how to get fat on your birthday

This is Tucker Boy's birthday week.  I mean, the dude was born. That's a big deal.

So, in honor of a starving 15 year old to be, I have some ideas on how on earth to satiate the biggest appetite I've seen in years, months, decades, and years. I think it all goes straight to his pecs. Punk.

Can I make a quick suggestion? I suggest you adopt a coupon email address. Where all of your signed up for goodies go to live in peace until you decide they are worthy. Where they will steer clear of your library circulation notices and your forwards from Aunt Betty. Consider it your freebie Utopia. You will thank me later and send me love letters.

And now it's time to put on your fat pants. Here we go.

IHOP
Holy cow. These people mean business. You get to sign yourself up, and THEN you get to sign your kids up for their birthday. And did you know that after you stuff yourself full of happy face pancakes, you can tell them it's your kid's birthday, and they'll bring you an ice cream sundae? At 6:47 in the morning? And then you get to drop them off at school? Best parent ever.


Noodles and Co.
After you go blind from your morning carbs, you'll need more carbs. Noodles and Co. have some of those.
And they adore you, so they want to give you a free noodle bowl that day. You're welcome.

Chili's
Sign up for their email list, and you'll get a free chips and queso. This will help with the coma.

Ben and Jerry's
It's called ChunkMail. What do you want from me?

Dairy Queen

You'll get a monthly offer and coupon. And on your birthday? A free Blizzard. (I feel woozy.)

Honorable mentions that will come in handy eventually:

Tokyo Joes
You have to be an addict to sign up. They will give you a fob that you can pick up at your local restaurant. This will sign you up for possible free lunches (they choose 3 a day, every day and it's placed on a calendar on their website) and specials through email that only your fob knows about.

Chik Fil A
It's a privilege to know you, Chik Fil A.


Sonic
Treats on your birthday. And other times. I love Sonic.

And there you have it. Oh, and click on the yellow underlined highlighted names of the restaurants. It'll save you on postage.

I am no longer responsible for you.

Free Days

Here are this month's free days in Denver. These are great ways to enjoy the things Denver has to offer.

Denver Botanic Gardens : October 28
Denver Museum of Nature and Science : October 18
Denver Zoo : October 13, October 21

Super fun days to share with friends, or husbands. Or escaped pandas. React accordingly.

And click here for a fun freebie.

meal plan

Okay, so this is the meal plan run down for this week. It's actually a little hard to concentrate right now because I am currently slow cooking our italian drip beef for our sandwiches tonight, and it smells a lot like heaven. Okay, probably not heaven because that smells like clouds and Jesus. But it smells unreal and so I'm dying, slowly and painfully. Okay, I'm not. But I am hungry.


Sorry about that.


Here it is:
italian drip beef sandwiches, which smell like heaven. or something.
sloppy joes
lasagna 
hot subs
chicken burritos
beef soft tacos 


I always start the week off by making a huge bowl of salsa, and I plan at least one to two mexican meals a week. Beans, tortillas and rice are cheap and can provide a huge variety of options. Especially if you keep cilantro in your life at all times. Never be caught without it. Keep it in your purse for emergencies.


Here's what it looks like. The salsa. And the cilantro. Just in case you didn't know what it looks like.

This is what it looks like with a giant arm in it. You're welcome.

This week at Safeway, ground beef was on sale for 1.99 a pound for 80/20. I bought 4 pounds- so that will turn itself into sloppy joes, lasagna and tacos. At least I wish it would turn itself into those things. Then I could sit around and eat bons bons. (I actually have no idea what a bon bon is. Anyone?)


Then we have 2 bags of hoagie rolls from the bakery at Target. This was a great deal because I had 2 $1 off coupons for bakery items from the Target website, and they are $1.99 a bag, so I paid $2 total.  We usually cut the rolls in half, so there are 24 of them total. That's a lot of yummy sandwich options. My drip beef is going to land on one soon. Also, when you buy a pound and a half of deli meat at Target, they give you a half pound of cheese for free, and I also had two .50 off coupons for the deli.


I bought a bag of 34 mini bagels at Costco for 3.49. That's the same price you would pay for 12 mini bagels at Safeway. So, there will be a lot of pb&j and pizza bagels. The kids are happy. Tortillas at Costco are 2.99 for 3 bags of them, and they are really soft and yummy. These take us through 2 weeks, at least.


The best deals this week were:
Glen Muir Tomatoes $1 Whole Foods coupon, .75 coupons.com, so .75 after coupon
$5 off of 5 SmartOnes meals which were on sale for $1.88, so .88 after coupon. Good weekend leave your mom alone for heaven's sakes filler uppers.
Philly cream cheese $1/2 Target coupon, $1/2 coupons.com, so .40 each after coupon. 
market pantry cheese 2 blocks $1/2 Target coupon, coupon on the package for .50 off if you buy 2.
Kraft shredded cheese $1/2 Target, $1/2 coupons.com
Nabisco cookies $1/2, Facebook buy a gallon of milk and a Nabisco cookie, get a free package of Nabisco cookies. so, 2 bags of cookies for $1.50 (I don't normally buy packaged cookies because it costs a lot less to bake them, but Brad wanted Fig Newtons)
Wheat Thins/Cheezits $1/2, Facebook buy one get one free, so $1 after coupons.


Those are the highlights. Can't wait to wrestle my sunday paper coupons from some unsuspecting coffee drinker's hands and start all over again. 

This weekend, Old Navy is celebrating its 16th birthday. They have some things 3 for $16, some are 2 for $16, and their jackets are on sale for $16.

Here's a great deal!!!

Also, one of my favorite places to go every day is here. They give away a free daily sample if you sign up on their email list. Click on today's sample below. This makes it fun to check the mail even if your mailman thinks you're a freak because you have a million mysterious packages coming to your door everyday. 

At Bath and Body Works, they have their new fragrance on sale for a dollar. The best part is that it has a coupon on the back for a buy one Secret Wonderland, get another free in whatever flavor you desire. Pretty great deal. And those $1 lotions are a pretty good stocking stuffer.

buy me. i'm a dollar

coupon junkie

I love grocery shopping. Like, I want to marry it.
And I love coupons. Sometimes I almost pass out I get so excited about them.
I didn't always like coupons. They actually seemed like a giant pain in the butt and a huge waste of time. Every once in a while I'd get really inspired and clip a few, and then find them 2 and a half years later in the purse I used to go to that one wedding. Whatever.
But now...
Now.
It's like a sport. It's like a treasure hunt.
Okay, it's like a necessity.
Whatever.

Here's the thing. You have to have a place to start. And I'm going to give you a few of those places. We're going to start off easy and build the options over time. Otherwise your head might explode.

1. Sunday paper coupons. Obvious, I know, but shocking things live in there. I actually get mine for free from a local coffee shop. Of course, I ask for them, and then there is that look they give me before nodding okay, and then the blatant pointing and laughing, but I basically just walked off with at least 25 bucks. You can pay the $1.25 if you want to.  Your choice.

2. The internet. God bless the internet. You will not believe what you will be able to do with your printer and a Sunday afternoon. Or a Monday. Or an entire Saturday.

3. Grocery store websites. Check them out weekly. They have their weekly ads and in store coupons on there, and places like Safeway and King Soopers (and I'm sure many others) now have a way for you to download their coupons directly onto your club card, so when you swipe it or type in your phone number at check out, the coupon is automatically deducted from your total.

Here are some very important things to remember.
1. Many stores double coupons. Go there.

2. If you have an in store coupon, you can also use a manufacturer coupon. This can make some items free, or close to it.

3. Plan a weekly menu around what's on sale.

4. A few minutes goes a long way. If you can't sit down and gather your coupons all at once, check out a site or two a day. Click and print and you've made a few bucks. And if you have youngish kids, you could surely use the help cutting, and they could surely use the practice.

Let me give you a few places to browse. Make yourself at home on these sites. Then I will get back to you on how I saved over $60 on yesterday's grocery shopping trip.

sunday paper inserts
coupons.com (try the zip codes 33313, 90210 and your local zip code. you can get a lot of variety)
smartsource.com
redplum.com
target.com (coupons are located on the home page, about halfway down... there's a little red shopping cart icon) you can use these with manufacturer coupons like the ones on coupons.com which makes many grocery and clothing and household items free
walmart.com
safeway.com (ads and coupons available)
kingsoopers.com (ads and coupons available)
wholefoods.com (coupons available)

These are obviously all grocery store websites local to my area, but the same thing should be available in your own cities.

Tomorrow, I will post our weekly meal plan, and the ways I used my coupons. And then I'll start to show you how to save on eating out, get some free meals, and websites that give freebies and samples daily. Those are my favorite.

Oh, and here's a little treat. There will be so many more like this. My kids' stockings are almost already full from these little deals, and I haven't spent a penny. Except on printer toner. Don't tell Brad.

click here for your treat

oh, the places you'll go.

This thing is applying for colleges.

I think she's ready.

There used to be a boy named Marlin (Bostard was his last name, but that's another story... also, the name makes my kids laugh, so I have to leave it out. They might be what you would consider "worldly"...wow, this parenthesis was useful!) who used to mouth the words, "I Love You" at me. During Sunday School.

I loved that.

Then I realized.

He was saying "Olive Juice."

Guess what?

I love Olive Juice.

More than I love Marlin. (who now has a thousand kids he makes play soccer and is taking over the town of Gahanna. Dude. I love parentheses.)

Okay, he has the same amount of kids as me.

Mine don't play soccer.

They steal my olives...