Cow Appreciation

If you're reading this blog, then you know I'm a thrifty momma.  I may not have "super saver" in my blog title or post pictures of the loot I carry out from stores for a few dollars and some change each week, but I do my fair share of penny pinching. In fact, when the kids are in preschool, it's not uncommon for me to spend an entire morning sorting through ads and finding coupons to match up with store deals while preparing our weekly menu.

While it's time consuming to coupon at this level, particularly aligning my coupons with store match-ups to maximize savings, it sometimes takes another entire morning to run around and shop all the different sales. If I didn't have the kids in preschool three mornings a week or worked full time, I wouldn't be able to embrace this fun little hobby of mine to the extent that I do now. But, since I do have the time (and I much prefer couponing to cleaning) I like to think of my couponing as part of my "job" as a stay at home mom.  And, as weird as it sounds, I really do enjoy it. Probably sounds crazy to some, but if you're a couponer, you get it. There's a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from adding up those receipts at the end of the month and calculating how much I saved.

At the suggestion of Chip's mom, I actually started tracking my "couponing money" (because it is after all "money") a few years ago, and I'm glad I did.  Last year on coupons alone I saved a little over $3000; which averages to about $250 a month. In 2012, which is the first year I started tracking, I saved about $2500.  This is just paper coupon savings (and some mobile coupons which I've just recently starting using). I don't track store card savings, which would probably double the savings considering I almost always shop store sales.

Man, I could do an entire post on couponing, but I know that most people reading this blog really just want to see pictures of the kids, so I'll cut my talk of couponing and move onto what this post was really supposed to be about....and that's Cow Appreciation!

How we dressed up as cows on July 11th and scored a free meal at Chick-fil-a! The kids and I got meals; Chip had on black shorts and a white shirt but wouldn't wear the spots, ears, tail or sign around his neck, so he only got a free sandwich. Said he was okay with that. It wasn't because I didn't make the costume available to him now, I promise you that.  

Moo, moo....we love us some chick-fil-a chikin! 

Now, as if a free meal at Chick-fil-a wasn't enough fun for one day, Cow Appreciation just happened to fall on July 11th this year, and you know what's free on 7/11 don't you?!

Yep, Slurpees!

I hadn't thought of adding these free meals and Slurpees as part of my "couponing money" for the month of July until doing this post. But since I haven't done my calculating yet, I think I'll add these freebies to my July couponing fund (which is always lower in the summer months). I did, after all, do lots of cutting to get those free meals. I got the spots, tail, ears and sign from Chick-fil-a's website. My consignment sale was the same week, so between preparing for that and not having the kids in preschool during the month of July, I didn't have much time to be creative in making cow costumes. Maybe next year. We sure did see some creative ones come in that day.