Night on the Town Onesie

I made this today for a friend's baby shower gift.

It is really simple and inexpensive - you need :

Onesie

fabric

wonder-under

buttons

thread

sewing machine

iron

1. Find/make a pattern of the vest and tie and trace on to the smooth side of the wonder under.
2. Iron it onto the back side of the fabric.
3. Cut out your pattern.
4. Place it on the onesie the way you want it and then cover with a wet rag and iron until the fabric is fused together.
5. Remove rag and iron again for good measure.
6. Carefully stitch around the edges.
7. Sew on buttons. HINT- My home ec. teacher in high school - Mrs. Crump taught us this to keep a button from ever falling off making it safer to have on children's clothing- Sew the button on a few times the normal way and then from the under side push the needle up but NOT THROUGH THE hole you can wrap it around the button 4-5 times and feed it back through under the button and then finish it as you would normally. The button will not move.

Holy Crap a lot can happen in 10 days.

So I follow The Krazy Coupon Lady RELIGIOUSLY. In her blog there is an entire section on extreme couponing for beginners. She claims that if you follow her way of doing things you will be "converted to the KCL way in 10 days (or Less)." She also states that "you will have a year supply of toothpaste, soap, razors, and lysol wipes (among other things) before you can blink." Well let me tell you- I was just thinking about it and just 10 days ago I had my very first KCL couponing experience when I bought 27 bottle of V8. It is hard for me to believe that I have only been at this seriously for 10 days! Since my journey began I have had several "scores". I got all of this at Target for just pennies on the dollar. Before coupons my total was $13.36 --> after coupons $.34. I was so very excited that I just kept on. I am serious y'all - couponing is my crack. :) KCL was not lying when she said that I would have my own stockpile in no time- I have officially become one of those nut jobs on TLC's Extreme Coupon that like to just go stare at their stockpile like they are a giddy school girl waiting for an invitation to the dance. I did not understand why on earth they would want to go look at all that stuff 50 times a day... and now I get it. It brings me such a sense of accomplishment to know that I havesaved my family BOO-COO money! I recently went and bought a shelf so that I could start a second pantry because I was running out of room for all of my prizes. Here is my new pride and joy. The best part is when I remember that I have bought EVERYTHING- shelf included- for less than $50.

Seeing Double!

I have been trying to figure out how to know if a coupon will double or not. I found this and thought it might help others because it helped me.

Will coupons only double if they have a “5″ at the beginning of the bar code?

In short, this is a simple answer: yes. But I thought it might be helpful to explore it further, because there are often questions about which coupons do and do not double and why.

So, pull out a coupon and look at the barcode. Chances are it will start with a 0, 1, 5, or 9. It may or may not state “Do Not Double”, but in general, that doesn’t matter. The computer doesn’t look at the words on the coupon, only the barcode, so unless the barcode itself tells it not to double, it will still double.

Coupons that begin with 0 or 1 are usually store coupons, and these definitely won’t double.

Most insert and printable coupons begin with a 5. Most computers are programmed to automatically double coupons that begin with a 5 – assuming, of course, that it falls within their doubling rules (ie, a 50¢ coupon will double but a $1 won’t, at least not in our area).

Most catalinas and blinkies (the in-store coupons found in the little red boxes) begin with a 9, and computers are programmed so that those coupons will not double.

So, if you have an insert coupon for 50¢ off one product and, say, a blinkie for 50¢ off one product, chances are that the insert coupon starts with a 5 and will double and the blinkie starts with a 9 and will not.

There are exceptions to this rule. I have occasionally found blinkies that stated “Do Not Double”, but the barcode began with a 5 and so it did double. I’ve also seen an insert coupon that did not stated “Do Not Double”, but the barcode began with a 9 and so unless your cashier notices that it didn’t double and does it manually, it will not doubled. (This particular coupon was for Mountain High Yogurt, FYI.)

And of course, we are talking about how the computer reads the coupon – not the cashier. If for some reason the store is manually doubling coupons, the cashier may not double your coupons that state “Do Not Double” even if the barcode starts with a 5. Or, as has been the case with Albertsons sometimes, sometimes the computer will double your coupon and then the cashier will override it because it states “Do Not Double”.

So, clear as mud? Even with all the “usually”, “mostly”, “except for”, and “sometimes” circumstances mentioned, hopefully this gives you a clearer picture of what determines whether or not a coupon will double.

imPATIENTLY Waiting.

I ordered some coupons from a coupon clipping service and I CAN NOT WAIT to get them. Let me just tell you - it will be on like Donkey Kong as soon as I have them in my hand- I mean my new organizer (that I am ALSO waiting for). I ordered a ton of V8 Juice coupons. Sam no longer eats so he has to drink his veggies so we need juice always. By this weekend I will be the proud owner of 24 bottles of V8 Fusion. I do not yet know where I will be storing my stash but it excites me to know that I will not have to buy juice again for at least 10 years. :)

I am really excited about my organizer so I thought I would share. I am serious my organizer I have now is the basic accordion file organizer and it is stuffed with so many coupons that it is permanently open. The new organizer does not open like a book it opens like a slinky- so it will be perfect for all of my couponing goodness.

After my most recent trips to Kroger and Target I decided that my next investment needs to be a deep freeze, but if I am having the issue of where to store all 24 bottles of juice... you can bet I am probably going to have the same issue with the deep freeze. Last night I printed off a ton of coupons and headed to Kroger at 11:00 because I could not sleep. I bought 4 boxes of heat and serve sausage patties for $0.20 each, 4 boxes of Ritz Crackerfuls for $0.75 each, 4 boxes of Healthy Harvest Garden Blend pasta for FREE, 1 package of Johnsonville Italian Sausage for $2.30, and 2 Boxes of Bagelfulls for $1.50 each. Today at Target I got 2 bottles of Sally Hansen Nail polish for $0.04 each (CRAZY CRAZY I know :P), 6 Kid Cuisine TV dinners (- or Shrek Meals as Sam calls them) for $1.39 each, 1 more box of Ritz Crackerfuls for $0.75, and 4 2.5lb bag of chicken breasts for $5.00 each. So really we have to be really careful or our freezer pops open... oops.

Hi My Name is JoAnna, and I am addicted to Coupons.

Wow. That feels so good to get off of my chest. :) I have been dabbling in the art of couponing since January. In January Target sent out a mailer with a coupon for a free bag of chips - no additional purchase needed. Well, There was a big stack of these mailers in our mail room so I took them then I may or may not have gone to the other mail room to scope it out for more. Yes, I went back several times and that was the first sign that this might become a problem...

This picture is just a snapshot of SOME of our treasure.

When all was said and done we had 67 BAGS of chips with a value of $186.93 and we paid $0. Now a sane person would ask "what are you going to do with THAT MANY CHIPS?" The answer is - We went to a Super Bowl party and you guessed it - we brought the chips. We brought enough chips to eat while at the party AND send everyone home with a party favor. That barely put a dent in our stash that we had o

rganized in our pantry by exp date. We ate a lot of taco soup, nachos, and sandwiches with chips.

We had lots of chips for Stephen's Seinfield themed birthday party in February- they went nicely with the double-dip dip. Anytime a friend came over we would load them up with chips. We still had chips in March for Sam's birthday party. By April we were no longer eating chips at all - and FINALLY in June we finished off our stockpile of chips when we went to the lake with my family and we were asked to bring CHIPS!!!

While the CHIP EXTRAVAGANZA was going on I also scored DelMonte canned veggies for .25 a can. We bought $60.00 worth and are still eating on our stock pile of veggies 6 months later.

After all of this craziness I backed off the couponing, but I am BACK! I went and bought all of this using some creative couponing- for $3.47

So i am really going to stay on top of this blog and write about all of my adventures. I am really having so much fun with my shopping trips - it is like a game - beat the register. LOL.