Ode to Bargain Mart April 22, 2009

I have a new love!  There is a mom at preschool who has been telling me about this little gem of a hole in the wall that sells groceries and goods that have been “damaged” in transit.  I have had to alter my own diet since my last post, going lactose and gluten free (when I can, at least).  We found a jackpot of organic ricemilk for my daugther priced at $1.50 per carton (usually around $3), a huge bunch of bananas for .99, and an 8-pack of Dr. Pepper for hubby for $2.50 (no idea the actual retail since we don’t bother with it much).  I also grabbed a few cartons of organic chicken broth for the same price and savings as the rice milk.

I used to frequent a place like Bargain Mart when we lived in Anchorage, Liquidation World.  Unfortunately it had to liquidate it’s own store and close about a year and a half ago.  These little stores are all over, and it seems you need to know someone  who knows about it because I certainly do not see advertisement for it.  I will shop this store before anything from now on, it is said that they get tons of new stuff weekly and I’m going to get the skinny on WHEN it’s restocked from my inside mom!

Gardening isn’t cheap, considering the hobby is centered around stuff that is somewhere out in nature to begin with.  I thought I was going to do mosaic flower pots.  When I got to the craft store and saw how expensive pre-cut mosaic tiles and the accompanying tools would be all together, I opted for some cheap pain and very pretty stencils that were on clearance.  I had plenty of fun painting the terra cotta pots (around $4 for a largish and $2 for a medium).  I happened to still have bulbs in the garage from our preschool bulb sale that happened around September.  I just hope that they had enough of the appropriate climate to grow so late!  Some actually started puttin up shoots so I’ll at least have two pastel tulips and a bunch of bluebells!  I think I’ll begin trolling yardsales for flower pots since the weather is trying to do nice things.

Professional photographs are not found in my house!  We had our wedding pictures done by a lady in Germany and that was the last time we bothered.  I did get a few great pro shots done of my daughter when she was a baby when my boss’ husband wanted to practice with babies.  We wanted some family photos done before my husband goes overseas and while shopping craigslist in the barter section stumbled across a photographer who is part of an organization called “Operation: Love Reunited”.  Photographers volunteer their time and services to military families who are either about to deploy, mid deployment (pics of the family to send to the soldiers) and/or returning from deployment.  Weather permitting, we are having ours made in Garden of the Gods.  If you have never seen or heard of the place, google  it.  Stunning! The site has examples and explanations.  http://www.oplove.org/

We recently took a vacation to visit our family on the east coast, and we drove since flying with our health concerns is akin to holding a grenade and waiting for it to spontaneously explode.  We spent a lot of money on the trip but it was all in supplies- gas, U-Haul and motel rooms.  We pulled our little atv trailer with a china hutch set (I couldn’t stand it, sister in law loved it) to my husband’s sister and left the trailer at his parents house where they had the space to store it since we can’t store it at our house and paying to let it sit somewhere is silly.  We then drove 8 hours to my parents where we rented a pull behind U-haul and were given the piano that mom had promised to me.  When we went back up to the in-laws, we proceeded to cull part of the overstuffed basement and came back with some beautiful pieces of furniture from the family’s world travels.  There is a beautiful and ornately carved secretary desk and chair with beautiful embroidery that came from India, a set of hand carved lions from Nigeria and a set of ceramic elephant plant stands that were among the last shipment out of Vietnam.  In between the neat finds were about 10 boxes of  Christmas ornaments from Hallmark, many that are old.  His mother wanted us to take them and hoped we could make some money off of them.  We’ll educate ourselves before jumping into the sales arena of course!  I do know that certain series are coveted and we have a few that look promising.  Right now the task is overwhelming since the two stacks of boxes tower over my head!

My husband purchased one of the Neat Receipt systems that scans reciepts and business cards and files them according to what it reads off of the actual paper.  It sorts by date and genre (such as retail, grocery, etc).  It’s a real smack from reality since you can see where the money is going.  A lot of it was going to things that we didn’t need, and that’s kind of hypocritical considering I’m blabbing about saving money and energy…  We’re working on a budget that involves a nice physical piece of paper with a spread of where the money goes.  If I can’t see it, I have no idea how to adhere to it.  We’re making the credit card an emergency piece of plastic, not a purchase inducer.  I am getting a set amount of money transfered from our pay into my own account and from there I do groceries, gas, medications and the rest is for things that come up or entertainment.

Life in Colorado October 6, 2008

I haven’t written since we were busy preparing for our drive from Alaska to Colorado and what a drive it was!  It will test your marriage and your sanity.  The toy treasure chest worked out beautifully, we didn’t even get to everything I stuffed inside.  We did use the DVD player a lot towards the last half of the trip.  Mia was done by day three.  We drove for six days, so three days of DVD’s really isn’t so bad!

We have a decent Freecycle network here, but there are a lot of “wanted” ads that far outnumber the offered/recieved.  I don’t know if there are just more people, or if there are just more greedy people.  We did manage several pairs of shoes in Mia’s new size that are in stellar shape. I don’t have to buy a pair of sneaker that will be destroyed at preschool!

There is so much to do here and so much of it is either cheap or free.  We had a blast at the Colorado Balloon Classic last month.  Hundreds of hot air balloons lift off en masse at a local park at a festival.  It was unique and free and offered an opportunity to get some amazing photos.

My neighbors and I went to a charity event at the Castle Rock outlets that required you to purchase a $20 ticket that donated to a charity of your choice.  With the ticket you received special discounts at stores as well as the opportunity to buy raffle tickets.  For twenty bucks I came out ahead!  With my own tickets I only won a $25 gift certificate to Fossil (I did badly need a watch!) and my neighbor who has two older boys gave me her $50 for Stride Rite and $25 for Hartstrings.  However I think I cancelled out the savings when I bought a Coach handbag.  Let me explain!  First, I never splurge on myself like that.  The deal was that it was an outlet store doing a 40% sale on a newer selection.  You can’t even get a good deal like that at the base PX!  The PX has things around 20% off which puts it around the normal outlet price.  So I got a $300 dollar handbag that I had been coveting for a third of that. Plus tax,but you know how that is.  Know what something is worth and know when to bite!

We decided to live on post since we still have the house up in AK.  We only just got renters in which means we were paying a mortgage on an empty house for the entire summer.  Yes, that punched the finances and jacked our credit card back up.  However, that lovely hush-money…er…PFD from being an AK resident helped tremendously.  Instead of going after a new TV or something that we really don’t need, we paid off the Subaru!  No more car payments!  We turned around and replaced it with a preschool payment, so really it’s all the same financial feeling right now, but it’s a good feeling to get out from under a debt that has interest to it.

Another perk of living on post is the bills.  I’m not saying I love bills, quite the opposite.  The housing company has a neat way of doing things.  Most utilities are covered as long as you stay within an average.  For each season they have calculated the average cost of a specific bill and as long as you stay within their calculations, you do not owe money.  If you go over, you owe the difference but if you come in under the average, they pay you  the difference.  It’s pretty neat, we get about $20 a month during the summer.  I think the biggest help is not using a clothes dryer.  We had to buy a new washer when we got here because the housing doesn’t come with a w/d, but opted out of buying a dryer because of the cost and the fact that the air is ridiculously dry.  We bought two extra drying racks and our clothes were usually dry in half a day or overnight.  I don’t know how well it will work during the winter but we’ll give it a shot.  They have a lot of windows in the house so I rarely use lights unless I’m in my closet or it’s evening.  We’re probably the most energy efficient family on post. 

I’ve also been back into the Ebay thing.  I loved Value Village in Anchorage.  There were always great deals on high end items.  Here, the ARC Thriftstore is the place to go! There are Goodwill stores too, but they seem to get the whatever items.  In Denver there is an ARC store near the hospital that we frequent and I found two Diane Von Furstenberg dresses and a few Hanna Andersson dresses that I put on ebay.  I made my money back over and over.  On craigslist,  a woman put an ad up for “three pair of european shoes”.  I wondered if they were Dansko and sure enough they were…and she was only asking $15 for all three pairs!  They were brand new.  I made my money back and then some!  People don’t buy a lot off of craigslist though.  I blame the economy.  It’s just too easy.  I did manage to sell some of Mia’s toys that she has outgrown, but it took a long time.