Once upon a time, before I was a wife and a mother, I had a good paying job and a lot less bills in my mail box every day. Those were the "good ol days" for me. The days when I could buy whatever I wanted without worrying about having enough food to eat at the end of the week. The days when the only thing stopping me from going to the Dave Matthews concert was, well, nothing. Those days are long gone. These days I am often shocked at how economical, almost frugal, I have become. For instance, I have a system for buying clothes, especially clothes for Devan. I will not buy pants that cost more than 10 dollars, and I absolutely will not buy shirts that cost more than 5 dollars. I probably sound cheap, but I have bags full of new clothes for her just stacked in her closet. When you shop the clearance rack you don't always get your first choice of sizes, but for children this is great. And I'm lucky enough to live in a pretty affluent area close to several nice malls and shopping centers with clearance racks that the rich people wouldn't dare touch. Anyway, I could go on and on about my money saving strategies, but here are some of the sweet deals I've found this week.

A package of eight of these too cute little gift bags from Target for 2 bucks:


This bowl from Tuesday Morning for 4 bucks. (This is not a very good deal. I was very aware of that when purchasing it, but it was too cute to resist).

Also, last week I was at Old Navy and I bought this really comfortable, soft sweatshirt for 6 bucks. I was pretty happy with the price. Today I went back and the same sweatshirts were marked down again to $2.97. So I bought another. I had an economics teacher in high school who taught me in order to save money you should wait to buy something until it has been marked down 3 or 4 times. He was right. (Mr. Ropes, anyone?) Old Navy has some killer deals going on right now. If you like Old Navy and you live close to one, I'd take the time to check it out. Oh! I also got free floss at the grocery store with my coupons. If your interested in saving money on groceries, check out this site. http://www.thegrocerygame.com/. If you sign up, put down my name and I get free weeks. It cost about a dollar a week I think, but its worth it. Or check out couponmom.com. This one is free but not quite as good. Well this post has gotten very long. I will leave with a picture I took this morning. Yes, it actually rained!