Hey Everyone! I hope your all doing great! I wanted to make this post about my new fitness routine. I have been working out and changing my diet. So far I have lost 35lbs and I could not be happier. I am in the process of getting gastric bypass surgery and I wanted to try and lose some weight on my own so after my surgery I can continue. So here is what I have been doing.... First I cut out all the fast food and soda. I have gotten into the habit of reading the labels as well. I tried counting calories but I get so busy that I can never really keep track so I control my portions and read labels. I also joined the gym. Now my personal goal is to workout twice a day. It may not always be possible but I try my best. in the morning Hubby and I go to the gym together. OMG it is so much fun when you have someone with you. We really keep each other motivated. I also have some workout stuff I use at home so for my nightly workout. This is my workout equipment... I want to mention everything I bought was on clearance or on sale.

 I have a yoga mat, a heavy duty resistance band, a 7lbs Kettlebell, 2 Five pound dumbbells, some workout videos and workout gloves. I also have a manual treadmill and simple pedometer (not picture). I keep it all in a big basket I got in Goodwill.

 I have noticed that it is really easy to workout when all of your stuff is already in one place, so I keep the basket under the end table in the living room next to the treadmill. now if I want a quick workout I have no excuse because everything I need is already there. Now I also take a bag with me when I go to the gym in the morning. I keep it packed at all times so I can get up and go and not waste time. 

 Inside my bag I keep a Mp3 holder for your arm. I use my cell phone so I just stick in the holder. I have my headphones, a small bag, a brush and a towel.  Now in the small bag I keep all my travel size products to save space. I normally get all these items for free using coupons so I keep them in a basket in my closet so when I need to refill its all in one spot. I keep a small deodorant, a small body wash, Aleve, a face wash, shampoo & conditioner, and wisk samples to brush my teeth. The bag is light weight and if I need to freshen up at the gym I have everything I need. I keep track of my workouts on a small calendar that I keep in my office space so I can visually see where I am at.

 Well I hope you all have a great day!!! I would love to hear your comments and dont forget to follow me!

Happy Saving!

Hey Everyone! I wanted to talk today about Christmas decor. I would love to go all out and decorate my home but my apartment is very tiny and we are in the progress of buying a bigger home so I wanted to use what I already had and not go crazy at the store. First I want to add that a few years ago when Romeo started walking he loved to play with the tree ornaments and they would end up broken so I went to Walmart and invested in really nice ornaments and I made sure they were shatter proof. This is the best investment I have ever made. 3 kids later and they are still going strong lol. Here is our tree!

Now I bought this tree for about $20 on clearnece at Kmart about 5 years ago. It is a Martha Stewart tree and it was originally about $75.00. The ornaments are from Walmart and they are shatterproof and glittery. they were about $5.00 for 12. The little red ribbons are from Family Dollar and they were $1.00 for 12 as well. The big red ribbon on top was also $1.00. I wanted the tree to be very simple.

This is a little side table I have next to my treadmill. This is my workout table (will post more info later)
All I did was take a ribbon for the top ($1.00) and some little fluffy trees for the ends ($1.00 each)
The glittery ornaments are left overs from the tree and I thought they brought some christmas spirit to my workout area.

This is another small side table I have next to the tv. I took my candle holder ($2.00 in goodwill) from the other room and put some more left over ornaments i had. The Nativity scence is another Family Dollar item that I got for $1.00 and I thought the gold and the ornamnets look cute together... Now like I said before I did not want to go crazy so I just picked up a few things from the Dollar Store and I think it all turned out really cute! I spent a total about $17.00. I purchased a bin to hold all of the decor when the season is over so I will make a post about that later.  I would love to see your decorations so post pics if you like! Remember to follow me and to leave comments! Happy Savings!

Well I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I wanted to update my post about Black Friday Shopping.
I got up with my mom and we prepared ourselves for a long morning. I arrived at Kmart at 3am on Thursday morning. The wait was fine. Everyone was nice and calm.  Around 5am the one of the store managers came out and said that in order of arrival they would allow customers to go in early to avoid issues and they everyone will have a chance to make their purchases. That worked out fine till the other person in charge just allowed everyone to run in. OMG I have never in my  life seen anything like that. The store did not organize the items at all! Everything was thrown in the middle of the floor and people were not happy. Two grown women almost got into a fist fight over a TV. One older man punched another older man in the face for pushing into him. My mother and I avoided all the drama over the TV and kept on with our shopping plan. We had a great time together. The store would never had had this issue if they would have all been on the same page and kept things in order. All the issues that accrued could have been avoided if management was on the same page. At the end of it all 12 police cars had to be called to control the crowd. So my final verdict on Kmart :: Shame on you! Get it together people! We all know Black Friday is the busiest shopping day of the year and your management team sucked. All those poor cashiers had no clue what was going on and it could have all been avoided.

My Next trip was at Family Dollar.  When we arrived there was no line which was good. The workers were all very friendly like they normally are and the store was perfectly clean. I was in and out and I could not have been happier! As always it was a pleasure to shop at your store!

Now my final trip was to Walmart. Let me start off my saying that I was a little scared to even go because the sale started at 8pm and because of issues with my husbands job we didn't even lave our home till 9pm. When we arrived the store was at maximum capacity and we had to wait in line to enter the store. The line had about 100 people. At first I thought that this was not going to end well at all but my husband really wanted a new Xbox so we waited. I asked the person in charge if there was going to be enough items for everyone and she assured that that they had more then enough. Well i am happy to say I was in the store in a matter of MINUTES! When I walked in I was greeted my the worker controlling the line. When I arrived to the section where the Xbox was located I was greeted and handed my item. There was seriously about 100 of the new Xbox's available and even more in the stockroom! The store was in perfect order. Everyone was very helpful and the stock of items in sale was amazing. There was a line I noticed for the HP Laptops but management was very organized and everyone was able to seemed to be taken care of very well.  I did not see anyone leave the electronic section unhappy. After I got everything on my list i had 2 people in front of me in line. Every single register in Walmart was open and no one seemed to have a long wait. My final verdict for Walmart :: AMAZING!!!!!!! this by far was the best experience I have had all day! Next year I will be going back to Walmart for ll of my Black Friday shopping!

Hey Guys! Well I thought with Thanksgiving in a few days I thought I would check in with some tips to make sure your holiday goes smoothly...

* I know the holidays can be very stressful so my first tip is to be prepared! Make a list of the food you are going to be cooking.

* Now that you have your list grab your coupons and go shopping early.  You do not want to be stuck at the grocery store on Thanksgiving day shopping for items they forgot.

*Now that you have your list and all your groceries plan out the food you can make before hand. Some side dishes can be made the night before... salads, desserts, drinks, ect. Prepare your turkey the night before as well if possible. that way the following morning you just stick it in the oven! One less thing you have to do :0)

* If your having family or friends over and you are having a pot luck type meal then call everyone and confirm what they will bring over.

* I just find it easier to to enjoy the day when you get a head start on the day and a head start on the cooking.

* Now I enjoy cooking our meals from scratch but with a husband and 3 kids I do not always have the chance so if i can maybe order some dishes and save time, I am all for it. This year I am ordering the rice and beans and I will just pick up the order from the restaurant down the block. Total was $10.

Well I hope these tips helped! If you have any other tips I would love to hear them! Happy Savings!

Hey Everyone! I just wanted to make a quick update. Today I received a little package of my free over the counter medication. I had made a post a few weeks ago about saving money with your medications and most insurance companies offer some great benefits. So today I got my package and I just wanted to share!

I personally get $50.00 worth of free OTC medications and I can not begin to tell you how much these things come in handy when you have sick babies. This past week everyone in the house got sick and this box came just in time! So call you company & take advantage of these great offers!

Happy Saving <3

Black Friday!

Well it's that time of year again! Black Friday! Have you guys been as excited as I am?! This is my first time shopping during black friday. I have worked at walmart during black friday so I thought I would give you guys a few tips to make you experience a great one...

* My first tip is DO NOT wing it. Organization is key! Take the time before hand and check out the sales ad and write your list out before hand. This year I only plan to hit one store (K-Mart). This year they will be having certain sales events on different days and times. Here is an example of my personal list...

K-Mart : Thursday Morning Door Buster Sale (Thanksgiving) 6am -5pm
- Proscan DVD Players $9.99
-Vivitar DVR 508 HD Camcorder $19.99

K-Mart: Black Friday Door Busters 5am - 11am
- All Pave Crystal Jewelry  Reg. Priced at 139.99
Sale Price $24.99

* I suggest you write down as much detail about the items you want to buy because the last thing you want is to wait in line for an hour only to have the cashier tell you that you got the wrong item and they ran out.
Example: The camcorders that are on sale will the the 508 HD DVR only. The rest will be reg. priced.

* When you are getting ready to leave make sure you have the essentials to be able to have a comfortable wait in line before the store opens (if your store is not open 24 hours like Walmart for example)
Make sure you have comfortable shoes, warm cloths and a nice coffee to keep you awake. Take a light fold able lawn chair so you can sit instead of stand in line.

* Keep yourself on budget! Set aside a certain amount of money to spend and stick to it. If you budget permits take an extra $20.00 and get yourself something nice!

* Be Nice! Please be nice to all the other people shopping. It's the holidays and we are all under a lot of stress this time of year so remember this is suppose to be a fun experience.

I am taking my mom this year with me and we are so excited. We are looking at this like an adventure and we will have fun! If you miss out on a deal then that's OK. Life goes on and at the end of the day we all need to be thankful for our family and health!

 Happy Savings!!!!!

Hacked :0/

Hey everyone!!! Well first I wanted to say I am so sorry for not being able to write in so long. My laptop got the worst virus in the world and went crazy on me! It not only affected my laptop but also my blog, my Facebook and all my other accounts. I finally fixed it and everything is fine now :0) If you follow me on Facebook you will see I had to create a new Facebook because I was not able to post any updates or even respond to private messages so if you tried to contact me and I did not respond I apologize and be sure that the issue has since been resolved. I missed writing to you guys so much!!!! lots of great updates to come!