Free Music - Week of March 31

It's Tuesday, time for the weekly free music review. Personally, I love checking out the new free music every Tuesday. Sometimes I'm not crazy about the songs, but sometimes there are some good ones. I figure it certainly doesn't hurt to check them out. And it's always fun to discover new artists. Here are the songs I found this week:

iTunes

• Single of the Week - "Make Me Believe" by Angel Taylor
• Discovery Download - "Love Struck" by V Factory
• Video - "Nothing To Worry About" by Peter Bjorn and John

Walmart "Love Your Love the Most" by Eric Church

Amazon Music The featured free songs at Amazon change each time you refresh the page so you'll have to head over there and check them out. They have the largest selection of free music I have seen from a reputable source. Click here and then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the free songs.

CNET has a new free song featured every day. Plus you can look at some of their previously featured songs and still download them for free.

Blender has their March Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands. For the list of songs, please see this previous Free Music post.

Blender also has their April Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands, including the following:

• "Golden" by Marco Benevento
• "Stop Stomp Stompin" by The Coathangers
• "Microphone" by Coconut Records
• "Tail & Mane" by Cryptacize
• "Andrew" by Crystal Antlers
• "Floating Down a River" by Jason Damato
• "Fear" by Benjy Ferree
• "Cable TV" by Fol Chen
• "Hazel" by Junior Boys
• "The Last Kiss" by Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs
• "For My Children's Love" by Finley Quaye
• "everytime" by Mike Relm
• "deux TIGREs (feat Ingnue)" by The Shanghai Restoration Project
• "Tourniquet" by Sholi
• "Trash" by The Whip

Once again I have some extra codes from Starbuck's Pick of the Week cards. This time I have two: "Black Tables" by Other Lives and "Nine Sixteen" by Bruno Merz. I have one of each code that I will email to the first person who leaves a comment here who states that they want them. These codes work in iTunes so you will need iTunes to be able to download them.

That's all for this week's free music. Come back next Tuesday for another free music post.

Virtual Great American Bake Sale

Stolen Moments Cooking is hosting a Virtual Great American Bake Sale to benefit Share Our Strength and their work to end childhood hunger. If you would like to submit a recipe, you have until April 5th. The ebook will go on sale April 13th. All proceeds from the sale of the ebook will go to Share Our Strength.

I've submitted a recipe already and I'll admit that I'm looking forward to checking out the ebook to see what other yummy recipes will be in there. For more information, head over to Stolen Moments Cooking.

Top 10 Cookie Recipes I Want to Try

Ok, by now we all know that I love to bake and that I'm always looking for fun new recipes to try. So for my first Top 10 Tuesday I figured what better to post about about then recipes. And since I've been surfing around looking for a good Snickerdoodle recipe (see the one I found below) that led me to the list of cookie recipes I want to try.

So here it is, the list of the top 10 cookie recipes I want to try:

1. Snickerdoodles
2. Lavender Cookies
3. Oatmeal Cranberry White Chocolate Chunk Cookies
4. Iced Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies
5. Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies
6. Mom's Island Treasures
7. Best Ever Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
8. Pecan Squares
9. Berry Shortbread Dreams
10. Oatmeal Lace Cookies

For more Top 10 Tuesday Lists, head over to Oh Amanda.

Spring Cleaning the Closet

This week I got bit by the Spring Cleaning bug and decided to clean out my closet. See all those clothes in the picture to the left? Those are all the clothes I'm getting rid of. Right now they are bagged up ready to go. It wound up being 4 garbage bags full. This weekend I will be dropping them off and they will be out of here along with some other assorted "stuff" we're getting rid of.

I try to go through our clothes twice a year, spring and fall. I just feel that it's easier to go through them when you're swapping clothes out of your closet anyway.

When the seasons change and I put new clothes in the closet, I go through and make sure that all the hangers are hanging up backwards. Then, throughout the rest of the season when I put clothes back after they've been worn and washed I put them back with the hangers hanging forwards. This way it's very easy to see what hasn't been worn by the end of the season. Anything that still has a backwards hanger at the end of the season gets donated or disposed of depending on the condition of the item.

I started the backwards hanger trick because hubby would never go through his clothes. It drove me crazy that he wouldn't go through his clothes even though I knew there were clothes in there that I had never seen him wear. By utilizing this trick I can tell if he's worn the item or not and get rid of the unworn items without even bothering him. At the end of the season I bag up the unworn items and get rid of them.

The backwards hanger method is useful for my own clothes too. It makes it obvious when I haven't worn something so I can avoid that whole, but I might wear it again argument. I have a firm rule: If it hasn't been worn in a year, it goes. The only time I let this rule slide was while I was pregnant and the first year after. After that anything that still didn't fit or hadn't been worn went. I had quite a few clothes that no longer fit and it was a bit depressing seeing them in my closet every morning while I was trying to decide what to wear. I finally came to the realization that when I finally lose the weight I deserve new clothes. So the old ones went. Now it's much easier to get dressed in the morning because I'm not looking through clothes that no longer fit.

I'm glad that I finally got my closet cleaned out. I'm always amazed at how good it feels to get rid of the items we no longer want or need.

For more Tackle It Tuesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom.

For more Talk About It Tuesday, head over to the Lazy Organizer.

Free Redbox Rental - March 30 Only

The code for today's FREE Redbox rental is:

89ZQJ3

Remember that you can use this code once per debit/credit card, so if you have multiple cards, you can get multiple rentals. You can read about my previous experience using these codes here.

Come back every Monday for the weekly free rental code. This code expires at midnight tonight.

Menu Plan Monday - Week of March 30

Last week got a little crazy with Pumpkin getting sick so we didn't have most of the meals that I planned. As a result our meal plan this week looks a lot like last week.

• Sunday: Leftovers
• Monday: Hot Dogs and Mac and Cheese
• Tuesday: Pork Chops (still looking for a recipe)
• Wednesday: Buttermilk Pancakes
• Thursday: Chicken Melt Sandwiches
• Friday: Chicken Salad Wraps
• Saturday: Leftovers

I'm still looking for a recipe for the pork chops on Tuesday night. I normally make rosemary pork chops, but I'm out of rosemary. Next time I'm at the store I'll have to pick some up. That doesn't help with Tuesday's dinner though. So if you have a good pork chop recipe you would like to share, please let me know and post a link to it if possible.

For the chicken melt sandwiches on Thursday I am going to try to imitate a delicious chicken sandwich I get from a restaurant near work. It's a grilled chicken breast with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and honey mustard on a kaiser roll. Last time the honey mustard I tried was all wrong, but I have a new one and I am ready to try again. I love this sandwich so much, I would love to duplicate it. (I didn't get to this last week)

To see more delicious menu plans, head over to Org Junkie for all the Menu Plan Monday links.

Starbucks Gift Card Winner

I would like to thank everyone for all of their topic ideas. There were a lot of great suggestions and I plan to do more posts about many of the suggested topics in the near future.

Now, without further ado, the winner of the $10 Starbucks gift card is:
Carolyn G. who wants to see more grocery deals.

Carolyn, I'll be sending you an email shortly. Please respond so I can get your gift card out to you.

More Free Magazine Subscriptions

Right now you can get a free 1 Year subscription to Caribbean Travel and Life magazine from Value Mags. This is a no credit card and no commitment offer.

Rewards Gold is offering the following Free subscriptions:

• Forbes
• Conde Nast Traveler
• Boating Magazine
• Flying Magazine

The Rewards Gold subscriptions are all no credit card required and no commitment. I've never had a problem getting my free subscriptions from Rewards Gold and I've gotten several from the.

Works For Me Wednesday - Cupcake Edition

In this house we love cupcakes and muffins. Just about every weekend I'm whipping up some type of cupcake or muffin. So I'm always looking for ways to make preparing them a little easier.

One way I make cupcakes a little easier is by using a non-stick muffin tray. Of course, as we all know, once you scratch these trays they head downhill real fast. So I do not allow any metal utensils near my muffin trays. Since I also don't typically use muffin cups that can make getting the muffins out a little tricky.

The best method I have come across for getting the cupcakes out without scratching my trays is to use a plastic orange peeler. One end is pretty flat and slightly curved. I slide this around the muffin between the tray and the muffin and then pop it right out. If you're using non-stick trays and a little cooking spray they should pop right out with this method.

For more great Works For Me Wednesday tips and tricks, head over to We Are THAT Family.

And don't forget to check out my Ultimate Blog Party post to enter my giveaway for a $10 Starbucks gift card.

Wordless Wednesday - The Great Cookie Edition

This picture is from a few weeks ago when we were at the mall. My daughter actually remembered where the Great Cookie was (Daddy bought her cookies from there previously) and headed over there when we got near the food court. As you can see, she great enjoyed her Snickerdoodles. I will have to make some of these for her soon.

For more Wordless Wednesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom.

Free Music - Week of March 24

It's Tuesday, time for the weekly free music review. Here are the songs I found this week:

iTunes

• Single of the Week - "All My Life in the Ghetto" by Jay Rock
• Discovery Download - "One Day" by The Juan MacLean
• Video - "Come Back to Me" by Utada

Walmart "The Man Who Can't Be Moved" by The Script

Amazon Music The featured free songs at Amazon change each time you refresh the page so you'll have to head over there and check them out. They have the largest selection of free music I have seen from a reputable source. Click here and then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the free songs.

Amazon still has the free download of Ioda Sxsw Opening Day Bash Sampler 2009 which contains 11 songs from various artists.

CNET has a new free song featured every day. Plus you can look at some of their previously featured songs and still download them for free.

Blender has their March Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands. For the list of songs, please see this previous Free Music post.

Blender also has their April Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands, including the following:

• "Golden" by Marco Benevento
• "Stop Stomp Stompin" by The Coathangers
• "Microphone" by Coconut Records
• "Tail & Mane" by Cryptacize
• "Andrew" by Crystal Antlers
• "Floating Down a River" by Jason Damato
• "Fear" by Benjy Ferree
• "Cable TV" by Fol Chen
• "Hazel" by Junior Boys
• "The Last Kiss" by Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs
• "For My Children's Love" by Finley Quaye
• "everytime" by Mike Relm
• "deux TIGREs (feat Ingnue)" by The Shanghai Restoration Project
• "Tourniquet" by Sholi
• "Trash" by The Whip

That's all for this week's free music. Come back next Tuesday for another free music post.

The Grandma Grape Juice Incident

A couple weeks ago my daughter picked out this shirt at Gymboree and just had to have it. She loved it so much that we wound up getting it even though it was over priced in my opinion.

The day after we bought it she wore it to Grandma's house so she could show Grandma her new shirt. Well, we left them alone a little too long and Grandma gave Pumpkin grape juice. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next. Yup, the brand new shirt had grape juice stains all down the front of it. And the pants and the new shoes, I was not happy.

Grandma did get the shirt right off her and soaked it. We took it home and tried two different stain removers on it. They helped a little, but the stains were still there. The next week, on Works For Me Wednesday someone posted about how OxyClean removed even set in stains from some baby clothes they had just gotten out of storage. I figured what the heck, what do I have to lose? The shirt was already ruined so why not try one more thing before it became an expensive dust rag?

This past weekend I finally picked up some OxyClean. I tried to follow the instructions on the bottle, but they told you how many scoops per gallon and there was no scoop in my container. So I guessed. The shirt got to soak for a couple hours and then I threw it in the wash with some other clothes. Amazingly, it came out stain free. Now Pumpkin has her shirt back, although she is still only allowed to wear old clothes to Grandma's house now.

With a messy toddler in my house, OxyClean is my new favorite laundry aid. I can see us using OxyClean regularly now. My only complaint is that their directions should include another unit of measure if they aren't going to include a scoop in the package.

Update: I finally found the scoop. It had managed to go all the way to the bottom of my container of OxyClean. When this container is finished I will be saving the scoop so that I don't have to dig through the container next time.

For more Tackle It Tuesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom
For more Talk About It Tuesday head over to The Lazy Organizer
This has also been posted to I Am Blissfully Domestic

You Want How Much?

I was surfing around Amazon checking out toys for my daughter. I know, she certainly doesn't need any more, but I was just looking. Anyway, I decided to check out what Weebles they have since they are hard to find anymore. While I was searching I came across the listing for the Weebles Castle that she already has. We picked this castle up at a yard sale last October for about $5.00. It has all the pieces and is in great shape. My daughter loves playing with it, but when I saw it listed for $399.99 I debated taking it away from her and selling it.

Seriously though, do people actually pay this much for toys? That's crazy.

Free Redbox Rental - March 23 Only

The code for today's FREE Redbox rental is:

HG7W56

Remember that you can use this code once per debit/credit card, so if you have multiple cards, you can get multiple rentals. You can read about my previous experience using these codes here.

Redbox is running a March Madness promotion where they will have a code for a FREE rental every Wednesday in March. Come back on Monday for the regular weekly code and then again Wednesday for the special March Madness code. This code expires at midnight tonight.

Menu Plan Monday - Week of March 23

This week I picked up some cheap chicken so you will notice that we are chicken heavy this week. That's ok though because we do love our chicken. So, here is what I came up with this week:

• Sunday: Roast Chicken
• Monday: Beef Roast in the Slow Cooker
• Tuesday: Chicken Quesadillas
• Wednesday: Buttermilk Pancakes
• Thursday: Chicken Melt Sandwiches
• Friday: Chicken Salad Wraps
• Saturday: Leftovers

When I roasted the chicken this time I tried something a little different. Usually I just throw on some rosemary, salt and pepper. This time I had a lemon sitting there begging to be used to I used lemon zest, salt and pepper on the chicken and then squeezed the lemon juice into the pan. I think it turned out wonderfully. You get just a hint of the lemon flavor in the chicken. Yum!

For today's beef roast in the slow cooker I'm sticking with my quick method of throwing in the roast with a large can of tomatoes, peppers and onions and letting it cook on low for 10 hours. By the time we eat the meat is deliciously tender and the tomatoes, peppers and onions make a great topping for the slices of roast.

For the chicken melt sandwiches on Thursday I am going to try to imitate a delicious chicken sandwich I get from a restaurant near work. It's a grilled chicken breast with ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato and honey mustard on a kaiser roll. Last time the honey mustard I tried was all wrong, but I have a new one and I am ready to try again. I love this sandwich so much, I would love to duplicate it.

Don't forget to check out my Ultimate Blog Party 2009 post to enter to win a $10 Starbucks gift card.

To see more delicious menu plans, head over to Org Junkie for all the Menu Plan Monday links.

Weekend Shopping Summary

This weekend we had to hit the warehouse club to stock up on green beans for our dogs. Since we were there, we also stocked up on various items for us humans. We try to only hit the warehouse club once a month. It's just so much easier that way. As usual they had items there that were good deals and plenty of items that weren't. I did stock up on nuts for baking and got some more cheese from the deli. They are also the only ones that have the chicken sausage that my daughter loves. So of course we had to pick up some of that. It was a bit of an expensive trip, coming in at $130, but it is just once a month and I didn't have to go to the grocery store this week.

I've read posts at various blogs where they talk about doing a major grocery shopping trip once a month and then weekly they will just pick up things like milk and produce. In the past I've resisted this because I always felt like I would miss a good deal. Now I'm beginning to wonder if there isn't something to it.I'm very tempted to give it a try myself. If I see a deal that's that great I could always pick it up when I'm getting my small weekly items. I would love to be able to avoid trips to the store. The way I see, the fewer times I go to the store, the less money I spend.

I'm curious, how often do you grocery shop? Do you go once a month? Bi-weekly? Weekly? Several times a week? How well does your system work for you?

Weekend Baking - Butter, Cupcakes and Scones Oh My

I have been thinking about making my own butter for a few weeks now. Well, this weekend and went ahead and tried it. I was surprised at just how easy it was.

To make the butter I simply poured some of the whipping cream into my food processor, added a dash of salt (optional) and let the food processor run until the butter and the buttermilk separated. It took around 4 minutes. I had to do the quart in two batches because of the size of my food processor, but that was nothing.

Once the butter and buttermilk separate, pull the butter out with your hands, squeeze it and rinse it off in cold water. This gets the buttermilk completely off the butter. If you leave the buttermilk on there, the butter can spoil. Pour your buttermilk into a container and store it in the fridge or use it in a recipe. I used some of mine to make Chocolate-Buttermilk Cupcakes and will use the rest to make Buttermilk Pancakes later this week.

I also made the White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies again this weekend. This time I copped the macadamia nuts up finer so that Pumpkin could have some. They were still good, but I like them better with larger chunks of nuts.

And, since I am still addicted to scones, I made the Starbucks Style Vanilla Scones again. I think these are even better then the ones at Starbucks since they aren't as dry and crumbly. Yum!

Did you bake anything this weekend? If so I would love to hear about it. Just leave me a comment and let me know what you made.

Chocolate-Buttermilk Cupcakes

Thursday I posted a list of 13 cupcakes I want to make. Well, today I decided to make the Chocolate-Buttermilk Cupcakes with Light Cream Cheese Frosting. The recipe is from Martha Stewart's web page.

I decided to go ahead and let Pumpkin have one after she ate her lunch. She enjoyed it very much. So much so that she had to have a bath after eating her cupcake. You can get a glimpse of how she looked and how much she enjoyed it in the embedded video.



Hubby couldn't resist taking this video of her because she got so into her cupcake. This is the first time I'm putting a video on my blog, but I have to say that it's fun. I think I will be trying this again. Next time I hope to have something a little more exciting for you though. Are there any topics you would like to see a video on?

I also did some other baking this weekend and even made some of my own butter. I will post more on that later this weekend. Did you do any baking this weekend? If so let us know what you made and post a link to the recipe if you have it.

Aloha Friday

This is my first time participating in Aloha Friday. For those of you who have not heard of Aloha Friday, every Friday on the Blog An Island Life an easy question for everyone to answer gets posted.

This week’s question is:
If you could be an expert at anything, what would it be?

I’m guessing we can only pick one thing here. I think I will go with being an expert mom. Someone who is able to juggle the demands of their children, their husband, household duties and work. Is that even possible? Somehow I doubt it, but if I’m going to be an expert I might as well go for the gold so to speak.

For the second part of Aloha Friday I get to pose a question. This week, my question will be:
What are you doing to celebrate the first day of spring today?

Pumpkin and I will be going to Rita’s for our free ice on the way home tonight. Then, if we have time between dinner and bedtime we’ll head out to the garden to see what plants are coming up already. I did have my first crocus bloom this week which was nice. Unfortunately the squirrels ate all of my tulip bulbs so it looks like we won’t have any tulips this year.

Don’t forget to leave a comment letting me know what plans you have. And head over to An Island Life to get links to all the other Aloha Friday posts.

Sharing Interesting Posts with Google Reader

I use Google Reader to subscribe to the various blogs that I like to read. One features of Google Reader that I love is the share feature. With this feature I can click Share on any post that I want to share with others and it posts them on a web page for me. I have set this page as publicly accessible so anyone can read it here. You can also see my most recently shared items here on my blog. The next to the last item in the right column is entitled Buffie's Links. These links will take you to posts on other blogs that I think my readers might find interesting.

Feel free to leave me a comment of send me an email if you see something there you like or something you would like to see more information on. I'm always open to suggestions and I love feedback.

Do you have a shared page in Google Reader? If so, leave a comment with the link. I'd love to check it out. And if you aren't already using Google Reader I highly recommend it.

Ultimate Blog Party 2009 & A Giveaway

Welcome to the party everyone and thanks for stopping by. For those of you that are new here, my name is Buffie and I love finding good deals on things my family needs or enjoys. Some people would even say that I'm addicted to the deals. We get tons of free magazines, free Redbox rentals, free music and more.

To help keep my blog lively I enjoy participating in various memes. You can often find me participating in Menu Plan Monday, Tackle It Tuesday, Talk About It Tuesday, Works For Me Wednesday, Wordless Wednesday, and Thursday Thirteen. I also like posting updates on Twitter, so you can check me out there too.

As a busy mom with a 1 year old daughter and two neurotic dogs, I understand how hectic life can get. So I also like to share tips that have worked for me. You'll find that I'm also a big believer in organization. I believe that when you're organized life just flows much smoother. So you'll also see tips on organization here. Finally, I love to bake and spend time in my kitchen trying out new recipes. So you'll also find weekend posts here with links to recipes and pictures of the things I've baked.

Take a look around and have fun. If you like what you see, don't forget to subscribe. When you're done here, don't forget to head back over to the Ultimate Blog Party 2009 at 5 Minutes For Mom. There are lots more blogs to check out. I'm looking forward to finding some more blogs to get hooked on. A few days after the party I'll be posting links to some of the blogs I enjoyed at the party. So don't forget to come back and check it out.

And finally, what would a party be without a door prize? To celebrate this party I'm giving away a $10 gift card to Starbucks. Personally I love Starbucks as a treat even though it is not frugal in the least. All you have to do to enter is complete the form below. All fields are required, including listing a topic you would like to see covered here. If you're viewing this in a reader you will need to click through to get to the form.

Note: The information gathered will be used only for this contest and not shared with anyone. After the contest is over and the winners have received their prizes the information will be deleted. Please, only one entry per person. Multiple entries will be disqualified and deleted. Entries close at midnight Eastern Standard Time on Friday, March 27, 2009. Winner will be selected using random.org on Saturday, March 28, 2009. Winner's first name will be posted here on the morning of Sunday, March 29, 2009 and winner will be emailed. If winner does not contact me to receive their prize within 48 hours of that post, another winner will be selected. Thanks and good luck!

13 Cupcakes I Want to Make

Yesterday the new issue of Martha Stewart Living arrived in my mailbox. This morning I was flipping through it and came across a recipe I wanted to try. The magazine referred you to their website and the next thing I knew I got sucked in to viewing all these yummy treats in the Martha Stewart recipe collection. While I was there I found 10 cupcake recipes that I want to try. I make cupcakes or muffins pretty much every weekend so I was excited to find some new recipes to try. Of course since this is Thursday Thirteen I had to add three more cupcake recipes to make this post come up with 13.

I still haven't selected a cupcake recipe for this weekend so I'm open to suggestions. Which one would you make first? Or do you have any good cupcake or muffin recipes to share? Let me know, I love trying new recipes.

Here are the 13 cupcake recipes:

1. Sprinkles' Strawberry Cupcakes (pictured)
2. Carrot Cake Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting (this is the one that led me to the website)
3. Apple Cupcakes
4. Pumpkin Patch Cupcakes (hey, there's a reason we call our daughter Pumpkin)
5. Frosted Chocolate-Buttermilk Cupcakes
6. Banana Cupcakes with Honey-Cinnamon Frosting
7. Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Buttercream
8. Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes
9. Peanut Butter Cupcakes with Peanut Butter Frosting and Jelly
10. Coconut Cupcakes with Seven-Minute Frosting and Coconut Flakes
11. Red Velvet Cupcakes
12. Pineapple Coconut Cupcakes
13. Killer Cupcakes

For more Thursday Thirteen, head over to Happy To Be At Home.

Free Ice At Ritas Friday

It's no secret that I LOVE Ritas. In fact, we headed over there last night and I picked up my first ice of the season. Of course I had to share it with Pumpkin since she shares my addiction. Oh well, what can you do.

Every year Ritas has offered a FREE ice on the First Day of Spring. This year that is Friday, March 20. So if you have a Ritas nearby head over and pick up your FREE ice. This is at participating locations and it is the small children's size ice, but hey, it is FREE and we can't complain about that.


And judging by the line at our local Rita's last night, I'm not the only one around here who LOVES Ritas. Umm, Italian Ice! Thankfully there was no line when I arrived. I think a lot of people don't realize that some of the Ritas are open already.

You can see the countdown for free ice here.

Amazon Clothing & Shoes Deal

Amazon has a deal going right now where when you buy $25.00 in apparel or shoes you get an annual subscription to either Lucky Magazine ($12.00 value) or Details magazine ($9.97 value). Also, for orders over $25.00 with select merchants shipping is free.

• Be aware that all purchases towards the $25.00 must be in one transaction and from one merchant.
• You should receive an email from Amazon within 8 days with instructions to redeem your offer.
• Limit one subscription per customer.
• Offer expires April 3, 2009.

For full details, Click Here.

With most of these free magazine offers that Amazon has you can send in a refund form to get back the cash instead of getting the magazine. I haven't seen where this is offered on this deal, but you can watch for it if you do the deal. If I find out that the rebate is definitely offered with this deal, I will update this post.

Free Redbox Rental - March 18 Only

The code for today's FREE Redbox rental is:

GTL456

Remember that you can use this code once per debit/credit card, so if you have multiple cards, you can get multiple rentals. You can read about my previous experience using these codes here.

Redbox is running a March Madness promotion where they will have a code for a FREE rental every Wednesday in March. Come back on Monday for the regular weekly code and then again Wednesday for the special March Madness code. This code expires at midnight tonight.

Free Coin Counting

Loose change drives me nuts. When you throw it in your purse, your purse winds up getting overly heavy and if you leave it loose in the car it can get messy real fast. And don't even get me started on pennies. Ugh!

To help collect the change in my car I throw it in the ashtray. This is typically change from the drive thru or getting gas. Since my vehicle is strictly no smoking this is not an issue. Once the ashtray is full I empty the change into a small bag and cash it in at the Coinstar machine at the grocery store.

In the house we have a large jar that we throw our spare change into. This use to go towards our Christmas fund, but now we put this money in our daughter's savings account. Well, I cash it in around Christmas for gift cards and move that amount of money from our Christmas Club account into her savings account.

When you cash in your coins with Coinstar the trick is to cash them in for a gift certificate. This way they don't charge you a fee. Since even my bank charges a fee for coin counting I love that I can get it done for free with Coinstar. Make sure that you select a gift certificate to a store that you would shop at anyway and that you're cashing in at least $5.00 worth of coins. If you cash in less then $5.00 worth they will charge you a fee.

Saving your change is a painless way to save money. I have been doing this for years and you can easily get at least $150 a year in spare change. Just make it a habit to empty your pockets or your purse every night into some sort of change collection container and before you know it, it adds up.

Update: I answered this question in the comments, but wanted to add it here to for those who don't click through to the comments. The question was if the machine gives you a choice of gift cards. When you go up to the machine, before you start dumping your coins in, it will ask how you want to cash out. You select gift card and then it gives you a choice of gift cards. The availability of gift cards varies by machine, so check out the coinstar website to see where the machines are and which gift cards are available at which machines.

For more Works For Me Wednesday, head over to We Are THAT Family.

Wordless Wednesday - Tissue Issues

Someone discovered the box of tissues while she was at Grandma's this weekend.

For more Wordless Wednesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom

or Mom Dot or Wordless Wednesday

Free Music - Week of March 17

It's Tuesday, time for the weekly free music review. Here are the songs I found this week:

iTunes

• Single of the Week - "Wild At Heart" by Gloriana
• Discovery Download - "When It Rains" by Eli Young Band
• Video - "Electro Movimiento" by Calle 13

Walmart "Jailer" by ASA

Amazon Music The featured free songs at Amazon change each time you refresh the page so you'll have to head over there and check them out. They have the largest selection of free music I have seen from a reputable source. Click here and then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the free songs.

Amazon also has a free download of Ioda Sxsw Opening Day Bash Sampler 2009 which contains 11 songs from various artists.

CNET has a new free song featured every day. Plus you can look at some of their previously featured songs and still download them for free.

Blender has their March Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands. For the list of songs, please see last week's Free Music post.

Blender also has their April Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands, including the following:

• "Golden" by Marco Benevento
• "Stop Stomp Stompin" by The Coathangers
• "Microphone" by Coconut Records
• "Tail & Mane" by Cryptacize
• "Andrew" by Crystal Antlers
• "Floating Down a River" by Jason Damato
• "Fear" by Benjy Ferree
• "Cable TV" by Fol Chen
• "Hazel" by Junior Boys
• "The Last Kiss" by Aidan Moffat & The Best-Ofs
• "For My Children's Love" by Finley Quaye
• "everytime" by Mike Relm
• "deux TIGREs (feat Ingnue)" by The Shanghai Restoration Project
• "Tourniquet" by Sholi
• "Trash" by The Whip

For St Patrick's Day Celticmp3s.com has 17 free Celtic music downloads. Included songs are:

• "Sweeney's Buttermilk" by FIMM
• "The Whiskey Never Lies" by Sligo Rags
• "The Girls Set" by Banshee in the Kitchen
• "Star of the County Down" by Jed Marun with Hugh Morrison and Mason Brown
• "Hot Days" by Poitin
• "Chi Mi Na Morbheanna/Sleepy Maggie" by MacTalla Mor
• "Almost Irish" by Ceann
• "Considine's Garden" by Anne Roos
• "Boys of Tandragee/Tuesday Morning/Checkered Blanket" by Athas
• "Ye Jacobites By Name" by Beth Patterson
• "Loch Lomond" by Jesse Ferguson
• "The Mason's Apron" by Rattle the Boards
• "Jig Jag" by Jamie Laval and AShley Broder
• "Rocks of Bawn" by Maidens IV
• "Auld Triangle" by Patrick's Head
• "Ormond Sound/Liberty Joe's/Broken" by Pitch the Peat
• "Wild Mountain Thyme" by Marc Gunn

If anyone is interested in an iTunes download code for "People Got a Lotta Nerve" by Neko Case, leave a comment stating that you'd like it. I will email the code, so make sure that you include an email address. This code is from last week's Starbuck's Pick of the Week. I wound up with two of them so I'd like to pass on the second one to someone who can use it. I will send the code to the first person who comments that they would like the code and leaves a valid email address. Sorry guys, this one is gone now.

That's all for this week's free music. Come back next Tuesday for another free music post.

Finally Checked Out the Library

We are very lucky to have a brand new library near us. So I had to go check it out. My daughter and I are both book lovers so I figured it would be a good outing for us. Pumpkin even got to stay up past her bedtime a little bit.

I will say that I love this new library. There are shelves and shelves full of new books, plenty of computers, magazines, cds and so forth. Oh, and they have great parking. I had so much fun browsing the shelves that I wound up coming home with several books to read. Now I just need to find the time to actually read them.

The new library also has a wonderful children's area. They have an enclosed play room so you don't have to worry about the kids getting noisy and they also have a small play area out with the children's books. Pumpkin had a blast hanging out in the play area and playing with some of the other children. I am seriously amazed at all the toys they had there. There was so much to do that she wasn't even ready to leave when we were. We had to drag her out of there.

We had so much fun there that I'm thinking about making this a regular outing for us. So when you're trying to come up with inexpensive activities for the family, don't forget about your local library. They can be a great resource and so many of the newer ones have great activities for children.

For more Tackle It Tuesday, head over to 5 Minutes For Mom.
For more Talk About Tuesday, head over to The Lazy Organizer.

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

No, I didn't make this muffin, but my daughter still enjoyed it. She got to celebrate St. Patrick's day a little early with this leprechaun muffin. Here is what she looked like when she was done:

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!

Free Redbox Rental - March 16 Only

The code for today's FREE Redbox rental is:

2GR4N8

Remember that you can use this code once per debit/credit card, so if you have multiple cards, you can get multiple rentals. You can read about my previous experience using these codes here.

Redbox is running a March Madness promotion where they will have a code for a FREE rental every Wednesday in March. Come back on Monday for the regular weekly code and then again Wednesday for the special March Madness code. This code expires at midnight tonight.

Menu Plan Monday - Week of March 16

This weekend I spent so much time in the kitchen that I'm exhausted. So my meal plans this week are a bit lazy. I know, I should put more effort in, but by the time I get home from work during the week I just want something quick and easy for dinner. So, here is what I came up with this week:

• Sunday: Goulash
• Monday: Hot Dogs & Macaroni & Cheese
• Tuesday: Chicken Salad Melts
• Wednesday: Roast in the Crock Pot
• Thursday: Tuna Noodle Casserole
• Friday: Chicken Nuggets
• Saturday: Leftovers

Org Junkie is taking a week off from hosting Menu Plan Monday so this week you'll need to head over to $5 Dinners to check out all the other meal plans.

Saturday Baking - Cookies & Muffins

Hubby had been craving White Chocolate Macadamia Nut cookies and all of his talking about it got me craving them too. So this weekend I wound up making some.

I had forgotten just how expensive macadamia nuts are. From now on I will watch for a sale. These cookies were so delicious that I will definitely be making them again. The only change I made was to use chopped up white chocolate instead of white chocolate chips. This saved me from having to buy the chips. I already had the wafers at home.

We had some VERY ripe bananas that I needed to use up so I also made some Banana Muffins. This recipe came from the Miracle Muffins: Amazingly Delicious Treats Without All That Fat
cookbook by Patty Neeley. I know, I actually used one of the cookbooks that has been sitting on my shelf neglected for years. Anyway, my daughter has already had one of these and loved it. I tried a little section of one and it was pretty good.

The Miracle Muffins cookbook had several recipes in it that looked really good. I plan to try some of them out in the coming weeks. As I try them out I will let you know how they turn out.

This post is being linked to Tasty Tuesday, so head over there if you're looking for more yummy recipes.

Reduce Consumption to Save Money

One very simple way to save money is by reducing the amount of various products that you use. For example, use less shampoo, toothpaste, laundry soap, body wash and so forth. These are all products that people tend to over use. Try using a little less and see if the job still doesn’t get done just as well. By using just the amount of product that you need, you can help your wallet and then environment.

You can also reconsider the disposable products that you use. I’m always amazed at the people that use paper plates regularly even though they have perfectly good real plates in the cabinet. It’s not that hard to wash a plate people. I haven’t bought paper plates in years and I refuse to. Even when we have family over for things like Easter dinner we still use real plates. I have a large collection of them that I have picked up cheap. When they aren’t needed they get stored in the basement in a storage tote. After the family dinner I run them through the dishwasher and pack them away again. We even have a collection of cheap silverware to go with it so we don’t even use plastic silverware. The real stuff is so much better.

There are some people out there who have even replaced their paper tissues with handkerchiefs. While I think this would be a great idea for a regular daily basis, this might be a bit of hassle when you have a cold. So you may still want to keep a box or two of tissues around.

One product that I am currently working on eliminating from our house is paper towels. The way I see it, you spend money on paper towels just to throw them away. So, for the rest of the year I will not buy any more paper towels. By concentrating on reducing our usage I should be able to wean us off of paper towels before then.

Here are some items that you can use instead of paper towels:

• Microfiber Cleaning Cloths - These are great for all around cleaning. They are lint free, non-abrasive, and attract dust. The link takes you to Amazon where you can buy a 36 pack for $16.99. That's only $0.47 a cloth. And the cloths are 12" x 16", a great size for cleaning.


• Dish Towels - I keep one of these hanging on my oven handle. It's very convenient for drying your hands. They're also great for hand drying dishes (obviously). You can pick these up at the dollar store of maybe even find some cute ones on clearance at your favorite store. I just picked up some nice thick ones on clearance at Target for about $1 each.


• Wash Cloths - Great for wiping up small spills or wiping messy kids. I keep a stack of these in a drawer in the kitchen for wiping off my daughter's face and hands after she eats.


• Baby Washcloths - If you've had children you know how these just don't get worn out and you probably got a bunch of them as baby gifts. Once your child is no longer using them for baths, why not move them to the kitchen. Then they will be handy for quick cleanups. And since they're small they won't take up a lot of space.


• Cloth Diapers - Great for general cleaning. They are very soft and typically lint free. Look around and you may be able to find some of these at yard sales.


• Cloth Napkins - A great alternative to paper napkins at the dinner table. I have a collection of these that I never use because they're too pretty. I know, I need to get over it and use them already. But my suggestion is to not buy ones that you will be upset if they get stained. Stick to plain ones and maybe a set of nice ones for when guests come over.


• Old T-Shirts - These are super soft and great as rags to clean up spills and messes. You may already have some of these in your closet. If not, check out yard sales and thrift stores for some cheap t-shirts.

What ways are you reducing your consumption to save money?

To check out more tips like this, head over to Tightwad Tuesday.

More Buddies Soap Coupons

Lots of people are able to print the coupons for Johnson's Buddies soap again. I haven't had any luck, but you might want to give it a try. You can use these coupons to get free or very cheap bars of Buddies soap at places like Target and Walmart. We currently have a large stockpile of these and I picked them all up free thanks to coupons.

Here are the links to all the coupons:

$1/1 Johnson’s Buddies (IE) (Firefox)
$2/2 Johnson’s Buddies (IE) (Firefox)
$2/2 Johnson’s Shampoo, Conditioner or Buddies (IE) (Firefox)
$3/3 Johnson’s Products (IE) (Firefox)

Let me know if you have any luck printing them. And enjoy all your free soap.

The Difference By Jean Chatzky - FREE Download

Now through 11:59 AM EDT March 14, 2009 you can download a free e-copy of The Difference By Jean Chatzky courtesy of Oprah. Note that you do have to be a member of Oprah.com to get the download. Membership is free.


Some of the topics covered in this e-book are:

• Top 5 things you can do to thrive during tough times.
• Myths and facts about the wealthy
• Why money doesn't breed happiness
• Strategies for finding a job
• And more.

Uses For Old Crayons

I'm sure that every family out there with children has old broken and unwanted crayons sitting around their house. While you could just throw away your old unwanted crayons, that just adds more stuff to our landfills. Crayons take a long time to decompose. It is so much greener if you can find another use for those old crayons. To help you out, here are some ideas for inspiration:

Thrifty Fun has a post with all kinds of uses for old crayons. Here are some of the uses listed:

• Make new crayons
• Wax paper shapes
• Crayon painting
• Adding color to candles
• Fire starters
• Decorating Easter Eggs
• Sell them at a yard sale

If you're not feeling crafty or don't have the time for any of the above ideas, you can still recycle your old crayons. You can box up your old broken and unwanted crayons and Crazy Crayon will recycle them. This prevents your old crayons from cluttering up the landfill. Get together with your friends and neighbors and start a collection. You do have to pay postage for this, but it is better then just throwing them away. Save up and send in one large shipment instead of several small ones to save money.

What do you do with your old crayons?

For more Frugal Friday tips, head over to Life As Mom.

13 Giveaways You Can Enter Now

For this week's Thursday Thirteen I decided to post about 13 giveaways that you can enter right now. I love giveaways because they are so easy to enter and you have a chance to win some really cool stuff. So far I have won a game for my daughter, some shirts, chocolate, dog food, cat food and more. Once you've won a few things you'll be addicted. So here are some giveaways to get you started:

1. A Frugal Friend is having a giveaway for a free Suave Gift Basket. This giveaway ends at midnight Friday, March 13th so head on over there now to enter.
2. Frugal Freebies and Deals is offering a giveaway for a $50 Walmart gift card. To enter you need to subscribe to their newsletter. This giveaway ends March 30, 2009
3. Nourishing Days is hosting a giveaway for free trade chocolate. Umm, chocolate. This giveaway ends Friday, March 13th at noon.
4. Mama Says Mine is giving away a $10 iTunes gift card. This one ends at midnight on March 22nd.
5. Classy Mommy is giving away $150 of Twilight goodies and one runner up will win a $25 gift card so they can buy the Twilight movie when it comes out. This giveaway ends March 20th.
6. Sisterly Savings is giving away a Banana Nut Cheerios gift basket. This giveaway ends at noon March 12th.
7. Woman's Day is giving away $10,000 in cash with $350 in cash being given away each month. This giveaway doesn't end until December 31, 2009 and you can enter once per month.
8. Pace is giving away over 120,000 free jars of salsa. You can enter this one daily.
9. Fuel Up the Family is giving away a year of free gas, a year of free pizza and a Toyota Prius. You can play this one daily too.
10. Nature's Bounty is giving away a $10,000 "green" home makeover. This is another daily entry.
11. Combos Man Zone is giving away 4 different man zones, all valued at approx. $25,000. You can enter this one daily too.
12. Good True and Beautiful is giving away 10 weeks of coupon inserts. This giveaway ends at 6:00 PM on March 12th.
13. 5 Minutes For Mom is giving away Four 1 Day Park Hoppers to Walt Disney World. This giveaway is open until April 3, 2009.

For more Thursday Thirteen, head over to Happy To Be At Home

Boating and/or Sound & Vision Magazine Free Subscription

Rewards Gold is once again offering FREE subscriptions to Boating Magazine and Sound and Vision Magazine. As always, these offers are completely free, no commitment and no credit card required. You simply answer a few questions and give them your shipping info for the magazines. I have gotten plenty of free magazines from Rewards Gold and have never had a problem.

JC Penney Rewards & A Discount Code

I have been participating in the JC Penney Rewards Program since November and so far I have earned $30.00 in free savings certificates. I love this program because they are running a promo this year where you earn double points if you make a purchase each month.

Right now you can get an instant $5.00 reward certificate just for signing up for the JC Penney Rewards program. This program is completely free. You will have to register a credit card with the program to earn rewards. This is so that they can track your spending.

To claim your free $5.00 reward, go to jcprewards.com and enter promo code 3006. This offer is valid through March 31, 2009 and is for new members only.

One thing that I love about being on JC Penney's mailing list is that they periodically send you coupons for $10.00 off a purchase of $10.00 or more. I got two of these in February and used them get new pajamas for my daughter for $1.25 each. These were brand new Carter's pajamas. You really can't beat that. I just got one of these coupons today and I can't wait to use it.

For those of you that order at jcp.com you should be able to get the same $10.00 off a $10.00 or more discount by entering code BUDDING when prompted at checkout. This discount is completely separate from the Rewards program, so even if you don't sign up for that, you should still be able to take advantage of this offer.