Coupon Confessions

You all know how much I love coupons right? I have a confession; I used to clip coupons that weren’t worth clipping. I was on a coupon train for a while and I would clip every single coupon even for things that I would think others might need. Some of them were for unique items, that only a select few would use. I would also get really excited about triple coupons and dollar doubles it was like my Christmas seriously. I would clip coupons for things I would never get unless it was free, then I would try and donate them if I could. For a while I had a huge collection of deodorants, ketchups BBQ sauce etc. Whatever I could get for free was like a gift to me. My cabinets and drawers became over run with free things I got from those sales. My mom and I used to joke about how many armpits we would need to use all the deodorant we had in our annex. You need to know when a coupon might not be worth clipping.

I try and use coupons whenever I shop if it is possible. I usually look for printables online if it is for a specific store. I also try and find coupon codes if I am shopping online. There are tons of printable coupons and coupon codes out there if you know where to look. I really like shopping at The Children’s Place for clothes for Noah and I am always looking for Children’s Place coupons. I like to get more bang for my buck. It is like a hunt for me. Do you like to shop with coupons? What are some deals that you have gotten that stick out in your memory?

Drawing with Noah

Noah loves to color and draw. We had been drawing in doodle on Yahoo Messenger. I decided to use paint today since he wanted to draw the night sky and I wasn’t going to sit there and color the whole box myself. So, I found some really cool features on paint. Noah told me what to draw and what to put where. He even helped by pushing the button several times. I really like how our picture turned out so I thought I would share it. I took screenshots of the ones we have drawn in the past and those will probably make appearances on my blog at a later date.
Here is Noah and Mommy’s interpretation of the night sky!

I Got Something to Say

The title of this post is a quote by the character Jerri Blank from Strangers With Candy. I feel like I should share with my readers some things. I wrote a post a while back called When Blogging Relationships Go Bad about my horrible experience with a company I worked with on my blog. You can read the post here if you are not familiar with what I am talking about. The long of the short of it is, I was working with a company that promised me a full sponsorship to BlogHer in exchange for advertising, posts and even a Twitter party that ended up being a nightmare. I turned and looked the other way while she bashed other bloggers and even a NASCAR star. I did think it was wrong but I didn’t stick up for my fellow bloggers. I feel bad because I should have been the voice for the masses;I thought that she was being mean and rude. I regret that.

After a while I tried to let it go and not let it bother me. I have received numerous requests and comments asking me to tell who it is. I have remained silent as a professional courtesy but in light of the increase of new bloggers, I have decided to break my vow of silence and share with you all so you don’t get taken as well. It was Bea’s Gift Baskets. There I said it. Like I said there are quite a few new bloggers out there and I want to warn them, I don’t want anyone to be treated like I was. It still hurts; even more so with everyone starting to talk about BlogHer and BlogHer related events like the parties. It also still hurts that I spent all that time working on the posts and twitter party that wasn’t review related. They got free advertising. I got nothing but disappointment. I am sure you are thinking well you got those gift baskets at least that is something right?

I went to the dollar store, it is kind of new and yes, it still had eau du Dollar store smell. I was browsing around by the food and I saw an item that was supposed to be “gourmet” in one of those gift baskets. I was like wow; those are the exact same chocolate covered pretzels that were in one of my gift baskets. I just thought well they could have sprung for the Flips if they wanted to be cheap. The Flips are like 3 dollars a bag versus the dollar store ones. It makes me wonder how many more dollar store items are in those overpriced gift baskets.

There is nothing wrong with the dollar store, I shop there. I love the dollar store, but if you are paying 90 dollars for something you should at least get 50 dollars worth of food, a 20 dollar basket then the company nets 20 bucks or something along those lines. Maybe 40 dollars worth of food but there shouldn’t be items that you can get at the dollar store. I just think that is unethical and deceitful. That of course is my opinion.

I just wanted to share this with my fellow bloggers and readers. Maybe even the weary traveler passing through my blog. I don’t want to see anyone taken by Bea’s Gift Baskets like I was. So, how can we prevent this from happening?

1. Make sure you get everything in writing. Granted I had everything in email and that would have been fine, but when you are dealing with something like this extra forms like contracts are a good way to go. I know she didn’t mention contracts once until after she pulled out and didn’t want to do what I consider the right thing.

2. Don’t turn the other way or put up with others that talk bad about other people. Chances are they are bad mouthing you to someone else. You should work with companies that conduct their selves in a professional manner.

3. If your gut tells you it is too good to be true, it just might be or if the person gives off a weird clingy vibe you should probably walk away. Always trust your gut and your heart.

4. If a person you are working with is lying to others, 99% of the time they are lying to you.

5. Talk to others about their experiences, I know that everyone can make up their own minds about things they want to do, but listen to what others have to say and keep it in mind for when you make your decision.

I hope you find these tips helpful and keep them in mind in the future. Thanks for reading!