The man and I enjoyed a few days off together earlier this week, and we had a delightful time. Among our activities:

• A day with the kids at Busch Gardens (by coincidence, the same day as our wedding anniversary, so we popped into the Crown Colony for a special anniversary lunch!)
• Lunch out at a small cafe in town I’ve been drying to try since we moved here – and we weren’t disappointed!
• A trip to the nail salon – a pedicure for Jim, a manicure for me!
• Lunch out AGAIN at Ruby Tuesday and a trip to the salon where I got my hair cut and colored and Jim got a trim

I’ll make a metrosexual out of the man yet!

Popularity: 2% [?]

During my class yesterday, my professor (not the most technological person ever…but a nice lady) was complaining about filling up her flash drive too quickly. She’s been putting her PowerPoint slides for each weeks lecture on her flash drive and bringing it to school with her so she can pop it onto the computer in class and display the slides on the projector. Her daughter told her to invest in an external hard drive, and I think that’s the way to go. The computer memory on the new external hard drives is a really versatile option for someone like my professor. Instead of putting a single lecture on a flash drive, she can pop all of her lectures for the entire course onto an external hard drive and have all of her course content at her fingertips – tests, quizzes, slides, and even handouts.

Computer memory options like the external hard drives I linked to above have gotten amazingly cheap over the past few years. I remember being amazed seeing computers with a 6GB hard drive in the late 90’s, and now it’s not uncommon to buy a PC with a 160GB hard drive. You can buy more memory online as well as video cards, optical drives and laptop batteries.

Come to think of it, I should probably take my own advice and get an external hard drive to store all of my digital pictures on…or I’m going to need some more memory myself!

Popularity: 3% [?]

I had just enough time after my son’s piano lesson this afternoon for a quick CVS run. Let’s see how I did?

1. Coupon kiosk – not cooperating with me today, so no coupons.
2. Skintimate shaving gel – on sale for $3.49 and I got $3.49 in ECB back – freebie!
3. Excedrin 24 count – on sale for $1.99 and I had a $2.00 off coupon – freebie!
4. Colgate toothpaste – on sale for $2.99 and I had a $.75 off coupon AND got $2.00 in ECB back – making it 25 cents for me. Almost a freebie!

I used $5 in ECB from a previous purchase making my out of pocket only 83 cents. I received not only the ECB mentioned above but another $4.50 in ECB for my “winter spending”.

Popularity: 2% [?]

My whole lunch hour on Monday was spent stocking up on savings!

First I went to Wal-Greens, where I snagged:

1. A bottle of SoftSoap body wash, on sale for $3.99 minus the $1.00 off coupon I had. With each purchase of this body wash this week, you get a FREE coupon that prints with your receipt for the purchase of a free bottle.

2. Halls couch drops – free with a coupon!

3. Two boxes of Life cereal, on sale for 2/$5 minus the $1 off 2 boxes coupon I had. That made each box $2 plus I received $2 in Register Rewards for a future purchase.

Next it was on to CVS:

1. Cleaning supplies were on sale 2/$5 with $1 in EBC back, so I bought a bottle of Fantastik and a bottle of Scrubbing Bubbles. I had coupons for each bottle making my out of pocket cost $3.25 AND I got $1 in ECB too!

2. I bought a Paas egg coloring kit for $1.99 and got $1.99 in ECB back…we’re dying eggs for free this year!

3. I used a rain check for some body wash that had been out of stock, so I paid $4.99 for the body wash but I got $5 in ECB back.

4. I purchased Ponds cleanser ($6.99) and Ponds cleansing cloths ($3.99) for a total of $10.98 so I could qualify for the “Buy $10 worth of Ponds and get $5 in ECB back” deal.

6. I bought All Small & Mighty detergent on sale for $4.49 and had a $.45 off coupon.

7. Peeps!! 3 packages for the kids Easter baskets…only $.96 a box!

8. Halls cough drops – completely FREE with coupon!

My total out of pocket at CVS was 14.39 with tax. That includes my manufacturer coupons and $10 in ECB I put towards today’s purchase. Not too shabby!!

Popularity: 3% [?]