A penny saved

I just love a bargain. Seriously. I'm a die hard bargain hunter. An ideal day for me would start nice and early on the yard sale trail. The yard sale season here is short and much of it overlaps with baseball so I only get so spend a handful of days a year scouring the neighborhoods of local towns looking for good bargains. Of course there's plenty of junk and just plain yucky stuff but amidst all the carp are some wonderful finds. Last year I bought 40 Knitter's magazines for $4.00 at one yard sale. At another I bought 10 pairs of Levi's jeans for $10.00. I bought boxes of The Teaching Company lectures for $5.00. Most of these items were resold on ebay but many were used by my own family or given to friends.

I enjoy shopping using The Grocery Game and no one can beat this periphery Target shopper. I even taught my local Target store manager a thing or two about how to find bargains in his own store. I walked out of CVS today with two full bags of health and beauty items for $7.00.

Some of the best items are FREE. Oh what a word!! I often get free health and beauty items (you'd never believe how much toothpaste we have) and I'm able to give large amounts to my local food pantry. Pictured above are two free magazines that I recently received in the mail. I'm sure I got them based on my subscription to Cook's Illustrated. They're both very nice magazines and I've enjoyed reading them but I won't subscribe or buy them on the stands. They've been good free entertainment.

I know sometimes people sigh at me when they're behind me in line at the store. I'm always very organized with my sale, clearance and coupon items but I can't help it if the staff are inexperienced or poorly trained and don't know how to handle these items. I always remain calm and patient and walk away knowing that I've used my family's money wisely.

I've been thinking about where our money goes and how I spend it. I've got a post coming up on my thoughts about buying yarn and my stash. I've been doing some serious thinking.