Be My Valentine...next year.

Get dirt cheap valentines for your child's Classroom Party 2011

Buy them today. I usually get them 90% off, so a box of valentines costs roughly $.25.



Tips:

• Check Walmart, Target, and Walgreens. That's where I usually find them.
• You might be able to find cheap doodads/toys to go with them. I don't recommend buying clearance candy for next year. They either taste gross in a year, or they slowly and mysteriously disappear.

Snow Ice Cream

We had record snowfall yesterday!!! Isn't it beautiful?

While helping our neighbor get up our street this morning, he asked if we had made snow ice cream yet.

Huh?...Never heard of it, but sounds fun.

Google to the rescue....

This recipe comes from Allrecipes.com:

1 gallon snow
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups milk

We had some leftover whipping cream, so I threw in the extra calories, because who doesn't love back fat?

Directions: When it starts to snow, place a large, clean bowl outside to collect the flakes. When full, stir in sugar and vanilla to taste, then stir in just enough milk for the desired consistency. Serve at once.

(Since it had already stopped snowing, I located the cleanest snow and skimmed it off the top.)

It tasted pretty yummy--a lot like homemade ice cream. But most of all, it was fun!

Tips:

• Eat it fast or freeze it. It melts quickly.
• Let your kids do it by themselves. It's so easy, and it's more about the memory, right?
  

Do It Yourself Drain Cleaner

Remember this dirty water?

It wasn't my clever photography skills that allowed me to catch this crud before it drained. It's just sitting there....What was I thinking when I dumped the "recovery tank" of my new Hoover steam vac into my bathroom sink?!



Dirty water + lint globs + dirt + who knows what else + bathroom sink = a considerable clog.


Fortnately, I got an email from Thriftyfun.com a few days ago that included the following:



"Safe and Friendly Drain Cleaner


"To safely clean drains, I pour baking soda into the drain followed by table salt. If the clog isn't bad, I just use cold water to flush it down. If the clog is bad, you will need to use boiling water. Since this will not harm pipes or the environment, you can use this weekly to keep drains from becoming clogged.


"By Kris from New Albany, IN"



It really works! I couldn't really dump baking soda and salt down the drain, since the sink was full of water, so I just poured about 1/4 C of baking soda and 1/4 C of salt into the sink with the dirty water. Then I poured 2 quarts of boiling water in the sink. It took two rounds of this, but now my sink drains a little better than before.



Tips:

• It's okay to say you're helping the environment even if you're being cheap (like me).


• Go to Costco and buy the industrial-sized bag of baking soda for future drain clogs.

Hoover F5918-900 SteamVac Spinscrub Pet

I just bought the Hoover F5918-900 SteamVac Spinscrub Pet with a friend of mine. I know, I just bought a Bissell about 6 months ago. And I loved it...until it stopped spraying. I'm not sure what happened. The manufacturer's warranty still covered it, and Bissell was perfectly willing to fix it free of charge. However, I decided to take it back to Costco (5 min away) rather than drive to the nearest Bissell servicer (40 min away). I would have purchased the same steam cleaner again, but it wasn't on sale anymore. I would have had to pay an additional $50 to get the same one. So I researched a little more and found the Hoover to be the best deal. (Costco's return policy was a major deciding factor.)

See it at Costco.com

or

On Amazon.com

The biggest difference between the Hoover and the Bissell was that the Bissell heats the cleaning solution for you, and the Hoover requires you to fill the solution tank with hot water.

Costco's version includes 2 of each of the cleaning solutions.

These are all "Pet" solutions. I have one dog that stays outdoors, but I think my 5 kids could give any pet a run for its money.

Here's my dirty Master bedroom carpet. The picture doesn't really do it justice...

(Just wait until you see the next picture.)

My first emptying of the dirty water. Yuck! This is what we've been rolling around on??!!

Note to self: don't empty dirty water into bathroom sink. (See next blog post for details.)

Voila!

The Hoover was easy to put together, easy to use, and worked great. Now my kids have a blank canvas again to work their magic.

Tips:

• Make sure the "recovery tank" is sealed properly. I didn't have it sealed all the way once, and the Hoover wouldn't suck any solution from the carpet.
• Pretreat spots properly beforehand. I didn't read the instructions on the bottle, so it took a little extra work (but not that much!) to get a few spots out.

Old Navy Sale

A little birdie told me that

has some great stuff on sale right now, including

$2 camis!

Tips:

• In my opinion, you can't have too many camis. Time to stock up.

Clearance at Walmart

I had to kill some time at Walmart today in between errands. I noticed a lot of clearance at our local Wal-mart here in Texas throughout the store. The items I saw on clearance included:

• clothes
• shoes
• housewares
• crafts
• home decor
• bath and linens
• toys
• cosmetics
  

Let me know if your Walmart has some good stuff on sale...

Tips:

• Check the original price. When I see a red tag or a clearance sign, my hand automatically starts reaching for my wallet. But if you look carefully, sometimes the sale price is only 20% off.

File Your Taxes for Free

Here's my advice for filing taxes last year. I feel the same way about TaxAct.com. In fact, I just filed electronically today for free and should be receiving my refund in 2-3 weeks!

Tips:

• Gather all your tax info before starting. This includes w-2's, property tax statements, social security cards, etc.