Thanksgiving Pictures

Thought I would share a few pics from our Thanksgiving Dinners!
Hackworth Family Dinner




Brookhart Family Dinner/Wii Boxing Tournament






Evan beat me by knockout in the 1st round!



My mom beat Jason!
And the Winner was.....

I really don't think anyone can beat Faith...she is really good!!!

Your Coupon Coach

So I changed my money saving blog again...sorry this will be the last time!! I just love this idea of being Your Coupon Coach. Jason help me think of this one! He is sooooo smart.

Intruders!!

We had a serious problem in our bedroom. DUST BUNNIES!!! I am embarressed to say this but...we haven't moved our furniture since we got married and I moved in over 4 years ago. There was some serious dust flying which resulted in these....

We weren't sure if sweeping them up would do the trick so Jason had this GREAT idea!!!

I even took my shot at them....

Our room is MUCH cleaner now and there are NO more bunnies!!

Pumpkin Patch Dinner

Every year my mom does a themed dinner around halloween. Here is a sample of what we had!






Everyone loved it :)

New Blog!!

So I decided to start another blog to share my savings, tips and tricks! I am going to start kinda slow but check it out. I will share things like how I got started, stockpiling, my coupon clipping and filing method and of course more!

I will continue to post stuff here about our life-but I will keep must of my money saving journey here.

Super Savings @ Meijer:Updated!

I did really well at Meijer today. I really didn't want to go out in the cold and wind but we really needed some lunch meat and I knew I had some coupons to match a sale they were having so I went. Check out what I got.

I spilt it into 2 transactions so I could use 2 $4 Catalina's(store coupons that print at the register)that I had from a previous purchase. I ended up paying just under $3 for everything AND the best part...

I got $4.50 in coupons to use on my next purchase! I think the Jello triggered the $2because it was the only Kraft food item I got in both transactions. If that is the case-which i haven't confirmed-you would get FREE jello with the Meijer Mealbox Coupons, actually you get .50 overage for each pair, you get a $2 Catalina! I love to get paid for groceries!

Anyone have ideas for Jello?

UPDATE:
It is the Jello the triggers the $2 Catalina!! So I went back for more.

About $2 for this stuff! I really just needed the pickles(1.78) but figured I would make the most of my trip.
I also stopped at Kroger to take advantage of a few freebies!

My receipt even said 100% savings!

Lots of Stuff for Little $$$

I had another great week of savings!! I hit up all my stores(Meijer, Kroger, Walgreens and CVS) I did 2 transactions at Meijer.


A few highlights:
8 boxes of cereal @.30 each!
FREE Smuckers Uncrustables
FREE Jello
.15 Jello Pudding
.50 Brown Sugar
.16 salad dressing
1.00 Pillsbury dinner rolls(they are really good!)
My total for everything was just over $26
Then to Kroger!

Everything here was Free except the Puffs, they were .50 each. Total $1.15
Walgreens had a few deals I couldn't pass up and I needed to get some candy for the 100+ kids that will pass by on Halloween this week :)

I spent $19 (on a gift card)
Got $13 RR (register rewards)
will get $4 back on a gift card
and will send in for a rebate for the theraflu.
I feel ready for any illness we may have this winter!! From the sounds of my good friend Emily's blog it is on it's way!
So if all this wasn't enough to make this a great week. I got these.

24 Omaha burgers for 3.98! Thanks to Catherine for spelling this deal out!
I also went to CVS and got several freebies but didn't take a picture of that one.
I love saving money...can you tell?

Do all Squirrels go to Heaven?

So when Jason and I got home from volleyball last night we found a dead squirrel right in the middle of our driveway. I figured we had run over it on our way out but it really didn't look flattened. We think it may have been shot...weird huh! So we stood there in the driveway talking about what we were going to do with it. Should we take it to McDonald's dumpster? Maybe throw it in the neighbors yard(jk-we love our neighbors)? Throw it on the curb? Then Jason mentioned burying it. He dug a hole and we gave it a proper home.

I think that first picture is hilarious because his mom has a picture of Jason when he was like 10 holding a squirrel he had just shot. I thought that picture was so funny when we were dating-never thought I would marry a squirrel hunter :)

Super CVS Week!

So I went a little crazy at CVS this week-the deals were just to good to resist! I think I did 5 separate transactions and spent less then 5 dollars in cash! Here is what I got.

3 12 packs of TP
4 12 packs of Pepsi
3 Moist Towelettes
6 SoyJoy bars
2 Schick Quatro Refills
1 Adidas Deodarant
1 Speed Stick
1 Nivea Bodywash
1 Loreal Lotion
1 8 pack of Reeses(not pictured-jason ate already!)

Total Value over $100 dollars! I only paid $5. Trust me this doesn't happen every week. You can see what other crazy people like me bought here.

Sales and Celebrations

This past weekend was a crazy one. The weekend started off with a Yard Sale! My sister and nieces come over with a car load and we had us a grand ole time. The weather couldn't have been better-perfect for a lemonade stand.


They are so cute! We did pretty good-would have like to sold a few more things but all in all we were happy. Just a note: I could not have done it without my awesome sister, she is WONDERFUL!!!

Sunday morning we were off to Kentucky for a celebration of Jason's grandmother. His families church has been honoring some of the "seasoned" people in the church and this was her week. It was a total surprise. Tons of Hackworths paraded into the Mavity Free Will Baptist Church to honor and celebrate Jewell Hackworth. It was a great day and well worth the drive to see the tears of joy on her face when she saw some many loved ones.



I must say I am looking forward to a weekend at home this weekend!

I Love Sunday Mornings

I love Sunday Mornings! Jason gets the Sunday paper off the porch and we play our "game" I guess how much the coupons value for the week is then we make coffee, eat cereal and watch ESPN or Fox News. After I finish my cereal I start working through the ads just flipping through most of them. After casually flipping through most of the ads I take my CVS,Walgreens and Meijer ads and "study" them for money saving/making deals! I also check my favorite blogs to see what deals they found. Then I take that weeks coupon inserts and cut most everything out and set aside what I may use that week and file the rest away. After flipping, studing and clipping I make my plan for the week-what stores I will hit and what I will get. This whole process takes several hours each week but I think it is well worth it when I make a purchase like this.

Total w/o sales/coupons-52.75
Actually Paid 10.05 and I got a 2.50 coupon off my next purchase
Savings 42.65(80%)
Coupons Savings 21.65

I cannot wait to see what kinda greats deals this week will bring!

Habitat Update

I have been meaning to post this for the last several weeks! On August 16th Habitat celebrated 9 new homes being completed in a 1st time project like this-doing all nine homes at the same time on the same street.




It was really neat to see all the homes completed and all the families together. The homeowner of the house Jason was in charge of was Kristen(right side of Jason) and when I meet her I knew her from somewhere but couldn't figure it out. So just last week Jason told me Kristen remembered how we knew one another. When I worked for Huntington she was one of the merchants that came in everyday and we talked all the time-she was one of my favorite customers! Isn't it funny how that worked out!

Family Vacation

We just got back from a few days of hanging out with my family in Tennessee! We had a blast. The house we stayed in was awesome!

Everyone could walk out to the balcony from their room and see the beautiful mountains!

This is one of my favorite pics of the mountains in the morning! Doesn't it look peaceful :)
We also had a screening room with a HUGE projector TV. Perfect for watching the Olympics.

Most of us went tubing on Monday. We brought our own tubes and scouted out the best spot to go. Mandy and Ryan found the perfect spot that was safe for the kids. We put Evan, Abby, Issy and her lamby(which must go all places with her!) in a big raft and the rest of us took turns pulling them along-they loved it! We had one minor incident-of course involving me! My tube got stuck in one of the faster parts on a rock and it punctured my tube AND tore a hole in my bathing suit. Jason(aka Macho Man as he is known to my nieces and nephew!) gave up his tube for me and he swam the rest. Luckily we were close to the end. Here is my favorite pic of all!

That is my brother with all of our tubes! And proof that lamby went along :)
So did anyone read the story in the paper about the kid that got attacked by the black bear. Well-the same day that happened my sister and Issy ran into these walking back from the tennis courts!

Those are our trash cans! There was a mother and 3 cubs. They ended up getting into the trash(somehow they opened the locked gate!) the next day. Jason and I had to leave early but the night before we left we all talked about our favorite parts and Issy said this was her favorite!

The Hot Tub! The kids loved it...especially if Papaw was in it also. I have to say one of my favorite parts was this

Eating Together. Not as much the eating part,which I like :) but the together part. I just love sitting around the table with all my family. We have been very blessed and times like this are so special.
Here are a few more pics!