It Pays to Heed My Own Advice

Three months ago when I set up my wedding registry, I wrote about how amazed I was at the price difference I found between the store and online for the same merchandise from the same company. I'm amazed again -- and have saved!

I've been wanting a new all-in-one printer/copier/scanner for a while. I have plans to use it for some upcoming wedding-related projects...as well as to just replace my 10-year-old DeskJet which can no longer do a nice print job. As usual, I have been overwhelmed by all of the options, brands, and ratings. I haven't been able to find one that seems like it has the right features for a good price and with decent reviews by professional rating people and ordinary users.

I finally found what I think will meet my criteria, such as it is (after all, I don't know much about tech stuff). I was prepared to head to Circuit City to get it. But then I remembered my own advice: see if there's a better deal. What I saw in the Circuit City sales flyer was the best deal. Nearly satisfied and ready to go the store, I decided to check one more place: the Circuit City website.

Guess what?! It was $20 cheaper online than in the store -- and they offer free shipping! That means I didn't have to fight traffic or waste gas (even though it is only 2 miles away). It probably saved me at least an hour in time to drive out there, park, find the item in the store, stand in line, talk to the sales people who would unsuccessfully try to sell me the extended warranty, check out, figure out how I was going to get that 26-plus pound box into my car, drive home, and figure out how I was going to get that 26-plus pound box out of the car and into the house.

Plus, there's more! Discover Card is giving me an additional 5% Cash Back Bonus because I linked to Circuit City's website through the Shop Discover program. Woo-hoo!

So, I saved 43% off of the regular retail price. And I saved 16% by getting it online -- delivered right to my front door, where it will be easy to push that 26-plus pound box right into the house. I love it!

You can see this is also a lesson in delayed gratification. I didn't need to have that printer right away. I could wait the 1 to 2 weeks it will take to be delivered. And I'm so pleased with the extra savings and convenience!

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Vacationing with Coupons

I really enjoy traveling and going on vacation. A big reason why I work so hard at saving money is so that I can ensure I have some earmarked for fun stuff (i.e. vacation)! I've written about some of my saving tips for the road and a lot of them stem back to using coupons either while planning the trip or during the trip. I never take a vacation from coupons -- I vacation with coupons! (After all, it's never too soon to start saving up for the next trip.)

So, I was excited yesterday when I got my weekly email on travel tips from the Washington Post Post Points program. Christina Talcott from the Post's Travel section offered up some websites for nearby places to which DC area readers may be vacationing or taking day trips. Here are the links:

Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association's Deals & Discounts

My Richmond Region Rewards

Sunny Day Guide - Virginia Beach Coupons

Ocean City, MD Coupon Book
This book costs $15, so look at the list of coupons and businesses to make sure that it will be useful to you.

That last one sounds similar to the Entertainment Book. They have deal going right now where if you order your 2009 Entertainment Book, they'll give you this year's edition for free. Or you can just buy the 2008 book for any city (assuming they haven't sold out) for $9.99. They offer coupon books for a lot of popular vacation destinations. I just noticed that our honeymoon destination city has an Entertainment Book! Hmmm...let me go look into that...

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I Made It Through the Storm

Wednesday afternoon, evening, and night some fierce storms passed through the DC area. When I got home from work, I found that the electricity had gone out during the afternoon. It also disrupted our Internet service. I called Verizon to try to have it restored, but the representative said our router must have gone out. So, he shipped us a new one, which arrived yesterday. I hooked it up, but the Internet still wasn't working. Finally, this morning another Verizon rep was able to reboot our system, and we are back online!

Before the storms blew through, I had plans on Wednesday after work to go to the grocery store to finally do some regular shopping. I haven't been other to pick up an item or two in quite some time. I've been trying to use some of the many odds and ends that I have in my pantry and freezer. It's been a good way to trim some spending lately, but I thought I had finally hit the end of anything that would constitute a meal.

There wasn't more than 15 or 20 minutes between storms on Wednesday. So just about the time I'd think it was safe to go out and get ready to go, the pouring rain, thunder, and lightning returned. This happened several times before my sister got home about 8:00. When she blew in the door, she said, "Don't go out there!" There were tornado warnings, and the sky looked terrible. Great - was I going to have to eat a can of kidney beans for dinner?

Actually, it turned out I did have more food in the freezer! I had some really great spaghetti sauce I had made several months ago that I thought belonged to my sister. So, we pooled our food resources and had a nice spaghetti dinner with garlic toast and broccoli and cheese.

Once again, hurrah for the freezer! I love having easy food on hand!

As a side note, after I get married and will gain full control of the freezer and pantry for the household, I shouldn't have the problem of not knowing which stashed food belongs to whom. Managing the kitchen will become a lot easier!

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Spending is a Non-Issue

I came across a post about a "No Spend" challenge on the blog Budgets Are Sexy. This guy has some entertaining writing, and we have a few things in common besides both having a personal finance blog. He's about my age (I'm a few years older), he just got married on Saturday (I'll be married in 2 months), and he lives in the DC area too. However, I do not (thankfully) share his spending problem. Apparently, from reading this post and a few others that are linked from it, "No Spend" challenges are something people try hard to do.

Don't mistake this for self-righteousness, but that wouldn't be much a challenge for me at all. Somehow I'm just not much of a spender. I do on occasion spend what Budgets Are Sexy calls "discretionary income" on "random crap." (Seriously, I just took a whole car load of "random crap" to Goodwill after it didn't sell at the yard sale on Saturday.) But over all, I don't think that's a real problem for me.

I looked at my spending by category in Microsoft Money for the past 30 days, and it appears that I don't have much of spending issue in terms of random crap. In fact, I spent just under $5200 in the past 30 days, and 41% of that was related to the wedding (which at this point is actually money from my parents) or preparing for married life (i.e. helping break a lease). I did spend about $10 on a new pot and some soil for a big plant someone on Freecycle gave me. The rest was pretty much the cost of every day living (i.e. rent, food, gas, Metro fare, utilities, insurance, taxes, etc.).

Wow - that sounds pretty boring! No cool shoes or indulgent trips to Starbucks...just a plastic flower pot and some dirt. It's not that extreme every month, but it's also not like I feel deprived in anyway. However, I'm very thankful that I don't have a spending problem because we're going to need that money for more important things in the future, like a house.

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Yard Sales: My Turn to Sell

My sister (and roommate of the past 7 years) decided to hold a yard sale yesterday to get rid of some the many things that more than fill our house and make some extra cash. Not only am I new at buying at yard sales, I'm also new at having a yard sale of my own. In fact, while I've helped at other yard sales for friends, family, and charity organizations, I've never done one of my own.

We invited Angie's friend who had a bunch of baby clothes and gear to sell to join us. Michael also looked around his apartment and found some things he no longer wanted. So, we had quite a bit of stuff. Our yard is really small, but luckily our neighbors didn't mind that we spilled over into their lawn.

I don't know how much the friend with the baby stuff made, but we pooled the rest of the stuff and made $116. We were hoping to make more and get rid of more stuff, but I think it was the result of being novices. Since we had so much stuff already pulled out and deemed unwanted, I loaded most of the leftovers in my car to take to Goodwill. A few things I decided to keep just because I'd now like to keep them. A few other things that I figured wouldn't sell at Goodwill I put up on Freecycle. Several of those things are already gone.

I kept two boxes of other things that I'd like to try to sell again when we hold another yard sale in the fall. We already know we want to do another sale because once Michael, Angie, and I are all settled in our respective new places after the wedding, there is sure to be lots of surplus stuff.

Here's what I'm going to do to try to make the next sale better:

1. We only advertised on Craigslist this time because it's free to post an ad. I'd do that again, but I found another free place to post the ad too: YardSaleSearch.com.

2. Depending on the amount of stuff we have, I may consider paying to place a classified ad online or in the print edition of the Washington Post in order to help increase the traffic. We probably should have done that this time, but I wanted to see how many people we'd get without doing it. It was a fair number, but we could have done better. It probably would have been worth the investment in the ad.

3. I will make and post more signs. I had them at two major intersections and then directing people from the main road to our side street. However, as I was hanging them, I thought of another busy road from which I could easily direct people to our house.

4. I will also try to get the signs up on Friday afternoon or even Thursday night instead of Friday night and Saturday morning. That means I can't wait until the last minute to make the signs again!

5. I may get some balloons from the dollar store on Friday night to attach to the signs on Saturday morning to draw some more attention.

6. We had 3 long folding tables and a card table to help display some of the stuff. However, next time, I think we need to do a better job of getting more things out of boxes and on display so people can see them easier.

So, was all the labor worth the $116? No, not in terms of dollars for the sale itself. However, the money was kind of a bonus that came along with starting to clear out for Angie moving out, Michael moving in, and me trying to thin down and reorganize what I have.

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Making Your Own Passport Photo

I saw an interesting tip on Bankrate.com's Frugal Sense tip contest this month entitled Create Passport Photo for Pennies. Since I will need to renew my passport that expires this summer, I checked out ePassportPhoto.com as listed in the tip. It seems like it would work and would save me some money.

I just looked on the U.S. Postal Service website in the section about applying for a passport. It looks like making your own photo is legitimate. I might have to give it a try!

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Yard Sales: Be Prepared

As I mentioned on Saturday, I'm a novice at "yard-saleing." I've started going to them over the past couple of weeks because I'm hunting for inexpensive picture frames to use at my wedding reception. This weekend my sister asked for me to also keep an eye out for any good tables to use in her new living room or dining room. I warned her that if they are any good, they may not be there by the time I call her and she gets over to the sale. And since I was looking for cheap frames, I was only carrying a few one dollar bills and some change, so I couldn't buy anything for her.

I thought I was being really smart: yard-sale sellers don't want to have to make change for even a $10 bill if I'm buying a 25-cent frame or one for a dollar. However, in lecturing my sister, I missed the foreshadowing of my own lesson -- and I'm still mourning my yard sale loss!

At one of the first few sales I visited, I saw a beautiful framed mirror. It was in perfect condition and was large enough to hang over a sofa or on a dining room wall. The frame looked like it was made from cherry wood -- or at least had a finish that looked like it. It was very classic-looking, and it caught my eye because Michael and I are going to need some nice things to hang on the walls of our new home after the wedding. I saw that it was priced at $15. I only had $11 in my pocket and probably not enough change to make up the difference. I considered offering the seller either $10 or $11, but that would have used up all of the one-dollar bills I needed for buying my picture frames.

I thought that I could go to an ATM that wasn't too far from this yard sale and come back. I suppose I could have told the guy my situation and asked him if he would hold the mirror. But I left, thinking that if it was meant to be, it would be there later in the day when I came back.

A few stops later, I decided that mirror was a really good deal that I had passed up, and I wanted it. I really wanted it! So, I rushed back across town to the ATM and then to the yard sale with the mirror. I jumped out of my car, looking to see if it was still there. It was!...but a lady had her hand on it. I rushed over, just in time to hear her ask the seller if he would give it to her for $10 instead of $15. And he did!

Yes, yes. I have since realized that I was so dumb to pass it up when I first saw it because I now know that a frame like that would sell in a store for at least $100. But in the last couple of days I've seen some similar ones at J.C. Penney that cost between $150 and $200. And I could have had it for $15 or even $10.

So, I've learned that I need to be prepared when going to yard sales (beyond just my route map), and here's how:

1. Know exactly what I need (i.e. small wooden picture frames) and the maximum amount I'm willing to pay (i.e. $1.00).

2. Have small bills and change on hand to make the transactions easier.

3. Know what other things I could use (i.e. furniture, wall hangings) even if I'm not specifically searching for them. Know a ballpark of their retail prices so that I'll know a steal (like that $15 framed mirror) as soon as I see it.

4. In addition to my small bills and change, have a larger bill or two on hand too. Stash it away for the next week if I don't spend it this week. (Don't spend it mid-week on groceries, etc.)

5. Stay focused and don't buy random stuff that I don't need -- but not so focused that I miss good deals again.

6. Negotiate with the seller to try to get a lower price. (I know - that's a major tenet of yard sales.)

7. If I don't have enough cash and can't get it within the range of what I have with me but still want it, ask the seller if he would hold the item if I come back with in X number of minutes with enough cash.

8. Don't hesitate. If I see a deal, don't walk away to think about it. It won't be there when I get back.

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Yard Sales: On a Mission

For really the first time in my life, I've started going to yard sales on Saturday mornings. Looking just to look isn't really my thing. However, I'm hunting for very inexpensive wooden picture frames that I will paint and use on the tables at my wedding reception.

Last Saturday was my first time out. I scored 8 frames for a total of $4.25. (Not bad considering the cheapest ones I found at Target are $2.99, and the ones at Goodwill are $1.99.) I need about 50 of them, so the cheaper, the better! Today I searched again but wasn't as successful in terms of the number I found. However, the one frame I found was just 25 cents!

Here's how I make my plan of action: I look on Craigslist under "garage sales" in my area. Then, I pull out 9 of the ones that seem like they could be the most promising. Multiple family/house yard sales are the best because I can hit a bunch at once. Then, I start plugging in the addresses into MapQuest, starting with my own address. It will let you put up to 10 addresses in to make one continuous route. So, you can go from Point A to Point B to Point C...all the way up to Point J.

In order to save time and gas, I then look at the map and start to move the stops around so that it makes a circle. I don't want to be crisscrossing the county or backtracking. I also have to make sure that if any open later (i.e. 9 or 10 AM) that I put them late in the route. Also, if I see any yard sales along the way on my route that I didn't already know about, I'll stop at those too.

Last night when I made my driving route for today, I randomly plugged in all of the addresses. MapQuest said that it would take me 1 hour and 21 minutes to drive the 28.29 miles. Once I reordered it to make a circle instead of the crazy zigzag pattern, it reduced the time to 45 minutes and the distance to 14.07 miles. So, the new route saved me 36 minutes of driving and 14.22 miles.

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DC Summer Concert Series

As I've mentioned many times before, there are a lot free or low cost things to do in Washington, DC. With the price of gas being so high, this summer you may have to look towards taking local vacations or vacations to places that have a lot of free attractions and entertainment (because you use up most of your budget just getting there). Of course, DC is a natural choice.

If you live in the DC area or are making plans to be here between now and September, you should check out the Summer Concert Series webpage from the National Capital Region of the National Park Service. Most of the live entertainment that they list there are free, and most of them are great for people of all ages. (For example, I'm not sure how a two-year-old would feel about Hamlet.)

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Kraft Food & Family - Free Magazine & Coupons

If you get Kraft Foods' Food & Family magazine, look on page 28 of the Summer 2008 edition for a coupon for one free bottle of Kraft salad dressing, plus several other coupons.

This quarterly magazine is full of recipes, and each print edition comes with several coupons. If you want to get it in the mail for free, just register at Kraft's website. If you don't want the print edition, you can find all of the recipes on their website without having to register.

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Saving on Hotels - Priceline

Yesterday, I talked about how styles can determine what kind of lodging accommodations you may choose. For me, it boils down to the fact that I want a nice hotel room, but I don't want to pay the price (and neither does Michael, who is fine with a simple motel). We've figured out how to make us both happy: Priceline.

When we are planning a trip, Michael will find the nearest Motel 6 and tell me the rate. If he's afraid hotels in the area may fill quickly, he will reserve a room (just in case) that can be cancelled without a penalty. Then, I begin my work on Priceline.

When using Priceline for hotels, I always look at the options that are available in the different geographic areas they offer before bidding. Especially in major cities, almost all of the downtown properties charge $10+ per night for parking. So, if it works with our itinerary, I’ll pick a suburban or airport property and drive a few extra miles in order to get free hotel parking. Saving on parking helps our travel budget. Even with the very high price of gas now, a few extra miles of gas isn't going to make paying for city parking a better deal.

Also, I try to bid on 2.5 star hotels instead of 3 or 4 stars hotels. I like to stay in the nicest places possible for the lowest price possible. However, if you get a full-service/luxury hotel (3+ stars), you usually don’t get free breakfast like at the 2.5 star hotels, which we've still found to be very nice accommodations. The 2.5 star hotels are often extended-stay properties, which means they usually have bigger rooms and include a microwave, refrigerator, and sometimes even a range and/or oven.

Having free breakfast, a microwave, and a refrigerator helps cut down on dining-out costs. We can bring leftovers back to the hotel from restaurants that usually serve large portions to eat for lunch or dinner the next day.

Once I decide on the area and star level on which I want to bid, I will take the Motel 6 rate that Michael found and cut it in half. That's my first bid on Priceline. It's normally a ridiculously low price that isn't accepted for a 2.5 or 3 star hotel. If we don't get a room with that bid, I'll keep increasing the amount by $5/night until I reach the price of the Motel 6. If we think we'll get breakfast with the Priceline room, sometimes we'll bid up to $10/night more than Motel 6 (a 1 star motel). We've stayed at Marriott, Residence Inn, Crowne Plaza, and Holiday Inn for less than or about equal to a Motel 6. That makes us both happy!

Don't forget that when you bid on Priceline that if they accept a rate, you've bought that room -- no cancellations or changes. Be certain before you bid.

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Saving on Hotels - What's Your Style?

Saving on lodging when traveling is going to vary depending on your style and what you want and need in your accommodations.

I have a friend Whit who avoids hotels/motels whenever possible. She and her husband would much prefer camping for a whole variety of reasons, including the low nightly rates. I'm all about saving money, but regardless of the low cost, camping is definitely not my style! I need a bed, climate control, a shower, electricity, a flush toilet, a sink, four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. I really could go on and on about this subject, but let me just say that the one time I went camping (because I made a promise to Whit that I would try it), it rained and was hot. I kept thinking, I'm ready to go in now. But there was no "in" -- we were camping! So, I sat there praying, Dear Lord, I'm so grateful that I'm not homeless. Please bless those who are. I was being sincere.

Regardless of my need for some basics in lodging, Whit will argue that hotels are a waste of money. For her lifestyle, that is true -- but I need to blow dry my hair! (If you ever were to see my air-dried hair, you would understand that this is a need and not just a want.) Whit will also remind me of what I've told her from my days as a housekeeping manager at a lovely AAA Four Diamond hotel: don't walk on the carpet with your bare feet; don't drink out of the glasses in the bathroom; and whatever you do, don't let the bedspread or blanket touch your skin. I know, I know. But I can still avoid those things and feel the room rate is worth it.

Michael, on the other hand, is a Motel 6 guy. He shares the same philosophy with Whit that spending a lot on hotels is ridiculous. So, he has found that Motel 6 has a great low rate in cities of all sizes across the country. They provide the very basics (exactly what I listed above as my needs -- and nothing more) and are consistent in their quality ("it'll do").

When I started traveling with him (for him to run marathons in different states), I learned about Motel 6 being his lodging of choice. Knowing that I'm a pretty frugal person, Michael was surprised to learn that I wasn't very excited about the accommodations. But I worked at a AAA Four Diamond hotel for 4 years! -- I really enjoy a nice hotel (despite the aforementioned issues which I'm sure are industry-wide). Yes, a motel would meet my needs, but I want more: interior hallways, a pretty room with little amenities, a beautiful lobby. It makes coming back to the room after a long day of sightseeing or cheering on runners at a marathon a nice experience.

So, Michael and I discovered we had clashing ideas on lodging styles. I had a remedy for this problem (I didn't want to stay in a motel, and we didn't want to pay high prices for a hotel): Priceline! Tomorrow, I'll share with you some tips on using Priceline that we use to make us both happy.

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Welcome Coupon Mom Readers!

If you are visiting Save 4 Fun from Coupon Mom's blog, a special welcome to you! I'm a huge fan of Stephanie Nelson's and have so appreciated her great website and blog. I hope you will find my blog to be useful, interesting, and inspiring too. If you do, while you are here, subscribe to get my blog posts via email or in a reader through Feed Burner.

If you are visiting Save 4 Fun from another source and aren't already familiar with Coupon Mom, go check out her site. You don't have to be a mother to find savings through her website. She has great, free resources and tips available including Grocery Deals by State which does the work of looking through grocery and drug store sales ads for you each week. She'll even tell you where to find coupons that are available for this week's sale items.

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Last Day for Triple Coupons at Harris Teeter

Today is the last day of Harris Teeter's triple coupon promotion for this week, so I had to swing by there for some deals. I'm glad to see that they are doing this more often. They used to do it only once or twice a year, but now triple coupons come around every month or two. I do wish more of their sale items corresponded with coupons eligible for tripling (99 cents or less). However, even without sale prices, coupons that are tripled make some items good deals anyway.

I didn't do as well today as when I wrote about triple coupons back in November. But I did save 58% today, which is pretty good. That includes a package of McCormick's Grill Mates marinade that I got for free (because it was actually on sale for 75 cents and I had a 25-cent coupon that they tripled).

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Collection: How to Save on Wedding Gifts

I've written several articles on various ways to save on wedding gifts, and I thought it might be useful to pull the links together in one post. If you find any of these tips useful, let me know. I'd love to hear about your wedding gift deals. Also, tell me if you know of other good ways to save when giving to a bride and groom.

Comparison Shopping Between the Store & the Website

Saving on Wedding Gifts at Bed, Bath, & Beyond

More Ways to Save on Wedding Gifts at Bed, Bath, & Beyond

Saving on Wedding Gifts at Target

Buy from a Wedding Gift Registry & Save for Charity

Saving on Wedding Gifts at Macy's

A Few More Ways to Save on Wedding Gifts

More Wedding Gift Savings: The Value of Shopping Early

More Wedding Gift Savings: Look Beyond the Registry

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Financial Teamwork

Michael and I went to our first pre-martial counseling session last night. Our pastor friend who is doing our counseling is having us read Saving Your Marriage Before It Starts by Drs. Les and Leslie Parrott. I've found it to be pretty interesting, although it can go to the extreme getting some of the points across about pitfalls of which you should beware.

Of course, personal finance is a hot topic in marriages -- and divorces. And basically most things I've read about money and marriage in this book and a whole variety of other sources send a message of great caution about the subject (with good reason -- I understand). But I like happy, success stories, so it was good to read this guest post on Clever Dude's blog by Kevin of No Debt Plan entitled Spouses, Finances, and Teamwork, so I thought I'd share it with my readers. I'm glad to hear that things are going well for Kevine and his wife, and I'm certain they will for us too.

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Ask and You Just Might Receive!

Wedding planning and other aspects of my life have kept me busy lately, so I haven't been able to post as often as usual. Thanks for bearing with me!

For the past several days, Michael and I were down in Atlanta visiting his family and doing some wedding planning. Michael's nephew is going to be our junior groomsman, and he's been looking for a nice gift for him. Michael was in his aunt and uncle's wedding when he was a kid, and he still has the gift (a glass sailboat) that they gave him. He has been looking for a similar keepsake that his nephew may like.

On Saturday, we went to a store that sells all sorts of gift items with college logos on them. The nephew likes Michael's alma mater (University of GA), so we were looking at all sorts of UGA things. He found a nice wooden box with pewter Georgia logo on it, but it was a little more than he wanted to pay. Michael's mom (who also loves a deal) jokingly asked the sales clerk if they offered discounts to UGA alumni, and she said they did: 25% off. We were skeptical, especially since Michael didn't have anything with him to prove it. (Although I assured the clerk that if she were to prick his finger, she'd find that he bleeds black and red!) She said she normally asks for some kind of proof, but since it was his mom doing the asking, she figured he must be a legitimate graduate.

Anyway, what a surprise! It wasn't advertised anywhere that they would give this kind of discount. I suppose it never hurts to ask!

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Learning at Low-Cost

Learning how to do things yourself can be a big money saver in the long run. This spring I took my second series of flower arranging classes through my county's public schools' adult education program. A local florist teaches the classes.

At $134 for the first series of 3 classes and $149 for the second series, at first glance they don't seem like a great bargain - not cheap anyway. However, for what you get, it really is a deal. Those prices included the florist demonstrating how to make the arrangements, hands-on help in class when I made my arrangements, tips on how to do things like properly change the water in a vase, and all of the supplies. Each week I had a fun activity on Tuesday nights, and I also got to take home my beautiful creations to enjoy.

While I'm by no means a pro at flower arranging now, I do have some basic skills. A couple of months ago I even made a lovely arrangement that I took to a friend who had just had a baby. A similar arrangement at the grocery store would have cost $20. However, I was able to make the arrangement for my friend with enough flowers leftover to make one for me to keep for a total of $12 (including the vase I gave her which I had gotten from someone who was going to throw it away).

Below you can see pictures of the arrangements I made in my latest classes (wedding flower arranging). I'm not going to do the flowers for my own wedding, but this was good information to learn - and it was fun!

Check out what classes your local school district or parks and rec department offer. You might learn a cool trade and have fun for a reasonable price.

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Free Tour of Europe (in DC)

Once again, if you live in or are planning to visit Washington, DC this weekend, there is another great free event in store: EU Open House! On Saturday, May 3, 26 of the European embassies are opening their doors for free programs, food, tours, lectures, music, and more. The open house is running from 10 AM - 3 PM. They are offering free shuttle service from some of the Metro stations to the embassies that aren't Metro accessible.

I've been wanting to go to this event for several years, but this is the first year I'm available to go. I can't wait! I love Europe -- and a free visit close to home, while not the same, should be fun. With all of the food and drink samples being offered, maybe we can even manage to make lunch out of it! :-)

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Shoes from Payless

I've been working on some more wedding planning over the past week. One of my tasks was to find shoes for the bridesmaids. While I let them pick the style of dress they will each wear, I want them to all wear the same shoes. The dresses are tea-length, so everyone will see their shoes. It will look better if they are the same.

I have 5 bridesmaids who live in 3 different states, none of whom live in the same city. I needed to find shoes that they could all easily get. I wanted a style that looked nice with a heel that was no more than 2" (so they don't kill themselves trying to get down the aisle). They needed to be black. I wanted them to be under $20, so in the event they don't like them or have no other reason to ever wear them again, they didn't lose a ton of money on these shoes.

After much searching, I found shoes at Payless that fit all of the requirements, including only being $17.99! (There's a store within 8 miles of all of the bridesmaids.) The only problem was that I couldn't find these shoes in the store when I first started looking. So, my sister (roommate/maid of honor) bought them from Payless.com. They have free shipping to a store and easy returns/exchanges. Luckily, we liked them, and they fit. However, if they hadn't worked out, she could have easily gotten a refund at the store without the hassle or expense of returning them by mail.

So, if you are looking for shoes that may be for a one-time use (like for a wedding), look at what Payless has to offer because they have good prices and offer free shipping if you can’t find what you want in a store. Just watch out for the dyeable shoes because they can be more expensive (as much as $39.99). It’s much better to buy shoes that are already made in the color you need or to buy a complimentary color.

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