Holiday Prepping!

*Cue 'N Sync's "Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays" (or fast-forward 15 years and cue Justin Beiber's "Under the Mistletoe.")

It's the Holidays, y'all! Happy Cyber Monday! Who got a great deal? I'll tell you who, THIS girl! {points to self} Our fun actually started Sunday when we came across this sweet little number on Amazon.

It's going in our master bedroom. So, it wasn't originally on our "to buy" list for our master bedroom re-do, but our current TV is so heavy and we didn't want it to scratch our new dresser. Plus, with a great Cyber Monday deals, we just couldn't pass it up!

Today, I saw that West Elm put their popular Organic Pintuck duvet cover (oh yes, the one I've been wanting and talking about for months) for 20% off plus free shipping. So, I saved more than $50 on something I was fully planning on ordering for full price! Um, holler.

The hubby and I decorated for Christmas on Sunday, but I got to feeling like I don't have many decorations. Now that we have this house, the tree and the mantle is about all I can decorate with what I have.

So, with the hubby being out of town this week (boo.), I'm going to craft it up, holiday decor-style (yay!). I made a run to HobLob tonight and scored all of this for about $50 - but it should make 4 different items.

If you're on Pinterest, you probably already know what some of these are. More to come on those later...

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Check Yo Self Before You Audit Yo Self

We've recently had one of those "when it rains, it pours" kind of weeks. And when I say "when it rains," I mean "everything breaks." And when I say, "it pours," I mean "all at one time." Our home is wonderful, it's just a few home improvements we're needing to make.

Our house seems to have a little raincloud above it (and no I don't mean literally as I'm pretty sure it's been 100+ degrees with no rain for the past month) and Greg and I have been total Eeyores.

Yes, that Eeyore. (What other Eeyore is there?)

As I've mentioned before, we've had a number of house issues recently. The main one being our A/C unit that is just not cooling our house, so we had some work done but we're not seeing a difference at all.

But the purpose of this blog post is not to complain. We actually did stumble across that I thought was worth sharing.

Our energy company actually offers free energy audits for your home. Ya, fo free.

Now when I think of auditor, of course my mind immediately jumps to my hubby. While he's a different kind of auditor, I always picture him in a large room filled with cigar smoke sitting around a table of people wearing a green visor. Pretty awesome, right?

But I digress.

So, when I found out our energy company offers free energy audits, I signed us right up. Since the hubby was playing house-husband all week (vacation), he met with the energy auditors. They basically go inspect your house and give you tips for how you can save money on your electricity bill, things that need work and they gave us a whole box of 12 energy-efficient light bulbs! All in all, our house is pretty energy efficient (not sure how with a screwed up A/C unit), but they also gave us some good ideas.

I actually think that most energy companies offer free audits so it's definitely worth checking out if you own/rent a home!

It's a Plastic Jungle Out There...

So, I’ve recently found out about this really cool web site and thought I’d share. Did I trick some of you with the blog post title? Did you think it was a post about… leopard print condoms? Nope. Blog post about… new slang term for Dallas cougars’ breast enhancements? Nah. I will explain, but I’m afraid I might have lost a few readers.

For those of you that know me, you know that I love a good deal. It’s not as though I’m cheap (or maybe I am?), I just really don’t like to spend more money than I have to.

So, when I found out about PlasticJungle.com, I had to test it out to see if it was fo’ real. Or too good to be true. Well, I will tell you it is MUCH MORE real than some of the local cougars I’ve seen. Basically, the web site allows you to buy and sell gift cards at discounted prices. So, let’s say your grandma gives you a gift card to Coldwater Creek or Chico’s and the “mom jeans chic” look isn’t your thing, you can actually sell it to Plastic Jungle and they’ll buy it back for up to 92% of its value. You can exchange it for cash, Paypal deposit or Amazon e-card. Even better, you can buy gift cards. At a discounted price. Um, yes please.

I didn’t have any gift cards to sell, but still wanted to test it out. So, I bought several Southwest Airlines gift cards. Greg and I are flying to KC for a wedding this spring and needed to buy tickets. While the discount for SWA gift cards is only 6%, when you spend $350-400 on tickets, it puts 25 bucks back in your pocket. (Editor’s Note: They actually messed up and sent a United Airlines gift card for one of them, but it was pretty easy to send back and got the refund fairly quick.)

Other retailers that might be of interest include Best Buy (6% discount), Bed Bath & Beyond (8% discount), Gap/Banana Republic/Old Navy (11% discount), Urban Outfitters (10% discount), Pier One (15% discount) and tons others. It’s a great way to save a small discount on whatever you buy (before you even walk in the store) or allow you to save more (or buy more) when buying a gift card as a wedding gift, baby shower gift, etc.

And no, I wasn’t paid or given anything to share this site. Are you kidding? My blog only has 24 official followers! :-)

Happy Shopping!