Bargain-O-Gram

Short & Win

Quick update tonight.

I bought more scratcher lottery tickets this morning. While my wins weren’t big as last time, I still won more than the whopping ten bucks I spent on them. Twelve whole dollars! Yeah, baby — I’m all about the big money! ☺

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Wood You?

The reason for the pre-emptive lottery binge was the deposit this morning of all those pittances. (See my previous post for details.) The lottery tickets were a drop in the bucket.

Aside from the lottery bacchanalia, we actually did kind of go on a spending spree today, though it was less than we’re known to drop on a good yard-sale day. It meant driving into the greater Phoenix metro area, something we tend to avoid like the plague. Today we went gladly. There are two building-supply outlets/warehouses and one fabric warehouse/outlet in relatively close proximity to one another. G bought a router, ceramic tiles, and other materials for his projects. While we were at the Habitat ReStore I picked up a set of heavy-duty welcome mats. The ones we had were disintegrating, and they weren’t cheap. The pair we bought today is vastly better quality and cost around half what I’d paid for the old ones.

At the second building-supply outlet, I found a solid-cherry cabinet door and snagged it for materials.

The cost of furniture-quality wood is staggering nowadays. A 12″ x 12″ square of cherry or walnut runs $50 at the lumber yard – we’d already been there earlier in the day and walked out aghast.

I paid $4 for the 36″x36″ door at the warehouse place. In fact, I grabbed it and broke speed records paying for it and getting it to the car. G didn’t even know until I phoned him, asking for help loading it into Stormtrooper. (Stormtrooper was already bursting at the seams from previous purchases, but we won’t talk about those.) There was only one of the cherry doors, darn it. I’d have bought a dozen if I could.

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Material Girl

Yes, I hit the fabric outlet. (It’s all G’s fault. He was egging me on.) I’ll spare you the details because I’m sure nobody but me enjoys rhapsodies on calico.

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Mo’ Money

On top of the found “pittances”, I recently unearthed a stack of gift cards I’d forgotten about. When we were going through things for our garage sale last weekend, I pulled out my old wallet, which contained over $150 in unused cards. Today we had lunch at Chili’s and all we paid in cash was the tip. We still have money left on the Chili’s card, plus we have $$ for Serranos Mexican Food, Olive Garden, and a couple of other places.

I also deposited a physical check today, something rare as hen’s teeth. A while back, G bought an old power tool, only to discover it had been recalled. He couldn’t use it and couldn’t sell it. As it turned out, though, the recall included a $50 payment. You had to send in a photo showing the power cord cut off and a couple of other details disabled/destroyed, proving it wouldn’t be used. $50 is more than we paid for it. We got the check in the mail a few days ago.

I’m grateful for the financial gains lately.