moosh in indy's HP's Magic Giveaway
I have taught High School Business classes for almost eighteen years now. My school has a diverse population and more almost three-quarters of them are eligible for free or reduced lunch.
We can’t afford to keep up with the technology that our students need to be exposed to. Many of my students do not have access to technology at home. When I heard about
HP’s Magic Giveaway, I was so excited because I felt this would help my students in such a major way. Imagine $6,000 in HP technology for my classroom.
I know I certainly could use a new computer. This summer I plan to take some online courses to get my graduate degree in Special Education. With so many of our students mainstreamed into the regular education classes I feel that furthering my education won’t just help me but help the students that need the most help. Of course I could also use the computer to create interactive and exciting lesson plans.
I would share my computer with my husband who recently lost his job. He is an individual who is listed as a statistic in the mass layoffs you’ve been reading about in the paper. He would be able to use the computer to research job openings and compose cover letters and resumes that will hopefully get him re-employed.
My youngest son is now in the Army and getting ready to leave for Iraq. Over the past several years I’ve had students leave for the same destination. It is for this reason I have been involved with the Adopt a Soldier Program. We send a goody box to soldiers once a month as well as cards and letters. I would love to gift him with one of the computers so he can keep in touch with friends and family.
So thank you
moosh in indy for letting me know about this great contest Be sure to check out my
you tube video about this giveaway and how special it would make the holidays for the people you see in the
video.
Labels: army, christmas, computers, contest, diverse, free lunch, graduate degree, hp magic giveaway, hp technology, lesson plans, mooshinindy, soldier, special needs, students, youtube
Revisiting the Coupon Queen
Years ago I read an article in a woman’s magazine and it featured a woman who purchased a whole shopping cart filled of food and after coupons and rebates walked out paying about a dollar or so for everything. She was a stay at home mom and she made it seem that by clipping coupons one could make this a reality. That’ what I wanted! I wanted to stay at home, watch my kids grow, be all fussy with the house and the cooking. What a dream! Did this ever happen for me? NO!
When I first married Steve I wanted to prove to him that I could save so much money and live so frugally so that I could stay home and Steve could work. This was a NO for Steve. He felt I should have a job and my pay should go for everything from food, to rent, to utilities, and he would be responsible for his car, his gym membership, and his drinking with his friends.
I started out pretty naively. I would buy things and when I got a really good deal on something I would show him hoping he’d take an interest, hoping I could show him how other women were able to do what I wanted to do and stay home. I used to write my parents and my sister and brag about the good deals until Mary made a comment about how she doesn’t use coupons anymore because Randy makes enough where she doesn’t have to anymore. For Steve it only meant more money for him to spend.
It was a lonely hobby and it wasn’t paying off the way my other hobby was which was doing radio contests. With that hobby Steve and I went to concerts all the time and won albums, t-shirts, etc, etc. Although I got some really good deals I never good do what that woman in the article was able to do and so I let it all just pass me by.
I tried again after I graduated from college and got my first apartment. I did much better then. I was able to stock pile free or nearly free laundry detergent, toothpaste, deodorant, etc. I would send away for some of the premiums and after all those years on welfare it felt good to be using all name brand items and buying them far cheaper than the store brand. This time I was way more organized than before. I would go to stores that offered double and even triple coupons and mail away for rebates. I began to start saving up the little checks here and there and depositing them into my account and even opened an account for my youngest son.
By the time I moved to Newport News I had saving down to a system. I had quit buying all my clothes at the second hand stores. Now I bought everything brand spanking new and not at Walmart. I shopped at Dillards and Hechts where there weren’t children running through the store screaming. I’d buy $60 dollar dresses for $10. I’d buy Mike a $100 coat for $15. They were all name brands even my darn shoes which I’d buy at 90% off. What a hoot.
Groceries were great at Harris Teeter. I’d buy what was on sale, especially if it was buy one get one free. If I had a coupon even better. They would print out extra coupons for you to use on your next visit. I’d buy our dog food at Pet Smart by going to the back of the store looking for bags that had been marked down sometimes up to40% because there were tears in the bags and then I’d use a coupon.
Then I married Darryl and I moved to Georgia. There was no Harris Teeter anymore. I began shopping at Walmart and hoped I was saving money although it never felt like I was.
Then yesterday I happened upon a coupon site by going to the Sweepsheet site. I’m glad I subscribed to this site. Three is some chat there but most of it is about sweeping not about political, anti-religious, sex, drug use, etc. I still love my other site but this was just a different avenue for me to do more snails. After all I used to do snails and I would win things. I even won a bike for Mike years ago. It was so great to be able to give him a bike. I have only won a couple of things that were only mentioned on that site. One was a Reeses t-shirt and the other was a $40 gift card that went to Mike. I’m keeping my fingers crossed though. I do win lots more on Online-Sweepstakes.com I’ve won lots of stuff from that including 2 of our vacations for the next year.
Well that’s when I took a look at the link for coupons. I used to subscribe to the magazine Refundable Bundle. I remember looking through it years ago for things I would use I let my subscription lapse all those years ago and didn’t renew. Couponing can be such a solitary hobby. Wow have things changed. I clicked on to the link and people were actually taking pictures of all the stuff they got for free and had ideas that I hadn’t thought of or hadn’t tried. Things like buying things really cheap or free and selling them at a yard sale.
So I said what the heck. I’ve been kind of doing money saving stuff by looking for red coke caps and plugging them in to get merchandise as gifts for my boys. I started doing my points. Doing the surveys. Heck. Maybe I still have it in me.
So I went to Eckerds today to check things out. I needed some hair dye and I noticed in their markdown area they had hydrience marked down to $3.94. That alone would have been a good price but I just so happened to have a $4 coupon for that stuff. So actually I came out 6 cents ahead. Then just the other day I received a $1 off coupon for a new shampoo called Sunsilk. At Walmart the darn thing goes for $3.19 a bottle. Way too pricey for my blood, besides I just recently won a bottle of shampoo and when that runs out I’d just go back to whatever was cheap. Eckerds had the shampoo on sale for $2.99 and they were offering a $1.00 rebate. This brings the $3.19 shampoo down to $1.99. Don’t forget though I still had that $1.00 off coupon. So really I only paid 99 cents for it after I send in the rebate. Now that’s a good price for shampoo.
That alone would have been good enough to walk away with but just as I was leaving my eyes caught hold of some Clairol Ultress Hair color. I love that stuff and believe me It’s expensive to dye your hair. Even the cheap stuff can run you $3 a bottle and this one usually runs about $6 these days. For a long time I never paid full price for hair dye. I always bought it on sale and often bought it for as cheap as $2 or so. Then we stopped subscribing to the paper. That wasn’t in our budget anymore because Darryl had begun his own business and everything was caught up in that. So I stopped getting coupons and Darryl only wanted to shop at one store and get through it quickly. Anything else was wasting time and not valuable use of my time in the big picture. That’s Darryl though so caught up in the big picture that he fails to realize that he might need to save some money to make the picture a reality. I had a $1 coupon for another hair color and for a second I wondered if this was the same thing. Then I pulled up the box to see how much it cost. Can you believe they accidentally priced it at 47 cents? Good grief. I picked that thing right up and brought it to the register.
Earlier today I walked though the dollar general store and noticed that they had Colgate toothpaste 4 oz size on sale for $1.00. Not a bad price. Certainly a better price when I went back and handed the woman a coupon for 75 cents and bought it for a quarter. Those travel size toothpastes are so expensive but now I have a decent size tube and I only paid a quarter. Speaking of toothpaste just yesterday I bought 3 boxes of 6 ox crest white expressions lemon ice. They were buy two get one free. That came to $5 for three boxes of Crest. That would have been about $1.66 per box which isn’t that bad because toothpaste is pretty expensive. I had a $1 off coupon and so it really came to three 6 oz boxes for $4 which makes each box about $1.34 cents each. Not as good as my collage deal but still a good deal.
I wasn’t finished saving yet though. From there I went to Ross to buy some school clothes and some things to wear on our upcoming trips. I always like to take new outfits on our trips. I feel so much more confident as crazy as that sound. When I was at Walmart I was looking at buying a new purse. Since one of the places we are going is California I want to look like I belong and not some tourist who shopped at the Salvation Army pre-flight. I saw a couple of cute purses and they were about $8. I thought that one was particularly cute but I wanted to see what I could find at Ross first. Then I wanted to check Rugged Warehouse. I didn’t even go to Rugged Warehouse. I found two very cute purses there. One was a black leather purse from Nine West. For a poor girl like me that’s living pretty large. They sell those at Dillards and Hechts and you really had to look to find one that was affordable. They said it goes for $32 normally and I bought it for $4.99. The other one was a small brown leather purse that normally goes for $30 and I paid $5.99. These are real quality leather purses and they are small and very stylish. I’m very pleased.
Of course I’ve been shopping for back to school for me. A couple of weeks ago I bought some sweaters. One was from Walmart and it was only $3 marked down from $12. I couldn’t resist. I bought a Carolyn Taylor Sweater that normally goes for $36 for $6.49. A month ago I bought two sweaters for $1.98 a piece at Fashion Bug. I’m thinking of going back to doing coupons once my kitchen is finished and I can start cooking again. Then maybe I will have some real things to report.
