Planning Ahead at Target

Today is Columbus Day and the kids are off from school. What to do with the kids? I arranged for a playdate for the kids with their best friends from school. But, 2 boys at home with my kids can get pretty hairy too. Luckily, at McDonalds, the Happy Meal toy was Bakugan so we went to McDonalds for lunch and spent about 2 hours there. Then, after they got home, I had these "pumpkin leaf bags" from Target that I bought last year for about $.05 (that's right...clearance) and now the are all busy filling up these giant pumpkin bags for me. Great! They are busy and soon I will have Halloween decorations for this year.

Trick is to visit Target about the week of Halloween and clear out the Halloween section. This can be applied to any holiday seaons (Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, etc). Most of the stuff will be about 75%-90% off. As long as you have a good system to remember where everything is, it doesn't hurt to stock up.

Getting ready for Halloween

Before you know it, Halloween will be around the corner. One of the coolest things that I've seen since I've moved here (Westchester, NY) is something called "The Blaze". It showcased about 2000 pumpkins and was totally amazing. I hope to carve enough pumpkins to slowly create my own blaze. So far, I already have an Ariel, Mickey Mouse and R2D2. This year, I carved the Superman sign and the Batman sign. I still have 1 more craft pumpkin.

Trick: Buy the craft pumpkins close to Halloween. At most craft places, it will be discounted up to about 75%. Keep a look out for the Michaels ad when it gets close to Halloween or you might miss it.

Carpool discount on Bridges and Tunnels

Hot tip from Mirabest.com. Instead of paying $8 on the GWB, get the carpool discount and only pay $2!! Though, the kicker is that you have to go through the CASH lane and tell the attendant "carpool". The attendant will count the number of people in the car. Kids count as people!

To register, call 1-800-333-8655 (New York Service Center) or 1-888-288-6865 (New Jersey Service Center). Be sure to have your account number or tag number and PIN for account access.

Reduce the Clutter!

I recently went to a friend's house and I was amazed. Her house was so neat and clean and it looked like it just came out of a pottery barn catalog. She told me her secret. Throw everything away and don't buy anything you don't need.

I look at my house and I keep looking at all the clutter. Do I really need 5 flower vases? What is the true sentimental value of the broken plastic toy in the corner? Why do I still have mail from 2004 (mail that I haven't looked at in 5 years)? I need to stop thinking like I'm going to use, read or need any of that clutter again. A clean house might be better for now.