Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Ladies Love Free MakeUp

We all know Ladies Love Cool J (as in LL Cool J if you didn't know) but ladies also love free makeup. Ladies can I get an amen? Now I'm not a makeup junkie by any means, but I do like to leave the house looking well put together and makeup is an integral part of that pulled together look. However, cosmetics can be extremely expensive, and who really knows if that new color of lipstick you just purchased will look great on you in the real world, and not just at the makeup counter.

Personally, I got tired of wasting money on makeup that I never ended up using and decided on a new strategy. Now I have a drawer full of the best cosmetics in the latest colors and the greatest part of this strategy is....I haven't paid for an eye shadow, mascara, or lipstick in over 3 years! How is that possible? Free gift with purchase that's how!!

Instead of the "Wall Street" mantra "Greed is Good", my manta is "FREE is Good!!!" There are a few skin care products that I love by Estee Lauder, Clinique, etc. and can’t live without. What I quickly realized is that department stores ALWAYS have some type of free gift with purchase. The purchase is usually minimal, say $24.00 and you always get, the latest colors of eye shadow, lipstick, maybe a mascara and the newest samples of their skin care products to try. You can usually pick your colors too such as either earth tones or pinks!

One of my favorite sites is:

http://www.mygiftwithpurchase.com

I check the site once a month to see what department stores are offering a free gift with purchase and for what brands. If you need it right away, you can also buy online at the department store websites, still get the gift with purchase and free shipping if you spend a specific amount! This way I can check my skin care products and see if I’m running low on anything, pick up the product I need and the free gift with all the goodies. I have so much free stuff, that I’m able to share the extra products with my friends.

Happy shopping and please post your money saving tips to my blog so we can all be budget ballas!!!

Friday, December 11, 2009

Money Saving Tips for 2010

Money Saving Tips for 2010

These days we all know that every penny counts. My friend Angela and I have been discussing all the the little things we do to save money and really make our dollar count. She suggested that we blog about it, and we can all track how much money we've really saved over the year. I think it's a great idea....so here we go!

Gas and Electric (G&E) – It’s not sexy that’s for sure, but it’s the fastest and easiest save you’ll ever accomplish. My G&E bill was over $225 a month when I finally decided, there had to be something I could do to lower that amount. I logged onto my G&E website and lo and behold…there they were…energy saving tips. Additionally, I did some homework, searched the internet and found more ways to save on G&E. That whole process took me about 20 minutes.

Here’s what I learned:
1) If you aren’t using your electrical devices, unplug them, PERIOD. Devices that suck energy even when you aren't using them are called energy vampires, and they can account for up to 20% of your electricity bill. See link below for a flyer concerning energy vampires.

http://action.sierraclub.org/site/DocServer/energy_vampires_tips.pdf?docID=3421



2) Run the washer and dryer with full loads only. AND don’t use them until after 9:00 pm. (or whenever your peak electricity time is over). You can find out your peak electricity times on your energy providers website.

I tried only these two tips and here is what happened:

The first month my G&E bill was reduced from $225 to approximately $145...but we only used the money saving tips for a little over half the month.

The second month, an entire month of applying just these 2 tips...my G&E bill was a little over $100. NO JOKE!! It’s not a fluke either, ever since we’ve applied these two tips, our G&E bill has hovered around the $100 mark.

That’s at least $100 savings every single month with just these 2 small little tips. That’s an annual savings of over $1,000.00 a year. Whooooo Hooooo!!!!

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Baby Momma Drama - Again

Are you dealing with a crazy baby momma? Well I am, and I don't even have a baby momma, but my man does and the stories I could tell you would make your mouth fall open. My boyfriend of 5 years has a 10 year old daughter with the crazy bitch. Yeah that's right, I called her a bitch. Only a crazy bitch would spit in her baby daddy face, in the parking lot of the local mall, in front of their child. That's what happened on Wednesday night.

My boyfriend, (let's call him D) has a baby momma who likes to be called Bobbi the Bully. She's a grown ass woman over 30 who brags about the fact that she's a bully. Her license plate even has BULLES on it. She's so proud of it too....what an idiot. Well D said that Bobbi had been "on one" all day long. She had called D earlier in the day. Not to ask him anything about the child they have in common but instead to say...."your F'in girlfriend blocked my number from C's (the daughter we'll call C) phone so that I couldn't call her, she's a stupid bitch, blah, blah, blah."

First off, I didn't block Bobbi's number from C's phone. Second off, I paid for the damn phone and I pay for the damn service too. We want C to have a phone with her and be able to talk to her dad whenever she wants to. Mind you, if I wanted to, I could block Bobbi from calling C's phone, only I didn't. But of course, it's all my fault. Ummmmm...now I'm thinking maybe I should. block her dumb ass from the phone. Instead of Bobbi calling and nicely asking if there was something wrong with the phone or the service, she launches into a tirade about what she thinks I did to HER. That's the kind of shit I have to deal with.

Now....what had happened was....D and C were running late this evening. On Wednesday nights he picks C up from school and takes her to dinner, shopping or whatever they decide to do. Then he drops C off with her mom. Only this night, they were running late on the drop-off. D called Bobbi to ask her to meet him at the mall, which is closer to her house anyway and that's all it took to set her foul mouth off. I'm sure anyone within standing distance of that phone call could hear her screaming and yelling at D....MF this, F U that.

When they arrive at the mall, Bobbi runs up on the truck and tries to snatch C out of it while it's moving! D tries to pull the truck over and stop so that C can get out, and Bobbi vandalizes his truck by hitting it several times. When he gets out of the truck and asks what her problem is, she screams at him and spits in his face....all this in front of his daughter, their daughter. What a classy lady. She should go back to working the pole at the local strip club. Yep, that's right, Bobbi used to be a pole dancer. She just got off the pole about a year ago. I told you she's crazy.

She's always acted this way and always gotten away with it. She's beat up girls in the the bathroom, assaulted folks in restaurant parking lots and people just let her get away with it by not reporting it to the police and not making her pay a price for her actions.

In the meantime, D has to pay child support for a daughter we used to have over 50% of the time. That is until Bobbi decided she didn't want D to see his daughter anymore because she wanted to get on welfare instead. And here we are left to deal with some crazy baby momma that the system keeps in the money while we work 2 jobs a piece to make ends meet. No Good Deed Goes Unpunished....