Last night, my friend Katie and I had the pleasure of throwing a baby shower for one of our dear friends Brittany. She is due with a girl 4 weeks before me. It was really fun for Katie and I to be able to have fun with all the pink girly stuff since I'm having a boy and Katie just had a boy 2 months ago.
 I spent the day baking the treats for the shower and also the bread for the soup. These three recipes are tried and true pins that I have loved and will continue to use over and over. See this post for the cookie recipe. Here for the Texas Sheet Cake and here for the amazing (and very easy) artisan bread. I swear by these recipes. I would run, not walk to pin these recipes. Winners.
 Katie used the Cricut to make this cute sign. The Cricut is so easy to use and becomes addicting after you figure out how to use it!
 For the food, Katie made tomato basil soup, also a BIG hit, artisan bread, fresh strawberry lemonade, chocolate dipped strawberries and pretzels and the goodies I showed earlier.
 Katie found the idea for the cute puff balls on pinterest here and had the idea to make it into a cute little garland to hang. The best part? We got the tissue at the dollar store and they really didn't take all that long to make.
 More puff balls!

I was in charge of favors, the best part? All from the dollar store! Katie found some awesome nail polishes ($1 each) and I got the files (4 for $1), Jolly Rancher Pops (whole bag for $1) and bags (pack of 30 for $1) at Honks.

And here we are with the guest(s) of honor.

Here's my 2 cents about the dollar store...or I guess maybe its at least worth a dollar ;o). Think twice before you buy things at the regular store before you check the dollar store.

I wandered in to Honks on Tuesday to look for some things for the shower and found out that the first Tuesday of every month is 88 cent Tuesday at Honks. As I went down the aisles, I found TONS of painting supplies for a house painting project we had coming up: I got trays, roller covers, tape, drop cloths, brushes, scrapers, masks, school supplies for my sister, shower items including game stuff, tissue paper, bags, favor stuff, cleaning supplies and a few other goodies for only $36! (That's more than 40 items) Can you believe it?!

You would be surprised what you can find at the dollar store and how much money you can save. Sure, I value the opinion that there are some things you just need to pay full-price for, but for a lot of the little things, the dollar store is just the ticket. My two favorites are Honks and Family Dollar.

So, if you know me at all, you know I love using coupons and saving money. I was especially into it last summer and saved us hundreds of dollars on our grocery bill using the Savvy Shopper and Krazy Coupon Lady sites. I would highly recommend trying this out, especially if you are a stay-at-home mom and would love to do your part to help out with finances (or if you want a little extra shopping money ;o)).

My mom recently introduced me to two sites:

Cardpool

and

Raise

This has seriously been the best discovery for me and I'll tell you why: its taking my money saving to a whole new level. (Do I sound intense or what?)

OK so here's how it works. These two sites offer gift cards at a discounted rate. For instance, I bought a gift card to Michael's from Cardpool at 21% off for yarn for a baby blanket. I then got a 25% off total purchase coupon from Michaels (which includes sale items). So, assuming the yarn was already on sale, I have my 25% off coupon AND I bought a gift card for 21% off, that's 3x the savings!

Yesterday, Jer's Grandma Pendleton offered to buy us our travel system for little Scotty. What a sweetie! Well I had already picked out the one I wanted but I was bound and determined to get the best deal possible. With tax, this lovely lady retails for $257.00. So here's what I did:







1. I had a 15% total purchase coupon to Babies "R" Us so I knew I could get it for about $217 with that.

2. I found a $200 gift card on Raise at 5% off making it $190, I also had a coupon code for $5 off any gift card over $70 from Raise so I ended up paying $185 for a $200 gift card.

3. At checkout, I used the gift card and the coupon (I ended up paying tax on a different gift card) for a grand total of $51 savings!

That's a lot of leftover money for diapers we can now buy for little Scotty! 

I am always getting those coupons in my e-mail for 15-20% off lots of different stores, and Cardpool and Raise have gift cards to most of them! Even at a 5% discount, you are still paying less than what its worth, and when you stack that with a coupon or a sale-or both!- you are saving triple what you would have.

*They also have gift cards to restaurants, clothing stores, movie theaters, etc. Check it out!