$aving Dollar$

After dropping Beb off at school this morning, Al asked if we could see if there were any garage sales today. I told her yes, letting her believe she came up with this grand idea. Little did she know, I was already planning on hunting for garage sales before we even left the house. This way, she thinks Mommy agreed to do something super fun today, when all along I couldn't wait to find that perfect treasure.

Score one for Pajama Mama.

So later today, when I ask her to do the laundry, wash the dishes and scrub the toilets, I will have some ammunition to work with.

"But hon, Mommy took you to garages sales today and bought you a Beanie Baby, a Halloween coloring book, a plastic Hello Kitty watch and 2 Mardi Gras bead necklaces.....remember?"

Guilt. It's a beautiful thing.

Not that I would make my sweet 5 year old daughter do laundry or wash dishes because I bought her exactly seventy cents worth of fun at a garage sale.

But she loves to scrub toilets. And what else is she going to do when I'm watching "The View?"

"100 THINGS ABOUT ME" (61-80):

61. I love garage sales.

62. That bares repeating.

63. I. Love. Garage. Sales.

64. It's in my blood. When I was growing up, my Mom was the Queen of Garage Sales (a title that I'm pretty sure trumps the Miss America title.)

65. My Mom's garage sale smackdowns are legendary in the south suburbs.

66. She tells tales of stuffing a paper grocery sack until it was overflowing with summer clothes for my younger sister and paying just $1 for the ENTIRE bag of contents. Can you even imagine?

67. And don't get me started on all of the Barbie furniture and accessories that she managed to scope out for just pennies.

68. When it came to saving money, she was a woman with a mission.

69. She also was the Coupon Queen. Much like Queen of Garage Sales, she earned this title because of her knack of clipping coupons and buying $500 worth of groceries for like seventeen dollars and twenty-four cents. I kid you not.

70. She even taught classes at a local college about all the ways to save money from clipping coupons and published a smart monthly newsletter called "$aving Dollar$."

71. To this day, I sometimes still dream about the piles of Banquet dinner cartons and Campbell's soup labels, which were all saved for the valuable UPC codes to send in for rebates.

72. My Mom became an honest-to-goodness celebrity when she was invited to appear on the television show "AM Chicago," to share her adventures in money saving.

73. And as we all know, AM Chicago is now know as a little show called "The Oprah Winfrey Show."

74. I know.

75. So now I have no choice but to seek out those garage sale "gotta have it" deals.

76. I mean who can pass up a twenty-five cents coffee mug with "Foxy Mama" painted on it?

77. Not me. And I don't even drink coffee.

78. Even the clearance racks at K-Mart never know what hit 'em. I show no mercy on Halloween candy. Even if it is January.

79. What? Chocolate has a long shelf life.

80. And thanks to my Mom, I now know that a family of 6 can survive on $1.94 a week, if need be.