Little bunny Foo Foo

Hopping through the forest. Picking up the field mice and bopping them on the head... and along came the fairy and she said, "little bunny foo foo, I don't want to see you picking up the field mice and bopping them on the head"

Has been re-done to "little bunny Foo Foo hiding from the big kids eating clover and lettuce and alfalfa hay" and along come the human mommy who says, "little Sonia/Kayla if you aren't gentle you will kill Foo Foo, so please be careful"

Uh, yeah.
I heard Kayla singing "rock a bye baby" and turn the corner to look and see her...

With the bunny in her arms, on his back with her rocking it like a baby doll.

(Please forgive the camera's noise, the mess on the table and the lousy focusing and camera moving.)

Officially it's Sonia's bunny.
It is named Foo Foo or Fluffy.
It's an American Lop Eared Bunny, although only one of his ears lops consistently.
He's the first in the plan of raising bunnies. He's the pet. And if I knew how to spin fur into yarn, he'd have some use. However, I don't have the tools or talent for that, so his usefulness is to give the kids something furry and alive to love. The breed came from mixing Angora Bunnies with Lop ear bunnies. He's really fluffy and really soft. Hence you can see how Sonia decided the name would be Fluffy. Although normally he's called FooFoo.

The plan also includes chickens. As pets, of course. No roosters. As far as I can tell, the county permits us to have 2 or 3 chickens because we're not in any of the incorporated towns. The CCandRs of the housing development bans them, however we don't have an HOA to enforce anything and people living here disregard the CCandRs on lots of things. In fact when we moved in, there was a feud going on across the street. Neighbor A (tsa agent) called the Sheriff on Neighbor B (the CA highway patrol cop) for parking a trailer on the street. The Sheriff didn't do anything, in fact I think he told her they don't care what CCRs are, it's not their job to enforce them. "The Warden" the WW2 Vet who walks the neighborhood likes us, so I don't think he'll give us grief as long as we aren't obnoxious about it.

The extent of their enforcing anything around here is the 2 self appointed wardens walk around the neighborhood and put fliers or notices on all the doors. The last time anything was done (before we moved in) was when someone parked a large boat on their front yard and they put notices around reminding everyone that unless there was a flood, arks shouldn't be parked on front yards.  The ones with the boat told me about it. It was before we got there. If anyone gave us grief and made cracks about an ark about a boat, I'd be putting animals 2 by 2 in our front yard. You want an ark? I'll give you an Ark. How bout those 2 pigs? Cows? oh, of course you need a rooster and chicken, 2 goats... heh. I might be passive aggressive, too.

And just a reminder.. look to the right- up a bit - right there- there's a picture of a lion costume and giraffe, then below that and about me blurb and  below the about me heading, there's a disclaimer- don't take anything here I say too seriously. Nothing I say here is meant to be serious. Even my complaining. So don't anyone think anything and get bent out of shape over anything I write- ok?

And, no. I don't know how I'm getting dots on my map from 7/8th of the dots on my visitors map. So. if you're one of those 7/8ths..  really don't take this blog as anything remotely normal about live in the US. And don't take anything I write seriously. Well.. maybe the coupon stuff. That's my serious hobby. But even that isn't terribly serious. More a game I play with myself.

A deal too good not to share

But if you're not into consumerism please stop reading. I, on the other hand, love a good deal. 

So, here's the deal.

Groupon has a deal for Ebay $15 credit for $7. Good for using on shipping charges, too.

Find it here
If you haven't signed up for Groupon yet, if you sign up under me, I get $10 credit

You can double dip with this. Once you have your ebay credit

Go to Ebates

Find Ebay and click on the linky button to shop. you'll get 1-5% back in ebates (real cash) for shopping through them.

If you haven't tried Ebates yet.. you really have to. It's pretty awesome if you can remember to go there first and then from there to the store you're shopping at.

This week we needed girl backpacks since the Made in China ones with Disney characters didn't last. (I know, surprising.... ) Anyway.. Joey has an LL bean one my mother got him this summer. It looks new still. I have my LL bean backpack from when I was in High School which until a plastic clasp broke this summer lasted.. uh.. a couple of decades.

Anyway.. open the link through Ebates. Click on LL bean or open a second window to see this one They're $14 with free shipping. $14 for an LL bean backpack. That's going to be $.70/ year if it lasts 20 years.
There are other backpacks and awesome stuff there, but we're still focusing on needs, not wants.. but there's alot of wants there on that site.

If you want to triple dip, if you have the LL bean credit card, you can use that, get triple points on your order which eventually turns into an LL bean gift certificate.

We no longer have one of those, so I didn't do that. We had one forever. It was the first fools to give me credit on the stated income of a college student. Well, not sure who's more foolish there- those getting the credit or those extending the credit. Anyway.. a few years ago the bank issuing the card no longer was an LLbean card, and used some other complicated rewards system, so we bailed on them and never applied to get one with the LL bean rewards. We personally use a different one with rewards that work on other things besides a pricey outdoor equipment and clothing store.

Sadly, if I had planned better I might have been using our airline miles card and we might have had something to apply towards a summer trip. As it is, I misplaced our frequent rewards cards and still get dangerously close to cardiac arrest every time I shop around to find plane tickets across the continent.

Ok. one more coupon post then I'll quit this trend.

And I'll lead out with the disclaimer that I can count on 1 hand the time I've done 3 stores of shopping and coupon buying the same week. I don't like shopping that much. But maybe Mom and Grandma will see I appreciate their efforts to enable this hobby.

But we needed strawberries and milk and bread and cream cheese so I was going to have to set foot in a store, I just had to decide which one to go to. I like choices  ;-)

So.. Here's my "you saved $112" trip. An aside here - the cool thing about both CVS and Kroger is that they count your pre-coupon, pre-ECB spending towards your rewards so You get 1% back on stuff you didn't pay for out of pocket.


Ralphs (which is CA version of Kroger) has a buy 10 things, get $5 off sale much like Albertsons did this week. 

The Quick Summary is

• Ronzoni Whole Wheat pasta. .49 after the 10 item thing, with a $1 off 2 coupon, they were free. So.. 7 coupons = 14 boxes of free pasta. We like pasta here. And Larry and the kids will tolerate the whole wheat stuff and it's better for you, anyway.
• The box Ramen noodle stuff $1 minus .50 coupon, which doubled to $1, made them free
• I had coupons for free hot sauce. )They were in the paper). And while I generally prefer to leave the stuff that's free in the store that I don't really forsee me using. ever, Even if it's free, they counted towards the 10 item thing, so for the sake of making up the last set of 10, I got 4 of them. I bought the mild hot wings stuff. It might be ok. If not they'll go to the food pantry on base. Someone else might like it.
• Party Pizzas $1 each, with .50 off, doubled to $1 = free. I had a few more coupons, but I'm not a fan of these pizzas. The kids wanted to try them, so we got them. 1 for each kid. The food pantry doesn't take frozen food, so I didn't get all 8 free pizzas I could have. See. I have some restraint.
• Milk $2.69/gal on sale this week. 2 of those
• Bread from the day old shelf, .99  Not my preferred brand but I ran out 2 days ago and can't bring myself to spend $3/loaf when I can get 3x the bread from Costco. Haven't been to Costco in 3 weeks, however, so we ran out of bread, even from the freezer.
• Strawberries, $1.50 (sale) each
• Cream cheese $1.19 (sale) needed for desert for tonight and no, not baking with margarine for tonight's bring-a-desert social.  ;-)
• Ronzoni Smart source $.75 after the 10 item sale, then coupon $1off 2 = .25 each. Probably should have bought more.  My family prefers these to the whole wheat pastas. But I'd just bought 6 other white pastas the other day. And we were getting 14 whole wheat pastas today.. We do eat alot of pasta but 22 boxes of pasta will probably last us the better part of 4 months.
• Annie Organic MacNCheese .49/box after the 10 item sale.Seriously that's 1/2 the price of the Kraft stuff and it's organic.
• Diet Coke .89 after the 10 item sale. Add .10 per bottle for CRV deposit. = .99 each.
• Yogurt $1.99 minus $1 coupon = .99
• Foster chicken 4.99(sale) - $1 coupon = $3.99 for 2 lb bag (1.50/lb) bought 2 since we have many nights that convenience foods work best with soccer/girlscouts/awana. 
• And a re-usable Glass Tumbler $5 for a grab bag prize for tonight. 

Total paid = $33.90 ($5 of it being for a gift so $28.90 for food.)

Couponing - a confession and explaination

So I was talking online about food costs and I mentioned that I've started using coupons. And predictably some said, there aren't coupons for what they buy so they don't bother- which is exactly what I used to say.

So with about 15 minutes of free time here, I thought I'd elaborate my crazy coupon side.

The crazy side: I usually buy 4-5 newspapers a week, sometimes fewer if the coupons there aren't what I'd possibly use. From the dollar store, so it costs me up to $5/week. We get one set of coupons mailed weekly with the circulars that come by mail, and my mom's started mailing some from my grandma, so I can potentially have 6-8 coupons that are the same. That's the key that makes the entire lock turn.

So with that, I check the circulars for the local stores and see if any of what's onsale is something I have a coupon for. If the stars align correctly, we score well. If they don't then we're not entering the store.  If you don't want to do the work, do some searches for coupon match ups and people who take this more seriously than I do have entire website/forums dedicated to where the coupon came from and where to buy what with them. I prefer to do it myself. I like the mental math challenge. And this way I only buy what I would probably buy anyway and don't find myself buying useless stuff like air fresheners, which even free or cheap give me a headache.

So for example today:

This came from CVS. Its doesn't look impressive, I know. And it does highlight my extreme weakness for Cadbury minieggs. 

But I spent $7. 43 for all in the picure and came home with $12.95 in extra care bucks, which is essentially credit to use in their store for a future purchase. 

This is how:

Their sale was 

• Mini-eggs for $2/bag if you bought $10 worth, you got $3extra care bucks (ECBs) I had a coupon for $1 off 3 so I spend $9 on those, but the net cost would be $6 after you account for the ECBs.  Told you- a serious weakness. 
• The Toothpaste and Floss were $3.59 each. I had a coupon for $1 off each of those, so the was $4.98 for those, but I got $5ecbs back for buying them, so Basically those are free. 
•   The conditioner and hair gel spray (I have a girl with curly hair that needs this stuff) were $2.98 each. I had a coupon for buy 1 get 1 free, so I paid $2.98 for both, got $2 ECBs, the net cost is .98 for the 2 of them
•  The Therafu were .99 and for 1 of those I got .99 ECB back. I had a coupon for $3 off any 2 theraflu- didn't exclude trial sizes, so I brought home 2 Theraflu and had $1 credit off my receipt and .99ECB, so those were also free, actually better than free, since the store paid me $2 to take them home, essentially. 
•   The Irish spring hair/body wash was $2.99, with $.50 off, it cost $2.50. I got $2 ECB back, so in theory this cost me .50

I had $12.58 in ECB from my last shopping trip which were applied to this order  so that brings my total cost out of pocket to $7.43. Until I added the minieggs, I was way walking out of there with nothing paid out of pocket, but *sigh* it's once a year and they'd freeze well if I can manage to hide them from the adults in the house.. Anway I came home with $12.95 ECB to spend on a next trip in the next month. I generally have somewhere between $10-15 of ECBs to spend when I do one of my CVS shopping trips. The first time the out of pocket is cost more, but once you have ECBs then you can continue using them, combine with coupons and come home with very cheap stuff.

I don't go to CVS weekly, generally there isn't enough to lure me from my house more often than every 3 weeks or so. The ECBs expire in a month, so it forces me to go about once a month at least so that I don't loose the credit.

In the same shopping plaza was Albertsons, a grocery store. They don't double coupons and they aren't my first choice in grocery stores, but...

From there I came home with

This was somewhat more impressive. I paid $13.63
The specifics are the had a buy 10 things, get $5 off. I had 2 sets of 10, so $10 off. (edited to fix typo)

•   The Propel water was .99 each, after the 10-item thing they were .49 each (there's one missing from the picture) I had 3 coupons for $1 off 2, they were free.
•  I had 6 coupons for $1.25 off pasta for buying 2 bottles of Ragu. So I got 6 free boxes of pasta. The pasta was only $1 with the store savings card, but the coupon still took $1.25 off.
• The Ragu was $1.47 each, after the 10 item deal it was .99 each and after the pasta coupon that took off $1.25, not only was the pasta free, the pasta sauce was .865 a bottle  
•   The Margarine was .99 and after the 10 thing they were .49 each. I know margarine is bad for you. In retrospect I should have gotten 2 more bottles of water to make the last 2 items needed for the 10 item set, but my dirty secret is sometimes I use margarine, especially in baking that I'm taking places. tisk tisk. bad me. I bring bad for you cookies to places where no one cares about  unprocessed foods. 
• The orange juice was $1.65, it's a splurge around here, it was on sale. I'd just spent $7 on chocolate, I can buy my hubby his not from concentrate orange juice. 

So that's it. And the truth is when I was not using coupons I never would have bought the orange juice, sample sizes of Theraflu, the hair/body wash, I would have bought the cheapest toothpaste and floss I could and I'd still end up paying about $6 for hair products for my daughter. I won't discuss my chocolate addiction budget.  I also would have bought pasta and bottled sauce (since I haven't successfully grown tomatoes in years to make my own sauce and it's cheaper to buy it instead of buying tomatoes to make sauce)  I doubt I'd have bought the water.

 The added bonus is that I starting to run out of room in my pantry.  I budget about 20% of our grocery budget for coupon stock up stuff, including the cost of the newspapers. The rest of our grocery budget goes toward food we eat on a more immediate basis, like meat, chicken, milk, bread and produce.

So there it is..  easy peasy.  And once you get started you won't be able to stop ;-)

I should have done this 3 weeks ago when I went to Ralphs (Kroger) I spent $33 and "saved" something like $200' with card and coupons' according to their receipt. They double coupons, so if you have a .50 coupon for something that costs $1, it's free. They supplied us with 8 boxes of free pizza rolls (I despise, but my sons like) 12 boxes of free noodles, 6 tubes of free toothpaste, plus yogurt, milk, produce and rolls - lots of rolls. 10 tubes of refrigerated rolls, after coupons they were $6.35 and I had a mail in $10 rebate for buying 10 participating items.. they 'paid me' $3.65 to fill my fridge with 10 tubes of rolls. See.. it's an addicting challenge.  And no, I didn't used to buy refrigerated rolls before this coupon stuff - I just couldn't afford them or justify the cost.