I'm so proud of my husband, last night he was repricing his ski trip. He does this A LOT! I think it helps with his overwhelming desire to go skiing, even when logistics make it difficult. Anyway, he noticed that his trip had dramatically dropped in price. He said "I think I'm gonna call Expedia to see if they can adjust my price". After spending about 45 minutes on the phone he was able to cut the price of his trip by over $350! A few years ago, he wouldn't have bothered to try and get the better deal. He's finally caught on!

Today's activities centered on refinancing our home to get a better rate. We sent the application in but our lender told me that rates went up .25 since last night so now we are in a holding pattern until they drop back down. I'm looking for 5% or better. My current note is at 5.75% and going to 5% would lower my interest expense by $280/month! I'm keepng my fingers crossed...

Someone asked the other day if I am the same Minnie that posts in the forums...yes, I am Minnie1928 in the forums.

Another person asked how I get things for free from CVS. Long story short, CVS has a program where they will issue you store credit called Extra Care Bucks. Usually several items during the month are free when factor in the Extra Care Bucks earned. For example, yesterday I bought Excedrin for $3.99. When I paid for them a store credit (Extra Care Buck) printed with my receipt for $3.99. I'll use that credit to purchase the next free (or nearly free) thing at CVS in the coming weeks. I go to www.hotcouponworld.com to see the advertisements in advance so that I can plan my trip a little better. The nice thing about this programs is that you can use manufacturer and CVS coupons to make the deal even better. In the example above I had a $2 manufacturer coupon, so in effect I was paid $2 to take the Excedrin off their shelves!

My money saving idea for the day: I needed to take cookies to an afternoon playdate with one of my daughter's friends. I was going to get some cookies at the bakers...until I saw the price. Being short on time (and cooking skills, but that's a whole other story!!!) I bought some break-n-bake cookies for $2.50 while at the grocery store and baked them before the playdate. Much cheaper and probably just as fattening!

Have a good day everyone!
Minnie

Thank you to everyone who welcomed me to the blog!! I was totally surprised to see so many people took the time to say hi and welcome!

So, here's today's contribution:

Since we are a single income family now, I'm really trying to watch what we spend our money on. Don't get me wrong, I'm not so tight that we have absolutely no fun around here. However, I am trying to spend less money on the "necessities" so that there's more money left for fun stuff.

This weekend I sent out holiday photo cards to many of our family and friends. But instead of buying them I went to Hallmark.com and used their "smilebox" application. If you haven't done this, I highly recommend it. You can do more than just cards, you can also do recipes, newsletters, etc.. Anyway, I was able to send 20+ photo cards (each containing 4 pictures of the kids) for a total cost of $0! The other plus to using hallmark.com is that ecards are very eco-friendly (no paper, no gas to transport them)!

Most Mondays my daughter has a class at the local Y, which is conveniently located near a CVS. So, every week we stop in and pick up the weekly freebies. Today we got 5 bottles of Listerine, 2 boxes of Excedrin and 2 bags of Hall's cough drops. I had a $2 coupon for the Excedrin so CVS actually paid me $2 to take all this stuff off their hands! So far this month I've gotten over $75 worth of stuff for free!

Well, that's it for today. We'll see what money saving ideas I can come up with tomorrow...

Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

After years of surfing I've decided to actually put some of my thoughts/ideas out there for others to see. This is totally new for me, so bear with me while I learn!

I'm a recently "retired" thirty something mom. Up until a few months ago I had been a life-long banker and now I spend my days at home. Wow! What a difference!

When I was working one of my jobs was to help save my employer money by coming up with new ways to use our existing resources (staff, equipment, money) in more efficient ways. If I do say so myself...I think I was pretty good at it. Now I'm thinking that I would like to share some of this with the outside world.

So, over the next few weeks I will try and start blogging about my new adventures. Hopefully someone will find something useful and maybe I'll find a new career! Stay tuned...