New Shopping Addiction

My students know how much I love books, so I get Borders gift cards pretty frequently.  Back in April, I was shopping on their website when I saw a USED book tab.  I was just looking for book club books, so they didn't have to be in pristine condition. Why not?  When I clicked on it, I found multiple copies of the book I wanted for $1.06.  So, I selected the six copies that were described in best condition.  I went ahead and bought a couple new books to bring my order up to the $25 free shipping limit and then completed my order.

My new books came within 48 hours and my used books took about a week to two weeks to get here, but most of them looked BRAND NEW.  In fact some of them were hardbound!  (Okay, this is the silly teacher part of me getting excited.)  If I was at a bookstore I would be spending between $5-15 for most these books and I was getting them for a DOLLAR!

Now, I inherited this thing from my dad where I can't resist a good deal, so I got on the site again and started filling up my cart with used books.  I'm a teacher.  I can't have TOO many books.  (I think my current collection at school is up to about 600+ chapter books by now.)  Anyway, it turned out that there was an unspoken 20 book limit in your cart, so I wasn't going to be able to get the free shipping buying only used books.  SO, I went ahead and upgraded to a Borders Rewards Plus membership for $20 for the year, so I could get free shipping on all orders.  I've been shopping away ever since.

No joke, the postman either loves me or hates me because my mailbox was stuffed with books basically EVERY DAY for a while there.  I kept on meaning to take a picture because it cracked me up how good he was getting at fitting them all in there.  Using mostly gift cards, I've bought over 70 used books (hardbound too!) in practically brand spanking new condition for a few cents over a dollar each.

Sometimes I feel a little guilty whenever I see the cost of shipping on the label.  It usually costs a little over $2 to ship the average book... and I only paid $1 total for the whole thing with NO shipping cost to me at all.  So I know that SOMEONE has to be losing money.  I can't be the only teacher that has figured this out.

Gift Card Date (Yes, ANOTHER one!)

As a teacher, I am very lucky to have the classroom parents I do. They usually like to get me gift cards as thank you's during the school year. Today, Doug and I got to have another gift card date before the school year starts. I blogged about my last gift card date here.

We started the morning at a fancy pants place in Ashburn called the Amenity Day Spa. Let me start this off by saying that Doug and I are NOT fancy people... The people there were like sipping champagne and talking about rich people stuff. It cost $65 per person for a 30 minute massage! (but I was using a gift card so I guess it didn't matter) We came in and they started us in the "relaxation room" with a drink of our choice and tons of forms with weird questions to fill out. The lady took us on a mini tour and showed us the changing rooms where we were given robes and fancy slippers to change into.

When we came back to the relaxation room to wait for the masseuses, Doug announced to me that he felt ridiculous and uncomfortable in the robe. :) They gave us our massages in the same room. Doug had a female masseuse and I had a male one which I thought it was weird that they didn't do it the opposite way, but we both enjoyed the massages. It was a 30 minute deep tissue massage which actually hurt a bit, but afterward it felt really good. The whole robe thing was a little uncomfortable, but I guess I could get used to it if I had $150 bucks to blow when I wanted a massage.

As we were leaving I told Doug, "He massaged my butt!" He just laughed at me and let me know that they do that. It was quite the surprise to me! I kind of wished that he would've warned me going in.

After the spa we went to the Dulles Town Center where I was finally able to get the Aeropostale people to remove the ink tags off the jeans I bought there almost 2 weeks ago. Not a store that I usually shop at, but they had a buy one get one free sale a little while ago and I had a coupon on top of that. I had to dig through all of the size ZEROS to find a 10 that fit me. Size 0, who wears that? When I joked with the cashier about all of the size zeros, he informed me that their usual clientele are younger (and smaller too, I guess.)

I hate that there are certain stores for certain types of people and you don't know it until you go in and a salesperson intercepts you and kindly "hints" to you that this ISN'T the store for you. (I tend to get reminders like this frequently.)

Anyways, we also got to stop by Borders for me to trade a duplicate book that I accidentally bought. We found this great Calvin & Hobbes Sunday Edition book for Doug that actually has the rough sketches next to the final ones which is pretty cool. Last time I was there and asked for my teacher discount the lady flat out asked me how old I was. When I showed her my badge, she told me that she thought I was 15. Yeah, I may be younger, but 15??


On the way out, we stopped by a Kirtland store and actually bought a painting to go in the breakfast nook of the kitchen. This is quite the big accomplishment for me because I am such an indecisive person. They had a HUGE sale going on and there was a picture that I really liked a while ago, but passed up on because of the price. We got it for $20! (and on gift cards too!) It should go with the Americana kitchen theme that I hope to do, but haven't actually bought anything for yet.


We then headed over to Red Lobster where Doug got the Neverending Shrimp Platter and I got some Lobster Pizza. We love the cheesy biscuits there! I have to recommend the lobster pizza. I don't really like seafood all that much, but Doug loves it, so we try to go a fish place every once in a while. The lobster pizza was only an appetizer which made it cheap, it was big, and sooo good!


What a fun day! Doug said that one thing that he'll miss once I stop teaching (besides the paycheck) is the fun gift card dates that we get to go. Sorry for the long blog post. I was so excited about our day.. our usual Saturdays consist of going to my parents house to hang out all day and watch TV.

Five Below

For Activity Day Girls this last week I planned some fun with water balloons. I ended up going to FOUR different stores to try to find water balloons with NO LUCK. I started to get a little panicked because the activity was on Tuesday and it was Monday and I was running out of time.

I posted on my Facebook status update that I was looking for water balloons and was informed by Doug's Aunt Rachel that she just saw some at Five Below. I had never been to a Five Below so I Googled for locations and found one a few miles away from the school. I dropped by on Tuesday and the water balloons were in one of the front bins on display!

While I was in the store, I decided to walk around a little and check out what else they had in the store. BIG MISTAKE... they had a section with books! I spent some money, but I picked up twelve great books (some of them hardbound!) for under $40. Eleven of them are for my classroom and one of them is for Doug. I found this really neat book called Spies and Espionage: a Directory. I hope he likes it! He loved the movie Breach and we were just randomly talking about spies this weekend.

All of these books for under $40!

These non-fiction books have great pictures and good info for curious kids.

Kids love books with disgusting or amazing things in them.

Doesn't this look like a cool book?

If you are near a Five Below... stop by and pick up a non-fiction book for your child's elementary school teacher as a Back to School present. I guarantee you that she/he doesn't have enough non-fiction books!

e.l.f.

I usually don't use my blog as an advertisement for stuff, but I found something that I thought was a great deal and wanted to share it. This is probably not for you if you're really picky about make-up.

I was reading a friend's blog earlier this month which showed a make-up deal. I don't know much about make-up, but I do know that I like things that are cheap. I went ahead and checked out their website, ELF, and browsed what they had on there. Just about everything is a dollar and lots of people have given specific comments about the products. I used the coupon code CAROLINA which gives you 50% off orders up to $15. (I'm not sure if it's still available.) I picked out exactly $15 worth of stuff which with the coupon code was only $7.50 and then it cost like $6.95 for shipping.

I got 2 coffee eyeliners, nail polish, a travel mirror, an eye lash curler, blush brush, blush, 3 cover sticks, 2 concealers, 2 things of foundation, and a dual pencil sharpener for $14. I was skeptical about quality, but I went ahead and risked it because make-up is way too expensive. If this was worth it I would save money in the long run. I received the package last night, tried out everything, and I really don't have any complaints. I haven't really figured out the eyelash curler... who invents such things! It seriously looks like some sort of torture device.

Honestly, I really don't know ANYTHING about make up. I don't even know what the difference is between concealer, foundation, and cover sticks. They all basically look the same to me... I just know that I need it most days and I don't want to spend too much money on it. This stuff worked for me.

There are two things that I don't like so much about e.l.f. Basically everything was smaller than what I thought it would be (you can see the size in the pictures) and I think I've gotten like 2 emails a day from this company. I'm just waiting for the spam to hit my mailbox at home...

Gift Card Date

One of the perks of being a teacher at my current school is the gift cards. I love getting them! My favorites are the ones to restaurants and to bookstores. Restaurant gift cards because I can share that with Doug. He deserves it for being patient with my long teacher work hours. Bookstore gift cards because I love buying new books for my students and getting them excited about reading! Thursday night this week, Doug and I had what I call a "Gift Card Date."

First, we went out to eat at Red Robin next to the Dulles Town Center. We only eat out once a month, even with gift cards, so its a big deal! Red Robin has some yummy burgers! I always get the Royal which adds bacon and eggs to a hamburger. It is delish! Doug got the 5 Alarm Burger and needed several refills on his water. We had a good time and didn't have to spend a penny since we used a gift card!


Next, we headed over to the mall because it would have been a nightmare to leave after dinner with the traffic the way it is on 7 at that time. I headed over to the Borders Express and tried to look at the adult books with Doug, but I was pulled away to the Children's Literature section. (I couldn't help myself!) I had a $25 giftcard from Christmas that I hadn't spent yet, so I started looking over all of the books there. I picked out some great ones! "Clementine" by Sara Pennybacker, "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan, and 3 "Dear Dumb Diary" Books. These books are by the same author who wrote the Franny K. Stein series. This is an excellent series that has gotten many of my "reluctant" readers into books. I brought them to my classroom today and showed them to my kids. I had three students with their noses in them for the rest of the day! I keep a digital library record of all of my books in the classroom. Today I went ahead and totaled the quantities of my list and I have 434 chapter books! I'm getting more from Scholastic this month. I love their $1 deals on books! I asked at the register and it turns out that Border's has a 20% teacher discount so I didn't even use my whole gift card!


Next, we stopped by a Starbucks to get one of the only things they have on their menu that doesn't have caffeine, a Caramel Spiced Cider. It was quite yummy! And OF COURSE, we used a gift card! Buying stuff at Starbucks makes us feel fancy.


After that, we headed over to Bath & Body Works to use up the rest of my gift card there. The foaming soaps have been on sale for the last while. Last time we went shopping, I only picked up "girly" scents, so I got one "manly" scent especially for Doug this time. It was some kind of rainwater scent. Now we have a whole bathroom closet worth of both manly and girly smelling soaps.


A little annoyance... the nicely manicured male behind the register asked for my phone number and email address. I said, "No Thank You" very casually and politely. He seemed almost offended at my response. It seems like everyone is trying to spam you these days! If I would like to get email or phone calls from you, I will look you up online and sign up for it, but don't bother me during every single transaction! It turns out I didn't actually finish off my gift card and I have 30 cents left on it. Is there some kind of charity that I can donate that to?

Yay for gift card dates!