, that were taped down so I couldn't see where they were from. I really want these plates so did some investigating and couldn't find them anywhere. Also in the model home were some bowls from Home Goods, so I decided to try my luck there to find these plates.
They didn't have them.
But they did have other cute plates and some other adorable knick knacks and I'm pretty sure I love this store now!!
After Home Goods we headed grocery shopping. There were a few stops, but we hit them all and saved 47%!! Very exciting Monday for us!!
We got home and made some dinner. When I started planning our meals, like I mentioned, I went to This Week for Dinner , where I found some yummy recipes. Tonight we were having caprese paninis , and they were delicious!! We watched, I Shouldn't Be Alive and relished in our last night before heading back to work!
On Wednesday after work, Ryan and I hit up the grocery store to do some shopping and couponing!! My first flaw was bringing Ryan with, he wasn't a pro at sticking to the list, and definitely grabbed stuff he "needed" not on sale. <Cough> $5 organic jam <Cough>
We did pretty good, saving about 35% of our bill. When we got home, Ryan decided we needed to redo the fridge so that healthy food was in his line of vision so he'd automatically grab that first! We moved the shelves around, cleaned and voila our new and oh so organized refrigerator!
Friday night, Ryan had a baseball game, crazy right, he just had one on Tuesday!! So when my friend Elise asked if I wanted to do Happy Hour, I was happy to have plans, other than my shopping trip!!
I met Elise at Ra after work, and lucky for us, the last time my mom went there they had a bad experience, so I had a coupon for 1 free roll!! Elise and I chatted about our lives, about the book for Book Club that neither one of us had finished, and enjoyed a nice evening. Of course, in Sarah fashion I didn't take a picture of that. For all my followers know, I don't ever do half the things I talk about because I don't capture the moment!!
After dinner I headed home, and to the gorcery store. I know these coupon people save like 90% when they go shopping, but for my first time I knew that wasn't possible, and I knew I had to keep it small. So I saved about 27%, which isn't impressive, BUT I got a bag of tortilla chips for like $0.17!!! Small victories for now. Plus, I stocked up for our next week's dinners!!
Ryan came home, from another victory, iced his elbow and we spent the night chillin like a villan...yep I said that!!
I should first remind you all that I have become a couponer. Not an Extreme one yet, probably largely due to the fact that I wouldn't be able to store 28 boxes of pasta in our house, so for now, a regular couponer. With my coupons, and ads, I had planned on going grocery shopping Friday night (wild I know) while Ryan played baseball. My other new thing, as lame as this may sound, is to plan out our dinners for the upcoming weeks. I found that either we were eating the same thing, or boring things, or going to the store 4 times a week to pick up one thing for dinner, and frankly, this madness had to stop!!
With two full weeks of May ahead of me, I printed out a calendar, googled, weekly dinner planning, found a cute little blog that addressed my exact need, and planned out our dinners for the rest of May. Ryan and I both love cooking, but unless we know what we're going to have for dinner, our conversation mid afternoon is always the same, What should we do for dinner tonight? On This Week for Dinner, there were weekly menus posted, along with different recipes to try, so I was very excited to have found this, and start our new dinner plan. Our life will be changed forever!!! Or at least, we will start having new and delicious dinners at home.
So, now that you have that back story, on to Thursday!! I had a Board Meeting after work on Thursday, so wouldn't get home until late, which is why the grocery shopping trip couldn't happen until Friday, which is also why our dinner was a hodge podge of food we happen to have lying around the house.
Ryan slaved over dinner while I worked late curing diabetes :) When I got home, we ate dinner and I told him how exciting our life was about to become with our planned out meals! He, maybe not as equally as myself, was also excited!!
When you work with a hair dresser it's hard to come to work when your roots are out of control...she lets you know!! So on Wednesday Julia came over and fixed my wild roots. I have always liked to change my hair but cooled out before the wedding so I could put it up and I could have a color I was sure of. Now that the wedding is over I can crazy hair it up!!
Jael also came over so Julia could double team our heads. I thought hey I want to look like Blake Lively, so I put some red in my mane, here I am mid go, don't hate on my look!
Jael's hair was a bit more extensive so while Julia worked on her hair, I clipped coupons, which is my new hobby, which will soon be my way of life!! :)
I clipped and tried to explain how great coupons can be and why Jael and Julia should coupon too...I mean especially since we all work at a non profit!!
It was a fun night of hair coloring and chatting, and we both left with lovely hair...or at least Jael was on the way to lovely hair!
The girls left, I called Ryan to catch him up on the fun and then I went to sleep, quite a night!!
On Tuesday, I went to visit some sites for the west valley walk with some of my co workers. Quite an exciting day out on the road. When I got back to the office, I was cleaning out my personal emails and came across my happy birthday from Z'Tejas coupon. It expired on the 31st and I thought, well there is no way Ryan and I will be going there in the next two days, so I deleted it...
I got home from work, and Ryan came home and was in a tizzy from work, stressful day at the Fargo it seemed. So he asked, "hey do you maybe want to go to Z'Tejas tonight?!?!"
"WHAT?!?! Are you kidding?! I seriously just deleted my $10 off coupon because I thought no way will we go before Thursday and now bam you suggest it! What are the chances?"
So...I went and undeleted my email, and hoped that the Z would take the coupon on my phone.
We headed out and had a lovely evening at our favorite place. Our waitress had been the creator of this skinny margarita I got, I ordered it out of guilt, but it ended up being super delicious. We talked about Ryan's upcoming work-ness and enjoyed our Tuesday evening. Before we headed out someone from the past of a friend's sat next to us, I know she knew who we were, but that's okay, I wouldn't have said hello either!! :) And yes!!! They did take my coupon off my phone, I told them I wanted to be green!!
