The grand adventures of us

Om nom nom. If you watch this video for Pei Wei you'll get a BOGO coupon at the end of it toward entrees. We probably pay at least half of Pei Wei's rent here in midtown, so, for me, this is awesome.

If you don't shop at Target.com in their clearance section, you are missing out. I'm sort of coveting this dress right now.

OooOOooohh... pretty.

The best part. Its 6 bucks. (6.30 to be exact). I don't know how much shipping is, but they offer it free if you spend 50 bucks.

I'm thinking its a cheap way to get a hold of a snappy holiday dress, or a cheap easy gift for the fashionista in your life.

PS. Check out the entire clearance section, TONS of awesome stuff. 

The "quotations" are because they aren't pillow pets, they're "cuddlee pets" which basically means they ganked pillow pets idea and are now selling them for cheap. Which.. I'm okay with. 

If you don't check Hip2Save.com regularly.... please do. I cannot even BEGIN to tell you how much this woman has saved me because of her deals. This deal comes from her website, so I can't say I discovered it myself.

But! I'm going to send it on down the line. So, the stuffed animals are 1.50 and shipping is a trillion times that, which is silly, but all the same, the little tikes can get one of these in their lives for under seven bucks and you can be the one to get it to them. I personally don't see the obsession, but Skye has lived and breathed for the moment she could get one of these things.

So.... here's the link via Amazon.com

Clickity Click Click for Cuddlee Pets.


You're welcome! =)

     So. I work at a bar. I think we all already know that. If we don't; I do. The point of this is that most cash based incomes are very difficult to manage. At the end of the night I don't go home thinking "wow, I made a lot of money for my paycheck" I think "wow, I have 150 bucks in my pocket, spending 20 of it really isn't that big of a deal". This can be INCREDIBLY destructive for us restaurant folk.
     
I've always been sort of cheap frugal. When I got a few dollars to go to the mall with when I was little I would squirrel it away while my friends rushed off to spend theirs on cheap earrings or sodas or whatever. Being naturally a tightwad, I found it strange that I was unable to save money. My bills were always paid, food was always in my fridge and I felt successful for that, but I never even started a savings account because I never had any extra to put in it.
   
Fast-forward to St. Patrick's day of 2011. I work in an Irish bar. I don't think I have to paint a picture for you on how busy we were on said day in 2011. At the end of a very long shift I started counting my hard earned money and found it to be somewhere in the realm of 700 dollars. Now, this is NOT a typical days wages for me. If this is a typical days wages for you: 1. congratulations. 2. is your workplace hiring? Anyway.. I started diligently sorting through what I could spend the money on. We could use a dining room table.. we would put it away for the trip to California this Summer. Clothes? Make up? I wanted to be responsible with it and have a plan on how to utterly blow through it.

This is when a lightening bolt struck. How dumb is it to try to be responsible in how you throw away your money? 

Why did I have to spend it?

I went online and started two new savings accounts. One named "retirement" one named "emergency fund".  I also started a ROTH IRA. The next step was crucial. I set my account to automatically deduct 25 dollars a week into each account. Here are my rules: The retirement account is not to be touched, however, it is in a standard savings rather than the IRA because you can still take money out of a traditional savings if, say, you chop your leg off and absolutely need it. The emergency fund is for emergencies. Which means I can get in to it for things that happen that I wasn't planning for (car repairs, etc). The IRA can't be touched even if I want to. The money is stuck in there until I'm 59 1/2.

Can I tell you something? I don't miss the money. I don't even notice its gone most of the time. 300 extra bucks a month squirreled away without my knowing and I don't even miss it. How insane is that? I was trashing all that money each month on crap.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you to start brewing your own coffee because starbucks is ruining your retirement or how using 1 ply over 2 ply can save you 73.15 a year in toilet paper. Sure, I've started using some of those concepts to save more money (accept the toilet paper, a girls gotta have standards), but we are all our own people and some of us just really like the things we do and buy and I'll leave it up to you to decide which of those things are wasteful and which are rewarding. We all work hard (or at least I do) and when I decide to splurge, I feel like I've earned it. But please do think about retirement and saving money if you haven't already. Its really important.

No, not like that!

I'm a bzzagent. Which means I signed up at bzzagent.com and now get to test all sorts of awesome things and report back on my experience. One of the really great products I'm getting to try out right now is the Disney's Cars 2 video game for the Xbox360! The stipulation behind my participation is that I have to invite 20 people to play the game with me. Well, if you know me, then you know I'm still meeting new people here in Memphis. So, I figured what better way to meet new people than to host the party at my work! I work in a pub, so naturally, we will do a bit of drinking with our driving game. Hence, drinking and driving.

I'm, of course, not promoting any REAL drinking and driving. I find that behavior incredibly selfish and dangerous. Some of you may already know that one of my cousins was hit by a drunk driver and was a quadriplegic for 15 years before his death. So, any of you coming: make sure the driving stays in the video game. Call a cab or have a D.D!


There, now that my lecture is over, anyone that is going to be in or around Memphis should seriously consider stopping by Celtic Crossing Sunday the 7th at 9pm. We're going to have a blast playing this game! I've already played it a few times to unlock some of the characters for the big night. It is a lot like Nintendo's Mario Kart, but with a few tweaks to make it original. Very fun, and worth a play!