A Humble Brag (if there is such a thing)

It's no secret Sam and I are frugal.  I mentioned it briefly on my Black Friday post, but I am beyond excited about our most recent savings on gas.

I realize prices here in central Georgia are pretty good compared to lots of places around the country, but I have to say, I haven't paid this price since the early 2000's.  It's been nearly a decade.

We got this discounted price thanks to ciphering and calculating, and an ingenious plan of Sam's.  I made the shopping lists for Black Friday complete with price lists.  Just before we left, Sam said, "Let's stop at Kroger and buy gift cards."

That was the ingenious part.  We prepaid for our shopping spree with giftcards purchased at Kroger for 4x the fuel points, a promo that they started just before Black Friday.  The normal deal is that for each dollar spent in Kroger, you get 1 point towards discounted gas.  When you accumulate 100 points, you get 10 cents off per gallon.  Right now, for every $1 spent on giftcards, you get four points towards discounted fuel.  That means a $25 giftcard earns you 10cents off per gallon.  Every $250 in giftcards earns $1 off per gallon (this is the max discount).  We managed to get an additional 10cents on top of the $1 because of another promotion for having and using a Kroger credit card to pay for gas.

We took both vehicles and two gas cans, and walked away with every drop of the 35 gallon maximum they would allow us for the amazing price of $1.98/gallon.  We saved $38.50 in gas on that $250 giftcard purchase, which works out to an additional 15% savings on top of our mad Black Friday shopping skills.

I'm not sure if you can tell how exciting this was for me.  Apparently, saving money is my drug.

I think you should try it.

how cool is this?!

I'm famous! 
(Click this.  Yeah.  I'm bossy.)

The very same friend who inspired me to embark on the journey that is The 101 List has featured me as a favorite blogger! 

I'm so very flattered, Sarah!  Thank you!

And now I'm going to return the favor. What you may not know is that Sarah is an extremely gifted photographer.  So amazing, in fact, that she is the reason I have recently entered the intimidating scary terrifying realm of manual photography.  I sincerely doubt that I will ever be able to do what she does behind a camera, as it's highly unlikely that I'll ever do it as anything more than a hobby, but that won't stop me from learning and trying!  Just like I enjoy writing about my children, she chooses to photograph her own precious kids (and other people's too!) and does so beautifully.   I only wish I lived closer so I could have her take pictures of my own family.  (I google mapped it.  It's about a 5 hour drive.  Hey maybe someday!)

If you have a chance, check out her photography blog.  You will not be disappointed! (And you can check out her "regular" blog too!)

And thank you again, Sarah!  You are a truly beautiful person...inside and out!

A book a day keeps the cobwebs away.

Or at least gets you to Level I in kindergarten!

Stop, Jennie.  Back up.

In the midst of a sick household, I didn't even look in Ben's bookbag until this morning.  (Good thing he didn't have any homework!)  Turns out, it was report card day on Friday!  Hooray!  (That's what the nerdy kids say when they get passed out.  Dorks.) 

I opened it up.  Ben got straight 3's...which means "consistently meets the grade level standards" in all of the subjects.  So yay for that.  But there's more.

Apparently Houston County has developed their own brand of literacy assessment, the results of which they included with the report card.  It is a scale based on the letters A-W (x, y, and z weren't present on the day they decided which letters to include).  The letters are broken into ranges representing each grade level's target abilities.  Or instead of me explaining it (because I am intrinsically bad at it), just look at this:

And, look at *this*:

 

A little blurry, perhaps, but that "I" stands out without question.

I am one proud mom today.  My halfway-through-kindergarten son is reading at an early 2nd grade level!  Turns out that book (or four) each night is paying off.  Here's to a lifetime of reading ahead!

My PSA for the day...a book (or ten) at bedtime makes for more than memories.  It makes for readers.

:)  <---That's me, resorting to an emoticon to represent the beaming smile that news brought to my face this morning.  I am just so stinking happy for my little reader.