When I renewed my license plates, I added $10 to my already ridiculous fees.  Why is our old beater car more expensive to renew than our new one? Hey Ruth Johnson - put that on your list of things to fix when you take over as Secretary of State, wouldya?

I added the extra ten spot for a Recreation Passport.  Rather than paying $24 for the windshield sticker (what kind of adhesive do they use on those things, anyway? That stuff can only be removed using something along the lines of jet fuel), I now have some kind of secret marking on my license plate sticker that gives me admission to State Parks.  Our economy in Michigan may or may not be getting better – but our natural resources are not getting any less beautiful so if I can have access for them to less I think that’s a screamin’ good deal.

Closer to home, the Calvin College Ecosystem Preserveis an amazing resource.  The interpretive center is beautiful and interesting and welcoming. Swing by and pick up a trail map, check out the cool stuff, and head out.  The preserve is 40 acres of beauty with great trails that take you through the forest, meadows, and wetlands.  It’s entirely impossible to forget that you are right next to the East Beltline.

I love Blandford Nature Center.  Blandford has changed hands and leadership many times in the past few years, but I think they are on a good path now.  My favorite programs are Sugarbush, the Harvest Festival, and the Homeschooling Programs for days I am pretending I’m a homeschooler.  They’re excellent, inexpensive, small group programs you can read more about here.

You still have plenty of time before it’s too cold to get outside.  One of the best sounds ever is crunching leaves under your feet.  I love being on a trail with no mosquitoes or gnats – they can’t handle the cool weather.  When the leaves have fallen from the trees, you can see so much.  I have mixed feelings about geocaching.  I’m interested in it, but I want one place in the world to be unplugged.  I don’t want my kids to get the  message that nature is boring without digital enhancements.  On the other hand, if it gets kids outside more that is a good thing.  For now we’ll just go crunching leaves and finding our own fun in the woods.  I hope you do too!

I am turning 40 in a week. 

So what’s it like to turn 40? It seems old, but I don’t feel any different than I did at, say, 36.  Or even 32.  I just feel married, with kids. And a worse metabolism I ever imagined possible.  I had a harder time with 30 than I am having with 40, although I would like to trade my 40 year old butt in for my 30 year old one.

I can count on the world bringing me a few things for my birthday.  First, a constant serenade by Gordon Lightfoot about the Big Lake They Call Gitcheegumee.  The Edmund Fitzgerald sank on my fifth birthday, and I have been hearing about it ever since.

Second, the first snow.  Almost every year we get a ‘light dusting’ on Veterans Day, which is a day after my birthday.

And third? Free food.  Which does not bode well for my aforementioned metabolism, but I’d hate to be rude.

I’m keeping a list for you guys of all the emails I get so you can sign up too.  I’m leaving out anything that is not:

1. food
2. free

We’re not messing around with “free appetizer with purchase of entree” stuff.  That’s a coupon, not a birthday present.  I did a post earlier this year about birthday freebies, but that was kid stuff.  This is what the grown ups get for their birthday.

So I’ll start with the coffee.  If you have  Startucks Rewards Card, you will get a free coffee on your birthday.  A Starbucks Rewards Card is just a gift card you register.  So do it!

Biggby just mailed me a card for a free grande beveragetoday, which I will be cashing in and drinking tomorrow.  I am signed up for the eRewards program, but this was a coupon that came in the regular mail.

Of course I have to grab my free burger from Red Robin for being in their eClub.  This is my family’s favorite birthday freebie!

Also in the entree category, BD’s Mongolian Grille emailed me a coupon for a free one.  Sweet!

And Noodles and Company sent me an email with a coupon for a free bowl of noodles.

This one is awesome.  Florentine Pizza (the one on Plainfield) sent me a coupon for a free large pizza up to 6 items, breadsticks, and two liter!! I signed up for their email list through Grand Rapids Sudden Values.

And now for the desserts – definitely the most well-represented category of all the birthday freebies.

I have an email waiting to be printed from Macaroni Grill for a free piece of chocolate cake.  I like that they specified the flavor   I’m a member of the eClub.

Buffalo Wild Wings also emailed me a coupon for a free piece of cake, but I get to choose the flavor. 

Boston’s lets me go hog wild and choose any free dessert for my birthday with the email they sent me.

TCBY is giving me a small cup of froyo for my birthday.  I heard frozen yogurt was making a comeback. Or maybe it never left. Or maybe it just doesn’t like being called ‘froyo’.

Chilis is springing for a free brownie sundae.  These are awesome… I am totally printing that, taking it to Chilis, and eating it while my kids are in school so I don’t have to share.  Just kidding! No, I’m not.

As a Fazoli’s eclub member, I got a coupon by email for a free Italian Ice.

I’m also a member of the Culvers eClub, for which I will receive a free one scoop Sundae with the coupon they emailed me.

MaggieMoo sent me an email for a free kid size cone.  I don’t really remember how I signed up, but  poke around their website.  I think it’s for the MaggiEmail.

More ice cream! Coldstone Creamery sent me a coupon for a free single creation.

There you go.  Happy Birthday to me! I hope someone gets me a pair of fat pants (or some new running shoes!).

Some families do picnics.  Some families ski together.  My family? We go to hockey games and yell. Loud.

It’s what we do.

When the kids were little, we rarely made it through a whole game before they got too tired so we didn’t buy them separate tickets.  They were lap dogs.  Now, not only do they need their own seats, they need hot dogs and bubuzelas.

In the past couple of years, we’ve developed a few strategies for saving on Griffins Tickets that I’d love to share with you because not only am I helping you see the Griffins for less, I also get to talk about bike helmets and the library which are two of my other faves.

• First, have your kids sign up for Put A Lid On It.  They commit to wearing helmets every time they ride their bikes.  The Griffins send them free tickets.  Awesome, yes?
• Next, did you know you can ‘check out’ Griffins Tickets? It’s true! But you don’t have to bring them back.  Call your local Grand Rapids Public Library branch and see how many tickets they have.  There is a limited number of tickets for each game and you may have to drive to another branch to pick them up.
• The Entertainment Book has coupons for buy one, get one free tickets.  I don’t own the Entertainment Book, but I have a two part strategy.  First, I am going to mooch other people’s coupons from them that they aren’t going to use.  When that gravy train is over, I’m going to buy an Entertainment Book when the price drops near the end of hockey season.  I’ll recoup the cost the first time I cash one of those babies in at the ticket office.
• Again with the library – membership has its privileges. Every Sunday and Wednesday nights you can get lower bowl tickets for $10 when you show your library card from either KDL or GRPL.  Plus, Sunday is breadstick day.  They’re $1.00, and pretty addictive.  The nice thing about Sunday games with kids is that they start at 4:00 so you aren’t out late. 
• This post updated to include: Check the Griffins Twitter and Facebook pages for current discount codes.  Depending on the price of the ticket you are buying, you will save up to $5.50 per ticket.

Living frugally doesn’t mean not having any fun – it means being resourceful and doing what you want.  I want you to go to Griffins games AND eat delicious breadsticks.  Have fun!

We might have one more warm snap (if there is there such a thing. After all, why must snaps always be cold?), but camping season is pretty much over in Michigan.

Now is the time to scoop up the bargains. Look at Target endcaps for tents, sleeping bags, and other little camping accessories on super clearance.

You can also score this excellent e-Book from local Grand Rapids real-food blogger Kitchen Stewardship. I’m proud to be an affiliate for her. The work poured into this book makes buying it at full price ($5.00) a great deal – but add in the end of season sale and it’s pretty much irresistible. Buy it now, and tuck it away for next year’s trip. Not eating healthy now? No pressure.  Make it a New Year’s Resolution and this book will be perfect for your camping trips next year.  For $2.50.

It’s 50% off, but only on Monday the 25th and only for the first 250 books.  The offer ends at midnight, so I am going to wake up early and get one. Because the early bird gets the worm. And the good camping sites. And the clearance tents.  And the e-books.

**Use code “ENDOFSEASON” when checking out to bring the price down to $2.50!

I was hitting the deal and coupon websites HARD this weekend, because since Friday (it seems so long ago, now…) we have learned the following:

1. Our car needs $1,500 in repairs.
2. Our escrow account is short and we can either pay an extra $150 a month (a LOT for us!!) forever, or cover the shortage in a ‘lump’ sum amount of $1,200.  That is not a ‘lump’, Chase Mortgage.  I think the wording should be changed to “freakin’ truckload of cash’ sum. 

 

Just as I was dreaming of replacing our yucky old kitchen flooring, And buying a new vacuum cleaner.  And signing up at Weight Watchers again.  And going to the Blissdom blogging conference.

I went through the proper stages. 

• Denial (maybe the mechanics AND the bank will realize they made mistakes!)
• Anger (swear words I’ll spare your delicate ears from hearing)
• Bargaining (Dear God.  If I lose weight on my own – can I still go to Blissdom?)
• Depression (fixed that with beer) and
• Acceptance (BRING IT ’cause I CAN DO THIS)

So this Budget Boosters thing? We’re really going to give it a go.  Also, I’ve changed my sidebar (the farthest right column) so that only displays deals. 

I know I just wrote about Pedialyte Singles the other day.  I also wrote to the company I worked with to promote this and thanked them for letting me be a part of it, because dehydration on is so awful for kids and the ‘juice box’ look to these will really make a difference in keeping kids hydrated when they’re sick.

They were like, um, ok sure.  You’re welcome. Weirdo.

Here is a coupon for $1.50 off Pedialyte Singles.  You can print it twice, and you should.

According to the Meijer Mealbox, if you buy two Pedialyte Products you will get $1.50 off your next shopping order. 

I know.  This is why I am not a ‘deal blogger’.  I took me 400 words to say what the good deal bloggers could say in 50.  But still, I just saved you $4.50.  That’s almost a penny a word, so it’s worth it

Last month I was telling A.P. that we wouldn’t be able to do something he wanted to do. My astute little negotiator replied with, “Mom! Come on. What does our main man Barack Obama say?”

Ummm… Pakistan.  Iraq.  Haiti.  Oil Spill.  Watch your mouth, Biden?  Will someone remind me why I wanted to be President again?

“I don’t know, what does he say?”

“Yes! We! CAN!” Complete with fist pump.

He didn’t get what we wanted, but I got a title for this blog post.

I canned tomatoes yesterday.  Let me show you the money (and then I’ll stop with the cliches):

• A quart of tomatoes equals 2.2 cans (14.5 ounce).
• I canned 14 quarts of tomatoes, which equals 30.8 cans.
• I paid $13.00 for my tomatoes, so that is the equivalent of $0.42 a can.

This is a good price on canned tomatoes, for sure. Factor in that the flavor is superior to even those fancy, premium brands and the deal just got better. If BPA concerns you (and it probably should) there is a tiny amount of BPA in the lids used for canning, although I have heard there are BPA-free lids now. The tomatoes don’t touch the tops of the lids for any significant time because you leave about an inch of ‘headspace’ when you can. Compare this to the BPA lined cans that store bought tomatoes hang out in for months.

 You can’t even buy BPA free canned tomatoes, regardless of how much you pay.

I am mentioning tomatoes specifically because our family goes through more tomatoes than any other canned item. I’m all about bang for my buck. It’s not worth it to me to spend a day canning beets even if I got the best deal ever because we wouldn’t eat them. No money saved, no BPA exposure reduced. Just a lot of beets on the shelf.

If you haven’t canned before, start with tomatoes. They are the easiest thing to can, and have a way higher yield than stupid peaches.  That means that unlike stupid peaches, which by the time you get rid of the skins and hack it apart to get the pits out and have approximately 1000 raw peaches per quart, tomatoes are pretty much What You See Is What You Get.

As an added bonus, you can often get them for free from overwhelmed friends whose tomato plants are ripe and demanding to be picked. Once you purchase the initial equipment, you can use it year after year with the exception of new lids (they’re cheap). 

So how do you do it? I have some resources for you (of course!). 

1. Read my initial post about canning, just a year after I started.  We were so young then.
2. Listen to my Dad about using old, cracked jars.
3. Check out Eat Local, West Michigan! for more resources (even if you don’t live in here).

Let me know how it turns out! Yes! We! CAN!

For this week’s Budget Booster, I have a very easy way to get a little extra money.  And because it’s very easy, it’s very little money but still… easy.  It’s with MyPoints.  You sign up and receive several offers in your mailbox to click on.  Clicking on the email gives you the points.  See? Easy. 

You don’t have to sign up for the offers (although if you do, many more points are waiting for you) – just click.  It’s almost always five points a click, and once you’ve accumulated enough points they can be cashed in for gift certificates. It takes an average of 1550 points for a $10 gift card to most places, so if you just follow the lazy email clicking plan I am on, it will take a while to add up. But I promise, it will add up.

You can also print grocery coupons and receive points when they are used.  MyPoints would really like for you to shop through their site and they work with major retailers so if you remember to start there when you’re doing some online shopping, you’ll get points for every dollar you spend.  Personally, I have an almost 100% forgetfulness rate for MyPoints shopping. Sign up for MyPoints and see what you think.  I think you’ll like it!

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Welcome to my new Monday series, Budget Boosters.  I aim to bring you two things each week to help your finances.  One to increase your income, and one to save you from spending it. Enjoy!

If you read any blogs in addition to BigBinder, you have heard about SwagBucks.  Therefore, this post is pretty much dedicated to my Dad and my sister and the perhaps one other person who has somehow missed out on this SwagBucks thing.  It’s basically a search engine that rewards you for using it.  That’s all you have to do – just download the toolbar and search the way you would your normal, un-rewarding, non-paying search engine.  I have never cashed it in for anything other than Amazon.com gift cards, but after 450 SwagBucks you get a $5 card.  It’s not that it’s lucrative; it’s just money for nothin’ and personally; I think that’s sweet.

Just click on “Sign Up” and you are good to go!  You get 30 points just for signing up, and if you enter the code “BackToSchool” you’ll get an additional 40 points, too.

I went through and downloaded the toolbar with my account on all of our computers, so even my somewhat deal-averse husband’s notebook has the SwagBucks toolbar on it.

For the saving portion of this episode of Budget Boosters, I bring you something I found on the Grand Rapids Public Library blog. I’ve told you before about checking out passes to local venues from the Library; but move over bacon.  Now there’s something meatier.

The Grand Rapids Art Museum is offering a free trial membership to West Michigan library patrons from July 15, 2010 to October 15, 2010.  The awesome part? Art Prize is within those dates.

Last week, I tried to come up with a clever name for my new Monday series about money. I’d like to thank An Open Book for the suggestion to stop being hung up on the alliteration idea and jodimichelle for the name “Budget Boosters”.  It totally works. 

Sarah’s Deals has some great bargains this week (along with about a bajillion giveaways on her Blogiversary Bash).  Here are some highlights:

Meijer

Smart Balance 1/2 Gallon Carton $1.99 use $2/1 coupon from 7/11Red Plum insert = FREE! There is also a $1/1 SQ on Meijer Mealbox, but not all stores will allow the overage.

Ragu $1.49 use $.75/2 coupon from 8/1 Red Plum insert and $1/2 coupon from Meijer Mealbox = 2/$1.23!

Welch’s Grape 32oz 3/$5 buy 3 and use 3 $.55/1 coupon from 8/1 Smart Source  AND use $1/3 coupon from Meijer Mealbox = 3/$2.35!

Aldi

Gallon of milk for $1.59.

Family Fare

Coffee-Mate 16oz 10/$10 use $.75/1 Coffee-Mate Printable Coupon = $.25 each!

As far as making money, this week, I have an idea some of you think is gruesome.  It took three different people telling me how easy and lucrative it is for me to give it a go. Several years ago, I broke down, and headed off to BioLife, which is one of those plasma selling places. It’s hard not to hang my head a little when I admit that.  Shouldn’t I be donating blood, instead of selling plasma?  

Except every time I try to donate blood, they say, “Oh, you little waif of a thing! You don’t weigh enough to donate!” .  OK that actually happened once, and I was in high school, and they didn’t call me a waif, because I was only one pound under.  It was after Pom Pon practice, and I was probably just dehydrated.

No; waif-ness is not the problem anymore.  It’s teeny, tiny, roly, poly veins.  Getting blood drawn for me is a nightmare.  Getting an IV is more difficult than whatever procedure follows (with the exclusion of birthing babies).  I beg for pediatric needles and occasionally, run across a kind and resourceful phlebotomist who obliges me.  I wish I could tip them.

Yet I tried to sell my plasma.  At the time, they were paying $25 every time you went.  They did a really thorough physical, and the place is very clean and clinical-looking.  Some of the donaters were a little scratchy, but most of them were fine.  There is a little daycare room, and they watch your kids for you.  It takes most people about 45 minutes.  It took me two hours. I went through two phlebotomists and a nurse.  I bled all over the floor and freaked out the other people with normal veins. 

They gently asked me not to come back.  That was not necessary, on account of it sucked. 

However...  I mentioned that three people told me they didn’t have any problems whatsoever with it, which is why I am mentioning it.  They make several thousand dollars a year, and they donate blood, and their arms don’t look like those of an addict.  It didn’t work for me – but it does work for some.