linky lurve: the random edition

i'm hoping sharing some of what i've been reading lately will jumpstart that writing thing that seems to have eluded me of late. today's grouping, frugal links that have caught my eye over the last few days.

wendy at more than enough has a great list of 800 numbers for companies. call, let them know you'd like some coupons, and poof...they arrive. i've only just discovered wendy's blog, but i'm enjoying it; lots of interesting posts. unlike here, of late. ;)

something else from wendy: coupons.com has hit mypoints. i've been using mypoints for years, and i've been using coupons.com to print out coupons for what feels like forever. but i didn't know that they recently teamed up! very good news!

i'm very excited about the idea of making both cloth napkins and fabric bags...i've borrowed mom's sewing machine, now i've just got to figure out how to use it....got any great links towards that end? lemme know!

everybody's talking spring cleaning, which i don't think i've ever done....hmmmm....the lovely ladies over at home ec 101 have a post just for me! well, ok, my home isn't disastrously messy, but it would never pass a white glove test. the ideas are simple enough that i'm sure i can baby step my way to pristine. maybe. a detailed room by room plan is just what i needed! thanks, ivy! :)

i know if i could get myself into a better morning routine, my day would go much smoother. as it is, i've got the "getting up to get j's day going" routine pretty much in hand, i just need to get the rest of my morning into ship shape...

shopping but not spending

that's my goal lately....

i've been following money saving mom and her cvs tips for a couple of months now, and it really amazes me how many great deals can be had. i've impressed j a couple of times with some great deals (recently we got 4 2-liter bottles of coke, 1 2-liter bottle of dr. pepper and a 12 pack of coke for $.50...i loves me some coupons when they work like that!), but that is far from the norm for me. i do ok with coupons, but other than that one trip, i haven't really had anything where i've handed anybody $1 and walked away with half the store. baby steps.

today i ran two errands...i got some dog and cat food over at petsmart first. i had coupons, and i was gonna use 'em. i got a 5lb bag of nature's best dog food for clio, and a 3 1/2lb bag of iams digestive for the minouzer. i had $3 off coupons for both bags of pet food, which is why i bought those particular ones. i also had a buy one/get one free coupon for some cat food in a pouch. all told, $6.50 in coupons on what would have cost me $22.66. handed over my $16.16 gladly and skipped on over to cvs.

this month - or is it week? i never remember unless i'm looking at it :/ - if you buy $15 worth of certain dove products, you get $5 back in extra care bucks. i just got a *ton* of dove coupons in the mail, so i went to see what i could get into.

i bought 1 2pack of dove soap (2.50), 2 dove cream oil body washes (3.99 each), one dove cream oil lotion (6.99), and 2 lypsyl lip moisturizers (2.99 each)...i used one $5 off of $15 cvs coupon, one $3 off of $15 worth of beauty purchases coupon from cvs, 2 $2 off dove cream oil body wash coupons, 1 $1.50 off one dove cream oil lotion coupon, and 2 $1 off lypsyl tubes coupons. that took my total down from $23.45 to $8.88. *happy dance*

i also earned $10.98 in ECB's that i can use on a future purchase! (the lypsyl gave me $2.99 each in ECB's too) couple those with the $6 in ECB's that i already had and the $10 cvs gift card that i just got in the mail from redeeming some points on mypoints and i've got $26.98 to spend on toiletries and household stuffs...

i stumbled across this site today, and she has got the niftiest little cvs tracking spreadsheet that you can download to keep track of spending with your cvs card.

also, if you're new to couponing and want some tips on getting started with ecb's or with walgreen's and their rebate program, money saving mom is the place to go! her cvs beginner's tutorial and her walgreen's beginner's tutorial are both wonderful resources.

household tips

the first clue you're getting your blogging mojo back? tackling a meme you weren't even tagged with... :)

via psychicgeek:

Instructions:
Write your tip(s) with a link to who sent the meme to you, along with the instructions. They are better if they are your own discovery, or not widely known. Still, tips that make a difference to you are all good. After your tips, you will want to tag some friends who may even be hard up for blog fodder. (As I am today) Perhaps some of your newest bloggy friends. I have several new friends who I would like to know more about.

mkay...there's gotta be some household tips around here somewhere...the cornstarch thing doesn't really count, does it? yeah...thought not.

see, i'm still relatively new still to this domesticity thing, so i don't feel like i'm exactly swimming in knowledge for others, but i'll give it a whirl.

if you don't have a bottle of lavender essential oil in your home, get one. it's relatively inexpensive, and is incredibly useful to have around. put it in a bit of warmed olive oil and you have everything from a hair conditioner to a skin lotion to a skin cleanser and makeup remover...kid you not...a drop or so is also helpful for sinus infections in that neti pot psychicgeek mentioned in her list of tips. lavender oil is one of the few oils that you can use undiluted on your skin, and it has the added bonus of being what is called an adaptogen...meaning lavender does whatever you need it to do at any given time. it's *wonderful* for burns, straight out of the bottle, dripped onto wherever you've burned yourself...not that i burn myself...daily...on whatever hot thing i'm messing with...not at all...ahem...

that's probably the best tip i've got...won't be tagging anybody just yet, so if you feel like grabbing it, please do...i need all the tips i can get! on second thought, i tag RAY, cuz she needs to start a new blog.... :D