Extreme Couponing North of the border can happen if you have a plan in place and are organized. There’s many sites dedicated to getting coupons and organizing them to coordinate with sales cycles happening at major retailers. So where do I get my coupons? I order many of them online and they are mailed to me from sites like:

• www.websaver.ca
• www.save.ca
• www.gocoupons.ca
• www.brandsaver.ca (available seasonally)

I also find many printable coupons online as well. Facebook is a great resource for finding printable coupons!  A few pages I follow are:

• Simply Frugal in Canada- Website- http://www.simplyfrugal.ca/
• mrsjanuary.com- Website- http://www.mrsjanuary.com/
• FabulousSavings.ca- Website- http://www.fabuloussavings.ca/
• Rothesay Coupon Mom
• SweetCoupons
• GroceryAlerts.ca

For more printable coupons many manufacturers also offer them on their Facebook pages and websites, if you are loyal to a certain product try liking their page to see if they have any offers available! As well be sure to check out ShoppersVoice, they are the product surveys that occasionally come in the mail, you can also fill them out online and save a tree or two, they will also randomly mail you out very good high dollar value coupons for various products!

I’ve also been writing a new blog right here at CPO called Deals & Steals and featuring freebies, coupons and deals that I think parents may be interested in. It’s definitely one of the fun parts of my job (although I think most parts of my job are pretty fun!).

There’s also a few other places to get coupons that are not online:

• Tearpads in your local stores- (grab a few of products you normally use)
• Newspaper inserts like Redplum and Smart Source (find their Distribution dates HERE)
• Coupon trading swaps or Coupon Trains

So I’m going to share my deals I scored this week. One thing I learned is that I need to be better prepared and make sure I have my Coupon Binder with me at all times (or at least in the van!), I spotted the great deal on UnderJams but had to go home and get my binder!

Shoppers Drug Mart

Pampers UnderJams $9.99 (regular $17.99) x3 $3 off Coupons= Normal retail cost $53.97 I paid just $20.97

Sobey’s

Chapman’s Premium Ice Cream $4.99 BOGO (Buy 1 Get 1 Free)-  I had 2 cereal box coupons for any brand ice cream up to $4 FREE- These coupons allowed me to get 4 containers of ice cream for absolutely no cost at all! Savings $19.96

Kellogs Vector Cereal- Coupon for Free 400g Box – Savings $5.79

I also had a few coupons for some of the other items that were also fetuared in the BOGO sale, for even more savings. Total bill before store savings and my coupons would have been $84.80 and I paid only $39.39 that’s more than a 50% savings many of it coming from my coupons!

Walmart

Finish Quantumatic Starter Kit- Regular price 12.97 on sale for $6 + $6 off  printable Coupon = FREE

Ziplock Products- on rollback for $2.37/box used this printable Buy 2 Save $4 Coupon (expires June 2, 2011)= 2 boxes for .74 cents

Special K Bars- on sale for $2.47 + .75 cent off coupon= $1.72 per box

Glade Sense & Spray- Coupon for free product on sale for $6= FREE

Here’s a shot of the products I got with my coupons this week!

I’ll start off by saying that I really dislike the system our school district uses to enroll Grade 8 students into highschool for their Grade 9 year. It puts a lot of pressure on a 13 year old kid that impacts their life in a significant way- all in a matter of weeks. Once the decision has been made there’s no turning back either. I understand why the old system needed to be changed, but the new one is unfairly penalizing kids that have worked hard and keeping others that live close to their neighbourhood schools hostage on a wait-lists for more than a year while kids that are “connected or know people” that live out of the city are breezing by these wait-lists.

For many years the highschools in the city’s uptown (South Central) were bursting at the seems while other schools in the East, West and North were practically vacant. The system needed to be changed to make the schools more evenly populated and cut transportation costs. Students would now be assigned to the school that was closest geographically. I remember a huge media frenzy after the initial announcement was made. Parents upset that their family legacy would be broken, many angry letters being written, and concerns that these under-populated schools could ruin their kids’ highschool education.

Over the years the new system was tweaked a few times to bring us to today’s way of doing things. Everything kicks off in February with the “Open Houses” where the prospective students and their parents have a designated night (all in one week) to visit the various schools. Each school works hard to lure you in, you start off the the auditorium, listen to the school’s principal make a speech, take a tour and then your 13 year old needs to make their decision and have their colour coded form returned to school in a matter of weeks. Kids are allowed to attend open houses off all of the schools but they must choose a first and second choice. Students in the geographic area of the school are (supposed to be) given first priority to their first choice. Sounds reasonable right?

Here’s my  first beef- 3 weeks is no where near enough time to learn about the various schools and how they differ, and differ they do! The District doesn’t want to admit it, but each school is very unique and many of these differences are not pointed out at open houses and if this is your oldest child and you don’t know anyone that’s already in highschool you don’t find out until it’s too late. For example one highschool doesn’t not allow Grade 10 students to choose from grade 11 and 12 elective courses, and students were not given this information until they were 3 quarters through their grade 9 year! There was absolutely no mention of this at the Open Houses! Once a child’s decision has been made, there is absolutely no changing your mind. At age 13 your friends one week may have a completely different influence on you than a few weeks later, and in my daughter’s case that’s exactly what happened. A few weeks after the Elusive “Orange Form” was passed in, she changed her mind to the other school that she had as her second pick. ( I will mention both schools are within 5 blocks walking distance from our house.) I called the District right away thinking no problem, we live Uptown, they can just switch her over. Boy- was I in for a shock!

I was quite positive that my call to the District in March would go over well, and we could get her switched over to the other school and reassured Kenz things would be OK as she had really been suffering from a lot of anxiety and was punishing herself over her bad choice. Never in a million years did I think that call would turn into a year of follow-ups and her sitting at number 75 on a waiting list. There were lots of tears afterwards from both her and I and in the end we had to chalk it up as a life lesson that if you make a decision that isn’t right for you there can be some serious consequences. We were still hopeful that she’d move up on the waitlist and get into her school by September. A few more calls were made and by the end of the school year the numbers were a little more firm and she still sat at number 57. Her summer was miserable, being in limbo is not good for a child that suffers from anxiety.

Then we were given a ray of hope in July! A facebook friend who had moved out of the city, had revealed in a status update that her child that was number 77 on the waitlist got in to this school, went from 77 to in, just like that! I was beaming with joy as I knew Kenz was sitting at number 57. I called up the District and all excitement was instantly shattered when they told me that no she had not moved up the list and that this other child was still on the waiting list. I had a really uneasy feeling that something was not right as this friend also deleted her entire status update and replies after I replied to the thread.

The new school year quickly arrived and she headed off to her second choice school. It was quickly apparent that things were going downhill quickly. 5 days into school and it was already a struggle to get her to go. I sent off a very heartfelt email to the District employee that handles the waitlist to explicitly ask if exceptions are ever made. I received an email reply saying a voicemail was left for me on my cellphone. The voicemail stated her name and number and to call her back. I called for a week straight never reaching her and she never returned any of my calls. I let it go, to my daughters detriment.

This entire year has been miserable for her, I don’t often write about this stuff as I don’t want to upset her. Outside of school she does not have any type of social life, and even during school hours she comes home for lunch 99% of the time and straight home afterschool. She is depressed. Finally after March Break a few teachers had taken notice and one of the guidance councilors got in touch with me when she had still not filled out her Grade 10 course selection form. I filled her in that she’s now sitting at number 7 on the waitlist at the other school and would prefer to choose some of the electives that are available to her there. We were informed that she could not do this, she had to choose courses from the school she’s attending now. This meant no electives and only a handful of courses to choose from unlike the 35 available at the other school. I was belittled by the senior councilor when I tried to point out that she’d like to take a few of the courses offered there. I said to her, “If she can choose a course that actually interests her to keep her interested in school vs. something that she’s she’s been dictated to take, don’t you think that’s a better option? I just want her to go to school and it not be such a struggle everyday.” Her response, “She can’t pick courses from a  school she’s not attending even if she’s that high on their waitlist. We prefer that kids in Grade 10 not take the 11 & 12 elective courses, they have plenty of time in those grades to do them!”  My worry was that if she selected the only options from that school she would automatically be rolled into those courses and not given the option of electives at the other school. I walked out of the room in tears of frustration.

I decided to go straight to the school she wanted to go to and meet with the guidance councilor there. He confirmed my fears, when they receive the transfer, they automatically put the student into the courses that were selected from the other school, meaning no choice of electives. I voiced my concerns and he was extremely sympathetic and he had a solution for her! Have her fill out the course selection form from their school and attach is directly to the school transfer request. Simple as that.

Over the coming days I talked to a few parents who were shocked at this process, and one parent who’s just about to start it. Her daughter is in Grade 8 and waitlisted for this same school. She’s number 70. She’s a top achieving straight A student in her school and chose this school because of it’s background in academics and that they also offer the International Baccalaureate Program (starting in Grade 10). She is geographically not in this school’s area, her second choice wasn’t in her area either. Her acceptance letter from the District came and she got into choice number 2, while other classmates that all live in her area got into her first choice school. She passed in her form before it needed to be passed in, she knew this was the school she wanted to attend. How does this happen?

Her mother has found out from other people that they do make exceptions and pull people off the waiting lists and is trying hard to make this happen. I also have since found out that there are other students that live out of the city (not just the school area) that are attending the school the girls have been waitlisted to, including the one I mentioned above in the facebook story. Exceptions are made you just need to know the right people. All of these highschools are very unique  and rich in school history, but if this entry system is ever going to be fair they need to have a consistent program and courses that are the same at each school or this problem will never be resolved. I’m extremely jaded by the whole process as I’m sure you can tell. I know that my daughter made a lousy choice last year and because of it, it’s put a huge stress on her and her mental health. Yes she may have learned a hard lesson, but she’s also learned how people can scam the system too, by using someone’s else’s address or an “inside connection”. I don’t think there was anything wrong with me asking if exceptions were made for certain cases, but when I’m told that they strictly stick to the waitlist that’s an outright lie. Once I know that she’s been accepted to the other school, I will be writing to the Superintendent of the District to voice my concerns and request a meeting, this isn’t over just yet.

Yup we’re excited! We’re going on a  ski holiday in Quebec for March Break! As a skier myself I’ve been itching to take the kids for years, but my eldest daughter never really expressed any interest, now that the boys are 8, 6 & 4 they are excited to learn and she’s ready to give it another try!

We knew we wanted to try and do something fun this March Break as the past few years, we’ve only done a quick weekend trip. So when I was mentioning this to another friend she suggested we head to their cottage in Knowlton, Quebec for the week with them and their son who’s 6. There’s many ski hills surrounding that area and a nice way to disconnect from all of our “screens” after a super long winter here in NB!

So you may be asking how can this be frugal? Skiing isn’t cheap, the price of gas is astronomical right now. It takes some prep, but it can be done! Luckily my friend is super frugal like me and we’ve been planning for a couple of weeks.

Here’s how we’re saving on a few things:

Ski Equipment- browse your local online classifieds like kijiji.ca. It turns out that somehow I ended up donating 3 pairs of our ski boots last year when we lost our storage room. I found replacement boots for myself and one of the kids for a steal. Had I started looking a little earlier I probably could have outfitted everyone. Buying second hand also makes me happy as this is the greener way to go as well!

Outerwear- Finn needed a new snowsuit and he’s at an awkward size, 4 is a bit too small and 6 is too big, most places have an abundance of these sizes, but 5 is harder to come by. I found a beautiful ski suit (pants & matching jacket) for him at Value Village in a size 5! (see photo above) It’s in amazing condition and has lots of cool features including a lift ticket holder that slides in and out, and the inside pocket even has a microfibre cloth for cleaning ski goggles! All for the price of $10. I also picked up a really nice Columbia jacket for myself there that was $20, which is a bit more than I usually would spend, but I knew my nextdoor neighbour had the matching pink pants that I could borrow.

End of Season Sales- They’re everywhere right now! I managed to get each of the kids ski helmets ranging in price from $23-$35. This is something I’d prefer to buy new as you just don’t know the history. I also got some great  Head ski gloves at Costco for $6.97 on clearance.

Gas- So how do you save on gas? You drive through Maine! Gas there is still at a high, but not as much as here or Quebec plus with our high Canadian dollar it makes it worth while. We’ll fill up on the US side of the border each way!

Food- Since we’re driving through the US we’ll make a stop at a grocery store with our meal plan in  hand, plus it’s pretty fun to grocery shop down there as there’s many unique items you can’t find here. We’ll be planning things that we can easily have leftovers the next day to be able to make sandwiches and wraps to take to the ski hill instead of having to buy everything there! We’re also bringing a couple of slow cookers to make some meals while we’re out skiing. Of course our favourite Memphis Rotisserie-Style Chicken is included!

Skiing- We have already been checking out the deals and one ski hill (Owl’s Head) in the area has $15 lift tickets on Tuesday and Wednesday and another has discounted tickets for the Family Zone of the hill, which is where I’m guessing I’ll be spending the better part of my days!

This will be my first time skiing with kids, so any tips will be welcomed!

I watched the documentary with my 14 year old and we both laughed and cried and I encourage you to watch this with your teens. It really shows that the bond they formed on the ship was what kept them alive and safe. Watching this brought back many memories of my own teenage years and the opportunites I was given to encourage independance. I was fortunate enough to get to go away to various summer camps and then just after I graduated from highschool was given the ultimate experience of moving over 2000 km away from home to work at Walt Disney World and represent the Canadian Pavillion at EPCOT Center.

December 2011 will mark my 20th anniversary of my first day there, and believe it or not I still keep in close contact with many of my co-workers from that year. We formed a bond and closeness that year that is hard to explain. Perhaps it’s the same for university students going to school out of town? My husband also had a similar experience right after highschool when he joined the Naval Reserves and got to sail around the world in his summers while he was saving up for university. After my year there it changed my outlook on what I wanted to do as a career. I knew that I wanted to “make people’s day” not “break them”.

I hope that someday my own daughter will be ready to venture out on her own for more experiences like these. She’s a little timid when it comes to social situations, although this past summer she stepped out of her comfort zone and went to a Two-Week summer Camp. Even though the documentary features a very scary situation for these young people it also showed us that it’s made them stronger.  Sixteen of the student “survivors” from the Concordia returned to the program when their new vessel left this past September. They wanted to finish what they started.

Do you have an away from home experince that you think changed you or made you who you are today?

“I would never shop at Goodwill, Salvation Army or freecycle when I could afford to buy new.  IMO, those places/programs are set up for those who need it – I would feel terrible “taking” from it if I didn’t need to.”

As a larger family we obviously have a bigger carbon foorprint and buying everything new would just add to that so when ever possible I buy second hand, especially clothing. Here in the Maritimes we have a chain of second hand clothing (and some have branched out to other things like sporting goods, books & toys) called Frenchy’s . We love shopping there as many of the clothing items come from the Boston area and we can find many of our favourite sports team items there at a mere fraction of the price! I “scored” these two Boston Bruins Jerseys from there!

Consumption is a major problem in North America, we have too much stuff! So if I can buy something that was donated locally, or trucked in from the NorthEast US vs. Asia, I feel like I’m making a small difference. I’ve mainly just bought clothing and toys, but recently I starting buying sporting goods as well! The majority of Mr. L’s hockey equipment and my hockey equipment was bought second hand and I’ve been buying skates for a free skate swap I’m helping to organize at the C-Man’s school.

Growing up I never shopped at second hand stores, my mom had allergies and never stepped foot in one. I first discovered them from a freind in junior high who was very well off, or so I thought by her amazing brand name clothing. Always sporting Ralph Lauren, Benetton,IZOD etc. She took me to Frenchy’s and I found an amazing Ralph Lauren plaid Polo Button down shirt. I was hooked after that!

I think that if you asked any store manager of a thrift or second hand shop if their intention was for only those “in need” to be their customers, then these stores would just not exist! I tend to donate back the majority of stuff were finished with or Freecycle stuff as well.  Reduce, Recycle, Reuse, I wish more people would see the benefits and impact that it can make.

Are you weirded out by buying something that has belonged to or worn by someone else? Or are you all for a bargain and reducing your footprint?

Karma comes in all shapes and forms and it hits you when you least expect it. Just a few weeks ago my mother was trying to figure out what to do with her old washer and dryer that she was replacing. They both worked and she wanted to try and get some money for them, at least enough to cover the delivery of the new set to her house. She posted them for sale on local classifieds sites with no bites. The date was quickly approaching when she needed to have them removed and decided to just post them for free. A very nice man and his wife arranged to come pick them up from their basement as their’s just stopped working and they needed something right away. Here’s where Karma comes to play!

My mom knew this man looked familiar, turns out earlier in the summer my step-dad was having trouble opening his shed door in the driveway due to a hole in the ashphalt. A couple of houses down there were some contractors replacing pavement and he asked the foreman if he could have a small amount to fix the hole. This man did even better and brought a couple of wheel barrows up and smoothed it out for him and didn’t ask for a dime. That foreman was the same man who came and picked up the washer and dryer from my mom! I asked her afterward if she was upset that she didn’t didn’t get any money for them to cover the delivery charges and she said, “Nope this was an even better feeling to know that what goes around, comes around”.

One of our new Bloggers Melissa is going to be writing about up upcoming adventures in Giving Back and I have a feeling that she’s going to have a lot of positive energy and Karma coming her way this year!

I’ll fast forward the story a little bit here. We have been trying to get the C-Man to stay in his bed at night. At six he still needs a warm body to be close to him at night. This was also the same child that would cry until he vomited if you put him in a crib to sleep. We never really minded him climbing in with us, and when we got our King sized bed back in November it was great! So you ask what is the issue then? Well the C-man still wets at night, and leaks right through the training pants. We’ve tried every brand made, and even cloth to no avail. I think his little bladder just has not caught up with the rest of him yet. So 2 days ago after stripping the entire King size bed for about the 5th time in a week, I had had enough! Washing twin sheets is much simpler than ours, and once again he and his stealth-like ways slithered in without either of us waking, and again he leaked!

So as usual I woke up to my alarm on my phone, grabbed it and checked my email, and then headed to Facebook to browse around. I was greeted by a horrific image a “friend” had shared on her wall (this is worth a whole other blog post- some other day though) and then set my phone down on the bed. Then I realized that he had leaked,  and put the bed-spread in first and left the sheets.

Fast forward 51 minutes later when the wash cycle finished I moved the bed-spread to the dryer and stripped the sheets and matress pad (I keep two waterproof ones on *just-in-case*) and threw it all on the 102 minute hot white wash cycle. I went back to work and then took a break for a phone call and went to grab my phone from the nightstand and pure horror ran though my veins as I immediately realized where the phone was. Yup raveled up in the sheets and mattress protector, in the washing machine after 102 minutes in there.

I immediately put it into a container of rice as I know this has worked for a couple of friends, but they had only quickly submersed their devices (iPod Nano and Touch).  I then thought about all of the hockey videos and images I had not yet backed up and got sadder and sadder. I called my mobile provider as I remembered reading about a replacement handset program, I was told yes they have a great program, but no the iPhone is not one that’s covered! I could get another phone through this program and pay a fee for a smartphone, but if I wanted another iPhone it would cost me $750 +tax (that’s 13% here in NB).

I then scoured Kijiji and did find a 16 Gig for $500, this could be good, but I still needed to clarify that there wasn’t a contract that had to be taken over etc.

Then I decided to do what I do best and turn to Google! What a good friend you have been to me. What I determined is that Apple has a replacement program for water damaged iPhones! They have two options:

1. they send you a box and you mail back your damaged phone they look it over and if it’s can’t be repaired will send you a replacement for $229. This takes a little longer and you have more down time with your phone.
2. The second option for an extra $29 they will send you the replacement phone right away and they put a $ hold on your credit card until they receive the damaged one. If it can be fixed they will send the original back to you and take the $ hold off once the replacement is mailed back. If you happen to have Apple Care this extra $29 is waived. Apple Care gives you another extra year of warranty, so for the extra $50 I decided to buy it.
3. One thing I was not aware of is that your warranty also covers headphones, chargers and cords. My USB charger cord is fraying badly, so they’re sending me a new one too!

One other thing is that the replacement phone still has the same warranty terms as the original phone. I bought mine July 30th so this replacement will have the original warranty until this July and then an extra year afterwards to take me to July 2012 almost to the time when I’ll most likely be eligible for another upgrade.

I’m really disappointed I was so careless, but pretty happy that I didn’t have to pay the full price for the replacement and the Apple rep was so nice last night. I’ve heard so many great things about Apple’s customer service and was happy I was on the receiving end this time. Although I  did start my call with, “Now that I’ve stopped sobbing uncontrollably, I figured I’d give you a call!” It was a definitely a good ice breaker with Jon, my Apple Rep! Keep up the good work Apple!

Enter in CBC’s new series called Village on a Diet. It aired last night and I caught bits and pieces of the show in the background while I recorded it on the PVR. Tonight we’ll plan to sit down as a family and watch the show and discuss any changes we can make. We’re not overweight, but our diets could really use an overhaul. I want to involve the kids on making healthy meal choices as well. So after watching each episode I’m going to report back here with some of the changes we can make together. One top priority will be looking for diabetic recipes and learning more about a diabetic diet. We have two family members who have been diagnosed with Type-2 and we want to learn how we can support them as well.

I’m going to start my day today by taking The Body Age Test from CBC’s Village on a Diet Site. I’ll report back later to let you know my results. I’m kind of nervous…

OK I’m back to report my Body Age Test Results and the verdict is… 43! Which is 6 years older than my actual age of 37. I’ve got some work to do! I’ll see if I can get Daddio to do the test today as well and see what his results are.

Update: Hubby did the test and it’s official, I’m a cradle robber! His actual age is 40 and his body age is 34, I was actually surprised by these results as it’s his side of the family that has diabetes!

This past week in the east coast we got a nice dumping of snow. Not too much that closed things down, but just enough for getting out and testing out the new monster sled Santa brought:

With the help of trusty Facebook I got some suggestion of everyone’s favourite sliding spots and we headed out to the local Golf course for some sliding action! This first hill I will admit I was a little nervous about. I remember knocking the wind out of myself on it a few times as a teen. Daddio managed to capture the C-Man and I taking it on, which Mr. L later dubbed this hill “The Beast”. I also captured one of Liam and Andrew with Ciaran and uploaded them to You Tube last night. Poor Finnshine is not in any videos, but he was there and really enjoyed himself. He held his own climbing up the hills and really enjoyed himself, although he did not like getting sprayed in the face with flying snow, but who does?

We moved onto a smaller hill and had such a great time, the weather was perfect, no wind and nice and sunny! It reminded me of the amazing childhood I had and of the many hours spent cross country skiing with my brother and dad at this very same golf course. I need to make time for doing more of this fun stuff. We only have a few more days with Daddio home from work so I’m going to start making a list of stuff to do this week! I’m really looking forward to this Sunday’s activity. At Mr. L’s hockey practice the parent’s will be taking on the kids in a match and I’ll be participating! I haven’t had full hockey gear on in close to 20 years so it should be pretty humorous!

As I finish up this entry at 7:30 am, (I got up at 5am to do some work so I could be available later) I’m going to try my best to PLAY with my kids and have fun!

Then just over 20 months ago in the Spring of 2009, I decided to let my short inverted bob grow out so I could donate my red locks to be made into a wig for those struggling through hair loss from chemotherapy. There’s a few programs that you can donate to and in the end I decided on  Pantene’s Beautiful Length’s program. They have partnered with the Canadian Cancer Society and donate the wigs to the recipients at no cost to them. They also have a blog at their site as well- Official WordPress Blog

So if you’ve seen me over the past several months you may not have actually realized just how long my hair was as I’ve been wearing it in braids or up. Here’s a shot just before the cut and after the 11 inches were cut off!