Shopping With My 75-Year-Old Mother-in-Law

My mother-in-law and I do not agree on fashion. Chicos is chic, she counsels, modern. She once told my children I needed to stop dressing like a teenager. An old friend, when I told her this, said, “Clearly she didn’t know you when you were a teenager.” Clearly.

On a recent visit, she conned me into taking her to Dillard’s on the pretense of buying herself a shirt outside of my father-in-law’s frugal watch. After twenty minutes at the Ralph Lauren racks, pointing out which zebra print and nautical sweaters would look lovely with my coloring, she gave up.

“This is my daughter,” she told the sales clerk. “I try to buy her things, but you can’t buy her anything. Because she’s petite, but she’s not petite.”

The woman smiled and nodded toward the petite section. “But there’s nothing young over there. She needs to shop on that side of the store.” She pointed to the department where no one had a walker, or an oxygen mask.

My mother-in-law dismissed her with a look. ”But I like Ralph Lauren.”

Got Coupons? Three Great Money Saving Websites

With the weird economy and holidays approaching, I’m looking for new ways to save money every day. Coupons are back! I’m hoping that one good thing to come out of all this financial uncertainty is that I create some good and efficient habits for saving money on gifts and groceries. I won’t commit to hours on end of coupon clipping, but these days we don’t have to. Others have worked out systems and scoured the world for good deals. All we have to do is follow their lead! Here are three great websites to get you started on your savings adventure:

Money Saving Mom – This site is a blog format. I like it because I can scroll through and take one tip at a time. For example, she’s got this great post on making your own household cleaners which I love. I’ve been trying to do that myself for some time. AND the picture she used shows the exact bottle I use for my homemade brews! She’s also got a direct link to Smart Source coupons, which you can print from your home computer. (Note: I hear Wal-Mart won’t take these.)

Coupon Cravings – Here’s another great blog format. If you want timely advice about deals you can get NOW, check out this site. She’s also got quick print coupons on the side bars. I’d never heard of the great deals at Restaurants.com until I read about it on Coupon Cravings. What a great idea for Christmas gifts!

Coupon Mom – This is the woman who was on Oprah a couple of weeks ago. She claims to have saved something like $75,000 over the last 15 years. This is the old school coupon-insane method. I personally wouldn’t buy into the system whole hog, but there are certainly good tips everyone can use to one degree or another. The site is a little overwhelming to me. If you’re going to check it out, I suggest using a timer because you can go off in a lot of different directions if you’re not careful. But if you want to implement full-on coupon mania, this may be your best resource.

So – did you find a deal? Let us know!

Note to the locals: Harps (but not Price Cutter) doubles coupons up to half the price of the item. I haven’t tried it yet, but that’s what they told me at Price Cutter last week!

Do You Bikini?

I was in a dressing room a few years ago trying on swimsuits when I overheard a woman in the stall next to me tell her friend:

“No bikinis. I’m over thirty. No one wants to see that.”

This is what comforts me when I feel sorry for myself that I can’t won’t wear a bikini. I am not alone. Because really, what I got? It’s perfectly attractive when covered by a quality fabric, but you do not want to see that stuff all hangin’ out. Just ask my kids.

They laugh hysterically when they see me in my respectable-mom-coverage style tank-ini. They poke at the squishy bits and marvel at my wrinkly belly skin. EW! they squeal. I remind them they are the ones who made me that way. The little traitors.

Sometimes I see bikini-clad women at the pool who are my age. I don’t live in LA, or near a coast, or in a place with very high health standards for that matter. Sometimes I look at these women with admiration. I love what my best Mississippi girlfriend calls their ‘don’t-give-a-f*#!-ness’.

But usually I just think Ew, No one wants to see that!

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by BOCA.

Clippin’ Coups

In case you haven’t noticed, gas and groceries are a tad high these days. I’m forced to be a little more careful about how I cook, what I buy, and how much I pay for things. While I have always been amazed at people who can walk away with $300 in groceries for $27, let’s be real – I’m not going to clip that many coupons. Ever. I am also unwilling to plan my meals based on what happens to be on sale that week. Stock up, yes. Eat yam stew for a week because they’re 4 cents a pound? No.

I have also tried going online and printing off coupons. I once even signed up for a service that was supposed to tell me what to buy when. I couldn’t stick with either of those. I’m not giving up, and if you have advice please leave it here. Show me the bargains.

What I can do, what I’ve started to do, is work the Walgreens action. In the last two weeks I have made two trips, spending approximately $50 and SAVING a whopping $67! Ha! HA! I can’t tell you how fun it is to get those deals. How can you not get exctied about two for one sunscreen is? TWO for ONE! That stuff is like $8 a pop.

Another way to save is to shop at a discount grocery store like Aldi. I haven’t quite moved all the way into this one yet, but I do stop in there every once in a while to buy a spiral cut honey ham because it’s so much less expensive. A friend of mine whose husband is in the food biz says that although Aldi carries off brands, they are all very high quality. Choices are limited, but everything there costs less. So why not?

What are you doing to save money on groceries?

New Amazon Store and Black Friday Shopping

You may have noticed I’ve added an Amazon.com store to this blog. You can click the link on the right and shop Amazon for my favorites or your own.

They are doing specials on Black Friday, so if you hate the thought of shopping in your PJs in front of people, check out Amazon Black Friday.

And I’ll try to get some more picks in my store ASAP!

Got Stuff?

I’ve lived for years in various places without good shopping. The truth is my life offers few occasions too good for an outfit from The Gap. However, we were getting a new mall and the idea made me giddy.

Malls are all about gathering people into once place so that all those people can then gather stuff. How could I resist the lure of open-air browsing, high-end stores, and piped-in sound? I had to make peace with the new mall – meet it head on and conquer my urge to purchase.

I dressed up for its brand-new-ness, needing to look good to bolster myself against the temptation of all that shiny stuff calling my name. I took my kids to make sure I wouldn’t stay too long.

The place had it all, clean as Disneyland, bright and new. It was a lifeline to Someplace Else with spots for people to congregate and big city stores. I drooled for Haagen Daz, but refused to pay $3 a scoop for kids who wouldn’t know the difference. We headed to the Dairy Queen.

This was no ordinary food court. Next to the bright plastic tables and chairs was the “lounge”. Folks hung out on clean, upholstered furniture watching plasma screens mounted over a stone hearth. I pictured how dingy and disgusting the comfy chairs would look after a year’s worth of old-man-head and teenage musk settled in.

After the ice cream we braved the stores. I reminded myself that I had all I needed at home, but still, there were those shoes, pretty dishes, and fluffy blankets. But I prevailed. When we left the stores for the energy of the crowd, I realized that’s what I really missed about the city anyway. It’s not the stuff, it’s all those people.

My kids begged to go to Build-A-Bear but we negotiated instead for a children’s clothing store. I was at first delighted, then dismayed to find there were racks of clothes that both my daughter and I could fit into. We could be matching! Charming, yet I couldn’t help feeling sorry for the overfed ten-year-old who wears my size.

My son tried on a black, velour sport coat, which the mannequin wore over an un-tucked button-down shirt with a loosened tie. It was cute in the way that old pictures of a wasted twelve-year-old Drew Barrymore at Studio 54 are cute. He looked like a young Colin Farrell – minus the stubble. No purchase there.

By now my feet ached and after another twenty minutes navigating the crowd, all those people started to wear me out.

I bought one thing: an amazing raspberry chipotle sauce we used to buy in Texas. For the life of me I couldn’t remember what we put it on, but we used to buy it by the barrel so I shelled out $10 for an eight-ounce bottle. I swung that little bag of very-special-sauce to the bounce in my step.

I had succeeded! I’d resisted the lure of all things sparkly and smelling of newness. I proved that I could go to the mall and enjoy the sights, the people, the colored water fountain, and the smooth-but-still-cool-jazz floating through the cool evening air without going home burdened by a bunch of junk I didn’t need. Good for me.

Now groceries, that’s another story. There’s Bliss in the aisles of a Sam’s Club – and you don’t even have to dress up.

After the Turkey Dinner

I know we’re still a ways out, but it’s never too early to plan for your post death-by-turkey stuff session shopping session! For years I avoided the rush of the crowds on the day after Thanksgiving, but a few years ago I gave in. It seemed like a fun thing to do with my sisters-in-law. So up we got at 5:am. What were we thinking?

Turns out we got some wicked good deals – that’s what we were thinking! We did it again and again the next two years in a row. We’ve covered two states in pre-dawn grogginess. And once, two of us nearly strangled the third when she tried to stop at a convenience store for coffee. Everyone knows only Starbucks will do for shopping at 5:am.

However, all good things must come to an end. I have just learned about a site that lets me take advantage of all those awesome deals without leaving the comfort of home. I can Black Friday shop from my recliner with Black-Friday.net. What could be better? They have several stores vying to help you save money. Best of all you can get all those deals without standing in line with some folk who, I must say, don’t always smell too sweet. It’s not like there’s time to take a shower before shopping. As an added bonus, the site also offers email alerts to let you know when new Black Friday ads have been posted.

They have your basic Walmart deals and Target bargains, but I’m excited that one of their stores is Old Navy because that is always on my list. Who doesn’t need fleece at Christmas time? There’s nothing quite as wonderful as a big ole Old Navy shopping bag chock full of clothing goodness for the cost of a few lattes. Enjoy!