Is a Sam's Club Membership Worth It?

We don't have any warehouse stores in Minot.  Sam's Club is the nearest one, and it's located in Bismarck.  That's about 2.5 hours away, and a place we don't have reason to go very often.  Recently there was a Groupon available, though, with a Sam's club membership, $20 gift card, and some coupons for free food.  We actually did have a trip planned to Bismarck in the next 2 weeks anyway, because we had to have some title work done on one of our cars.  So we decided to go ahead and try Sam's Club.

We spent about 2 hours looking around at Sam's Club.  We found some great deals, some okay deals, and many things that we could get cheaper elsewhere.  One of Elliott's favorite finds was a 6 lb bag of gummy bears that were dye free.   I have a feeling we won't make it through the whole bag of them, but they were cheap enough that it won't be a big deal.  Dye free gummy bears are usually really expensive.  He was also excited to get a box of individual bags of Funyuns.  We don't eat a lot of chips at our house, so that added to the excitement.

We found a good deal on Schick razors for women. Elliott found some good prices on books.  And we got a good deal on a few supplements that we take.  Several of the supplements weren't a good price, but a few were.  We also bought a few giftcards that were discounted, so they were obviously a good deal.

The best deals were in the baking and fresh produce departments, though.  Because we weren't going straight home, we couldn't buy as many fresh things as we would have liked, though.  We had soccer that evening and we knew we wouldn't make it home in time to drop everything off and still make it back to base on time, so we had to stick with what would fit in our cooler.

We still ended up buying mushrooms ( a family favorite at our house, we consume pounds of mushrooms every week here), a veggie tray, and a few fruits.

In the baking department, we bought yeast, vanilla extract, and lemon extract, all significantly cheaper than what I've found elsewhere.  When it's not too hot outside, I do almost all of my baking from scratch, including breads, buns, muffins, cookies, etc.  So I use a lot of yeast and vanilla extract.

Over all, for our family, I would say our membership was worth it, just for the savings on the baking stuff.  I'm not positive we will renew right away when our membership expires, though, just because of the drive time.  We usually only go to Bismark 2-3 times a year, but will probably make it a point to go at least a little more often while we have the membership, especially if there is anything else we want to do in the area.

The Children's Place Sale

 The Children's Place is having a great sale right now.  They have a lot of clearance items marked down to $3.99-5.99.  There's a coupon code available for 40% off your entire order, too.  The sale said it was over yesterday, but then they extended it through today.

I ended up ordering Elliott 4 pairs of shorts, 3 shirts, and 2 sets of shorts pajamas for under $40 shipped.

This was one of Elliott's favorites, $3.99, or $2.39 after the coupon code.

These shorts weren't in the clearance department, but were on sale for $5.99, so $3.60 after the coupon.

These weren't on sale, so we ended up paying $7.77 after the coupon, but he really needed pajamas, so we bought them anyway.

Gymboree Sales Today Only

I read about a huge Gymboree sale today over on Frugalityisfree.com.  Normally I don't shop much at Gymboree because I think their stuff is too expensive, and the boy stuff isn't as cute as the girl stuff anyway.  Today I decided to check it out, though, because I realized Elliott needs more shorts last week when I was putting away laundry.


Today everything on the site is $12.99 and under, and there's free shipping with no minimum purchase.  JR posted some cute girl things in her post about it.  Since we just have a boy, that obviously wasn't what I was interested in, but I did find some cute things for big boys.

Elliott loves plaid button up shirts and has them in a variety of colors.  Gymboree has a few different ones, but this one was his favorite.

Christmas Time

My little family is celebrating Christmas this weekend.  We will be leaving for Missouri next weekend, and since my husband is still at work when Elliott goes to bed next week, this weekend was really the only logical time it would work.  We buy way too many gifts to make just celebrating in Missouri an option.  It would cost us a fortune to mail everything there and back, and it wouldn't all fit in the van with my husband, my sister, my son, me, our two dogs, two cats, and luggage.   So we have sent a few things to my mom's house already that I ordered online, and some of Elliott's books that he picked from Scholastic (one of my sisters that lives close to my mom is a teacher so we ordered them through her) are already there.  We'll also take a few gifts from here to open on Christmas, but most of them will be opened here.  We even made arrangements with Santa for a drop off Friday night at our house. :)

My sister will be coming over, of course, and in addition to opening presents and eating together, we'll play some games, and maybe even watch some movies.  My sister might not be able to be here for everything.  I don't know if she is going to have to work any or not.  She isn't on the schedule, but she said she might need to go in anyway, depending on how late she works on Friday night.  Either way, it will be lots of fun.  I'm really looking forward to a family day. :)

Buying Books

I've talked about how much my son likes to read on here pretty frequently.  I've even started listing some of the books that he likes, in hopes of helping other parents find books that their children might like.

It seems like we are constantly adding to our home library.  Elliott checks out 2 books at a time from his school library, 1-2 times each week.  Otherwise most of the books we read are books that we have at home.  We don't have a library in town, and we just don't make it onto base during library hours very often.  We live far enough away from base that driving there just for a trip to the library isn't worth the time or money ($6-7 in gas to get there and back).

So to add new books to our rotation, we order books from scholastic book orders from school or look for them used.  During the summer, we can usually find a few at yard sales.  We don't make it to enough yard sales to make that one of the places that we buy lots of books, though. 

We also like to look for used books when we are shopping at a thrift store.  Once again, though, we just don't make it there often enough.   There are some we like in Minot, but it's 45 minutes away, so definitely not worth a trip just to go to thrift stores.  We've been trying to go more lately when we are already in Minot, though.  For instance on Monday after my doctor's appointment we stopped in at our favorite one and Elliott found 8 books he wanted for $.50 each, and I even found 1 I wanted for only $1!

Elliott's finds at the thrift store this week.

We've also bought books online from a few different places, but have decided that it's hard to beat the prices on Ebay.  If we can find a lot of books that I know Elliott will like, I can often get them for under $1 each, including shipping!  While I was stuck in my recliner recovering from gallbaldder surgery, I ended up doing a lot (too much) of shopping on Ebay and stocked up on some great titles for Elliott for his summer reading plans.  The most I paid per book was $1.27 including shipping.  I even scored some chapter books for him in a big lot for under $.50 each with free shipping!

Our most expensive recent Ebay finds.  Several of these look like they've never even been opened and we paid less than $11.50 for all nine!

Kohl's Shopping

The Kohl's in Minot just opened this month.  I've shopped online at Kohls.com a few times a year for the last few years, but I've never done much in store shopping.  It's not usually one of the places on my "Must shop" list when I'm in Missouri, and we just don't really do much shopping for anything other than souvenirs when we are on vacation elsewhere.  There is a Kohl's in Bismarck, but we only go there 1-2 times a year usually, and we only go to Kohl's when we have gone to Bismarck specifically to shop, or when Elliott and I are just along for the ride while Carl has some EMT conference or something.

Anyway, we've been to Kohl's twice now since it opened.  Obviously there's not much of any clearance yet, but we did find some decent deals on stuff that was on sale.  I take the "You saved...." part of the receipt with a grain of salt, because I would never pay full price for stuff at a place like Kohl's.

We had a 20% off total purchase coupon that was only good this past weekend, so we decided to go look at some summer clothing after church Sunday.  We spent a while looking at boys' clothing, but decided we didn't even want to pay the sale price minus 20% on much, since we actually still have a while before we'll need to use summer clothing anyway (it's 9 degrees right now). 

We did find some pajamas that he liked and that were within our price range.  I noticed when I was going through his clothes recently that he didn't have any lightweight pajamas at all in the size I want him in (he can still wear a size smaller, they are just too short).  We found a 2 pack of pajamas with a short sleeve shirt and lightweight pants on sale for $22 (normally $44) and another set that had a short sleeve top, shorts, and lightweight pants for $18 (normally $36). 

We also decided to look for workout clothes for me and found a pair of capris for $18 (normally $30).

 After the 20% coupon and tax, we ended up spending $49.65.  The receipt says we saved $63.60.

Our Valentine's Day

I hope everyone that celebrates had a great Valentine's Day this year!  My husband was off Thursday and Friday last week, so we actually got to go out on Valentine's Day.  We thought about seeing a movie, but decided to go out to eat and do a little shopping instead.  We don't usually spend all that much on Valentine's Day presents for each other, and this year we didn't even buy any until we were out that day.  I ended up buying my husband the movie "Here Comes the Boom" and he bought me the miniseries from History Channel "The Men Who Built America."  We've already seen all of the Men Who Built America episodes, but we are both history nerds and will probably watch it several more times.  We watched "Here Comes the Boom" on Valentine's Day with Elliott and Darla when we got home.  It was one of those movies that Elliott and Carl both really wanted to see when we saw the previews, but it never came to our theater (we only have one movie theater within 30 miles of our house).

We bought Elliott a new TV for his Valentine's Day present.  I know that probably sounds extravagant, but we were actually planning on buying him one anyway.  We just decided to go ahead and do it on Thursday while we were in the electronics department at Walmart anyway.  He's had a TV in his room since he was little, although he only uses it during breaks from school, and occasionally on the weekend.  However, after remodeling his room recently, we didn't really have anywhere to put his old TV.  So we decided we would get him a flat panel that could be hung on his wall.  We bought him a 22 inch, and it looks perfect in his little room.  Now my husband is itching to go ahead and buy a 3D TV for the living room, though, so we can have the one from the living room in our bedroom.  Even though it was his idea to buy Elliott the flat panel he's now jealous that Elliott has a nicer TV than we do. Haha.

After we did our shopping, we grabbed pizza from Papa John's (we had a code for a free large pizza from the coin toss at the Super Bowl), and headed home to watch a movie.  We got to snuggle with Elliott and listen to extra stories after the movie was over, and Elliott told us all about his party at school.  It was a great day for all of us!

How was your Valentine's Day?

Commissary Shopping

Friday I finally made it to the commissary.  The last time I had been to the grocery store for a big stock up was before Christmas, so it was definitely time.

I ended up spending $180.38.  I know better than to go shopping without eating, but I honestly didn't even realize I was hungry until I was shopping. lol  It was a nonstop day anyway, so that probably played into it, too.

I only ended up using $6 in coupons.  I thought I had my coupons with me, but then when I was looking for them later, discovered that I had left them at home.  So there were a few things I had planned on buying but didn't, but it didn't change my shopping list much.  I haven't had much luck finding coupons for things we use and need lately.

Clearance School Supplies

School has been back in session here for about 2.5 weeks.  That means that a lot of back to school stuff is on clearance.  We bought most of Elliott's supplies before school started, but waited until the clearance sales to buy the stuff we just wanted, but didn't have to have.

Some of the best deals we've found were lunchboxes at 50% off (he takes his lunch everyday, so we got 2 new ones to add to the rotation of the ones he used in kindergarten, since he leaves them at school sometimes), and crayons at $.25 each.  The cheapest we found Crayola crayons before school started was $.40, so when we were able to get them for $.25 each, we grabbed a few boxes.  We choose names from the Christmas tree at Walmart or KMart every year, and always include a box of crayons and a coloring book or two if we choose children the right age. :)  Elliott often gets crayons for Christmas, too.

We also picked up a few more notebooks for $.16-25 each to use at home.  Elliott needed 2 for school this year, and that will probably last all year, or at least most of it, since he's only in first grade.

We also found some Lego school supplies on clearance.  Elliott is REALLY into Legos right now, so he actually used his own money to buy the pencil sharpener and pencils.  They were on clearance for a decent price, so I feel like he used his money wisely.

One Busy Summer!

I'm not sure how so many bloggers manage to post everyday.  I know part of it is because I don't treat blogging like a real job, but I seem to have a terrible time finding the time necessary to blog.

We just got home from our first summer vacation over the weekend.  We went "home" to Missouri to celebrate my dad's 65th birthday.  Darla was able to get the time off to go with us, and we were there for about 2 weeks.  Since we stay with my parents, it was a pretty frugal vacation.  We did end up doing some shopping (although the fact that there were 3 adults, a child, and 2 dogs traveling together in a minivan meant we had to really watch what we bought so we would have room).  But overall we stuck to our budget pretty well.

It's always amazing going home and seeing how much things have changed in the area.  The growth in SW MO isn't nearly as fast as it is here, but since it had been almost a year since we had been there, there was still plenty of new stuff.  We didn't get to check out nearly as much of it as we had hoped, but that seems to always be the case.  We had planned on going to Kansas City, or at least Branson, but didn't have a chance.  The only touristy thing we really did was a trip to the Bass Pro Shop in Springfield. Haha.  It was actually the first time we had ever even taken Elliott there even though we had been meaning to for years.  He loved it there, and wants to go back every summer now. :)

Assuming my husband gets the leave he requested, we are only going to be home for about 2 more weeks before taking another vacation.  My husband just switched work centers, though, so we still aren't sure on his leave.  If it goes through, we leave for Washington in just over 2 weeks. We will be spending some time in Spokane, Seattle, and right on the beach.

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.