Day before yesterday's amazing shopping.

I've got a week left before Caly's party and I'm mostly caught up on housecleaning. I need to do a bunch of laundry and pick back up after a few lazy days, but I don't have any big overhaul to do like we did before Zaven's party. I'm planning on spending this weekend knee-deep in coupons because I haven't paid any attention to them in weeks. My nice neat binder is filled with expireds and my curren coupons are all in a ziploc. I've done some couponing... but for the most part I've been too busy. But the nice thing about taking a break from major couponing is that most of the sales and freebies that I missed were for items that I already have a nice stockpile of. I didn't get any free toothpaste for the last few weeks. But then I already had about two dozen tubes.

I DID get to do some awesome bargain hunting day before yesterday. I started by going to my favorite second hand store. I found Zaven a great Hawaiian shirt (his fave) for $2.50 and got Caly a T that says "I'm NOT with stupid. We broke up." (Sam, if you're reading this, sorry but you had that coming.)

Then I stopped by a factory outlet for American Greetings and picked up several spools of ribbon, a ton of colored tissue paper, some gift bags, and the cutest party favors for Zoe's party. They're little plastic picture frames shaped like flowers and they're magnetic and come in hot pink, purple, lime green, and orange. I spent $11 and got at least $75 worth of stuff.

Later that night Scott and I stopped by Goodwill JUST as someone was unloading some brand new insullated glass patio doors. These were name brand doors with the manufacturer stickers still on them. I made Scott go directly inside to pay for them before anyone could snatch them up. We spent $98 on six doors (each worth at least $250) and we're planning on using them to make solar panels. This is the joy of having a science teacher for a husband. He knows exactly how to do it and it will make a huge cut in our electric bill each month. Whoo-hoo! Plus I got a few more deals when I went inside to shop.

Finally, I stopped by Kroger's to pick up some of their whole boneless sirloin tips that are on sale for $1.99 a pound. Their butcher shop will cut them into steaks or roasts or even grind them into hamburger for you. I had one cut into inch-and-a-half steaks for grilling outside, and another cut into half-inch steaks for frying inside this winter. I was going to buy a third one and have it cut into an extra large roast for Christmas and some minute steaks, but they were out. I got a rain check, though. I'm planning on using my rain check to buy several since Scott will have two paychecks this month instead of one. It's a sweet deal because the sirloin is the same price that regular old ground beef has been. Steak for the price of a hamburger is my kind of deal. (*** We had one of the steaks last night and they are SO good. Sale's still on so stop by and see if you can pick some up.)

So even though I've fallen way behind on my coupon organizing, I'm still ahead of the game. And if Zaven will babysit for me over the weekend (and he kind of has to since I just threw him a party) I'll have my coupons sorted and put away in no time.