HOT Deals at Toys R Us on Games!

It looks like Toys R Us is running a promotion on board games that's too good to pass up!! 



They've got Candy Land, Memory, Chutes & Laddres, Ants in the Pants, Don't Break the Ice, and Rubik 360 on sale for $5 each!  With this printable coupon ($2.00 off 1 CANDY LAND Game AND 1 MEMORY Game ), you can save an additional $2 if you buy Candy Land and Memory!  That makes them $4 each!  Talk about a cheap gift idea!



They're also running a great deal on Trouble, Monopoly, Twister, Operation, and Connect 4 at $10 each.  As you can see below, there are several coupons that will allow you to save some more money off the $10 price (which is already good!).

$3.00 off two Hasbro games: Operation and Elefun

$4.00 off 2 Games Life, Monopoly, Sorry!, or Jenga

$4.00 off one CLUE AND one MONOPOLY Game

$3.00 off 1 TWISTER AND 1 GUESS WHO? Game

$4.00 off two: CONNECT 4, TROUBLE, & TWISTER games

$3.00 off two (2) Card Games from Hasbro

Grab some of these coupons and get on over to Toys R Us to make sure you can grab up a game or two!

Happy couponing!

Fantastic Book - "The Help" On Sale at Amazon

If you haven't read "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett, go now and buy it!  A few years back, I saw that it was number 2 on the Bestsellers list and asked for it for Christmas.  When I got it, I devoured it!  The author has a way of writing just like you think, and the book is truly a delight.  You can get it for $9.99 right now!  Go get it!

Children's Place Sale This Weekend

The Children's Place is having a sale in honor of Mother's Day this weekend and you can get 20% off of a $50 purchase!  I can't find any free shipping codes, but the 20% off a $50 order equals $10.00 off!

They've got some spring items on sale, too, so you can get even more for your money.  The code for 20% off is MOMS2010 and is good until Sunday, May 9th.

Swagbucks turns 2 tomorrow!!

 

Tomorrow, February 25, 2010 marks Swagbucks' second birthday!!  They're pulling out all the stops to celebrate.  They'll be offering triple mega Swag Bucks all day long and running 7 Swag Codes!!  You'll want to make sure you stop by and grab some Swag!!  

Kroger Catalina Deal on JELL-O Snacks

 

Kroger is running a catalina deal (coupon for money off your next shopping order) from 2/12 to 3/7 on Jell-O Refrigerated Snack Products (Mousse, Pudding, or Gelatin Snacks).  

• If you buy 2, you'll get a $1.00 catalina
• Buy 3, and get a $2.00 catalina
• Buy 4 or more, and get a $3.00 catalina

If you happen to find a tearpad or peelie coupon, you'll save even more money!

I love having these little snacks around to pack in lunches or grab on the go!

Toaster Oven Crisis Has Been Averted

As I was pondering what I was going to do about my toaster oven crisis (I know that's kind of a strong word for what the situation actually was, but I'm trying to grab my reader's attention right off the bat and weak words just don't do that!), I found an email in my inbox from Kohl's.  They are having a sale this weekend and sent out emails to all people on their mailing list letting us know about the sale and giving us an additional 15% off!  I went to the website to see if it was even worth my time going out to the store to see what they had in the way of toaster ovens.  I found several models that looked promising at a not-to-ridiculous price tag.  So I printed my coupon and the kiddo and I headed out.

We stopped by Big Lots first, because I wanted to see if I could get something acceptable for a reasonable price there.  They had two Black & Decker toaster ovens, but both of the boxes were opened and the models were basically the bottom of the line and still priced at $32 - a little high for bottom of the line at Big Lots, I thought!  I would have saved 20% by being a member of the BuzzClub, but that would have still been about a $28 purchase for a sub-par TO.  Suffice it to say, I decided that coming back to Big Lots would be my last resort if I decided I couldn't wait two weeks to have the TO from amazon.com shipped to me.

When we got to Kohl's, we found the TO's but the prices were really hard to find!  I have to say, it wasn't the easiest shopping experience I've ever had there.  But I did find a nice TO (it's actually the exact some model I was looking at on amazon.com) and it was on sale for $39.99.  I know that's $10 more than I would have paid online, but don't forget that I was armed with my 15% off coupon!  That made the oven more like $34, which is definitely reasonable.  I hemmed and hawed and finally decided that it was worth $4 to me to have the toaster oven now instead of waiting 2 weeks for it.  As I was walking out, I remembered that I had seen a deep fryer in the online Kohl's ad that I wanted to take a look at in the store.  The hubs has been asking me to make sure we have one before we make our yearly trek down to the beach this summer so we can deep fry our own shrimp (we make sure we can take a vacation every year, but it takes some money-saving shortcuts like cooking all of our own meals to make it happen).  Well, I found one that was originally $39.99 on sale for $19.99 AND I had my 15% off coupon!  That made it $17!!!!  I was SUPER stoked about that find!

When I checked out, I had spent $55 - not too bad on a fairly nice TO and a deep fryer!  And since I spent over $50, I got $10 in Kohl's cash!!!  I have to admit, though, that I was a little bit skeptical about whether or not I was going to use that Kohl's cash.  I know it's basically the same concept as Register Rewards at Walgreens, which I get really excited about.  But there are lots of things that I need at Walgreens that I can use my RR on, whereas the things that are at Kohl's are not really things I need.  Or are they?

A few weeks back, we scored a free coffee-maker from Gevalia (you've seen all of those great deals, right?).  The only downfall to it was that it requires you to purchase the cone-shaped Melitta filters.  Well, guess what!  I saw those at Kohl's!!!!  I can go back and use my $10 to buy as many cone-shaped Melitta filters as I can with that money!  I might end up spending a couple of bucks, but I'll most likely get 200 or 300 filters for that!  Score!!  All in all, I think I got one heckuva deal at Kohl's when all's said and done!

Teeth and Toaster Ovens

My financial planning for 2010 is going alright, but I keep getting wrenches thrown in my plan!  I went to the dentist about 2 weeks ago for a checkup and was told that I had 3 cracked teeth!!  Luckily, one isn't bad enough to do anything about right now, but that meant that I needed to have two uncomfortable procedures done and then pay for half of two crowns!!  Ouch!  Luckily, I went to a dentist that is covered by my dental insurance, or I'd be paying a whole lot more than that.  But the $800 to $900 I'll be paying for my portion of the crowns is bad enough!!  What do they make those things out of?  I thought they were porcelain, but I don't remember my huge toilet costing that much!!  Think about how many crowns it would take to make a toilet!  Hmm...it's funny that crowns are made of porcelain, just like toilets, and sometimes toilets are called "The Throne."  What is it with porcelain and royalty?  Anyway, I digress.

The reason I'm bringing the whole tooth situation up even though it happened 2 weeks ago is that last night, one of my temporary crowns fell out!  And I chomped on it!  Not good!  My coffee this morning wasn't as enjoyable, as I had to try to figure out a way to keep liquid only on the right side of my mouth.  (Just in case you're wondering how it works, the short answer is that it doesn't.)  And I brought tomato soup with me for lunch today.  I know - sometimes I'm not that bright.  I have an appointment to get another temporary crown on that tooth early this afternoon.  I hope they don't charge me even more - grrrrr.  I guess I'm also lucky that the crown that came out wasn't the one that's right at the front of my mouth!  That would have been embarrassing!  I really should count my blessings more often.

So I was bummed about having to spend money that we were hoping was going to go toward the Mommy-Mobile on my teeth.  Then, 2 days ago, our toaster oven went on the fritz.  What is it with bad things happening in groups???  Do they happen in 3's?  I don't even want to think about what's going to happen next!

Now I'm stuck trying to figure out what I'm going to do about our toaster oven.  I stopped by Goodwill last night to see if they had one, and they did (they actually had 2).  But they looked beat up and unacceptable.  Even at only $8, the savings there wasn't worth what my kitchen would look like with a piece of junk on the counter!  I'm really in a dilemma!  I want to get something that will last for a while without costing a fortune.  But what's a fortune when it comes to toaster ovens?  I've found a pretty good-looking Black & Decker model on Amazon.com (I'm SO glad they sell more than just books!) and it's less than $30 shipped.  I guess that's a pretty good deal.  But it won't ship until Feb. 9th, and then it will take 5 to 9 days to get here.  And I know that a toaster oven isn't an actual necessity, but it sure is convenient!  I'm just not too keen on waiting that long just to get free shipping on the thing.  And to add to my confusion and frustration, they make toaster ovens with lots of nice conveniences nowadays (like convection heating, rotisserie capabilities, etc.) and then I start thinking, "Maybe I should put a little bit more money into it and get something really nice."  And then I come back to the realization that we've created a pretty tight budget for ourselves.  Oh, the agony!

Do you have any suggestions for me?  Where you think I might find one that's good but cheap?  Recommendations on a good toaster oven that doesn't cost a fortune?  I know that the longer I wait, the longer I don't have a toaster oven, but I want to make a wise purchasing decision.  Blogosphere, help me!!