Savings $ Layering

I had this whole thing conceptualized as a three-part learning series, which it will be, still.

However, on the front side of holiday shopping, I wanted to share how I layer savings and earn cash back and gift cards and shopper rewards, too.

So, not my best example, but my most recent. Here’s how the FoodSaver purchase worked out for me at Kohl’s:

I started by going to MyPoints and entering Kohl’s from there. 6 points per dollar was the rate on 11/23. It can rise or lower. So, before you shop at any store, open your MyPoints account.

Original price $349.99

Sale price $329.99

Kohl’s 15% Off Coupon – $49.50 (I didn’t get the 30% 😦 )

Shipping Free

Kohl’s cash earned $75.00 (think funds for holiday gifts)

Kohl’s rewards earned $14.02 (think funds for holiday gifts)

Ibotta Browser Extension 0.5% Cash Back $1.49 (think thirst quencher while you’re shopping) and remember – I earned $193.00 cash back from Ibotta last year! It all adds up. Truly.

MyPoints 1782 point (Redeemable for Gift Cards)

Fetch – Unfortunately, only works with online purchases associated with GMail accounts, SO FAR. They’re working on it!

Click the Blue Links below to get started.

Ibotta My Ibotta Referral Code: vuodlbm

Fetch My Fetch Referral Code: A8JUX

MyPoints: if you are interested in adding MyPoints to your layered savings, please private message me your email address so I may send you an invitation. You can go and sign upon your own, but it’d be nice if you give me a chance to send you the invite. 🙂

Yes, I will earn points or cash back boosts from the above links. But, once you sign up, you can, too!

Extra tips:

Create a Junk Email Address. You’ll use this for all of the stores, restaurants, point and cash back programs so they don’t clutter up your real inbox!

When you sign up for any cashback or points program there is usually a bonus. Always check your email and the website for extra deals.

Right now Ibotta is offering 2.5% cash back on Society6 purchases.

I always order samples from each site I list my art on as a quality check. Not only am I super pleased with the pleated, 2-layer, filter-insert features of Society6 masks, I am also super pleased that the Ibotta Browser popped up and offered 2.5% Cash Back ON TOP OF THE SALE PRICE – up to 50% off on a lot of items. Redbubble also offers Ibotta cash back.

Important – I will never, ever sell or give your email address away or divulge any other personal information. to any other person, company or space alien. Promise.

Artwork available on masks, pillows, clocks, tables, leggings, travel mugs, and just about any great gift you can think of!

Knabbler Shop @ Society6

Knabbler Shop @ RedBubble

btw – Chewy offers discounts for joining their auto-ship plan. Scheduling is your choice. Auto ships may be canceled at any time, so try it out.

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That Looks Easy….

Jeff’s penchant for home improvement shows came in handy, sort of.

If you watch enough of them, you’ll absorb some basic knowledge. Most of that will need to be supplemented by online videos, step-by-step instructions or just jumping into the deep end to see how it goes.

Basic knowledge was enough to get me through numerous post Hurricane Katrina rebuilding missions with a construction based Michigan team, and various issues at home alone, later.

If Jeff was still here, he’d be telling humorous stories about some of our least successful attempts at home repair and renovation. We’d always start out thinking, “That looks easy enough.” We’d always end up bickering, and then, laughing at our bickering.

In mid-September, we finished an attempt to ‘easily’ replace the gate at the top of the back deck stairs. We needed one that  our dog, Sadie, wouldn’t be able to plow through, wiggle through or accidentally (or maybe not so accidentally) open. She’d managed to escape a few times, in all those ways.

The installation, actually, went pretty well. We had it done in a little under an hour, and tested our work. That’s when we realized we’d installed it to open the wrong way, by setting it in place upside-down.

“I thought that seemed a little harder than normal,” Jeff commented. Also, more difficult than ‘normal,’ the hardware wasn’t easily removed. Parts of screws broke off or were stripped, nuts fell between the cracks and tumbled down our long flight of stairs.

A lot of banging, two trips to the hardware store and four hours later, we were finished. To celebrate, Jeff suggested we fire up our newly repaired grill and cook-out.

The grill had been another frustrating fiasco. A 15-minute fix turned into two-hours of gentle Jeff cussing while installing a new lighter thingy.

I was inside cutting tomatoes and onions and gathering impromptu picnic supplies, when I heard Jeff shout.

“What the?”

“WHAT the?”

“Hey!”

“HEY!”

“Come here, YOU!”

As I ran to the slider, his voice volume was over-excitedly escalating.

“HEY!”

“Ouch!”

“Come HERE!”

“OUCH!”

Stupefied, I watched him pull and throw chucks of sizzling beef over the 5-foot drop at the back of our deck.

“Jeff!” Alarmingly concerned about his mental state, I slammed the screen door open. Suspecting he was having some sort of serious negative medication reaction, I blurted out, “I’m right here! What are you doing?”

Startled, he turned quickly, giving me a incredulous look, like I was the weirdo in this situation.

His stop-arm reaction time was a bit slower than his body turning time. Set in motion for an airborne release, he lobbed a glob of barely cooked ground in my direction.

I watched it wobble in a somewhat graceful arc, my mental slow-mo calculating: no – that’s not gonna happen.

It happened. Direct hit to my face.

Quote for the Week:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jalapeno Puppy!

My holiday seasons rarely lack spice. I know a lot of folks who like it somewhat hot, and some weirdos who like to see how hot they can go for equally weird bragging rights. There’re stories there, but ….

First let me introduce, Sadie the Pepper Pup. As hyper as she was, she also was terrified of weather an sounds. Not just rain and thunder, winds and motorcycles were equally scary. While having her nails clipped at a Lenawee Humane Society fund-raiser, Sadie shook a bit. When we said she was scared of a lot of things, we were advised that she should own a thunder shirt.

We eyeballed each other and seemed to silently agree to give it a try. On our way home with a pink camouflage doggie hoodie and a clipped puppy, Jeff mentioned he was kinda surprised I wanted to buy one. He thought I’d be doubtful. I was absolutely doubtful. I only went along with it because I thought he believed. We chuckled about that. As soon we got home, I sat Sadie down, and said, “Here goes nuthin…”

To our mutual surprise, she didn’t balk. It was surprisingly easy to get her in and out of it. And it was surprisingly easy for her to get it dirty. Instead of washing it every day, I went back and bought her another one.

After which, “I got to thinkin’” as Jeff would put it. I figured I could go to Salvation Army and get her some kids clothes. “What?” Jeff raised his eyebrows, “You’re gonna put her in pants?” “No, no. Not pants!” I shook my head. “Dresses?” he asked. “No, no.” I squinted in his direction. “Not dresses.” Just cheaper shirts so we didn’t have to do doggie laundry every other day. Just enough to get through a week. Jeff crinkled his eyebrows; his face and forehead followed. “She’s gonna have seven shirts?” he tried to clarify. “No, no.” I grinned at our silly conversation. “I’m thinking eight or nine, so she’ll have one to wear while we hers are in the washer….” “Geez,” he teased. “That dog’s gonna have more shirts than I have!”

Sadie’s (and my, our) fondness for shirts meandered easily into to holiday outfits. An American flag t-shirt for 4^th of July, red with hearts for Valentine’s day, green for St Patrick’s day.

I was amazed when Jeff found a dog store on-line that also had  a wide selection of Halloween costumes. They were all so cute. As he was scrolling quickly, one in particular caught my eye. My crazy-chicken lady-ness kicked into high gear. “I want it!” I squealed. “That one,” I pointed – “that chicken dog-fit with a matching chicken head hat!”

Jeff said, “Oooo-k…, but what I really want to show you is… THIS!” he announced in a ta-dah flourish. And what to my wondering eyes should appear but an obviously, divinely, inspired red satin chile suit with ‘just picked’ greens as the neck.

“Ooooo,” I leaned over to get a better look, touching the screen as if I thought I could feel it. Both were definitely higher priced than the second-hand toddler shirts I’d been collecting. For some reason, though, the hot pepper was way more expensive than the chicken.

Leaning on Jeff’s shoulder, I decided out loud, “Well, we’ve just got to get that one!” “And the chicken, too?” he turned to ask. “Umm,” I pondered. “No, not right now,” I said. “Let’s just get this one. Maybe, we can make it a business expense…” Jeff just arched his eyebrows at me.  “You know…” I shrugged with a little smugly smile. “A business suit… for our new mascot!”

And that’s how Sadie the Pepper Pup came to be.

Quote for the Week:

Bonus Pictures:

 

ps… would you please let me know if you’ve read this? all feed back welcome.

Discovery Dog

After we finished laughing, Jeff and I agreed that it had really  just been a  matter of time until she figured it out for herself. We were wrong.

Sadie made a  few more leap-over attempts, but obviously never caught on that she’d need momentum. She scared herself silly with the first crash and caught her foot in the mesh on her second. She must have decided that particular risk it wasn’t worth it, because her tactics changed.

One day she sat staring into through the hallway door, whining pitifully. We’d both taken a turn checking out what the problem was. The first time, Jeff searched for her red ball, and came back empty handed. The second time, I figured something must really be wrong for Sadie to be so insistent.

Her ball definitely wasn’t on the inside side of the gate, but, ahhh …. Miss Fred was. I scooped Sadie up and told her she was being a silly dog. Freddie immediately jumped the fence, flattened her ears in displeasure, shook a front paw at both of us, and took off the other end of the house.

It wasn’t the last time Sadie’d ask to be let into litter box heaven. She’d prance back and forth from the hallway door to the den and try to catch our eye, hoping we’d follow.

After a few times, we were on to her, but bless her goofy puppy heart she’d would whine jealously about Fred being inside and her being outside.

She’d lie on her belly, back legs tucked, front legs stretched out ib front of her and eventually let out a loud sigh of frustration. She even had the almost teary, super sad eyes of an abused animal commercial pitch, many of which I’d seen over the years. Sadie was certainly dramatic.

Jeff and I became accidentally more educated on Sadie’s particular type of different. Nothing that interesting was on TV, so Jeff shuffled through channels until he landed on Animal Planet. In some sort of agility course event, appropriately sized Jack Russells were weaving and jumping and plowing through tubes. Just when it seemed like the contest was over, the announcer said something about the need to reset the course from the Smalls to the Talls.

I looked over at Jeff who was looking over at me. “Sadie!” I exclaimed. She catapulted to the couch from a complete sleep.

I kissed her adorable heart-shaped nose, and happily informed her, “You’re not a freak, girlie girl! You’re – a  – TALL!”  

She had no idea what I was saying, but she happily kissed my chin, energetically struggled out of my grasp, bounced off the couch, ran in a circle and took off a full run. In a flash, she was back –  gripping her prized red ball.

“Where do-ya think she got that from?” Jeff asked, suspiciously.

 

Quote for the Week:

Enjoy This Week’s Discovery Links:

Dogs and Their: Toys

Dogs and Their: Fetch Fettish

Dogs and Their: Lick of Affection

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Leaps and Bounding

Sadie continue to tall-up. She was adorable and sweet and fun, just different. Maybe not so smart, but sometimes smarter than us. We solved the litter-box raids by putting up a baby gate at the door to the laundry room. For the first few days, she’d do a double-take whenever she passed it.

A few days later Sadie seemed to realize what she was missing. She’d stop and sit, stare longingly into the laundry room for a few seconds, huff and then hoof it. She was also obsessed with the red ball.

She really loved that cheap dollar-store firm foam orb. As far as toys go, Sadie never touched the kong. Squeaky toys were instantly dismantled; pieces strewn about were discarded. Somehow, she always managed to hide the squeaker part somewhere obscure. We’d look for them, but never once found one. There’d suddenly be a squeeze frenzy days later. Many times, while one of us was on the phone and often after we’d been asleep for a bit.

Jeff discovered he could keep her entertained longer by sending her on longer indoor fetches. He had perfected a double bounce that would propel the ball into the dining room. He achieved that by launching the ball toward the right wall of the hallway, where it angle-bounced to the left wall. From there it flew it into the dining room and if Jeff and Sadie were lucky, the ball would deflect off a chair and travel toward the living room.

That worked well until the day Sadie bounded after her red ball as it bounced off the hall wall into the laundry room. I watched in fascinated dread as it seemed she would easily clear our brilliant barrier. Sadie flew after it, naturally jumping right over our stop-gap.

“Sadie! No!” I cried out. But my sudden loud outburst hadn’t slowed her down at all. When she didn’t reappear, I slammed the recliner footrest down, stumbling away from a startled Jeff.  He hadn’t quite processed what was going on, partly because he couldn’t see around the corner and mostly because I hadn’t filled him in.

“Oh, no! No, no, no no no!” I wailed in dismay. By the time I arrived at the entry door, Sadie was snout deep in Miss Fred’s refuse.

Jeff was halfway out of his chair with alarm, yelling back, “What? What?”

Sadie smiled happily at me, picked up her ball, took a running start and just as easily re-cleared the gate on her way back to Jeff.

“You bounced the ball into the laundry!” I huffed. “She jumped the gate and got into the litter again.”

“Oh, that’s no big deal,” Jeff poo-poo’ed me. “That’s what dogs do.”

“Just now!” I emphasized. “Right before she picked up that … that ball with her POTTY mouth and gave it to you.”

Jeff looked down at his hand. “Arrrgghhhh!” His situational assessment was shortly followed by “EEWWWWWWW!” and a forceful arm catapult as the ball went whizzing by my head.

Quote for the week:

Enjoy This Week’s Discovery Links:

Fancy Doggie: Gates

Patent Baby: Gate

Safety: Gates