Empty Notebook » Family

The Circle Of Life Brought To You By Coupons

Bill — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 14:35:32 +0000

One of my memories as a child, is watching my father clip coupons from the Sunday paper. I still remember the red handled metal scissors that he used to cut them. My Mom and Dad also had some sort of accordion coupon filing envelope that was organized by type of food / coupon. It took had a red string around it. For the longest time, I didn’t worry about coupons. On top of that I shopped at Publix for years.

Then I met my wife Pam and she showed me the ways of saving money by shopping at Walmart. I understand that there are those out there that hate Walmart. I’m sure I don’t agree with all of their business practices, but then again I don’t agree with all of Publix’s either. As the consumer, in tough economic times and as a person just trying to get the best value I can at all times, I feel free to shop at either place. All of this frugality makes me smile, especially when I compare prices for certain items between the stores like candy or bread. And no, Walmart isn’t always the cheapest for an individual item, but for a total bill it’s ALWAYS the winner.

Now thanks to Coupons.com life has come full circle. My scissors have a blue handle, not red like Mom & Dad’s, but they accomplish the same thing. $1.00 off of Nestle Water, $2.00 two Right Guard deodorants, you get the picture. The list goes on and on. For 10 minutes of my week, Pam and I will probably save $300 this year without any effort. I’m not a “coupon gamer” by any means. I don’t want to invest a lot of time in finding $1 off certain items, or trying to time my purchases to magically make a $200 bill be $30. But, I am thankful that thanks to Pam we’re saving more money every week, and thanks to saving more money I remembered something nifty about those old green couches, the sunshine through the big windows and my parents sifting through a Sunday paper to save us some money.

Thanks to all three of you! You make my life special, wonderful and frugal.

My Return

Bill — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:02:03 +0000

So the first rule of blogging is to never explain why you’re gone and never apologize for it. I’ll violate the first part a bit, since I don’t know how to pick up when the last thing I wrote was back in September.

Since my last post

I had my face smashed by a line drive softball at 3rd base.
I had a surgery to put plates in my face. (Maxillofacial surgery with some titanium plates.)
I missed a bunch of FSU Football games.
I bought a Bluray player and a Netflix account.
My sinuses got infected multiple times.
Thanksgiving came and went.
I got sick with a head cold prior to surgery #2.
I had a second surgery to remove 3 of the 4 plates in my face.
The sinus infection ended up being really nasty and made me really sick to my stomach.
Christmas and New Year’s came, I slowly started feeling better over that time.
I’ve been off of antibiotics for nearly two weeks finally and I’m feeling much better.
Overall I’ve lost nearly 40 pounds on the “Oops I broke my face diet”.
Looking back, as bad as it was, it could have been a lot worse.

I’m very, very thankful to still be here for my family. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever really had anything major happen to me and it’s made me appreciate life a bit more than I did before. Maybe I literally needed a hard smack in the head to lighten up a bit and learn how to manage day to day stress? I’ve always been a little thick in the head. Ha! It’s just good to be on the mend and hopeful again.

Charlie Has Moved

Bill — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 01:28:10 +0000

To the other side of the mantle. He’s a little disoriented, but he’ll be writing soon about his new perspective on life in the bowl.