SAVED OVER 50% ON SHOPPING AT WALGREENS!

Had to pick up some things at Walgreens this morning, so I did the coupon match ups with the store ad and managed to save over 50% on my total bill.  Gotta love coupons!  Yeah, I'm still doing the extreme couponing, even though I haven't written about it in a while.  When I first started writing about coupons last year, I did a lot more shopping.  Now I've fine tuned my whole coupon use so I don't keep as many items on hand (smaller stockpile), I take more of a buy only what I need approach.  I still pick up extras of some items when they're extremely cheap and I still stockpile some items to hand out to family and friends, but for the most part I only do coupon and sale match ups on items as needed.  Which means I spend very little on household, food and personal care items.

The bottom line with coupons is to save as much as you can on the items you normally buy or on new items you'd like to try, but don't go overboard and build outrageous stockpiles or purchase items you don't need or won't use.

REGISTERED TO VOTE!

Just got my confirmation letter for my voter's registration, so I'm all set to vote in the upcoming presidential elections.  While I'd have preferred a Republican ticket featuring Ryan/Romney instead of Romney/Ryan, I still prefer them over Obama/Biden.  I don't see anything but more wasteful spending with another four years of democrats in the White House.  I'll be casting my vote for Republican candidates only.

DONE WITH THE FLEA MARKETS, BACK ON THE JOB

Closed down my outdoor flea market booth for the season, will be planning for next years sales starting in April 2013.  Over the winter months I'll be building my resale business on ebay and Craigslist.  This weekend we are having a rummage sale at my sister's house.  I've done quite well so far.  It's nice to have extra income from my resale business on top of going back to work.

Work has gone well so far.  Picked up my first paycheck Friday and used it to pay rent and add to my checking account balance.  Looking forward to putting some of the money back in my accounts that I paid out after my last hospital visit.  So far I haven't been having any problems with chest pains, but I do get tired by the end of the work day.  Probably not so unusual at my age.  Just have to make sure I'm not getting paranoid over every little twinge of pain.

Revised my investment plans to rebuild my accounts.  It seems like it gets easier every time, probably attributable to experience.  The more I study investing and actually apply what I learn, the easier it gets.  So I'm not too concerned about how long it will take to rebuild my portfolio.  Off to a new start, it's more exciting than daunting.  Wish me luck!  :0)

HOW I TURNED 25 CENTS INTO $25

The week got off to a good start with a $25 sale for my resale business through Craigslist.  I sold a side table which I purchased at a yard sale for 25 cents.  When I bought the table, it was in pieces, with only one leg attached, but most of the pieces were there.  It turned out to be an easy job to re-attach the legs and clean up the table, taking about an hour of my time.  After it was finished, I took some pictures, listed it on Craigslist and sold it for $25, or 100 times what I originally paid!  Got to love resale :0)!

Just did my sweepstakes entry from today's visit to Walgreens.  Had to pick up a few items for my VA patient, so while I was there, I had them sign me up for their Balance Rewards program and give me a card to use on my next visit.  Although none of the items I purchased today earned any rewards points, a lot of the items I regularly purchase do.  So it shouldn't take long to build up a nice point balance in subsequent visits.  What a great place to shop!

BUSY COUPLE OF WEEKS!

Wow, I can't believe it's been so long since my last post!  I've been really busy though.  Just finished a painting job I had contracted with my landlord.  Spent Saturday at the flea market in Versailles, Mo., it was kind of a bust due to the cold rainy weather.  But I got a call today on one of my job applications and will be going back to work on Friday of this week. 

It's the time of year for the outdoor flea markets to start closing down, so I decided it would be best for me to work through the winter until they open up again in the spring.  Since I just got my business started this year, I didn't really make enough to hold me over through the slow winter months.  I still plan on continuing the resale business throughout the winter months by listing on Craigslist.  I had calls on 3 of my listed items today, so I'm looking forward to some good sales this week. 

The big thing I'll be concentrating on after returning to work is rebuilding my investment portfolio.  After my most recent trip to the hospital to have a new stint put in, I had a lot of medical bills to pay.  So most of that money came from my investment accounts.  Now it's time to rebuild.  At first I was a little down in the dumps that so much of what I'd built got wiped out so quickly, but it's always easier to rebuild your portfolio when you've done it before.  As long as my health holds up, I have no doubts that in just a few years I'll have more money invested than I've ever had.  All in all, with my online sales and my new job, things are looking up!

SALES BACK ON TRACK!

We had a good weekend at the Mason Dixon Flea market!  Sales were up quite nicely over last weekend.  The weather was great and there were lots of customers.  I've never seen so many vendors at the sale either, so I guess the nice weather brought a lot of them out as well.  Some people look at that as competition, but I think the more vendors you have, the more customers will show up for the sales.  It also helps the proprietor of the flea market to keep the overall business going, so I think it's a good thing all around.

Got several good items to list on Craigslist, so I'll be busy with that at the first of the week.  Got to get additional cash coming in to help pay off some of my medical bills from my last trip to the hospital.  Last week I realized how much more I could be using Craigslist to pick up extra cash between sales.  So I'll be concentrating on that this week.

Looking forward to a good weekend in Versailles Missouri next weekend!

LOOKING FORWARD TO A BETTER SALES WEEK!

The weekend of the 11th we finally saw a drop in sales from the previous week.  Of course a day at the flea market in Versailles can hardly compare to the blowout days we had with our local garage sale, but it still didn't quite meet up to expectations.  I think a lot of it had to do with back to school shopping weekend.  Everybody was at Walmart and the other back to school retailers instead of shopping the flea market.

We're looking forward to a little better weekend this week in Union Missouri.  We'll be setting up at the Mason Dixon Line flea market there and we've got some great items for sale this week!  I kicked off the weekend sales early by selling 4 dozen canning jars on Craigslist today for $45.  Not a fortune, but it pays the costs for our trip to Union and our booth rental.  Since I had $0 in the jars, it was all profit!

Got a lot of work to do on Friday.  I'm hitting yard sales early on and loading the van as soon as I get home.  That way we'll be ready to roll early Saturday morning.  It's about a two hour drive from here and it takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get everything set up.  My helper will be manning the booth while I'm setting up.  Weather is supposed to be moderate, so it's looking good for sales.  We'll see how it goes.

While perusing Craiglist today, it occurred to me that I'm under utilizing this fantastic resource.  The canning jars sold in less than 24 hours after listing, as is the case with many other items I've listed with them.  So I was thinking I should be looking for 3 or 4 items each week to list.  It could add a great deal to my sales while reaching a lot of customers I don't normally sell to through the flea markets.  I'll be keeping an eye out for prospective items while hitting the yard sales tomorrow.  I think it would be quite possible for a person to make a decent living just selling on Craigslist.