Hobby Lobby Finds

As I said in my last post, Saturday we were in Minot with a few hours to kill.  We went to some thrift stores, out to lunch, and to Hobby Lobby.  My sister was in the market for wall decor, now that our remodel is FINALLY almost completely done, and everyone should have their own space back within the next few weeks.  She didn't end up buying any wall art, but that didn't stop Elliott and I from finding stuff we wanted. lol

Another Vacation?

We go on vacation every year, and have for a while now.  In my opinion it's important for our family.  I know not everyone agrees with me, but I think I personally need the time away from home to recharge, and spend more time enjoying my family.  Even when our vacations are just to my parents' house in Missouri, it helps us recharge and relax.   Plus of course, it's awesome to see family.  We live 1100 miles from "home" for both my husband and me, so we don't get to see our families nearly as often as we would like.  Elliott and I do manage to go home every year, and Carl is with us most of the time, but sometimes he's just not able to take the necessary time off from work.

This year, we were planning on just going home again.  We were  planning a trip to Kansas City for a few days.  Our parents live in the Springfield area, so Kansas City isn't that far away, but we had planned on spending 2 or 3 nights there anyway, so we could do more stuff.

However, my husband recently found out that he will almost certainly not be allowed to take any leave next summer (2014) if we are still here.  He will most likely either be sent to another base for a while, or will be left here, where they will be obviously short manned because so many will be elsewhere.  We were planning another Florida trip for next summer.  My son is really into Super Heroes and Lego blocks, so we were planning on doing Universal Orlando and LegoLand, while he still loves those things.  However, we have been talking over the idea of doing the Florida trip this year instead.  We normally have a pretty extravagant Christmas, and my whole family is on board with the idea of clearing out our Christmas savings account in late June for a July vacation to Florida.  We were also planning on buying a 3D TV within the next few weeks, and have decided instead, to put that money toward a Florida trip as well.  So if we can come up with another $500 by the end of March (about halfway between now and the trip), without cutting into debt repayment, or any of our other savings goals, it looks like the Florida trip might happen this summer!

My First FREE Trip!

On Wednesday morning I got a call that the special order my husband had placed was ready to be picked up at the commissary. I had already spent a bunch of time the week before planning my trip and sorting coupons, so I was ready to shop! I asked on the phone if it would be a problem to break up my special order into two different shops, and they assured me it would be very easy. I LOVE my commissary!

My husband had taken the van to work on Wednesday since he's having trouble with the windshield wipers on his truck, so I spent even more time checking prices and printing coupons. By the time he got home from work, my son and I were ready to shop! I have a coupon binder, but haven't bought the inserts yet to put it together, so I'm still working with an expandable file folder. So I sorted out coupons I knew we would use for sure in one envelope, sorted another of ones I wasn't sure about, and left the others right where they belonged, so I could use them on an unadvertised deal if I found one.

Big Coupon Savings

Friday I had to meet my husband after he got off work so we could run a few errands. We wanted to hit the 75% off clearance toy sale at Target, and since I already had to go on base, I decided I should run to the commissary for a few things we needed. My four year old son was hungry anyway, so off we went. When I got there I was surprised (and happy!) to find that one of the things that was on my list for Target was actually on sale much cheaper at the commissary. I had 14 $.75 off Snuggle coupons that I was planning on splitting up between the commissary, Target and Walmart, since the commissary had the best price on the dryer sheets, Walmart had the best price on the big bottles, and Target carried my favorite scent. Well, this weekend the commissary had a huge display of the 32 load Creme Jojoba scent bottles marked down to $.99 each and a bunch of the peach blossom and sunshine dryer sheets marked down to $.89 each! I couldn't pass that deal up, so I ended up using ten coupons on the liquid and the other 4 for the dryer sheets.