Shop at Home!

Have you signed up for Shop at Home? Do it! You’ll be able to check out great coupons, deals, and cash back opportunities!

 

I’m currently excited about the following deal now available on Shop at Home:

The deal works like this:

 

You get 24% off one Pampers Cruisers Diapers Super Pack (with the option of Free Store Pickup)!

 

The current list/website price is: $24.94

The Daily Deal Cash Back Reward is: $6.00

So, your reduced price is: $18.94 (plus tax)

 

Plus, you’ll get 3% more back for making this Walmart purchase through Shop at Home! (That’s $0.57 for this purchase.)

 

Keep shopping through Shop at Home (especially with the holidays approaching!) and watch those little extras add up: Once your cash back reaches $20, you’ll get a check in the mail. If you do some shopping online anyway, those pennies will add up more quickly than you might expect!

“Story Time” at Barnes & Noble

Entries on this blog have ranged from bargains and money-saving tips to product reviews and educational ideas. Because our current life of travel involves what I like to refer to as “road-schooling” I plan from time to time to post about adventures we enjoy along the way – especially when those experiences involve bargains and freebies!

 

This past summer our Little Lady participated in a reading program sponsored by Barnes & Noble – and she was very pleased to choose Fancy Nancy: Fancy Day in Room 1-A as her reward!

She quickly became a Fancy Nancy fan!

When we went to our local store to redeem the book, we discovered that B&N has “story time” – several times per week! As our travel schedule allows we’ve been participating on Thursdays (our day to concentrate on reading in our “road-school” program) and now and then on Tuesdays as well.

 

The B&N staff members are enthusiastic and energetic in encouraging the children in attendance, making reading fun – and often including a hands-on activity that complements the books read that morning. Crafts have ranged from a simple coloring page to creating a fuzzy sock puppet!

 

 

Some of the other excitement we’ve enjoyed has included:

 

decorating a mask

 

a surprise visit by Curious George

 

decorating with autumn themed beads



We also learned about and subsequently signed up for the Barnes & Noble Kids’ Club. It’s free, and there are some nice perks, too:

 

• As a “warm welcome to the club” when you join, you get a coupon for 30% off the list price on any one kids’ book or toy.
• You also get a $5 reward for every $100 you spend on kids’ stuff online and in stores.
• Your children get coupons for a free cupcake or cookie from the B&N café that can be claimed anytime during birthday weeks.
• You can sign up for monthly email newsletters, featuring even more savings. (So far, I’ve received coupons ranging from an extra 15% to 30% off one item. These can be handy when shopping for books for birthdays!)

You can join the club in store or online.

Consignment Sales!

It’s fall – and fall and winter consignment sales are underway. We’ve learned to dress our little people for (a lot!) less by shopping at consignment sales – and by consigning clothes, too!

 

If you live in the Greater Greenville area, you can check out the semi-annual "Here We Grow Again" Consignment Sale, going on this week.

 

 

We love this sale! We’ve had great success dressing our children – in quality clothes – for great prices. When you consider how well name-brand clothes tend to wear, and wash (and resist stains!), and keep so that you can re-sell them, the savings are really multiplied!

Check the website ("Here We Grow Again" Consignment Sale) for all the details...

 

And if you don’t live in the Upstate area, I still have good shopping news for you!

 

ThredUP is an online consignment sale I recently discovered. From my experience, they specialize in top name brands in excellent condition.

 

ThredUp is currently offering a free $10 credit toward any purchase when you sign up through this link. In addition, you can use code SHIPOCT12 to get free shipping on any order!

Right now ThredUP has a variety of children’s clothes priced from $2.00 to $5.00! By using your $10 credit and free shipping code, you can get something free or almost-free!

Recipe for Pasta Frola: A Typical Dessert in my Uruguay

Pasta Frola is a typical merienda (tea time) treat in Uruguay (and neighboring Argentina). Lemon zest and quince jam give this “pastry” a refreshing flavor – and the lattice top makes an inviting presentation.

Ingredients:

 

½ cup sugar

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk

11 Tbsp (150 grams) butter

½ tsp vanilla

½ tsp lemon peel, finely grated [You can substitute orange zest.]

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking powder

½ cup dulce de membrillo (quince jam) [You can substitute raspberry jam or strawberry jam.]

1 Tbsp water

 

Directions:

 

Cream together sugar, egg, egg yolk, and butter. Add vanilla and lemon peel (or orange zest).

Mix well.

Add flour and baking powder.

Mix well.

Reserve one-third of dough for decorative lattice top. Spread remaining two-thirds of dough in 8x8-inch glass baking pan.

Beat dulce de membrillo (or jam) and water with a fork until smooth. Spread on top of dough in pan.

Lightly flour and then roll out strips of pastry and lay in crisscross pattern on top of jam. [Because the dough is delicate and rather hard to handle, I laid out strips in one direction and then gave only the appearance of a lattice, “cutting and pasting” strips instead of actually going under the first rows of strips.]

 

 

 

Bake at 375F for 25 to 35 minutes.

¡Buen provecho! (Enjoy!)

 

(I used raspberry jam this time.)

Goin' Bananas!

We were recently given a huge bag full of very ripe bananas! They were perfect for baking, but there wasn't time in my schedule to make up a huge batch of banana bread in one sitting. So, I made several batches of banana puree to freeze and use as needed instead.

I started by peeling and cutting the bananas and putting them in the blender. (Ten to twelve medium bananas fit at one time.)

I used our Euro-Pro Ninja Master Prep Blender and Food Processor. Because it has double blades, I didn't have to add any liquid to help the blending, although I did add one tablespoon of lime juice per batch (to keep the bananas from turning brown).

We love our Ninja Blender and Food Processor!

It's a great tool for healthy eating and saving!

Using a measuring cup, I divided the banana puree into one-cup and one-and-a-half cup containers. I also froze some puree for snacks for our Little (banana-loving!) Man.

Now I can thaw the puree in exact amounts for two of our favorite recipes: Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins and Banana Split Bread!

"Here We Grow Again!" Consignment Sale

We dress our little people for (a lot!) less by shopping at consignment sales – and by consigning clothes, too!

Upstate Readers:

Stop by the semi-annual "Here We Grow Again" Consignment Sale, starting next week: Wednesday, February 29 through Saturday, March 3.

We love this sale! We've had great success dressing our children – in quality clothes – for great prices. When you consider how well name-brand clothes tend to wear, and wash (and resist stains!), and keep so that you can re-sell them, the savings are really multiplied!

Check the website ("Here We Grow Again" Consignment Sale) for all the details...

Starbucks Coffee: Target Deal!

There's a great deal on Starbucks Coffee at Target this week!
(Thanks, My Frugal Adventures!)

Buy two bags of Starbucks coffee (11 to 12 oz) – $7.99 each
Get a $5.00 Target gift card
Pay $5.49 per bag (after gift card)

Make the deal even sweeter:
Use two $1.00/1 Starbucks coupon (expires 03/05)

(These were distributed when Starbucks promoted their new Blonde and Medium Roasts and are reportedly still available at some Starbucks locations.)
Pay $4.49 per bag (after gift card and coupons)

You can also "roll" this deal:

Use the gift card from the first transaction to purchase two more bags of coffee – and you'll get another $5.00 gift card!

The Amazon deal on Eight O'Clock Coffee is also still on!

FREE Italian Ice at Rita's – on 03/20

Italian Ice Fans: Mark your calendars!

On Tuesday, March 20, from noon to 9:00 p.m., all open Rita's locations will be celebrating their annual First Day of Spring by giving away 10-oz. cups of Italian Ice – one per guest!

No coupon needed! Just show up!

You can check the website for a Rita's location near you. And while you're at it, join the Birthday Club, too!

Cloth-Diapering through Hard Water Issues

We’ve been using cloth diapers (as full-time as travel and follow-up recovery have allowed) on our Little Man for one year now. What do I think? I love ‘em! I love the way they fit! And we’ve experienced very few leaks – and certainly fewer and far less dramatic than with disposables!

There have been challenges, of course, with the biggest to date being the “hard water” issues we encountered last summer (winter, really!)  while living in South America for three months.

Besides the steps I took while still living with hard water, once I was back in the Upstate with my regular washer and set-up, I subjected the diapers to multiple hot rinses. (We don’t have an HE machine, so “hot” for us means about 120 degrees.)

I was amazed at how “cloudy” the water looked when I first started:

This was the first hot rinse – I hadn't added any detergent.

After each rinse cycle, the following “drum-full” of water looked clearer than its predecessor had. A half dozen or so rinse cycles later, I was finally satisfied that the diapers had been thoroughly rinsed. (I actually ran wash cycles – with no detergent – followed by rinse cycles.)

 

The end result was that the diapers were much softer and fresher-smelling – leading me to conclude that our theory was correct: The hard water had caused detergent build-up. And I’m very thankful that hot water rinses provided a relatively easy and inexpensive fix!

Eight O'Clock Coffee: Amazon Deal!

My DH loves dark coffee! And the darker, the better!

Right now you can get an amazing deal from Amazon.com:

Eight O'Clock Coffee: Dark Italian Roast, Whole Bean (11.5 oz bags (Pack of 4) – $3.48 each

• The 4-pack is on sale for $16.37 and qualifies for FREE Super Saver Shipping!
• Select the Subscribe & Save option for an additional 15% off.
  (Remember that Subscribe & Save is flexible! Per Amazon.com, you can change your order status – and even cancel your enrollment – at any time!)
• Pay only $13.91 (i.e. $3.48 each bag)

Thanks, Jungle Deals & Steals!