I just spend a $30.00 gift certificate yesterday at a local restaurant.  I was able to buy lunch for my mom and me and take home six cookies that were as big as a salad plate each!  It was nice to be able to treat my parents and nieces for a change!

we got a free kids trampoline off of craigslist sunday. netting and all.  just a little work to make it 100%.

used a entertainment coupon dominos pizza for bogo to treat my girlfriends tonight.

 We just had another one: refinancing our mortgage.  When we bought this house, about 2 years ago, we got a 30-year mortgage at 6 percent.  Since then, we have paid down enough of the principal that we were able to refinance to a 15-year loan at 4.5 percent and actually lower our monthly payments at the same time.  Only by about $25, but the bottom line is that we will pay less each month and still have it paid off sooner.  Hooray!

Haverwench,

That's exciting news !

Good for you.  Have you run the numbers to see how many thousands and thousands of dollars you will save in interest!  It is an amazing number when you go from 30 to 15 years!

 It's not quite as staggering for us, because we had already paid down a good chunk of the principal.  But it does still work out to quite a lot of money over the life of the loan.  And of course, in reality we'll save even more than that, because we intend to prepay this new mortgage too (at least until interest rates get high enough that we can get more than 4.5% with a CD or something else equally safe).

 I have a pair of shoes from Bean that are at least 12 years old. Finally, the uppers began separating from the sole (they can't be re-soled). I took some Gorilla Glue and went all around the base of the uppers, attaching the sole to them. They don't look all that great, but they're sure waterproof and fine for around the house and outside.

Also, I froze enough vegetables from garden and local relief agency that gets tons of farm vegetables in to last the entire winter. With my stock of grains and beans, I won't have to buy a thing except milk and fresh vegetables for months.

wow that is great seaturtle!

Seaturtle,

That is wonderful that you were able to freeze so many vegetables ! Way to go !!!

Hugs !!!!