Donated to Charity

I had $2.98 reserved for charity so I walked over to the grocery store today and bought 3 $0.99 cans of food for the food bank. Imagine my dismay when one of them only turned out to be $0.89 cents! I ended up with 11 cents so I put it in the blind dogs head again (in case you missed my earlier posts, it's like a giant dog piggy bank to support guide dogs or something). I must admit, I never realised how satisfying it is to donate, especially food which is something 'real' that families need. And it's all because of the doubling project. Awesome!

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Completed Level 15!

I usually go to a certain place to get my hair cut and in fact I went to get it done, but he was too busy that day. I usually would just try again, but instead I got my wife to cut my hair, which I havn't done in about 3 years. She did a really good job. I figure the money saved here qualifies since I almost certainly would have just gone the next day or so. If memory serves me corretly, his hair cuts cost about $12 and I usually tip him $3 (he is insanely fast - I am usually in and out of the store in five minutes; no joke!) Savings are always split between the project and the 'real' me, so that is $7.50 saved for the project, which puts me over the top for Level 15 for a total of $165.95. Splitting the extra gives $2.98 to charity and $2.97 to buy some thing for myself.

Level 16, here I come!

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More Deals

Today I went a bit out of my way to purchase something to save $2.50. In hind sight, it was not a good deal. I had to drive 8.8km there and back, which results in a cost of $0.88 to the project. Subtract this off the $2.50 savings and you get $1.62. Since the project only gets 1/2 of the profits from saving, this is a $0.81 cent gain, which is JUST what I need to make it qualify. This is fine, except we unexpectedly ended up in the area later at night to go to a restaurant, so if I had just waited a few hours I could have tacked on the $0.90 I wasted driving there the first time. Oh well, I guess you can't win them all. I also bought some Gatoraid for $3.99 (Reg $6.49), Apple Juice for $0.70 (On sale at Loblaws for $1.25 on what they apparently call a 'blowout'), and some shampoo for $1.99 (Reg $3.72). Calculating it all out, gives the project another $6.12 for a total of $158.65. I also calculated that otherwise, I've gone 4km out of my way, which translates to a 20c cost to the project. Only a buck sixty five to go!

More grocery savings

I bought some Gatoraid for $3.99 and priced it at $6.49 at my usual grocery store. I guess they don't consider it food because it is surprisingly taxed, which is bad for the real me and good for the double project (because I saved even more). I also bought some mayonaise for $2.97, which I priced at $4.79. This all comes to a gain of $2.32 for the project. I am creeping up to the finish. I wish there was something I could just buy and get it over with, but there weren't too many good deals this week. I guess I am starting to be stocked up with all the non-perishables we use so this method may slow down soon. Only $7.47 to go and then I am done level 15!

Bought shoes, shoes and more shoes

My wife and I needed new shoes. She needed new jogging shoes and I needed both joggers and cross trainers. Usually I would just go out and buy shoes when I need them, but this time I watched for sales. I usually buy my shoes at the running room, but this sale took me over to Sports Experts. I found cross trainers on sale for 59.99 (reg 99.99). I also found a nice pair of joggers that were usually 179.99, but were on sale for $119.99. My wife found a pair for the same deal. This was starting to look like a total savings of $160, $80 of which would be for the double project. Wow! Then I remembered that I would normally have bought them at the running room, so I headed over there to check out the prices. They ranged from $129.99 to $169.99. It is impossible to figure out exactly which pair I would have chosen so I decided I would be as conservative as possible and price them at $129.99. I really want to make sure this project doesn't affect my finances negatively, so this ensures it. So that is a $10 savings from both sets of jogging shoes. The running room doesn't have cross trainers so I decided to let the $40 savings stand on the other ones. $59.99 for Adidas cross trainers is a really good deal. So that totals $67.80 (including tax) in savings, $33.90 of which go to the double project. I also purchased something else on sale, which netted me $3.57 for the project. I am over the $150 mark and almost done this level! Time to browse the fliers!

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Quick update

Quick update today. I bought three more things that gained $1.32, $1.78 and $3.67 for the project today. Found many things that were $1.50 off, which is too low since I need $0.80 after halfing it. So I am up $6.77 for a total of $112.74 today.

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Bought something for myself

I had 4.77 burning a hole in my pocket (overshoots from previous levels). I decided to spend $2.25 on some 'wallet windows'. This is what people usually put pictures in, but being the crazy lunatic that I am, I plan to put coupons in them. That way I can flip through them at the store without having to fumble around with them. That still leaves me with $2.22 to buy things with. I'm a rich man!

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