Price of Gas vs Printer Ink

If you print coupons as much as most of us do, then you already know that the price for ink is outragous!

My husband sent me the following funny this morning.... funny but true....

The price of Gas versus Printer Ink

All these examples do NOT imply that gasoline is cheap; it just illustrates how outrageous some prices are.... You will be really shocked by the last one! -

Compared with Gasoline......
Think a gallon of gas is expensive?
This makes one think, and also puts things in perspective.


Diet Snapple 16 oz $1.29 ... $10.32 per gallon

Lipton Ice Tea 16 oz $1.19 ...........$9.52 per gallon

Gatorade 20 oz $1.59 ..... $10.17 per gallon

Ocean Spray 16 oz $1.25 ......... $10.00 per gallon

Brake Fluid 12 oz $3.15 ...... $33.60 per gallon

Vick's Nyquil 6 oz $8.35 ... $178.13 per gallon

Pepto Bismol 4 oz $3.85 .. $123.20 per gallon

Whiteout 7 oz $1.39 ....... . $25.42 per gallon

Scope 1.5 oz $0.99 .....$84.48 per gallon

And this is the REAL KICKER...

Evian water 9 oz $1.49..$21.19 per gallon! $21.19 for WATER and the buyers don't even know the source

(Evian spelled backwards is Naive.)


Ever wonder why printers are so cheap?

So they have you hooked for the ink.
Someone calculated the cost of the ink at...............
(you won't believe it....but it is true........) $5,200 a gal. (five thousand two hundred dollars)


So, the next time you're at the pump,be glad your car doesn't run on water, Scope, or Whiteout, Pepto Bismol, Nyquil or Printer Ink!


Just a little humor to help ease the pain of your next trip to the pump...

I've always kinda thought it was often cheaper to buy a new printer (with full slate of ink) than to buy ink to refill your printer.  And even knowing how high ink prices are, when you think of it in terms of gallons... (wow! I wonder how many times you could refill your printer cartridges with a gallon of ink?)

Cellfire Happy Hour Mystery Coupon

Be sure to head over to Cellfire today, they are doing Happy Hour and offering a mystery coupon, good off your next Kroger (or affiliate) store.  I just logged in and got .55 off my next purchase! (Hey, it's not much but it adds up).

Publix Matchups

Today starts Italian Days at Publix.  For full sale details and coupon matchups, be sure to check out Passionate Penny Pincher!

Huntsville Readers - Enter to Win 4 Tickets to the Circus

Go Magazine is giving away 15 Family 4pks of tickets to the circus, coming to town March 2-6!

All you have to do to enter is send an email to:

go@htimes.com 

Put "clown" in the subject line.

We Just Saved 20% On Our Car Insurance

And, no we didn't just switch to Geico.  I did however get an offer in the mail from my credit union regarding Traveller's insurance and a group rate that they were offering members.  Since we are in Money Saving Mode I figured I should at least call and see what they could do.

We hadn't really called around on our insurance in a few years, mainly because most insurance companies want to base your insurance price on your credit score.  It's not that we have bad credit, it's just that we don't have any open accounts besides our mortgage and since your credit score is basically an "I love debt" score based on how many credit accounts you have open and are paying on regularly, the quotes we get tend to be a bit high.

I really didn't figure that Traveller's would beat our current quote since it was already pretty decent from all I'd seen.  However, he ran the numbers and gave me a quote of about $200 less every 6 months than what we were currently paying.  Add to that that I've kinda felt like our current insurance company was a "discount" provider in that they provide very little service with their insurance.  Yes, when we've had claims they've been easy to deal with but I like to know I'm dealing with something a little more than a major call center in India when I have an issue.

I also had them give us a quote for our HomeOwners and he ended up quoting me better coverage than we currently have for about $20 a year more than we currently pay.  Since the two quotes were tied together (with discounts for having both at the same company) we figured it was well worth paying $20/year more on HomeOwners to save almost $400/year on car insurance.

Oh, and yes it was 15 minutes or less (well actually it was 2 phone calls of 15 minutes or less).  After he gave me the initial quote I needed to discuss the option with Paul, so the guy actually offered to call me back today to find out if I wanted to switch.  As opposed to me calling the call center back and getting whichever random person got my call.  The second call was shorter than the first since he already had our basic info and just basically needed to get payment info and verify the rest.  All that... and the guy was in Knoxville... just about 4 hours away from us (rather than on the other side of the world).

I'm not promoting Traveller's here; well I kinda am.  Give them a call and see if they can save you some money.  But, more importantly, take the time to get some quotes on your insurance; you might just find that yes you can save 20% or more on your rates.

How We Save On Our Cable Bill

A couple of months ago (back when we first got on this track of saving money), I called up our cable company (Comcast) and just asked if there was anything they could do to lower our bill.  First off, we took off the movie channels.  We'd subscribed to them on a special deal for only $5 a month and that deal was about to run out anyway.  But, we realized that since we'd added those channels we didn't really use them.  We watched one show on HBO (True Blood) and that was it.  For the price we were paying each year for the movie channels (even at the discounted rate) we could buy each new season of True Blood on DVD.

We really didn't watch movies on the movie channels because we already had Netflix and we were used to using that as our movie option.  We have it set up to be able to watch streaming movies instantly via our Tivo and our Wii (or on any computer in the house).  So, the movie channels were just overkill.

Talking to the rep from Comcast he did find a current promo that was running that cut our cable bill in half.  What I found out was that any deal they are currently offering for "new subscribers" they will also give to current subscribers - IF YOU ASK for it!  So, I put a reminder in my phone to call back in a few months and ask what new deals are running that we can get in on.

I've been an avid fan of Netflix since the early days, I think I signed up in like 2003, way back before they had any competition and before they offered streaming movies.  I've always loved the conveinence of having the movies come right to my house.  You just set up a "wishlist" of movies and put the movies you most want to see at the top and then each time you send a movie back they send you the next one on the list.  They send the movies to you in the same envelope that you use to return it (you don't pay any extra postage fees on top of your membership fee).  It usually takes about 3 days for them to get the movie you sent back and for you to get the next one on your list.

Back before the days of streaming movies, I had an account that allowed me to have 3 movies at home at one time.  I think it cost about $20/month.  Now that they offer the streaming movies, I just have 1 DVD at home at a time and I can watch unlimited movies via streaming for about $9/month.  You really can't beat that deal; especially when you consider there are no extra costs involved.  I've kept a DVD for four months before and still no extra costs (any other service I'd have ended up buying that movie three times or more).

If you've considered Netflix in the past, or you just think you might want to give it a try, they offer a 1 Month Free Trial, so you have plenty of time to decide if it's for you or not.  I've talked to many people who have completely cancelled cable in favor of Netflix because there is just so much available on their instant streaming.  No, they don't have every single new release on their instant streaming (but that's why you get the DVD option, as well).  There are, however, tons of television series, movies, kids shows/ movies, exercise videos and much more available through streaming.  Heck, there's so much on streaming that I keep my streaming queue full constantly despite watching movies.  If you are interested, you can click here to sign up for your FREE Trial and see what you think.  If you are already a Netflix user, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

FWIW, I've got streaming set up on a Tivo, Wii and a Wifi enabled DVD player. I like the Wii options the best.  It's also available on the other major gaming systems, but I haven't tried it on those.

Appreciate What You Have: Cost Does Not Equal Value

Continuing this journey of "Appreciating What You Have" has been interesting.  It seems that over the last week things keep occurring to make me really appreciate what we have.

Monday was Valentines Day.  We'd made reservations a couple of weeks ago at a nice restaurant in town.  I'd purchased a gift certificate from the restaurant for 1/2 off a few months ago (back before we really got into cutting our budget even) and we decided we'd use it for Valentines Day. 

As I posted over the weekend, we had a really enjoyable cheap date on Friday.  For many, that would have been a perfectly acceptable Valentines celebration.  And to be honest, by the time Monday rolled around I would have been fine with it as well.  While I knew that about half our meal would be covered by the gift certificate that had already been purchased I still had a really hard time with the knowledge that we'd still be spending a good deal on this dinner out.  It really bothered me all day Monday and I had to just keep reminding myself that we had this gift certificate so it wouldn't be as expensive as my brain thought it to be and that we should just go and enjoy it.  "Stop being cheap!" is what I kept telling myself.  So by the time Paul got home from work I'd decided I was just going to go with it and enjoy it.  I got dressed up and we headed out to dinner.

The restaurant we went to (Pauli's Bistro, for those who are local) is a very nice place and the type of place where I would feel very uncomfortable walking in in jeans or simply not dressed up.  They do have an attached bar that I see as more fitting to a more casual type of dress.  I say this because while we were eating our salads a group of 4 young people were seated next to us.  When I say young, I'm guessing that at least half of them were not old enough to drink.  They were all in blue jeans and the girls looked uncomfortable.  They guys looked uncomfortable with the prices on the menu (going straight for the cheapest red meat on the menu).  But, the capper was the cap; a ballcap to be exact, that one of the guys was wearing and did not take off throughout his entire meal.  It annoyed me.

As far as the food went, I should have probably stuck to my original plan (or ordered what my husband ordered), but the Veal special sounded so good.  It was just ok, mainly the meat was tough and it just left me wanting more.  We ended up ordering desert in an attempt to fill a void that we felt our dinner left and it didn't satisfy either. 

All in all, we ended the night talking about how we enjoyed our cheap date at Chili's much more than we enjoyed this "big night out" at a fancy restaurant.

This is a big change of corner for us because it wasn't that long ago that we were discussing how we needed to go out to places like Chili' more often in order to appreciate all the nice places we'd been going.  At one point the conversation actually came up of what are we going to do for a special event do top what we do on a regular date because of the level of the places we would likely go.

I'm learning to appreciate my kitchen.  and I've learned that just because something costs a lot doesn't mean you'll really value it to the level of the cost.

Kroger Mega Sale & Why I did a Special Order

Reader Lisa asked me to explain more about the sale at Kroger and what the deal was that I got.  Kroger does what they refer to as a "MEGA" Sale about every 3 months (at least from what I can tell since I've been paying attention).  Normally, when they do these they just offer $5 off your total for every 10 participating items that you purchase.  However, the current sale is a little different.  They are advertising it as the "Daytona Mega" sale on conjunction with the Daytona 500.

This time around instead of offering $5 off for every 10 items purchased, they are only offering $3.  However, they are also giving out a $3 coupon good off your next Kroger purchase.  Effectively, this gives you $6 for every 10 items purchased.  The coupons are printed at the time of purchase and you do get 1 coupon good for $3 off your next order, for every 10 participating items that you purchase.

When we went in on Sunday we purchased 40 participating items (all Gatorade and Campbell's Chunky soup).  The deals we were getting were:

Gatorade on sale for .99 each
Campbell's Chunky Soup on sale for $1.59
-I'm using the .50/2 Chunky soup coupons (which double at Kroger to $1/2), bringing the price down to $1.09/bowl.

-Then for every 10 items purchased we got $3 off our total). 
So with 40 items, we got $12 off our total purchase.  (bringing the effective price down to .69/bottle on the Gatorade and .79/bowl on the soup.

Then we received (4) $3 coupons good off our next purchase.

Since my husband eats this soup every day for lunch I wanted to seriously stock up.   I had a choice, I could either hit every Kroger in the area and wipe them out of soup multiple times, or I could attempt to do a special order.  I decided to do the latter and am quite happy (so far) with how that's worked out.  I rolled the $12 in coupons we received Sunday into the purchase I made today (50 bowls of soup).  So after the Manufacturer Qs, Mega Sale discount and the $12 in store Qs from Sunday, I paid about $30 for 50 bowls of soup and got back another $15 in coupons to be used on my next order.

When it's all said and done I will have purchased 114 bowls of soup for about $68 (before tax) and still walk away with $15 in store coupons to use on my next purchase.  That (IMO) is a heck of a deal!

For the record, there are hundreds of items included in this sale, but there were really only the two that we really need to stock up on at this time.

Save $3 on Glade Lasting Impressions

Click here to sign up for Right@Home and print a coupon good for $3 off a Glade Lasting Impressions holder.  If you haven't already signed up for Right@Home it's worth doing as they have done some really great offers like full size cleaning wipes (I got a box of 4 different kinds) and Ziploc bags and even a Glade scented oil candle.

Use Your Stockpile to Help the Troops!

I just got an email from Mr. Coupon over at WeUseCoupons about this great program called Operation Troop Aid.  Mr. Coupon and his wife are going to be donating a huge amount of product to this charity and they've asked other couponers to do the same.  We all have stuff in our stockpile that we will probably never use and will end up getting thrown out or donated somewhere.  This is a great excuse to clean out your stockpile and help a great charity in the process.  Mr.Coupon hass posted some great info on the charity and what they (and WUC) hope to accomplish.  Please check it out and help if you can.  You should see the post about this pop up on the front page of WUC, but just in case you don't, here's the direct link.