Valentine's Day Ideas

Hey everyone!

Well, it's my year to plan Valentine's day (we switch off), so let the planning begin (Im a little OCD so it started a few weeks ago). Of course I would never do a full price date night - so my search began for thrifty but fun ideas. After scouring the web for the best deals on a Valentine's date night, here are some really good ideas that I came across. I usually shy away from celebrating this occasion on the 14th because its crazy to try and get in anywhere. So we usually celebrate the weekend before or after - this year it is the Sunday before. Anyhow, hopefully some of these ideas will be helpful!

Massages:
Almost every 'groupon-ish' website is running a deal on couples massages right now. These are really good deals for the most part. I ended up purchasing a couples massage for us off of Windward Parkway that runs less than $45 per massage and includes reflexology and a scalp massage on top of the 1 hour deep tissue. Its an established place too...some of the others that may be less expensive are small businesses (which we have tried one of these before and liked it as well...just a long drive to get there).

Dinner:
There are TONS of restaurant deals out there now! My favorite places to look are Groupon, Living Social, and Half Off Depot. Between the three of these, there is bound to be a place that you could enjoy at half the price! Also check out opentable.com and look under their Valentine's deals. Thanks to Ashly T. I ran across this because she had mentioned that Cinco was having a really cool deal with Steak/Lobster enchiladas for two and dessert for $30. Cant beat that! So check it out.

Entertainment:
Movies, Gun firing range, pottery painting, hot air balloon rides...all of these ideas have had good deals popping up lately. I bought a deal for movie tickets a few weeks ago and we will cash those in for our date night.
Another entertainment idea that is way cheap is the Movies 400 Tuesday deal that they run. ALL tickets are $5 all day. Popcorn and a drink are $5 as well. Some say this place is sketchy...I say bring it on! We have never had any issues there...I think its mainly because the place is older than the Avenues.

Gifts:
Flowers, chocolate, jewelry...you name it...you can get it half off. Again, the websites I mentioned above have a plethora of ALL of these things 50-75% off. Watch out for shipping though...most of them charge major cash to ship near V day. Sending your boo a gift before or after is still just as nice as if they receive it the day of.

What about the kiddos?:
The absolute best way to save on babysitting is to ask family to help out. Not everyone though has that opportunity, so the other alternative is to baby swap. You know your neighbors dont want to pay loads of money on a sitter - so ask them when they would like to go out and do the baby swap. You keep mine, I'll keep yours :)

***Day Date note: this is an idea that Hunter and I have been using for quite some time now. We LOVE to do day dates on the weekend. It works best for many reasons, but mainly, we get the best break out of it. We have a sitter come early, say, 3pm so that we can make a 3:30 movie. (paying matinee prices here too). After the movie, we find a place to go and have dinner (no crowds this early AND you get early bird specials). After dinner, we either putz around, get coffee, ice cream, whatever. The beauty of the day date is this: the sitter has the kids during times of WAKLEFULNESS rather than when they are sleeping. Can you imagine getting paid $10 an hour to watch the Bachelor while some people's kids are sleeping? In this case, the sitter gets to hang with the kids, feed the kids, bathe the kids, and put them to bed...and then we are home by 7:30/8 to enjoy the rest of the quiet evening ourselves. Your paying her good money...may as well get the most out of it, right :)

That's all I have for now...have a great V Day friends, however you choose to use it!

Lunch near Browns Bridge

Hi all!
Today after church we felt adverturesome, so after the festivities at Kinsey Farms we decided to try out a local southwestern grill restraunt in the Browns Bridge Church area. As many of you probably already know, Groupon now has an app on the iphone, but more importantly, it has upgraded to have a 'Groupon Now' feature (this can be found on the website too). Groupon now uses your location and immediately offers up nearby places to eat, play, etc. We found Mestizo's to be the closest place so we decided to try it. Its almost identical to Moe's but with a few better perks. The food tasted much fresher (if thats a word). And, this is the part that will bring me back, they have the cute little Ikea table and chairs for kids in the back. Right next to the kids table area is a huge chalkboard for the kids to scribble on. This combination made for an uninterrupted lunch for the Thornton clan (other than the couple of times Ryder pushed a stool across the restraunt and I had to retrieve him). So...food was good, cool kids area, and close to Browns Bridge Church...AND...with the Groupon, we spend $10 total on lunch! Not bad ;) If you are a Browns Bridger, you must try it!

Cooking up Early Detection

Hi everyone!

I had a fun run to Publix today...so I want to tell you all about it! There is currently a rebate going on which states that if you spend $25 on P&G products at select stores, you get a free Pink Bakeware set to help support Breast Cancer Awareness! Now...once you include a trip with sales and coupons, you can get a lot for a little! Visit southernsavers.com for more info. There are a lot of scenarios you could work up, but here is mine...

I bought:
1 CG concealer
2 CG eyeshadow
1 Febreeze candle (the cinnamon scent...perfect for fall!)
1 Febreeze scent thing
1 Olay facial cleansing cloths
The subtotal before coupons was $25.48
What I paid out of pocket after coupons: $11

So, I got all of these products and will get a free bakeware set for only $11!

This is what is included in the bakeware set:
3 Piece Mixing Bowl Set w/ Lids
Spatula
Oven Glove
3 Piece Measuring Cup Set
Silicone Baking Sheet
Tin Cookie Sheet

I am a happy camper on this one. If I had more than 1 copy of my P&G coupon booklet, I could have spent even less! If you would like help setting up your own scenario or using mine, I am happy to help! Happy Shopping!

Cut your Cable Costs!!

Hey guys!

Hunter brought this article to my attention a week or so ago. I looked into it and did some reasearch and it looks like there are a few avenues to seriously cut your cable TV costs. I am going to look further into possibly streaming Hulu through our Wii for certain shows that we like, aka, Modern Family and Glee :) I can live without the rest.

We currently pay in the ballpark of $52 a month for our cable, which is only 72 channels. If we cut the cable and just streamed using Hulu, we would just pay the fee to use gameon (which you will read about) which shakes out to be about $3-$6 per month depending on which plan you choose.
With things like Hulu and Redbox out there, there really is no need to pay for cable any longer!

If we only paid $6 per month versus $52, we would save $552 a year!

As a side note: make sure that any setup you choose will actually work before cancelling anything :) Also...another sidenote...Im going to try using the antenna as well. It looks like in our area it will pick up about 8-10 channels for FREE!
And good channels at that...including CBS, FOX, CW, and ABC!

Ladies...check with your man about certain sports channels that he cant live without and make sure that which ever avenue you choose will pick it up. No amount of savings is worth a grumpy, football deprived husband :)

Check it out! Click on the link below.

How to Save on Cable!

.99 cent Moe's Burrito's Tomorrow!

Hey yall!
If you dont already know about this awesome deal, the Moe's on Hwy 9 (near Wal-Mart) will be selling their burritos for .99 cents the WHOLE day, Wednesday the 28th! This includes chips but I do not think it includes a drink.
Last year when they had this promotion, around 5:45 there was a line wrapped around the front of the building...so my recommendation would be to go for lunch (which may also be crowded) or go during an odd hour...like 2 or something. Just refrigerate and save for dinner!
Enjoy!

Date Night Idea!

Hey everyone!

Today my hubs informed me that there is an awesome deal on halfoffdepot.com for a great date night on the cheap! The deal is for 2 AMC movie tickets and a $50 giftcard from restaurant.com for only $24!! Make sure to check the restaurant website to make sure they include a place where you and your boo would like to try ;) I think we might use ours at Fire Water in Cumming near Old Navy.
Tonight is the last night the deal is available...so grab it up and book your sitter!
It is not the usual printable voucher...they will mail this one to you in a couple of weeks.

Here is the link: I need a date night!

More Baby Steals!

Hi folks! Thanks to my great friend Rach, I remembered I had this blog and that I should update it ;) Just kidding...I remembered it, but have been seriously slacking on updating it due to being busy and not experiencing any 'bloggable' deals lately!
BUT - today happened to be a great deal day on diapers and baby items! The baby deal this week is get $10 back in ECB's when you spend $25 in specified baby products. My trip to CVS was great and this is how it played out:

Bought:
2 packs Huggies Jumbo diapers 9.00 each (regular prices listed here)
3 bottles Johnson and Johnson lotion/wash/shampoo 3.00 each
1 bag candy corn .99

Here are the Q's (coupons)that I used:
1 3 off huggies
1 1.50 off huggies
1 CVS 2.50 off huggies
1 CVS 1.00 off huggies
1 2/2 JJ coupon
1 1 off JJ coupon
12 ECB (extra care bucks earned from previous trips)

Total before coupons: $27.99
Total out of my purse: $4.99
Total ECB's earned towards my next trip: 10.99

How it pans out:
Basically I paid $1 for each item!! WITH $11 to use towards my next trip!

I am happy to show anyone interested how to CVS, so please let me know! It seems to be expensive, and it can be, but if you use the right coupons on the right sale ads, you can get some unbelievable deals...like a pack of diapers for $1!

Have a great week!!