Stash ... not what you think!

Hi and happy Thursday!  I had a rough week this week, but I managed to squeeze in some shopping trips ... definitely need some retail therapy to smooth out the rough spots!  Now I know this is not quilting related, and for those of you only interested in quilting, stop reading here!  But, what I will say now is what I've said before ... the more money I can save on groceries (or whatever), the more I can spend on quilting!  The other great thing I can do with this hobby is give food to a food bank.  I am so happy because I have a huge box of food all ready to give to my friend Tina for the food/toy drive she does with her group, the Soroptimists.

 Here are some of my highlights of the week:
(2) 10 lb. bags of cat litter for .99c each
(2) Almay Eye Removers that they paid me $1.00 to buy
(3) free packages of Orbit gum
(3) Zone power bars for .69 cents each
Hungry Jack pancake mix .89 cents
(5) Weight Watcher frozen dinners $1.49 each
Glade candles .99 each

What it boiled down to was a 49% savings at Albertson's; 54% savings at Walgreen's; 25% savings at Rite Aid; 77% savings at CVS, and a 25% savings at Target ... the savings is better at Target, but I can't get a true read on how much I save there because they don't list their presale prices.  And after the above totals, I have an extra $29.00 in store bucks to spend on future trips! 

I want to say something about couponing ... although I kind of love watching that Extreme Couponing show on TLC, I hate it too ... most of the people they show say they are doing they're biggest shopping trip ever and many of them are doing a huge shopping trip for the month ... then when you view what they've purchased, it's 400 boxes of cat food and 200 Nestle Quik packets, 100 power bars and 500 toothbrushes!  Those are not real groceries ... what I think the angle the show should come from is you can save a lot of money at the grocery store on certain items, and get some items for free, enabling you to spend a lot less on your entire budget.  We all know there are almost no coupons for meat, veggies, milk ... but by saving money on things you can, they allow you to save on your entire grocery budget.  But no one is living on power bars and nestle quik.  The other thing that irritates me is they show people clearing the shelves of 100 items of whatever at a time.  If you really have that many coupons, then preorder your items from the store and leave the stuff on the shelves for the regular folk.  The last thing I will say on that subject is while they say they are getting all these items for free ... I kind of wonder how much people are spending on coupons.  There are services that you can buy coupons from ... when someone has 400 cat food coupons, I don't think they are getting 400 cat food coupons from their friends and family.  I've never heard that part mentioned on the show, and I think it's a little deceiving to think that no money is going out on either buying 20 newspapers a week, or buying coupons.

Now just for fun ... I'm going to show you some pictures of my "stash" ... if you've ever watched that crazy show, they have stockpiles that value from $1,500 all the way up to $10,000 or something crazy like that!  I just thought you would get a kick out of seeing my stash that I have amassed in a month and a half.  This is the shelving unit in my garage where I keep stuff that won't fit in my pantry ...

Vitamin water, soup, cereal, bleach and dishwashing soap

This is my stockpile of peanut butter ... I think I'm good for a year without having to buy it!

Here's my stash under the stairs of toilet paper and paper towels ... let's not talk about the toilet paper that is under each of the bathroom sinks! 

How about my makeup stash ...

That's enough mascara for Kierney and I for at least 6 months!  And my stash of baking products that are also in the closet under my stairs ... I am great for holiday baking ... yahoo!

And the largest stash I have (maybe ... that's not under a bathroom sink!)

I think there are 12 bottles of laundry detergent in there

Now remember those plants I planted a month or so ago ... I wanted you to see how big my tomato plant is ..

I've got little flowers on it, so tomatoes are coming soon ... in southern California we are blessed with warm weather so a longer crop for veggies!  And I planted these green pepper plants several months ago and they have been growing, but no fruit on them ... guess what I just found last week?

There are finally peppers!!!  Yayyyyyyy!!!!!

Thanks for taking the time to read about my other hobby ... my family doesn't get too excited about it, so I have to share with someone ... my friends think I'm crazy.  You'd think they would know me better by now ... I figured quilters with stashes would totally get couponers with stashes!

I've done no quilting this week ... after the crazy busy quilting week I had last week, I needed a little break this week.  Now it's onto quilting some quilts so that I can get all my customer quilts done and back to them so I am not working in December ... I want to have the month to enjoy the wonderful season of Christmas!