Leah’s Cafe

The lease for our current rental is due end of May, the landlord wants to know whether we are going to renew the lease. We have decided to move out of this one hundred years old house to a newer house that has more modern facilities, and have been looking at other rental properties. Rental for this newer apartments is so much more expensive! We are battling whether to continue to  pay rental. It doesn’t make much sense to continue to rent when property prices and mortgage rate are at their low. It cost almost the same to rent vs to buy (mortgage plus property tax plus association due)

So, we told the landlord that we would not renew the lease, but would stay on a month to month basis until we find a place to move.  T’s cousin is a real estate broker, she has been helpful to get us some listings and show us around. She also got us in touch with a lender to start a pre-approval process, so we know how much loan we are qualified.

We have been looking at a couple of single family homes and townhouses. We are amazed how the prices have dropped in the last six months or so. Many of this houses are bank-owned or in the process of being foreclosed.

We were looking at a  3 split level end unit  townhouse on Thursday. They are 2-stall garage at the ground level, one bedroom  and bathroom on each level, kitchen, fireplace and living room on the first level,  family room on the second level and a full basement!!

Front of the house shows the garage and front door.

Living room and fireplace on the first level.

Kitchen on the first level, comes with cabinet and fully equipped with appliances i.e. refrigerator, oven, stove, dish washer, garbage disposal and microwave oven.

Full bath on the second level. They are 2 full bath and one half  bath in this house!

Guess how much is this house listed for? It has been listed since July 2008 and current list price is $129,900. Since it’s a short sale (the bank owns the property), T’s cousin thinks we can offer around 100k. We are sitting on the decision to make an offer, may continue to look at more houses before we do that!

Our necks must have getting longer looking forward to the arrival of spring! In the middle of March, we have beautiful spring weather for two days, then cold rain and wind chill for the next two weeks! Then, first week of April, beautiful spring weather, again for three days, when the weatherman said it was going to snow again, many people felt like straggling him!
We are in the 70-80s F (21-27 Celsius) since Thursday, I think the warmer weather is going to stay, finally!!

The weather started getting crappy since my arrival here in the end of September. While T goes out to work , I am mostly  stuck at home, too lazy to bundle up and brave through the cold wind to go out. I get my fix of shopping and store runs when T gets off work or on his days off, we will drive out of town.

While we are glad spring is finally around the corner and had a wonderful spring like week in the middle of March, alas it’s back to cold and rainy days after one week. Looks like cold weather still roaming and lingering around!!

Can’t wait for the day we can switch off  the heating  to arrive!  It will be quite lovely to open the windows to let fresh air and sun to come in!!

The moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life they’re free
Stars belong to everyone
They cling there for you and for me

Flowers in spring
The robins that sings
The sunbeams that shine
They’re yours and they’re mine
Love can come to everyone
Best things in life
They’re free

Moon belongs to everyone
The best things in life
They’re free
Stars belong to everyone
They glitter there for you and for me
They are yours and mine

Flowers in spring
The robins that sing
Sunbeams that shine
They’re yours and they’re mine
Love can come to everyone
Best things in life
They’re free
All of the good things
Every one of the better things

The best
Best things in life
They’re free

I am having too much fun with catalina deals and playing the grocery game right now, have not have much time to blog.:-)

Discovered something new (to me) few weeks ago- the wine tags put out by wine manufacturers. They are tearpads found at the wine department or tags hang on the wine bottles, which give you $ off produce, meat, fruit, cheese, seafood, juices, etc.

The tags for instant may say “Save $6 on groceries when you buy 2 bottles of xxx brand of Wine 750 ml or larger”. But the wonderful thing about this tags is: the liquor law in IL prohibited coupon redemption for the purchase of hard liquor, so there will be a “No alcohol/wine purchase is required” in the fine print.

I was able to find tons of the tearpads and hang tags (most people don’t pay attention to them, unless they  do coupons) and used them to get seafood, produce, meat, cheese for FREE. Our fridge is now well stocked with fruits like Kiwi, starwberries and mangoes we otherwise won’t buy as they are expensive. We have  frozen shrimps and sausages to last us for at least 6 months!

Our refrigerator has limited freezer space, so having a freezer has allowed us to store all the meat and shrimps we got for FREE.

We bought the chest freezer  when the store ran a freezer deal. We paid with catalina coupons accumulated and received $150 worth of coupons for FREE food

In the month of January, we hardly spent any money on groceries, we probably forked out about $20 for sale taxes as coupons cannot be used for taxes, that’s it.

A Catalina deal is a promotion or marketing campaign run by certain manufacturers or stores to give rebate in terms of cash coupons for buying certain amount of specific products. What we have at the Jewel-Osco grocery store last two week was a “Buy $30, get back $15″ Catalina deal by Procter and Gamble, General Mills and Coca-cola.

When your total purchase reached a threshold of $30, $60 and $90, the Catalina machine will start printing the cash coupons at the end of your transaction. The coupons are good for paying for your next purchase. If you buy more products in the deal with the Catalina coupons (it’s called “rolling the deal” in the couponing lingo), you get more Catalina coupons!!

The trick is: at Jewel Osco, the total is based on normal shelf price, even though the item can be on sale for less than the shelf price. Combine with coupon use, you get really good deal, things for free or even making money by buying this items included in the deal!

Walgreen does the same kind of catalina deal every week, but Walgreen doesn’t allow you to use the Catalina coupons on the same item to get more catalina coupons (”no rolling” in couponing lingo). But, Jewel Osco not only allow you to roll the Catalina coupons, they also take the catalina coupons from Walgreen! So, I used some of the Walgreen coupons at Jewel Osco stores to buy groceries or roll them into more catalina coupons when they have a good deal like last week.

The deal started last week and ends today, but we were busy with MIL in the hospital, so hadn’t have time to go to the store much. I was there on the first day of the sale and spent about $5 out of pocket and collected $50 worth of cash vouchers.

This kind of deal doesn’t happen too often, the last one they have was in Nov 2008. It’s a “Buy $30 and get back $15 in Catalina coupons”, then you can use the coupons to buy more stuffs and roll into more coupons.

A typical scenario: a box of Fiber One Honey Cluster cereal is normally $4.65 at Jewel Osco, it’s on sale for $2 a box.

When you buy 7 boxes of cereals 7x $4.65 = $32.55 (over the $30 threshold for getting back $15)

Sale price is 7 x $2 =$14

minus 7 x $1 manufacturer’s coupons

Total paid = $14- $7 (manufacturer’s coupons) = $7.

You pay $7.00 ( and $0.14 in tax) and get back $15, a net profit of $7.86.

Needless to say, I have been buying cereals to make money.

We obviously won’t need so many boxes of cereals for two person, so we gave them away, donated them to the food pantry and women shelter. We even get tax relief for doing that!

The 8-roll bounty paper towels and Tide detergent are normally $14.99, they are on sale for $10 and $11.47 each. But I am able to get them for $1.50 and $3+ each with the coupons and Catalina deal. I offered them for $6 each to DH’s relatives and friends who know nuts about coupons, they sold like hot cakes!

Throughout the whole week, I spent about $50 out of pocket over 40 transactions for goods worth about $2000+. Kept some of them for own use and resold some of them to T’s relatives and friends, made a net profit of $200 in cash and still have $50 worth of Catalina coupons!

I could have done much better if I could drive to the store in the morning as the store often ran out of the money making items when T got off work. I still have tons of unused manufacturer’s coupons for cereal and P&G products. I need to get going with the driving license and get all geared up for the next Catalina deal coming up in about 2-3 months.

We have been running to the hospital every evening to visit mother in law who had a knee replacement surgery on 01/07/09. She suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, which gave her very severe pain. When medicine and other treatments are not helping her anymore, the doctor recommended knee replacement surgery, with the hope to relieve the pain that she has been experiencing and hopefully allow her to be more active.

She is in a lot of pain and very weak after the surgery. In a knee replacement surgery, the surgeon removes damaged cartilage and bone from the surface of the knee joint and replaces them with a man-made surface of metal and plastic.She will need a few months of physiotherapy sessions to help her to recover and to be able to walk normal again.

The holiday season was a busy one. We had a couple of gatherings with different family members and spent time with T’s brother who came home for Christmas.

We didn’t put up a Christmas tree at our apartment, would probably do that next year. On Christmas eve, we had a family gathering at T’s aunt and uncle - Carol and Ray’s house. About 30 family members showed up. This is my first time celebrating Christmas as a family, as my own family are not Christians and do not celebrate Christmas. We had a gift exchange. We spent some wonderful time together, and for me meeting some of them for the first time. We went for midnight service at parents in law’s church before we called it a day.

On Christmas morning, we went to the in laws’ place earlier in the morning, had breakfast and opened all the gifts in the stockings and under the tree. We had a blast opening all the gifts. My in laws are spoiling us with all the gifts!!

By the time we are done opening all the gifts in the stockings, it’s almost time to go for lunch, we have to continue the gift opening after lunch. We had a buffet lunch at the dining hall of the retirement center. It was a holiday special meal and boy, we all ate too much!

It may sound unbelievable to you, but we bought 5 hair dryers at the drug store this morning!

The drug store has a One-Day sale today, you can buy a hair dryer for $10.00 and get back $10.00 in cash voucher called Register Reward, which make it FREE.

We have been looking to get a hair dryer, T wanted to just go to the store to buy one, but I have learned about this hair dryer deal few weeks ago and have been holding on to buying one at regular price ($19.99).  So we decided to stop by the 24-hour store at 7.15 a.m. There were two left on the shelf, one pink and one blue. We grabbed both.

There is another Walgreen opens at 8.00 a.m. which is near our house. We made a quick stop at 8.00 a.m. when T was on his way to work. We found six on the shelf and grabbed three.

Now, we have 2 pink hair dryers and 3 blue hair dryers, which we paid $3.90 out of pocket for sales tax.

We are going to give one to T’s mother as one of the Christmas gifts, as her hair dryer had gone kaput sometime ago. One for me and one for T. The other two will be giving out as Christmas gifts!

You might wonder is this REAL. Yes, most stores have “loss leaders” to get you into the store to purchase other stuffs, which are marked up pretty high. You have to be a deal hunter who don’t buy anything at full retailed price in order to win.

The grocery stores do the same. They have loss leaders advertised in the ads every week, but almost everything else in the store are marked up. For example, some of the Kellogg’s cereals at regular retailed price can go as high as $4.xx. They are on sale this week 3 for $5, with three $1 coupons, they are 3 for $2!

Now, I need to find some coupons for good deals on sports gifts for men! I can’t give the free toothpaste and deodorants I got from Walgreen as Christmas gifts, can I?