Bring your lunch: Built NY Lunch Bag

This is the best lunch box!  It is so stretchy, flexible and washable.  It comes in lots of designs and shapes.  Paul surprised me when he came home with one he had found on sale at Wegmans.  I had showed it to him and had told him about how I had wanted one of these for so long, but how I didn't want to spend $20 on a lunch box.  For whatever reason I had finally decided to bite the bullet and buy one at Marshalls a few years ago and changed my mind at the last minute.  If I had known that was the last time I'd see one there for more than 50% off of the retail price I never would have done that.  I was so happy when Paul splurged for me and brought me this cute little bag home.  I love that I can make all my lunches fit and then when I'm done, I can fold it up and put it in my purse for the ride home.

Well, here is the funny NON Frugalicious end to this post.  This always happens to me.  Whenever I end up giving up hope of finding a particular item on sale and finally decide to buy whatever it is that I wanted for more than I wanted to spend I end up finding it soon after for cheap.  Remember I told you about our trip to Walmart in Guilford CT?  Well lo and behold there they were, built NY lunchboxes for $8!  Normally they are $25-30, Paul found mine for $20 and my sister who originally told me about these, waited even longer than me to indulge in this beauty walked out of Walmart with one just one week after Paul splurged for me.  Ugh, FML.  Can't win them all I guess!  I'll just have to make up my losses with all the bringing my lunch to work savings.

End of Summer Recap Pt 2 Labor Day!

Labor Day was AWESOME this year.  We got to go out of town to my sister's brand new to her lake house in Guilford CT.  First of all it was fun to get to hangout with my sister whom I never see two weekends in a row, but secondly her house was BEAUTIFUL.  I mean, if you looked up beautiful in the dictionary you would find her house.  The first pic is of Bailey, he was SO happy because he originally thought we were leaving him and then realized he was coming too!  I love my doggie, especially when he smiles this huge smile as seen below.

 

 After Paul, Bailey and I soaked up the beauty of her house, my sister wanted to show me around the town.  Somehow this started with a pit stop in Walmart for some food and supplies, but that's cool.  We actually found these really cute shirts!  The first one I found was perfect for her.  It was this little red tshirt with some writing that said "Trust me I'm a Dr." then a label of Dr. Pepper on the bottom.  Nothing could have been more perfect for my "20 year old looking" sister who is a Dr., but who manages to get carded more than me more often then I'd like to mention.  We then walked around the Guilford Green which has all these cute mom and pop artsy type shops, went to bishops orchard where I had my first honey crisp apple of the season.  If you haven't tried a honey crisp apple get on it!!  We also happened to be in town for the taste of Guilford, I was honestly more psyched for this than I should have been.  Taste of Reston was much better.  Taste of Guilford was kind of expensive for not a lot of food.   

The best part of the weekend was just relaxing with the fam and watching Bailey hang out with his cousin dogs Sam and Pasha.  I can't wait until my sister and I to both have kids and we can watch them run around with our dogs in this beautiful new house.  What a wonderful dream fulfilled.  Here are some pics from the weekend.  Bailey even got to go kayaking and canoeing!

End of Summer Recap Pt 1

Originally I started writing this post a few weeks ago but got too busy and had to rename it from weekend recap to end of summer recap..OOPS

I'll start off with the last weekend in Aug.  What an awesome weekend!  The weather in DC was perfect!  What was even better was that my sister Ruth came into town on thursday night for a long weekend visit.  We woke up friday morning, relished in the fact that neither of us had to go to work and took off for a walk with Bailey on a glorious, sunny, cloudless and most importantly workfree day.  It was awesome.  We came back from our walk and decided to do our normal Ruthie comes to town routine and hit all her favorite fairfax shopping spots.  Our first stop was the brand spanking new Nordstrom Rack that opened the day before within walking distance to my house (yes, be jealous)!  The new store is great, super clean, organized and loaded with lots of cheap, but formerly expensive items.  The shoe section, especially for men is great.  They had loads of cole haan men shoes for $60.  The shoe section overall is also great because you no longer have all these left shoes where you have to go ask them for the right one to try on the pair.  The lingerie section is also fabulous.  I scored some great calvin klein bras for $10 (normally $50).

Saturday rolled around and my neighborhood had a community yardsale.  My sister in law Anita lucked out because 99% of the sales were baby things which her Mom, twin sister Christine and I proudly scooped up for the 2nd newest baby to be in our family.  For about $200, she got an almost new chicco travel system (next door neighbors, car seat = no accidents), an awesome electric swing and few bouncers and an activity mat.  Paul and I bought some books and a couple cute items to decorate with over the upcoming fall and winter holidays.  All in all, it was a success!  My sister and I did show up about 5 minutes too late for a beautiful $2 grey cashmere sweater.  Probably for the best though; how would we have decided who got to keep it.

I had planned for us to go to Eastern Market, a local DC landmark that we'd all never been to.  Apparently, I was the only one who wanted to go :(  Instead they wanted to go outlet shopping.  Still cool by me, but hopefully one of these days this born and raised DC girl can make it to Eastern Market!  After the outlets, our neighbors told us to hang out with them that night at the nearby Tarara winery.  They were having an 80's band at their outdoor pavilion.  I love Tarara and I love summer picnic concerts, so this was an awesome saturday night.  Sadly though, Tarara no longer carries their most popular and my personal favorite: red table wine in a pretty blue bottle.

Sunday was my Uncle's wedding.  It was held at the cabin john park in Bethesda under this HUGE sycamore tree.  What a beautiful and simple wedding.  I'm so happy for him that he was finally found such a great woman.  Perfect weather for a perfect couple on their perfect wedding day.

Frugalicious Fail

So, if you have been reading my blog  you might notice that I like poking fun at my hubby.  I think after 11 years together he expects it and is ok with it, but either way I wanted to share this little antecdote from last night.

I should start with this post having absolutely nothing to do with saving money and has everything to do with my silly husband Paul!  I should have made him write this post. 

Anyways, Paul strots in yesterday from his trip to the dry cleaner hands me the mail and kisses me hello.  Nothing strange about this welcome yet.  Then I spot behind his super wrinkle free shirts which were dry cleaned at $2 each (Fail #1), that his old khaki paint ridden shorts are hanging very neatly and pressed on a dry cleaning hanger! So I ask him whats up and he says oh the button popped off (go to the gym Paul), so I had them fix the button and DRY CLEAN MY SHORTS!  Who sends their old cotton shorts to get dry cleaned?  I really wonder what the dry cleaners thought when he brought those in.

Anyways, since he's my best friend, is the source for my funny non money saving stories and I love him more than yesterday and less than tomorrow, Paul is still mine for keeps!

Any one else with money fails feel to share?

St. Lucia Roundup

St. Lucia was awesome!  I wish we could go back.  We spent 8 days 7 nights on the beautiful island and honestly the best part about the trip was the culture.  People in DC really are not very nice comparatively.  Our taxi driver Humberg was the coolest; he took us down the Petit Piton to go to the volcano, mineral baths, botanical gardens and hot and cold waterfalls. 

We thought he was going to just drop us off, but he ended up deciding to be our fly by the seat of his pants tour guide!  He knew everyone on the island and gave us a chance to see and feel things all the other tourists couldn't (lucky me).  He got us some awesome mangoes by having this guy climb a tree right outside of the waterfalls.  Then when I told him later that it had been the best mango I'd ever had, he said wait until you taste a pineapple from my house.  He actually came back the next day to visit and bring me the world's best pineapple (sweet and straight from the heart).  

Think hard about when was the last time some taxi driver in DC said, I'll meet you back here with a "xyz" from my yard and you didn't want to call the cops or fox 5 to investigate this psycho.  Seriously, St. Lucians are the nicest people, I'd love to bring a whole lot of them back to the DC to teach everyone how simple acts of kindness are the greatest beauty in the world.  I'm thinking my old boss from Intersections could use a good 2 months of their instruction.

Another fav was the awesomeness of the first leg of our trip being free!  As I said in an earlier post all you have to do is ask; this concept also goes for signing up for things (within reason..only legitimate places please).  One of my fav websites the Nest was giving away a trip for two to St. Lucia if you made a webpage and entered their contest.  I did, and they liked mine the most and voila 3 free nights at the windjammer hotel in a 1 bedroom luxury villa with a plunge pool!

The funniest part is those who know me well know I'm UBER competitive.  I mean so much so that when I put my name in for this contest I was thinking to myself no other bitches are winning this, I've got this.  Then I gave myself a pat on the back for a job well done on the webpage.  The Windjammer reminded me of Santorini Greece.  It is all these spanish style villas built up a huge cliff.  It was beautiful.  Our 1 bedroom villa was amazing with ocean views from the two level deck that had an infinity plunge pool that appeared as if you could touch the ocean.  The food was great and we did some snorking excursions and went on a great "booze cruise" aka a catamaran boat loaded with a bunch of newlyweds, Rum Punch and local Piton beer (very good if you ever go).

The second 1/2 of our trip we stayed at the Jalousie Plantation. We did this so we could see the southern and northern end of the island.  It was nice to have done this but if you really just want to relax, stay in one place.  Getting from one place to the other freaking sucks in St. Lucia because it cost up the wazoo for anything that uses gas and since you are on a mountainous island you can only go 30 mph around the mountain over and over again until you finally get to your destination.  Best way to travel there is by boat, although the taxi views are amazing too. 

At the Jalousie, we did a lot of eating, drinking and snorkeling (we bought a waterproof cover for our camera).  Our first dinner there the hotel was trying out this new set 4 course dinner for $75 for both of us.  It was so good and we were so stuffed.  We spent friday at a local fish fry in Anse Le Raye where Paul karaoked like the cool white boy he is, Humberg our taxi driver looked on with a grin and of course the rest of the locals loved him too.  While I recoved from our street party the next morning, I had a fresh coconut chopped for me right on the beach, that was pretty cool.  I didn't think the milk was that good, so the hotel beach waitress said it's better with local rum.  Promptly there after the red flag for service went up and I had made myself a little pina colada!  Are you guys catching a drinking trend here?  I seriously can't believe I got to live this life for a week (I should have shot my pinky out like a snot face while drinking my coconut). 

Snorkeling on the base of the Pitons was the best, we saw so much and it was so cool to get up off your beach chair and walk right over to this 3,000 ft mountain.  We even got to try scuba diving for free which was awesome.  I thought my ear drums might break at first but then I learned how to equalize and I was all set. 

All in all it was amazing.  Both hotels were great and we got a great deal (free and then a two bedroom house with plunge pool for $170 a night).  If you are in for an adventurous vacation, head to St. Lucia.  If you don't like lots of rain, don't do what we did and go during rainy season.  It would pour for 5 min and then be sunny again.  We had some rainbows and laughs because rain is really not that bad when it comes when you are on vacation, hot and happen to be sipping a pina colada and are too comfy and lazy to take the 4 steps to the ocean to cool off...

Hope you enjoyed the pics!  Any suggestions on our next trip?

My Yard Sale Find

I love yard sales.  Unfortunately though for a reason I don't know, I don't go very often.  When I was little my Mom and I used to go all the time.  Paul works most Saturday Mornings so normally that is when I clean the house and relax.  By the time we head out to do errands or see friends on Saturday all the yard sales are over.

I was pretty excited when on our way back from church on Sunday, there was a yard sale on a Sunday!  I as able to convince Paul to make a pitstop and after a few minutes of looking around junk, I found this gem! 

There was no price listed so I asked the lady if I could have it for a $1.  She told me $3 and finally we landed on $2.I was originally going to give it to Paul's Mom who LOVES bird houses, but after the car ride home I had decided it was too cute to not display on our new tree. 

What are your favorite yard sale finds?

Free VS Undies

I love my free undies coupons from Victoria's Secret.  Paul and I get them at least once a month.  I don't know how we are so blessed with this good fortune, but let's just say it's been a long time since I actually had to pay for underwear (tmi, I know).  The funniest part is that they send these coupons to Paul all the time.  For his birthday they send him a free pair and a free $10.  He insists upon going to choose these freebies himself since they come in his name (he's funny like that).

Anyways today was the funniest conversation with the clerk at the register.  So I'm checking out with my free coupon, Paul has already checked out with his.  The clerk keeps asking me if I'm sure I don't want to try their new incredible bra.  I first tell him, I don't want to because they don't really work for bigger girls.  He didn't understand, so I had to lay it out more clearly for him: "they don't work if you have big boobs".  I thought that would have been enough for me to check out in peace, but then he starts in with how this bra is different and how it has padding here and the straps do this and that and you can't even feel it, "it's like it is invisible" were his exact words.  Finally, I'm like really I'm ok, but well do you have first hand experience with this bra or what?  I felt bad for embarrassing the poor kid, but someone had to stop him.  I look over and Paul is just about to bust out laughing, because honestly why is this dude telling me and showing me on his chest how this bra will fit. 

So, yes that was my Thursday night.  One more reason I love my freebie coupons for VS, I get to drag Paul to the mall with me, it's wonderful torture!

Ask and you shall receive

Do you ever remember hearing "no question is a stupid question"?  Well, I'm a firm believer of that statement because sometimes it is better to ask a question then to look stupid because you didn't know later.  I've taken this school house catch phrase one step further and have no fear in asking for a discount.  Honestly, the worst they can say is no and then you are no where different than when you started off, so why not?

My theory best presented itself when we bought our new fridge last year.  Paul could tell you lots of stories where I've embarrassed him because I asked a question; this time though, he was so happy when I asked this one!  Since the day we moved in, we had loathed the fridge that came with our house.  It was a builders grade side by side that had gone through the previous 3 owners; it fit approximately 2 items in the freezer and had to get fixed by GE several times.  As I said in our earlier post, we always buy in bulk, so freezer space is of the utmost importance and a working freezer even more so.  Here is a picture of the old fridge:

So needless to say, we'd been on the hunt for a new fridge for close to three years.  We'd been wanting a french door freezer, but unable to stomach the 2-3k price tag held off until one day on a window shopping extravaganza at the Lowes in Chantilly we came upon this beauty, marked down from $2,700 to $1,500.

I noticed a scratch on the bottom side of the door and asked the clerk if he could mark it down some more.  He said sure how about $1,200 and I said, well I can take it for $1,100 and then off we went skipping to the register hand in hand with big smiles plastered on (I know we are so cute aww).  Come to find out they'd later bring it down to $750 because of a whole series of sattirical events which included pressing buttons, spoiled food and a lot of stairs....  I then sold my old side by side for $250 instead of letting lowes haul a perfectly good fridge away to a landfill.  So we were, the proud owners of my brand spanking new $3,000 fridge for $500!  Everyday when I open my fridge (we call her Sammy), or get some nice cold filtered water (something impossible on our old fridge), I'm happy I asked for a discount because of a stratch a little marker eradicated once we got home.

Now on to the Lowes in Chantilly, if you live in VA and need something get there now!  They have a much better selection than the HD right down the street from us.  Plus they know what the are talking about, want to help you and always have HUGE clearance sections all over the store.  My friend Kari bought a beautiful bath vanity with a small crack in the granite top for $45 (origianl price with attached faucet and glass bowal well over $500).  We ended up buying a washer and dryer from them a few months ago for almost 65% off!  They are beautiful glittery blue Sammys that actually make me happy to do laundry.

I also got most of our summer flowers from them on clearance.  Big wave petunias for .45 cents!  Yes, .45 cents, they are normally $4!  I also got a whole tray of geraniums 18 for $5.  Costco sold them 10 for $25 and honestly my tip is if you have trouble watering, don't think fancy flowers from a nursery are going to do any better.  Expensive flowers and clearance flowers both die if you don't water them (go back to 9th grade bio and remember photosynthesis, it will help you have a green thumb).

Now go ask away!