I get a little distracted from quilting or sewing every so often.  It’s hard for me to concentrate on more than one hobby.  Oh, I can get my work done, but I can’t do the “for me” part well.  Right now, I have two other things going around here: decorating the house and couponing.  The house is a pretty obvious choice.  Rich was a bachelor when he bought it and he couldn’t decorate himself out of a shoebox.  The most he did was paint the living room a slightly-purplish shade of blue and buy some furniture.  After being married more than a year and living at this house for not quite two, he finally gave up and gave me free-reign to make my choices and do it all.  As long as I stay in budget.  I can do that.

The couponing kinda grew out of the needing to save money thing.  I LOVE getting stuff for free.  I LOVE finding deals.  It’s the hunt; I am such a hunter-gatherer!  And with sites like refundcents.com and thegrocerygame.com, my life is much much easier.  Finding deals is a breeze when you know about sales ahead of time and can stock up on coupons a few weeks in advance.  Like, with our wedding cake, for example.  My sister wanted to use a mix since I insisted on the real buttercream icing and fresh lemon curd.  I watched the sales and stumbled upon a deal at Randalls where, with the coupons and their sale, they ended up paying us $3.15 to take 36 boxes of cake mix (and 36 tubs of icing) off their hands.  I have no idea what to do with all that icing, by the way.  Rich has been eating some of it on Animal Crackers, but what do you do with 36 tubs of icing when you don’t eat it?!

The problem with couponing is that it takes time.  Time I love but time that doesn’t go to sewing.  But is it worth it to get deals like 16 various Maybelline lip products for a refund of $5?  Or 10 bottles of Garnier Fructis hair stuff for FREE?

Now, if only I could find coupons for paint, lumber, and dupioni silk!