Saturday, December 29, 2012

Blogger's Needed: Diamond Candles Reviews



Diamond Candles are all the rave! Here is your chance to to review these great candles! 100 bloggers are needed, click here to throw your hat (blog :-) in the ring!



Wednesday, December 26, 2012

After Christmas Makeup Sale: Sephora



Sephora's makeup sale is made even better with an extra 20% off sale items! Shop Sephora through ebates and get an additional 8% back!   Don't have an ebates account? Sign up here for free! Sign up now and get a $10 Target gift card!

Here's a GREAT deal:

Sephora's Breast Cancer Awareness Palette
ONLY  $11 was $25, $165 value!


Kat V D Starry Eyes Makeup Palette
ONLY $34 was $49, $230 value!



Don't forget to save an additional 8% by signing up for ebates here!
Use code EXTRA20 to save 20% at checkout

Happy Shopping!


After-Christmas Makeup Sale: Tarte



Tarte is offering up to 60 percent off! Go here it snag your discounted items! No promo code required!

Here's a few great deals, check the site for more! Let me know what you get!

Amazonian clay eye-shadow palette & Amazonian clay eyeshadow base
golden browns

$18.00 (retail value $58.00)


lights, camera, lashes 4-in-1 mascara trio only $38 was $56!

lip service limited-edition LipSurgence™ collection

$34.00 (retail value $120.00)


Be sure to sign up through ebates, shop Tarte through their link and get an additional 4 percent back!

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Free Minibon from Cinnabon!

If you love these things as much as I do, then you'll hurry over and grab this coupon.  Must sign up, takes just seconds and they will email you the coupon.







Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Sephora Sale = Free Stuff!



I love makeup but its a pricey addiction, so when I saw this great deal I just HAD to grab it!  Sephora has a sale going on online, items starting at just $3. Even some popular items are on sale, so there are great deals to be had.

I landed this Sephora brand lipstick for just 25 cents, I only paid tax!  The lipstick was one sale for $5, I used a free shipping code and a $5 giftcard to get this great deal. Here's how you can do the same:

1. Sign up for ebates so you can get 8% on your Sephora purchase. This maximizes your savings. Go here to sign up AND get a $5 bonus giftcard to Target. Must use this link to get gift card, click here.

2. Use the link in ebates to shop Sephora.

3. Click on the "sale" tab on the Sephora homepage once there.

4. Load your cart with discounted items (or anything you want)!

5. Use the code for free shipping on any order

6. Don't forget to grab your 3 free samples!

7. Use the $5 Wrapp giftcard to save $5 off your purchase.  If you don't have Wrapp, get it at www.wrapp.com.  Not sure if the Sephora giftcard is still available.

8. Use code UPS2DAY  to snag free shipping (thanks Budget Savvy Diva for this).

Family Travel: Saving Money & Having Fun

This past weekend, my family and I took a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg, Virginia.  We spent the weekend there and the kids and adults alike had a blast. True to form, I am always looking for ways to save money especially on things like eating out.  Having spend nearly $600 for accommodations and admission to the water park, I did not want to drop another few hundred on food.

After reading several reviews, I learned that the food at the park was a bit pricey and not all that great. Which was OK with me, because we were going to enjoy the water park, not enjoy a fine meal.  As a family of six, we could have easily spent $70 bucks for a modest meal at the hotel restaurant, for one meal. We probably would have spent $250 dollars to eat had I not gotten creative with the money saving tips below.

PRE-NOTES:
Decide what is important. When planning a family trip, one of the biggest areas to save is on food expenses. If you are going to a place where one of the most critical features is to experience the food, then by all means plan for it!  Our goal was to have fun at the water park, so it was a no-brainer to save money on food since we weren't missing a 5 star experience at the park restaurant. So if you're looking to shave some money off your next trip keep reading.

This tips also work best for trips up to 3 hours from home. We drove, so it was easy to transport a crock pot and pre-purchase frozen items without them melting or going bad. Of course, you can always ship a crock pot to your destination if its worth the expense or use a cooler to transport items that may spoil on trips with longer drives.



Tip #1:
Figure how many meals you will need to plan for. In our case we left Saturday after breakfast and were returning Sunday evening. We ate breakfast on Saturday before we left home. So we would need lunch and dinner on Saturday and breakfast and lunch on Sunday and of course, snacks. Once you know how many meals you need to plan for you can being to prep.

Tip #2:
Brown bag it. Lunch is a easy meal to brown bag. I packed lunch for each child to eat on Saturday once we arrived.  Sandwich, snack, fruit and juice. Relatively inexpensive but filling.

Tip #3:
Crock pot meals! Here is where I saved the most money. For dinner on Saturday I made Cheesy Chicken and rice in the crockpot, it cost me just $10 to feed 6 people. Great savings.  For lunch on Sunday, I made crock pot mac and cheese that we ate with chicken bites. This meal costs about $12 to feed 6.

  • Instead of taking bulky seasonings for the meals, I pre-measured the   seasonings and put them in a small zip lock bag. This way I didn't have to carry full size salt, pepper, garlic, etc... See image for idea.
  • For easy clean up, get crock pot liners! I had some that I got for free during a Harris Teeter super doubles event. Once we were finished with the meal I just needed to remove and trash the crock pot liner, no need to clean the crock pot and deal with a mess. I highly recommend these!


Tip #4:
Go for frozen breakfast sandwiches and no-mess meals for breakfast.  I purchased Jimmy Dean's sausage and pancake thingy on a stick for breakfast Sunday. All I had to do what heat them up in a microwave and serve.  The kids loved it and there was no mess.  The package came with 12 for about $7. I purchased a carton of orange juice for about $3 as well.  Another inexpensive meal, at about $10 for six people or about $1.67 per person.

Tip #5:
Pack snacks!  I purchased snacks (fruit, snack cakes, chips) because I knew the kids would be hungry between meals at the park.  We could have easily spend $100 at the concession stands alone, but I purchased about $15 in snacks and saved us a pretty penny.

Tip #6:
Use coupons! For every meal I made in which I had to purchase items I had coupons that saved me about $3 per meal.  For example, I purchased a bag of Tysons chicken for just 6.99 by using a $1 off coupon at Target. I purchased a bag of Anytizers for around the same price also with a $1 off coupon. I shaved about 25% off my grocery bill for this trip with coupons.  I also had coupons for Little Debbie Cinnamon Buns and Pringles which were some of the snacks we took.
I also purchased about $9 worth of disposal plates, cups, etc... for just $5 using coupons :-)

Tip #7:
Work with what you have.
I made simple crock pot meals, using many items we already had which means the less I have to buy.

Tip #8:
Set expectations. Let kids know what is to be expected. We informed the kids up front that we would not be eating out and prepping meals in the hotel room.  This avoids the asking/begging for pizza, hot dogs or whatever they would see while there.

Despite my planning, we did wind up spending money on food. We are all still hungry Saturday night (we ate dinner early) so we spent $35 on 2 pizza pies.  And actually it was the best pizza I had in quite sometime.  It wasn't from their restaurant  but an auxiliary restaurant on site. It was delicious! I also treated the family to their choices of cookies, ice cream or any treat they wanted from the snack shop. Spending about $20. Before we headed out Sunday, we treated the kids to nacho's (some kids had fries) from the snack shop for about another $20.  This is $75 total. Imagine what we have spent on food if we didn't prepare in advance. We saved a lot, and splurged a little.  Everyone went home happy.

I will do a review of Great Wolf Lodge soon, but I wanted to share how to save money on your next family trip.



Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Rite Aid Mini Haul: Almost Free Detergent and Eyeshadow

Rite Aid isn't normally a store I shop.  I find their pricing overall to be higher than average. But they did have some great deals this week that I couldn't pass up.
Purex detergent is on sale for 1.99, and select Almay products are 75% off.

Purex printable coupons were floating around, so I used 3 to snag 3 Purex detergents for just 99 cents a bottle.

I landed Almay eye trio for free with a $2 off Rite Aid coupon. It rang up as 1.99, it was over $7 retail...yikes!

I walked paying a total of just $2.97 before tax with all the items mentioned. Plus, there is a single-check rebate for the Almay which will give me $2 back for my purchase, making the deal a money maker. Finally, Endorse this week is giving 10% back on detergent, so I've uploaded my receipt and expect 30 cents to be added to my Endorse account. Overall, my total purchase was almost free. Not bad.


There is a great deal to be had next week at Rite Aid as well, Free Keri lotion so I will definitely be back!

High Value $2 Huggies Coupon!

$2.00 off 1 HUGGIES Little Movers Slip-On Diapers

Click image above to grab coupon

Monday, December 17, 2012

MIss Jessies BOGO Sale

Good news! Miss Jessies BOGO sale has been extended until December 31st.  If you're a fan of Miss Jessie's products or just want to try it, visit www.missjessies.com to take advantage of this deal.


Wet and Wild Polish and Eye Liner for 32 Cents Total!

Wet and Wild is pretty inexpensive make-up, and despite the price they actually have some good stuff.  I like the liners and brow pencils.  I had a $2 off any 2 cosmetics item CVS coupon that was due to expire today, so I wanted to put it to good use and pay just pennies :-)

I grabbed a violet eye liner for 99 cents and I loved the color of the polish so I snagged that too, the name of the polish is "Through the Grapevine".

I also had a 25% off CVS coupon that was expiring today as well so I used that and my $2 off coupon which gave me a grand total of 32 cents before taxes.  Not too bad for a polish and a liner.

Picture below! I'm off to paint my nails...


Monday, December 10, 2012

Naturally Curly 12 Days of Giveaways


Did you know about the awesome giveaways going at at Naturally Curly?
The 12 days of giveaways is underway, don't miss your chance to win one of 12 fabulous prizes for curly hair divas!


Here's what up for grabs today...




Tuesday, December 4, 2012

FREE Sample of Cashmere Curls from Curls

For all my curly hair divas, be sure to grab your free sample of Cashmere Curls from Curls! Samples are still available, so grab 'em while you can.




Monday, December 3, 2012

Mia Mariu Shopping Spree!!

Its' finally here, the giveaway you've been waiting for!

Welcome to the Mia Mariu Shopping Spree & iPad Mini Giveaway Event


Mía is Vibrant Beauty and Heath Inside and Out!

Mía Mariú is a health and beauty company that promotes beauty inside and out. Mía Mariú botanical skin care, mineral cosmetics, natural health supplements and fine fragrances are available exclusively through Independent Advisers and online. The Mía business opportunity offers an innovative approach to social selling using the power of e-commerce, social networking and personal service. Women can easily balance their career and personal lives without sacrificing their time with family and friends.
Whether a woman wants to earn extra income, begin a new career, build a side business or simply wants the freedom to be her own boss, then the Mía moment is now.

Join Mía Mariú today.


One lucky reader will receive a $300 Mía Mariú shopping spree and another lucky reader will receive an iPad Mini!

Giveaway ends December 30th at 11:59pm, open to US residents, ages 18+. To enter please use the Rafflecopter form below. Good luck.