A Good Reason to Go to Target (Not Because You Need a Reason)

So here is one of my all-time favorite money-saving tips. Maybe you already know about this but if you don’t, here’s a great reason to maybe stop by Target. Twice a year, Target has a very large toy clearance. It’s actually more of a wipeout. These are not the seasonal toys left over from Christmas, but toys that will be discontinued, repackaged or replaced. I have even found toys in the past that for whatever reason, were on clearance and then full price back on the shelf the next month or so.

The clearance sale begins shortly after Christmas and is usually gone by the first week of February. All Targets follow a different mark-down schedule but the toy clearance prices are pretty close across the board. As far as what one Target has compared to another, will actually vary pretty widely by store. My closest Target is actually in another state since I live near a border. This particular store had a few decent items immediately following Christmas at 50% off. Most will start at 15-30% though. In the first week of January you can expect to start seeing clearance throughout most of the toy aisles. In the second week they may even add a little more and some items will be up to 50% off.

I happened to stop by my closest Target today and found they moved all the toy clearance to a single aisle and some of the aisle was at 70% off. Even if an item is still priced higher, I recommend scanning them because maybe a sticker was missed and the clearance price is lower than the ticket. That happens to me more often than you would think. Anything not sold after this mark down will go as low as 90% off. While I plan to do a whole blog about this later, it’s worth mentioning that not many items make it to 70 or even the better 90% off. One of the Targets near me in my state doesn’t even have much of anything on clearance while the one I stopped at has a very full aisle still.

If you are like me, and have a very large family to buy for, this is the best way to stock up gifts for birthdays and Christmas! It’s amazing how many gifts I was able to get over the past few years and for so little. Even my own kids occasionally got way more than they should have because I bought so many items that made it to 90% off. I will tell you this, if you are a building set household and find any Legos, Mega Bloks, etc. on sale at 30 or even 50%, consider that the jackpot. I usually snatch them up at that price and then hope there are some left at a lower price a week later. They will price adjust them with the receipt. Out of the eleven billion-dy times I have bought them at the decent 30 – 50%, there were none left when I returned. I think I have gotten a price adjustment all of like 2 times.

Another thing that might be worth mentioning: I don’t always shop this particular sale since it is right after Christmas and most of the kids in my family already got toys from the current selection for Christmas that they wanted. If there are really cool ones that they didn’t, I pick those up for birthdays that fall before the next sale. I usually wait for the next sale and save up all my gift cards so that I can go absolutely spending-spree crazy when the time comes and not think too much past my list of children’s names and ages. It’s so much fun! Of course, sometimes there is a cool Spiderman on sale and he already knows what to do. Since I’m such an awesome fan, he just hops right into my cart and comes home to sit on my office shelf where he can pose for my daughters Barbies.

There are quite a few other semi-annual sales going on right now, too. I will try and keep you posted but since most are almost over, I will be continuing with organizing first. As far as Target goes, there is also a Target Cartwheel today for 20% clearance clothing of which there is also a ton to go along with the toy clearance. While they start putting out all of the outdoor stuff and new seasonal items, check the aisles for last season. I have found lots of Pumpkin-flavored foods, kids hooded towels, candles, door mats, picture frames, bedding (also has a Cartwheel), rugs, dishes, appliances and so much more. So many items and so little time! I hope you find what you are looking for but I almost never pass up looking at the toy clearance at this time of year, it’s by far the best way to save boatloads of dough!

FREE Movie Night before 1/16

Here’s a quick deal to get you a little treat if there is something you have been wanting to rent. If you take a few minutes to fill out this survey. Afterwards, you will get a rental code for 1 free night. If you would like to choose a Blu Ray instead, you can just pay the $0.50 difference. Or you can choose to use the code for $1.50 off a game rental.

Hurry if you would like to take advantage of this offer because it expires to days from now on 1/16.

It’s Planner Time!

Ok, somehow I totally heard that with MC Hammer in the background singing and everything. That’s usually when I turn it up in my mind and rock on, or tune myself out and get to work. I think right now I need to stay on task because my day is so busy I’m writing this in one of 4 school lines before I return some phone calls and go back to work. Trust me, I know many of you are even busier so I will try and keep this simple and to the point.

Since today I would like to talk about how my organizer/ planner is the center of my life, I’m going to start with my 2 main lists. Basically my whole planner is categorized and everyone’s has to be different in order to meet their needs. Maybe you don’t have kids. Possibly you go to school. Maybe you are single. Doesn’t matter, like, at all. What does matter, is that you know what is the most important to you. My most important lists in my organizer are my “To Do” and my “Menu Plan”. The reason they are the most important are because they have my daily reminders and I know based on my menu if I need to pull out foods or if I am making several meals out of one item that needs to be prepared alongside others. If you are single and go to school full time, you most important lists might be your schedule and your school work planner.

My “To Do” and my “Menu Plan” are also probably my simplest list. They don’t need to be completed. The more complicated things get, the less likely I am to do them or use them. Starting with my “To Do”. I use this list as a simple way to make quick notes and not a full schedule. Sometimes it looks like it, but it’s not. I glance at it before bed and again in the morning as a simple reminder of what’s going on. My schedule, not included in this post, I have to follow to a T or way too many things can get out of hand pretty quickly. I don’t know about you, but my idea of saving money does not involve running to a grocery store at 10:30 at night to buy school crap, lunch stuff that we are out of and dinner all without coupons or any thought to them. My life used to be that way. It was stressful, complicated and expensive! Even with a plan for everything I have to make a quick stop sometimes still, it’s completely unavoidable. But, I can try to plan ahead and make the most of my time spent in advance. Because I plan my meals ahead of time, I know what I need at a grocery store which eliminates the aimless wandering (Ok, sometimes I used to do that for fun), and it takes away the shock at the register of what items really cost when you just start throwing the things that sound good in the cart. Of course, I’m also a big kid. If I didn’t have strict dietary restrictions, I would probably only eat ice cream. Forever. And EVER! That’s a food group right? In fact, I think it’s like 4 food groups – sweet, cold, creamy and sometimes crunchy/ salty. Yep! I wish!

Back to my point. My “To Do” and my “Menu Plan” are very simple. My “Schedule” includes when, how and what time to prepare these items so they get broken down even further in case pops or the mini-me’s have to help with anything or I get stuck at work. I made my “To Do” and “Menu Plan” in MS Word. They are nothing more than a few text boxes, fun fonts and the use of the alignment and wrapping tools. You don’t even have to spend that much time. You also don’t need to print them unless it’s counterproductive for you to not have them with you. Since I work from my computer, I only print my schedule to keep on me. To Do at Home Menu Plan These two items begin and end every day. They are 2 of the categories in my expanding and evolving personal binder. Just like the ones some people use to coupon. That also doesn’t work for me but I’ll explain in a different post since my coupons are in fact part of my binder, it’s just not a coupon binder. I hope seeing these helps you get started organizing or reorganizing your planner. Feel free to comment and let my know what you think.

My Official First Post!

Woot! Yippee Do Dah! I’m so excited to be here sharing what’s on my mind with you. Today is simply blah. The sky will not stop drooling and our whole yard is officially a swamp but, still can’t bring me down. As far as I am concerned, it’s all glorious and happy rainbows and fluffy stuff. Hehe

Ok, I probably won’t hold your attention for very long if I continue with all this excitement because you will all want to turn on some music, put on sweats and dance on your bed, too! Maybe there should be ice cream, but I can’t have any so I will live vicariously through you all. Go eat ice cream. Unless it’s against your New Year’s resolution. Then don’t, or at least I won’t tell if you do. Shhhhh

Calming down now. Not really, but I will focus to the best of my abilities. Since I am here exclusively, for now to divulge large quantities of information about how to save money and spend less, I suppose I should get started. As I have told you before, I use a huge variety of ways to accomplish this. However, I think the most important thing to start with is the same way I get started here at home. It’s all about (drumroll please):

Organization! Let me just say that again. ORGANIZATION! Without being organized, I would get nothing done, like ever. Seriously. Ever! Especially because I have two children on the autism spectrum. My days have to stay scheduled or the whole house goes crazy. Kind of literally. Because I have a full-time job, kids, pets and hobbies, I must budget for “my time” accordingly. I also have to plan for times that I can turn my back on my kids and just know that mass destruction will commence. Charts, schedules, calendars and a little planning go such a long way. I am an avid coupon clipper. While I plan to tell you all about that later, little things like this must have a place and time. Too many things are out of our control. We can’t blame life for getting in the way when we are the ones who let it. When my kids were younger, organizing was harder because they were such a distraction. They were always in the way and I was always frustrated. I am a multi-tasker and like to accomplish a lot in a day. While everyone is different, I love to check off a list. My husband even sometimes just asks me to make him a list of top priorities so he can do the same. I gave up trying to plan and organize with them around because I found that I was losing my mind and overbooking some priorities. There is only one of me sadly. Although there should be like 20, because I’m pretty rad!

My first time I decided to really get organized, I tried a regular planner from a store. This did not work for me and may not work for you. Or, it might. I just found that I could never write what I needed in those tiny little spaces. That was long before Pinterest and the land of Google. Using a simple program like Word you can create your own. Or just Google templates until you find what you think will work for you. For the rest of the week I will post topics about how to become more organized, if you aren’t already. Hopefully I can help you find some ways to become even more productive and successful than you already are.

The most important thing about all my planning is that it has to coordinate. I don’t mean that my planner has to match my Calendar and so on. I mean, what goes in one has to line up with all the others. I have to leave complete instructions with dates so I don’t forget the little details sometimes. Like if my daughter has class snack day, while I am planning my calendar to remember to take her snack, I also pull out my grocery shopping list and make a little note to buy her snacks and for what day. And vice versa, my grocery shopping must go into the calendar before her school snack day. Not at all complicated until there are 3 other very loud people in the same room and you have worked for so long you can’t remember your name. Lol  In addition to my planner and calendar, I keep a budget, a coupon system and a book full of schedules from around my city. I like to be able to quickly look and see who might have a “kids eat free night” if I am running around and realize I have not fed the kids and it’s bed time and we are still not home. Oops! Do you do that? Yeah, me neither!

This all might sound like a lot, but you will see as I go over it further that it really isn’t more than you already do, just organized in one place. Since I cannot do this when my kids are around, and never could, I do this when I take a break from work, or after everyone is in bed and the house is quiet and sitting in the car line at schools. I also keep a notebook next to my bed and I try to write things down as they come to mind or I will never sleep since I try to keep the idea so fresh, it keeps me awake. Then I’ll be the stale one in the morning – Yikes! I’m not a morning person to begin with so losing sleep is not an option. In my next post I will go over how to start a planner or organizer to help you gets started. Feel free to post anything you would like me to go over in the comments. Try to stay warm and dry.

I Want to Teach Others to Spend Less and Save More

I Want to Teach Others to Spend Less and Save More.

I Want to Teach Others to Spend Less and Save More

When it comes to living cheap err… frugal, there are millions of ways to spend less and save money. Me personally, I like to combine as many ways as is humanly possible to maximize my savings and not spend a lot of time doing so, to maximize all my efforts. The only problem with the spending less time part is that no matter what, you have to spend some of your precious time.

Not so long ago (OK, like more than a decade) I was faced with the most terrifying moment of my life. I was a single mother overnight. Like most I am sure, this came out of no where and was completely unexpected. Child support – what is that? I was pretty young and very scared but I was confident that I was intelligent and strong enough to get through that, too. The one thing I knew had to change immediately, was ME. My X-husband had completely disappeared for that time. I didn’t even know how to contact him at first. So, I was left with the unwanted freedom to start over. I did.

Because my family lives in Georgia, I decided the best thing to do was to move closer to a safety net if I needed it. One of my very best friends helped me buy a car, pack it and hit the road. I drove the 20 hours by myself straight through because I was too scared to stop with a 9 month old in the back seat. My dad used to tell us scary rest stop stories so we wouldn’t wander when our family traveled. I guess they resonated at the time. I made it home just fine. The items I owned, besides my dog and my baby, I could count on one hand. I had about $50 left after the gas it took to get home. No savings. No post-high school education. Not even a suitcase for the few things I had. That was the gist of it. I was home, young, single, completely broke and had a mouth to feed.

Now, I didn’t tell you that story for sympathy or anything else. I told it so you would know, I understand hardship and struggle. I had a great upbringing but as a young stubborn adult (who knew everything) I landed on my ass! It hurt! A lot. That story was only the beginning of my fight. To this day that fight hasn’t ended. Why? Because I’m not richer than Bill Gates yet, duh!

I can’t tell you how to get rich. I can’t tell you how to make money. There are plenty of resources for both available online, in the library and in many other forms. Please take as much advantage as you can to use all of them. Back to the time thing. I find that through the years, as I go through many of these resources, I get a lot of information that I don’t need. What I don’t need and don’t want is almost always so readily available. The perfect example was a book I bought not so long ago recommended by a friend who said she felt so much better after reading it. As a person with an autoimmune disease, (story for a different kind of blog) I was very interested in the book since I had similar issues. Instead of finding anything I was looking for. I got the entire history of the doctor becoming a doctor and how he began to realize what was causing the problems. To get more to the “healing process”, I had to buy the next book. That to me is a gimmick. I don’t have money for those either. Besides, finding the next book for sale (which I will explain in a future post for avid readers) is highly unlikely at this time.

What I would like to do is help anyone I can, find ways to improve their spending habits and help them save a little more. I am a realist. I am not extreme. Have you seen the show Extreme Cheapskates? Some of the people are really disturbing on there! I am definitely not one of them. However, I rarely pay full price for anything. I apply many methods to make the most of what cash I have and use a couple of ways that work for me to squander away the rest. I am willing to give up most of my secrets if it helps make someone’s life a little easier. Stay tuned for my first official post to save money! I’m so excited!!!! Don’t hold your breathe while I am gone. hehe