Deals, Deals, Deals

This weekend, we headed out to do some clothes shopping. I wanted to see if I could find some things for my son for kindergarten, he has to wear a uniform, but also knew it was a prime time to stock up on clothes for next summer.

Our journey started at Macy's, which was just a horrible experience. My father-in-law had purchased a couple of items for the kids after his last visit. For my daughter, he sent a dress and shorts outfit that were a size smaller than she currently wears. The dress was a more loosely fitting dress and it works fine - she looks so cute in it, but the shorts set was just too tight across the chest. So, we headed to Macy's planning to exchange the shorts set. A while ago, Macy's introduced a way of doing the "gift receipt" right on the tag with a bar code that when scanned provides purchase information. The cashier scans the tag and says I'm sorry, you can't return this item; it was purchased over 180 days ago. I ask, when does it say it was purchased? It doesn't. My husband called his dad, who confirmed that he bought it about a month ago and paid cash, so he didn't keep the receipt. At our request, the cashier calls over a manager. She looks at it and says, we can't return it since it was bought over 180 days ago. We tell her, no, it was bought about 30 days ago. She says, well I can give you half price back in a store credit or gift card. Okay, this makes no sense to me, if indeed he bought this outfit last November or December; chances are it was last season's dress. Summer clothes come out early, but not that early. If it was last season's outfit, there is no way that it wouldn't be valued at only a few bucks. The fact that they could do 1/2 tells me it was this season and there was just some sort of error with the scan. We say, but he bought it at 20% off and the barcode on the tag is supposed to house this information. After a bit of discussion, the manager eventually winds up just giving us cash back, which after the frustration of trying to perform a simple exchange, we gladly take to Children's Place to buy some new clothes.

I love the Children's Place. You can always get nice stuff there, and if you wait, you can get some great deals on end of season clearance. We got 15 pieces for our kids and for some relatives, all for under $30. We had used our additional 15% off coupon and got credit on our Place Perks card (you get $10 for every $75 you spend). What a deal!

At the shoe store, we found the all black tennis shoes my son needs for his uniform and they were on clearance. (Coincidentally, exactly what we got back from the short set we returned)

Then, we grabbed lunch at Steak and Shake. We had four coupons for free Double Steak burgers coupons from the Akron Aeros game, so we added cheese, ordered one regular fry for all of us to share and a fruit plate for the kids to share and paid $6.33 (plus tip) to feed the family. Another great deal.

Our next stop was JC Penney's, who has all of their summer stuff on clearance. I bought 17 clearance shorts/shirts/dresses for the kids for next summer for $41 plus tax. We also got a pair of shoes for my daughter, swim shorts for my husband and two pairs of pants for my daughter for the fall, all together, it was under $70.

I feel pretty good about all of our deals. We only got the shoes that my son needed for school, but there is a used uniform sale hosted by one of the parents next weekend and if I can't find deals there, Target has some decent prices.

Cookies! - a virtual cookie exchange

Jessica (aka "FishMama") over at Life As Mom is doing a virtual cookie exchange as part of her Christmas in July series.

For me Christmas Cookies are an annual ritual. For many years, I had a friend that would join me one of the first weekends in December and we would set up and bake. Now, I have my children help on a few of the cookies and I do the balance over a period of days, after bedtime/during naptime.

I love to bake a variety of cookies. Like everyone else, I have my favorite Frosted Sugar Cookie and Fudge recipe that I have been eating since I was a little girl. Over the years, I have picked up additional recipes from friends and family. One of my favorite and super easy, super good anytime recipe is for Mint Chocolate Cookies. They taste similar to Girl Scout Thin Mints and the best part is, since you make them, they are available year round. I use the bags of chocolate discs found at craft stores like Michael's. If they aren't on sale, they are usually what I use my weekly coupons on. For the sprinkles, colored sugar crystals do not work so well, they sort of melt into the chocolate and don't stand out well against the chocolate. The best ones to me are the little balls - generally multi-colored.


Mint Chocolate Cookies

2# Mint Flavored Chocolate
One box of Ritz Crackers
Jimmies/Sprinkles

Melt chocolate in a double boiler. Stir until smooth. Dip crackers in chocoate coating both sides. Place on wax paper to cool. Top with sprinkles before the chocolate sets. Once the chocolate is fully set, you can store them in a cool place.


Me, I can't ever wait for them to fully set at room temperature, so I use a cookie sheet which, once sprinkled, I can place in my freezer to finish setting. This lets me place them in my storage container sooner. Much like Thin Mints, these cookies are best eaten cold in my opinion. In the winter, I store the container (Tupperware) in the garage to keep them nice and cold.

If you would like to participate, head over to Life As Mom and add a link to your post.

the challenges of menu planning (or why I should think before I buy produce at Wal*Mart)

Over at Common Sense with Money, Mercedes was talking about the challenges of meal planning. I do try to do some menu planning, sometimes I have more success than others. I think it really has to do when our life is more quiet. Since I work all week, I prefer to do my shopping on the weekend. Unfortunately, many weekends we are out of town or we have out of town company and then I don't do my normal shopping.

The biggest disappointment is when you do plan your weekly menu and buy produce or other fresh ingredients and they go bad before you make the dish. This doesn't happen often, as I usually plan those things for earlier in the week. Fish on the day I buy it, etc.

Of course, the real problem is when they go bad before they ought to. I should have already learned my lesson about buying produce at the local Wal*Mart store. When they first opened, I bought a head of lettuce and when I cut into the next day, every other layer was brown - it was the grossest thing. Chalking this up to stocking the new store too early, I tried again with a cantaloupe a few weeks later. Low and behold, when I went to cut into it the next day, the whole bottom was soft and mushy. I vowed never to buy produce or fresh products at Wal*Mart (exception is bread from their bakery). Well, as things would have it this weekend, not being in the need for a full shopping trip, I stopped by Wal*Mart to pick up some of the deals featured at The "Cent"sible Sawyer, as well as a few other items that I needed. Since I was there and I knew I was planning to make #54 (a knock off of the local Mexican restuarant's menu item #54, which my husband orders everytime we go out - bacon, chicken, pablano peppers in a Chipotle pepper sauce, served with Pinto Beans, Rice and warm Tortillas), I figured I would save a trip to another store and just pick up a couple of Pablano peppers at Wal*Mart. I figured that with peppers, they are good for a long time. I have bought regular bell peppers and had them in the refrigerator for a week before I cut them, so I figured it was really low risk. This morning, I pulled them out to get at something and noticed all kinds of black spots and mold on them. Yuck! So, of course, now I have peppers that I bought 3 days ago that are rancid and I wind up having to make another store stop at the last minute to make dinner tonight. That is so frustrating!

The only positive in this is that as a pleasant change of pace, I had a very friendly cashier at Wal*Mart. She was pleasant, she didn't seem bothered with my coupons, in fact, she asked where I had found some of the on-line ones and wrote down the websites so that she could find some coupons for herself.