Bountiful Bargains

This weekend was really busy & full of lots of bargains. On Thursday, we saw a story on the news about the Salvation Army having a 50% off everything sale on Friday, so we decided to check it out. Jim's not much for thrift store shopping & to be honest, neither was I.....until now! See those 2 cute little dishes above? They cost me all of $1.50 each! I just couldn't pass them up for that price :) I plan on using them in my scraproom, but I haven't exactly figured out what for yet.
Then I found this baking dish by Pyrex. It's hard to tell in the picture, but it's actually purple. PURPLE! :) The price......$2.50!
I also found a set of 3 matching mixing bowls.....for some reason, they were priced individually, but I grabbed them all. Total cost for all 3: $6.00!
Then I was shocked when I found this trashcan! It's from the Glynda Turley Rose Rhapsody line that JC Penney carried a few years ago, which is what my bedroom & bathroom are done in. I already have one of these on my side of the bed, so I got this one to put on Jim's side. Cost: $2.50! And these retailed for around $40-45! Yep, I love a bargain like this!
I also stumbled upon this little jar from Avon which I have another one of. I use it to store my Q-tips in, but figured I could use another one for cotton balls or something. Price: $1.50!
Okay, so Jim still thinks I'm nuts for buying this, but I just thought it was so cool & I know that scrapbookers can understand why I bought it :) It's a huge date stamp.....I'm talking HUGE! The numbers each measure 1/2" wide by just under 3/4" tall. Total spent on this awesome find: $3.00!

The shopping didn't stop there :) On Saturday, I decided to go to Michael's to use my 50% off coupon before it expired. I couldn't find anything that I just had to have, so I ended up just getting a magazine with the coupon. But I found all of the stuff above in the dollar bins.....journals, epoxy stickers, ribbons & black rhinestones. After leaving Michael's, I was going to head to another Salvation Army store, but then I remember that I still had a $10 Kohl's Cash coupon that I needed to use as it expired on the 5th also. So I headed to Kohl's first & must have spent half an hour in there, looking around, trying to figure out what to buy. I finally just ended up with another workout shirt.......boring, I know......that's why I didn't take a picture of it, hehe.

Anyway, off to Salvation Army I went. When I arrived, there were tons of police cars & they had most of the parking lot taped off. I was almost afraid to get out of my car, but right in front of where I parked, a guy was talking to another man so I asked him what was going on. Would you believe......they were ROBBED!! Who on earth robs a Salvation Army store??? The guy I was talking to was the one that got robbed.....he was working in the backroom & somehow, the robber came in through the back & got the cash out of the safe. Apparently, they caught his getaway 'ride', but didn't catch the robber (or at least they hadn't before I left). The scary part is, if I wouldn't have gone to Kohl's first, I may have been in the store when this all happened!

ETA: Update on the robbery: My dh just told me that the robber was killed by the police! Apparently, a confrontation erupted between him & the police & the police officer shot the man! WOW! I did NOT see a body anywhere when I was there. I did see the stuff that was in the parking lot (if you look at the video clip on this link: Officer Shots, Kills Robbery Suspect, you can see clothes & stuff scattered about). They also caught the other guy that carjacked a person & he's now in jail. Truly scary!

They did allow me to still shop, but I didn't stay for very long.....just long enough to find this:

A cute little metal mannequin/dressform thing. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with it yet, but I know I will be painting it......probably black. Cost for this cool find: $5.00.

Then today, we decided to go shopping at Gibraltor Trade Center as it's been probably a year or more since we've been there. There were some tables set up outside & at one of them, I found this awesome old camera. I was almost afraid to ask the guy how much he wanted for it.....figuring it would be $25, $50 or more. Would you believe.....he only wanted $7.00 for it?!? Needless to say, I grabbed it right away & now it's proudly displayed on top of my Expedit bookcase :)

Total spent on these great bargains: $46.50 which includes the magazine that I got for 50% off. Not too shabby, huh?

The house hunting isn't going as well as we had hoped. We looked at 2 more houses this weekend. The first one was nice, except for the fact that the landscaping needed a LOT of work plus Jim saw ants in the master bedroom crawling on the walls & it looked like they had a major leak somewhere in the finished basement as the carpet was stained & you could actually hear water coming from somehwere. I did like the way the house was arranged, though.....it had a BIG kitchen with a center island, a large family room & the master bedroom was downstairs, away from the other bedrooms, which I liked. The second house we looked at today was really nice, but the only drawback to that one was the neighbors were almost right on top of you! There was maybe 3 feet in between the side of the house & the neighbors back door! And then there was another neighbor almost directly behind it, so it would have been just too hard to teach the dogs which yard was ours. We have 2 more houses that we'll probably look at this week & if neither of those work out, then we'll probably end up taking the one we looked at a few weeks ago. Once we decide for sure, I'll be sure to post some pictures of it.

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend!
Benita