Last post I told y’all all about groupon and ebates, and started to touch on coupon codes, which I want to talk about a little more in depth now. I am a stickler for online coupon codes, barely ever shop online without one. My favorite place to find coupon codes is probably retailmenot.com, fatwallet.com, and believe it or not, groupon also has a section for coupons, hahahaha, I love groupon!!!! <3 I honestly just google it to find good ones, I won’t spend more than 2 minutes hunting for one. For example, I need to order some candles and wallflowers from Bath & Body Works, to make my house smell pretty! The candle I am burning right this second is “Beach Canopy” from the Spring collection and OMG it is my favorite, it smells like Pottery Barn. If you ask Chris what I have always dreamed our house smell like, its pottery barn, and I finally found a scent just like it, success! OK back on topic…I need to place an order for more beach canopy candles and wallflowers, I quickly google “Bath and Body Works coupon code” and BAM! Retailmenot.com had one for 20% off your purchase, it was SP156035 good until 8/2/2015. (You’re welcome) So that took 2 seconds and I saved some money. So as you can see it is not that hard to save a couple bucks, which over the long run adds up.
One place that requires no leg work but saves $$$, is QVC. Yes I am 26 years old and I shop on QVC and have for years, don’t judge me. QVC to many people is an infomercial, but I honestly like it and have saved a lot with them. They have most of the latest brands, fashions, and have exclusives with those brands that you can’t get anywhere else! For example Keurig coffee makers, did you know QVC has an exclusive color with them? You do now! Same with Kitchen Aid Mixers! They also have major deals that not only include $ off but also add on every accessory imaginable with the purchase of your mixer, or coffee maker. So you have everything you will ever need. QVC also does installment payments to your credit card with no interest or anything, and along with the “Today’s Special Values” which are always a steal! Also they are doing Christmas in July right now, which is my favorite! Get all your christmas shopping done early and on sale, and avoid the craziness later, score!
Chris and I have many hobbies, we stay pretty active and like to be outside, but when we are home, we are watching TV. One of my bad habits, wish I could kick it, but Hi I am Jenna and I am a TV ADDICT!! When we lived in Arizona we had Dish Network with HBO and paid like $120 a month for TV w/internet, ridiculous! Then we got into Hulu & Netflix and decided when we moved here we were going to ditch the dish and only use Hulu and Netflix. It has worked out great for us! Hulu only costs $7.99 a month and Netflix is about the same! So we save over $100 a month this way! I am sure many of you already know this and probably have it already. But, what you may not know, is multiple households can login under the same account! So Chris and I asked my parents if we could login under their name and save an additional $16 a month! FREE TV!!! We already had 2 Roku’s, (devices that accesses those apps, no monthly fee), so we just logged them in and watch TV in SC from my parents account in Hawaii. Not to shabby! In addition to this, in case this may apply to you, my parents still have Dish Network, they are going to cancel it eventually, but for now, I can login in their name at dishanywhere.com and watch any other shows I want on my laptop, and I grab an hdmi cord and plug it into the TV and there we go. now the catch here is that each app has access to different shows and networks, it is a hassle, but hey were paying a lot less so I can’t complain, but sometimes an episode I want to watch isn’t available, so I then will try the network itself (i.e abc.com, mtv.com, hgtv.com) to try and watch it directly. There is plenty to watch otherwise, definitely worth the switch, and we can continue feeding our TV addiction.
Now y’all know we at the Pelayo household love our furballs! And we treat them like, and debatable at times, better than…”children”. So we obviously try and find money saving ideas when it comes to these munchkins too! We in the past have shopped at petco & petsmart to buy them food and goodies, but my husband works more than fulltime, and lets be realistic, I can barely lift my purse let alone 2x 50lb bags of dogfood, so it became annoying trekking to the store by myself looking like a fool lifting these bags. But randomly one day we came across petflow.com, and it was life changing! Petflow.com has grown so much over the years and become better and better, but it started out as solely a dog food delivery service. They carry all the same brands as pet stores, but strangely, cheaper and free shipping? I don’t know how they do it but it saves me time, money, and back pain. We have used them for over 4 years now and I’ll be da***ed if I go anywhere else. They have now added treats, medicines, toys, pretty much every doggie item I know of, and obviously I know of way too many as it is. To give you an example, we feed our fuzzies “Fromm Chicken A La Veg”, it is a grain-free top notch pet food which costs us $52.64 per bag at petflow.com, AND THATS IT, NO TAX OR SHIPPING!!! We have 2 pet stores within a mile of our home, one is literally across the street, the bags costs over $60 each at both of those stores, I have to pay tax on them, I have to lug them home, and I pay more? I don’t think so…I put a link below for you and it also gets you $10 off your first order. Love them!
Speaking of my furry friends, two of my dogs, the oldest, Cowboy & Cowgirl, have a lot of health issues. Cowboy is turning 8 this week, and Cowgirl turned 7 in April. Cowgirl has developed a slow glaucoma this last year and is half blind now, and also has a hypothyroid. And Cowboy is developing hip dysplasia. My poor babies! So they are on constant medication which costs a lot of $. One place I found out about from Cowgirl’s new eye doctor, who is amazing, is called goodrx.com. It is a website you type your medication name into, and it tells you the price of it at every pharmacy near you. So if it costs $90 at walgreens but $15 at CVS that day, were going to CVS! It has been very helpful and saved us a ton. Cowgirl has to have 3 different eye drop medications 2x a day, or she will go blind, so we go through her medication fast and its pricey, so goodrx has helped! I have Cowboy on something natural that doesn’t go through a pharmacy but thought I would mention it because it has helped him a lot with his hips. He has always had hip issues since he was young, he is pure chow chow and it is hereditary with them, so he has always been on glucosamine, blah blah blah, but then he started to be in pain, he would have a hard time getting up, sometimes whimper, breaks my heart every time. So I wanted to find something stronger for him, that was natural, and I came across long life pet supplements. They specialize in a product solely for dogs arthritis and hip dysplasia that is made up of mainly pure shark cartilage, which help generate new cartilage cells in your babies joints. Much stronger that glucosamine, and it has helped Cowboy be much more comfortable, and he does around a lot more now. You can get the info in the link at the bottom of the page if your interested in that. 🙂
The last free $ app I like to use for fun is “ShopKick”. Now this would be a great app for teens, as it costs nothing, you don’t have to spend a dime, and it can be fun! ShopKick is an app where you get points just for window shopping, and the points can be redeemed for gift cards to your favorite stores. This is how it works, you show up at Walmart, Walmart gives 100 “kicks (points)” just for walking into the store. Done. Easy right? if you want more points they will give you some just for scanning a couple items, you don’t have to buy the item, just scan it with the app. For example you get 25 kicks for scanning the “Arbor Mist Moscato Wine”, and lets be real, you were already in the alcohol section anyway 😛 Besides the alcohol part, see why it would be great for teens? They are already mad at the world they have to go shopping with you, and are doing nothing helpful while you try to navigate the maze to check off all the items on your massive list. This can give them something to do so they aren’t like “mom are we done yet?”, and it can lead to a gift card for them later on. It is also great for teens when you drop them off at the mall all day when they’re bored but they don’t have any $ to spend. Gives them something to work towards.
Please see the links below to the discount pages I mentioned. Also if you currently save $ couponing with groceries please leave me a comment below on any tips you have, or if you have any other cool ideas to save $ please feel free to share them int he comments! Thank y’all again for reading my blog and I will post more soon!
Last post I gave you a glimpse into our past. Today I want to fill you in on our move to South Carolina and what we have been up to presently! Remember when I told you Chris’ company wanted him to start the first week of January, well that was not going to happen, as his boss in Arizona needed him for at least a couple more weeks, so his last day would be January 10, 2015. Meanwhile it was Christmas and my parents were coming to visit from Hawaii. So Christmas Eve we sat down for dinner, and we gave them their Christmas Card, which said were moving!! The looks on their faces were hilarious!! It was so hard to keep it a secret, especially when we were planning so much and needed to make some tough decisions, but I knew it would be better to do in person. My parents were very supportive and happy for us, and when we told Chris’ parents (who are also back in Hawaii), they were very excited for us too!
So as I told you our houses both had offers on January 3rd, so we needed to move out soon so we could pack and have the movers load, have the house cleaned, inspections and appraisals, etc. Luckily my loving grandparents have a vacation house in Maricopa, and they were kind enough to let us move in, until we moved! On January 7, 2015 we made an offer on our future house, while we were closing both our other homes at the same time. Chris’ company got us a mortgage lender who specialized in relocations, who was very helpful and made this happen for us. We have an awesome realtor in Arizona, who is also a close friend, so when we did have offers on our homes, she made sure they were serious and would close quickly. One was a cash offer and we literally closed the home in 6 days, it was a new record for her, and we were shocked and thrilled! Our other home we closed on January 30th. Everything went pretty smoothly with the closings, and we made some $ on the homes, which helped us out tremendously.
We left for South Carolina January 12th. So this is where our planning and research helped us out a lot. We have 4 dogs, and we had 8 states to get through. So we rented a mini van, and drove across the country over a period of 4 days. It was exhausting, but our planning really helped the trip run smoothly, we stuck to our drive time and hotels, stopped at mapped out dog parks to give the kiddos some exercise, and we had fun taking pictures of the “Welcome to…” signs! Meanwhile we were juggling calls from our mortgage officer, realtors, and rentals at the same time.
Our new home was not going to close until February 13th, so we needed to find a place to live, that was a short term rental, and that also allowed our 4 dogs. It was a VERY hard place to find. But somehow, we found the perfect rental after getting denied by so many. The owners of this home only live here a couple months out of the year, and to make a little extra money in between, wanted to rent it out, completely furnished, and included utilities. This was to good to be true, but it was true, and it really has been a great temporary home for us while we close on our house. This house has a big yard which the dogs love, and it is close to Chris’ new job which has been great! The first night we got to South Carolina we went out to dinner in downtown Charleston, and we knew it was home. Charleston and the town we chose to live in, Summerville, take my breath away every time we are there.
So we had moved into our rental, but I still haven’t seen this house we are buying, only Chris has!!! So we went there next! Our realtor met us there, and we walk up, and OMG I was speechless…we walk inside, all I could think was, this house is stunning and how on earth did we pull this off?! We then heard a noise upstairs, (no not ghosts, I know thats what you were thinking!). This guy comes out, and come to find out its the current owners son, weird, but we exchange introductions and continue looking around. Of course I see a ton of work to do, but I know to look past it, it does not scare me one bit, we got this! I was in love with this house, as I hoped I would be, and I was above the clouds happy! Then someone walks in the front door, and it is the owners wife. She explained they came in to town from Florida, where they moved, and they were packing up the rest of their belongings. We spent the next 2 hours talking with them, and learning all about our home, its history, how much they loved it and what they were planning for it. They were in the middle of renovating the entire house, when her husband got a job transfer to their dream city in Florida, so they moved, but left the house half done in the process. BUT, they were leaving us everything they were going to use, the brand new fixtures, appliances, tile, tools, you name it. They went on to tell us that we were 1 of over 40 people that had viewed the house in the month it was on the market, and they were told they would be getting offers by many of them, but “after the holidays”. So we had got ours in just in time, before anyone else had finished their holiday break, and avoiding a likely bidding war. We were happy we got to learn more about our new home, and meet the owners, it made it feel official! Next we had an inspection which we were very nervous about, because it is a very old home, and had a never ending list of things to get done. But, there were only a couple of small things, all that the owners agreed on fixing, and would have contractors coming in immediately to fix, and we moved on to the appraisal.
So this is where we finally met a hiccup…as you probably have figured out already, I am a planner, I like organization, and I am punctual to a fault. My BIGGEST pet peeve, is having to rely on those who aren’t. Hey, at least I admit it! But this appraisal, nearly killed me. Our appraiser went to the house, mind you we are days away from our closing date, and the selling realtor had the lockbox changed, but never told anyone. The appraiser tried to call him to get the code, he didn’t answer, so the appraiser left, and it was a Friday. By time someone got back to him, he said he would have to reschedule for the end of the following week, so there went our closing date. On top of this, the sellers and I had become friends on FB, and I thought I would let them know why things were being delayed, which then they said “You’re kidding, our realtor told us we were delayed because of something with your bank, so he lied to us?” oh boy, they were pissed. When the appraiser finally made it out to the home over a week later, come to find out the construction worker, who was recommended to the sellers, by their realtor, hadn’t even finished the job! We can’t close until its finished, and appraiser can’t appraise an unfinished house, grrrrrrrr. So more delays. Finally everyone did what they were supposed to, and we were ready to close, I called our insurance company we had been talking to for months to go ahead and send the BINDER to our bank, and they said our broker messed up and they won’t insure a house that old and I had “chow chows”, and it would need approval higher up, and could take days, WHAT?!!! I didn’t have days, so we went with a different company, and got approved the same day, phew! Can this be the last hurdle please? NOPE! It was now February 26, 2015, (yes thats 2 weeks delayed), and we have our closing set for the next day, and our HUD has still not been submitted to our bank after more than several requests from the title company, mind you this is usually done at the beginning process and then finalized at closing, ours hadn’t even been started, at all! My bank and my realtor harassed the heck out of that lady until she made it, and now it was 1pm on the 27th, our closing appointment. At 1:15pm, our HUD was turned in, thank goodness!!!! But no surprise here, we didn’t start signing paperwork until an hour after our appointment time…
It was a heck of a plan, we somehow pulled it off, but not without hard work and a lot of painful patience along the way. Our realtor was a trooper, and we are so thankful she was able to help us buy our dream home. We had our keys, and we walked into our house for the first time as its owners. We had the best feeling of accomplishment, this was our dream home, which I never expected we would own at not only a young age, but ever. I look at it every day with a smile, and am incredibly grateful. Chris will tell you, I say hello to her every time we walk in, like she’s an old friend, (yes our house is a female, and her name is Miss Scarlet, I name everything ♥)
But we have yet to move in! For the last 2 weeks Chris and I have been working our tooshies off trying to make that happen. When I say this house needed work, I don’t mean some paint and a new welcome doormat. This house did not even have a kitchen floor when we bought it, I literally mean no floor, like you walk into the kitchen you fall 5 feet into our crawl space, no floor. So first we had that fixed, kind of important I thought. Our kitchen cabinets then had to be set in place and secured, our water lines for sinks and faucets connected, our gas cooktop needed a gas line and to be set in place, dryer vent installed, an attic door/ladder replaced, pest control, locks/doorknobs and doorbells changed, and some electrical issues fixed. We also had to go through all of the stuff that was left in the home, we went through a box of 25 contractor grade garbage bags, and have a room full of furniture to sell, and we haven’t even gone through the 38′ long attic yet, eeekk! We have had about 15 different people in and out of our house, kind of fun, but that was just the first week!
We also had some (ok many) holes in the walls that had to be drywalled, Chris has been sanding that drywall like a mad man, I have had a white husband the past 2 weeks. Haha, that was bad, I’m sorry hunny. 😛 Our house has also sat vacant for a few months, so the landscaping is in desperate need of trimming, and we have a half acre full of fallen leaves to attend too. We had a 6 foot privacy fence installed in the back for the dogs though, which was finished this week. The remnants from our old half fence, Chris made into a large pen area to rake all the leaves into for compost, genius! We took off all of our kitchen cabinet hardware, doors, and drawer fronts to get ready to paint tomorrow. And did I mention the cleaning?! Oh goodness gracious was this place was diiirrttyyyy!
For the past week we have been banned from the rest of the house because we are having the +135 year old pine floors refinished, and they are being finished today. They. Are. BEAUTIFUL! You will have to wait to see what color we went with! We went and picked out our paint today for our cabinets too, I am going to be using Annie Sloan chalk paint and the soft wax finish, and also a glaze antiquing, its probably going to take me a month to finish because we have like 50 cabinets! I will definitely be doing detailed before and afters for that!
We have our movers coming on Tuesday, March 17, 2015, we are so excited to be finally moving in! But we sure have a long way to go until things start settling down at the homefront. What we plan to work on through Spring is to; get some new light fixtures, painting, painting, and more painting, replace toilets and a sink, new shower fixtures, trees trimmed, front fence installed, paint the decks, make a raised garden, powerwash the house, tiling our sunroom, gutting the guest bathroom, painting the cabinets until my hands fall off, HVAC needs repair (home warranty stuff), and go through that attic. We won’t be that busy I don’t think, please feel free to come visit and we will entertain you with a painting party 😉
I will post more of the finished floors and the start of our cabinet painting next! And maybe a post about what fun things we have discovered living here so far…