From D.I.N.K to O.I.N.K - March Summary

March was not the greatest month for us.  Supposed to be a happy time - my birthday month!  Unfortunately, my brother passed away.  We had extra expenses with travel, gifts (funeral expenses), and eating out due to travel.

Over budget on:

• Auto
• Gas for the Jeep
• Service on the Hyundai
• Dining out
• Entertainment
• Caps tickets - final payment for the season
• Gifts
• flowers for the funeral
• my birthday gifts from D
• gift card for upcoming wedding
• Household
• service on the vaccuum cleaner
• Personal care
• I HAD to get my hair done for the funeral - it had been 3 months and the grays were really starting to show down the middle
• Travel
• security deposit for the beach (which we will get back)

Wordless Wednesday - March 27, 2013





Wordless Wednesday - March 27, 2013

 

In Memory of my Brother

Vincent James Clark, Sr.

November 21, 1957 - March 18, 2013

Saving Summary Saturday - March 16, 2013

Due to being out of town, this is limited -

Income (Starting to post again to Ebay & Yardsellr & Listia. My goal is to post at least one item a day.):

• Listia
• won 715 credits & $1.69 paid out for shipping (when buying credits it is less than 1 cent/credit).
• Ebay
• sold three items for 99 cents plus shipping ($20 each)

Rewards programs:
MyPoints - 15350   points (personal account) - 15160 points -last week
MyPoints - 5007 points (coupon account) - 4902 points-last week
Swagbucks - 668  points (631 points-last week)
Listia - 46273 credits (41601 credits last week)
Postpoints - 3335 points (3,320 points last week)
mycokerewards - 6966   points (6907 points-last week)
Bondrewards - $27.51  ($27.46 - last week)
Upromise - $22.28 ($21.42 last week) available for transfer
Capital One Rewards - 1836  miles (9276 miles-last week)
Thanks Again - 1075 points (1075 points last week)
Viggle - 26844   points (25000 points - last week)
NCP -  47245 points (46505 points last week)
Daily Feats - 1820  points (1695 points last week)
ExpoTV - 220 points (120 points last week)

The Housewife Tour 2013 - currently on hiatus

Due to a family emergency, "The Housewife Tour 2013" is taking a break.  For the last week (since Saturday, March 9) I have been in NY staying at my brother's.  The pups are with me and hubby is back home to work.

However, during this "hiatus" I have been working on my digital pictures and organizing them in my Creative Memories Memory Manager 4.0.

Welcome to the New Followers

Just wanted to say Hi & Welcome to the new followers who joined during the giveaway!  Please let me know if you have a blog & I will follow back.

I hope you enjoy my blog & learning about our adventures.

Wordless Wednesday - March 13, 2013

Blogpaws Wordless Wednesday - March 13, 2013


 

Kissin' Cousins

 

Savings Summary Saturday - March 9, 2013

Items sent for:

• n/a - nothing this week.

Grocery Shopping (and other savings) this week:

• Safeway - I usually don't shop here, but I was totally out of diet coke & they had a really good special
• coke products - b2g2 - I used 2 free 12 pack coupons ($4.99 max) and paid $3.
• Oreos - free when you buy 4 coke products plus used a $1/1 off coupon - credit of $1
• shredded cheese - bogo & used 55 cent coupon that was double - paid $1.81 each

• Giant
• received an extra 300 gas points by purchasing over $50 and using coupon
• Purex - regular $5.49 - on sale for $1.99 and used $1/1 coupon
• Monday is marked down meat day - there is usually a bunch of meat with $2 coupons on them.
• picked up 3 dog toys for $1.14 each - once again, they were all detailed wrong & marked as mice cat toy regular price of $2.29
• retail prices - $5.99, $4.30 and $7.99

Gas Savings:

• Hubby used the Exxon card which gives us money in the Upromise account.

Income (Starting to post again to Ebay & Yardsellr & Listia. My goal is to post at least one item a day.):

• Listia
• won 3902 credits $1.69 paid out for shipping (when buying credits it is less than 1 cent/credit).
• Posted items that I haven't been able to sell on Yardsellr or Ebay.
• Ebay
• Posted several items
• sold one item for $40 (buy it now for $20 & shipping for $20).
• Used Capital One's ATM for a deposit & I'm supposed to get $5 credit to our account.  It was really cool - no deposit slip just insert the check & the image shows up on the receipt!

Items received in the mail:

• coupons for TGIFridays
• movie from Swapadvd.com
• two coupons from Nature Made (turned in rewards)
• free Rolling Stone magazine (rewardsgold.com)

2012 New Year, New Goals - to continue in 2013!

• Use rewards programs to get gifts and daily stuff -
• Cashed in
• Capital One
• ordered $25 Home Depot gift card
• Lean Cuisine Rewards
• ordered $15 Amazon gift card
• Use Restaurant.com coupons -
• Set up an Estate -
• Monthly Review/Net Worth
• I created a new budget with only one income and used Quicken so that I am able to run reports to see how well we are staying on track.
• See From D.I.N.K to O.I.N.K.- February summary

"The Housewife Tour 2013" - The Week in Review

Projects:

• Cleaning & organizing the kitchen - this was a big project!  We have so much extra STUFF (mugs, kitchen tools, plastic water bottles, etc.)  Here are some highlights on done cabinets & drawers -

EVERYTHING MATCHES!!!!

 

This is only 3 cabinets/drawers of 15 cabinets/drawers.  I still need to do under the sink.

Becoming Betty Crocker: Beer Simmered Smoked Sausage & Potatoes

Last week when I did this recipe, I had put today's recipe in the docket for this week.  Now it says smoked sausage, but I had pulled out turkey polish keilbasa.  I know - totally changed the meats in these two recipes!

So today's recipe is Beer Simmered Smoked Sausage & Potatoes.  You may or may not know this, I am not a beer drinker, but I figured I would try this since I knew hubby would like it.

This was really easy to make.  A couple changes I made:  I used bottled minced garlic & put about 1/3 cup in it instead of the 4 garlic cloves;  I used a green pepper instead of green onions at the end.  Beer of choice was Labats Blue.

Pre-cooked - just after putting the beer in

 

 

All done!

 

 

Hubby LOVED it - me on the other hand, not so much.  It was all right, but I left the onions on my plate (I didn't have peppers, they don't like me).  I tried to eat them, but they tasted too much like beer.  The potatoes & kielbasa was ok.  I'll make it again for hubby. 

Wordless Wednesday - March 6, 2013




Blogpaws.com - Wordless Wednesday

 

And now, the Coupon Prince! 

I think he was getting jealous that

Sissy was always helping Mama with the coupons.

 

From D.I.N.K to O.I.N.K - February Summary

Here's February's Summary:

• Over budget on:
• Auto/Gas -
• Tolls - had to add to the EZ pass. Over by $24 (budgeted $11.66/month)
• Auto Other - had to buy windshield wipers for the Jeep. Over by $20.
• Clothing - R - I bought a couple of things at Target & Kohls. Over by $40.
• Dining Out - Whoops! We ate out/ordered in a little too much! Over by almost $90!
• Entertainment - Time to pay for our Capitals tickets - $101.77 and we went out last weekend - $32
• Gifts -we had a birthday party to go - $43
• Household
• hobbies - I bought a couple of things at Michaels & Creative Memories - $15
• Shipping - I sent some books out for paperbackswap - $23
• other - storage supplies for cleaning out the closets - $12
• Personal Care -  really needed to get my brows done - $18.
• All other items were on or under budget!

So yeah - short month, but way off budget.  Still, 2nd month in and REALLY watching the expenses which I never did before.  Here's to a new month!

Savings Summary Saturday - March 2, 2013

Items sent for:

• n/a - nothing this week.

Grocery Shopping (and other savings) this week:

• All I can say is Dollar Tree!  Definitely a great way to save some money! 
• Visit to the dentist = free trial size toothpaste & floss along with a full size toothbrush.
• used my $10 gift card from CVS

Gas Savings:

• Hubby used the Exxon card which gives us money in the Upromise account.

Income (Starting to post again to Ebay & Yardsellr & Listia. My goal is to post at least one item a day.):

• Posted 6 auctions on Listia for Labels for Education & Boxtops for Education.

Items received in the mail:

• Received a $10 rebate from Dr. Scholls.

Rewards programs:
MyPoints -   15160 points (personal account) - 15095 points -last week)
MyPoints -  4902 points (coupon account) - 4857 points-last week)
Swagbucks -  631 points (3486 points-last week)*
Listia -  41601 credits (41551 credits last week) $0 paid out for shipping (when buying credits it is less than 1 cent/credit)
Postpoints -  3320  points (3,290 points last week)
mycokerewards - 6907 points (6819 points-last week)
Bondrewards - $27.46  ($27.36 - last week)
Upromise - $21.42 ($21.42 last week) available for transfer
Capital One Rewards - 9276  miles (9056 miles-last week)
Thanks Again - 1075 points (1075 points last week)
Viggle - 25000  points (40649 points - last week)
NCP - 46505 points (45965 points last week)
Daily Feats - 1695 points (1695 points last week)
ExpoTV - 120 points (120 points last week)

2012 New Year, New Goals - to continue in 2013!

• Use rewards programs to get gifts and daily stuff -
• Cashed in
• Swagbucks
• $25 gift card to Home Depot
• ordered Collective Soul CD
• Viggle
• $5 gift card to CVS
• $5 gift card to CVS
• Use Restaurant.com coupons -
• Set up an Estate -
• Monthly Review/Net Worth
• I created a new budget with only one income and used Quicken so that I am able to run reports to see how well we are staying on track.
• See From D.I.N.K to O.I.N.K.- February summary

"The Housewife Tour 2013" - The Week in Review

Projects:

• Started the yard work - what a project!  Ended up with 3 yard bags and still have a bunch to do!
• cut back all the rose bushes - I always forget how sore my hand is the next day from using the clippers!
• raked the daylilly bed
• raked the flower bed that I'm going to redo - The flowers back there really didn't do that great.  Not sure what I'm going to plant back there.
• Cleaned one kitchen cabinet - where the dog stuff is and all of my recipes
• getting rid of a bunch of dog bandanas, treat holders, water bowls & toothbrushes.
• I threw away a bunch of recipe magazines and recipes that I ripped out of magazines.  I haven't used them yet, so why keep them.  I still have a BUNCH of cookbooks and recipes that we have used in the past.
• Did some grocery shopping & ran some errands on Monday & Tuesday.  Had to go to the grocery store again on Tuesday because I forgot my coupons!!!  I hate when that happens!  Once again realized that Dollar Tree is AWESOME! After cleaning the bathroom cabinet, I had to throw away a bunch of expired meds.  Dollar Tree was an inexpensive way to replace these items.