Dear Readers,

I have a sad admission...it makes me feel old...I have no clue how a twitter party works or what the # sign means on there...HELP...I am so old and twitter is still a bit of a mystery to me...I get invited to a lot of Twitter parties that if I could figure out what to do and how to "attend" and what # means would help me out a lot. Lots of the parties I skip actually end up giving bloggers stuff to review and giveaway, so please dear readers. For my sake and yours, Help me...teach me...

Well friends, I will be 32 in September and I thought I better start signing up for newsletters and fan clubs and whatever to get some birthday freebies, but there are so many places that I am just not sure where to begin...what birthday freebies or deals have you gotten? Like for example, I know my husband got a SWEET Benihaha free meal for his birthday for signing up for their chef's table emails. I just don't want to miss out on the good stuff, so let me know where I should sign up for birthday goodies!! Thanks in advance!!

Not really a money saving tip here, but a though and a quandary...

As you likely have read by now, our air conditioning has stopped working ans rather than get in debt to fix or replace it this summer, we have decided to just deal with it and get through the heat of the summer.

Admittedly it is hard some days (today is a scorcher)! But we are coping-lots of pool trips, stops in the mall or other air conditioned places, cool baths, lots of fans and LOTS of hydration. I am saving money on utility bills doing this which I guess is ht bright side.

I LOVE to cook, but refuse to heat up the hole house more to bake or even use the stove top, so I have become a grill master this year. I have been experimenting with cooking different things on the grill, but this is still a new thing to me...I have heard you can grill your pizzas, but have never done that...anyone tried it?

But here is the question...do you have creative grilling ideas? What have you grilled up lately?

Here is my favorite new thing to do on the grill...

Rather than make French Fries and turn on the hot grease in the house, I have been doing the following:

1) get out a good sturdy baking sheet (but not your best-it could get grill/black marks) and spray it with Pam.

2) cut up whatever kind of potatoes you have into bite size pieces and put them on the tray.

3) Season them with your favorite spices (Lately I am loving the following combination: Greek Seasoning, Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Salt, Pepper, Seasoned Salt and a bit of Steak seasoning.)

4) Drizzle about 1T Olive Oil over seasoned potatoes and mix up with your hands.

5) Fire up that grill and put the baking sheet on it. Cook for about 20-25 minutes (or more depending on the size of your potatoes). Check and turn (with a long BBQ spatula) every 5 minutes or so.

6) When you take them off the grill, the pan will be smokin' hot-most hot pads cannot handle it so I double up on the hot pads and run it quickly to the stove.

SOOO yummy...

Well, I am a bit stumped today as to what I can say for Thrifty Thursday, so I am asking for reader input. Please share your favorite thrifty/frugal tip about ANYTHING in a comment, on the facebook wall or email it to me and I will share it (beckeesdeals@gmail.com).

I guess I will share my favorite frugal tip for parents...one of the best things my husband and I ever did was to make babysitting exchanges with our friends during medical school. We took turns watching each other's kids for date nights (since NONE of us had ANY money) and often the date nights without your kids would just consist of a dinner and movie at home ALONE with your spouse/significant other and that was a GREAT, cheap (FREE) date night/time out for the grown ups. (Check out my husband and I in the picture above without any kids...a rare picture!)

Back in on April 25, I posted about a Red Baron Try me Free rebate in the Smart Source insert...I have a reader that clipped the rebate but not the address to send it to-does anyone have that address still?

Reposts stink...total cop out-I know...but here is the thing, I am on an ancient desktop that takes me triple the time to work on this blog so I do not have the time to research out the Tuesdays Travels or Weekend Warriors info right now. Please forgive me!

The GREAT news is I was notified by Toshiba late last night that my laptop is fixed and shipping back, so once we get that back and up and running I will be able to get back on the ball and give you some new info.

So, here is the big question of the day-what destinations would you like to see in Tuesdays Travels? Or in the Weekend Warriors Daycations? Please comment here, on Facebook, or email me at beckeesdeals@gmail.com  and let me know what you want to see-I really need your help and  inspiration here!


Thanks for reading and thanks ahead of time for your suggestions!!

Ah...home...

I am writing tomorrow's Tuesday Travels blog about Salt Lake City a would love some locals insights since a LOT of my readers live there currently and I have not lived there since 2003. Thanks in advance!! Send any frugal travel tips, hotel ideas, or destinations to visit (and if you happen to know how to get discount tickets to any of the destinations, I would LOVE those).

You all know that I started a Tuesdays Travels series of posts this week, but did you notice that yesterday I added a list on the right side of daily posts in different series? Here is the plan so far:

• Sunday: Sunday Sales: Newspaper Round-Up     On Sundays, I will try to read through the paper and post the best deals. As a heads up, Sundays are a family day for us and I will sometimes not post at all on Sunday's (my one day off). But when I do, I will let you know what good stuff I find in the Sunday paper (generally this includes great sales, free events, and coupon inserts).
• Monday: Mommy School Mondays     More details on this coming, but as a preview, I was a school teacher with a major in theatre and a minor in reading. Since I quit teaching to stay at home, I have been putting my education knowledge to use by doing "mommy school" preschool with my kids.  I will share my lessons and my plans here.   
• Tuesday: Tuesdays Travels      This was started this week with this post about New York City. Check out the overview of Tuesdays Travels here and check out the upcoming locations here.  PLEASE send your Hawaii and Disneyland tips and tricks to me ASAP!  
• Wednesday: Beckees Best of Omaha Grocery     I have been doing this now for a few weeks. To see this week's round up, click here.
• Thursdays: TBA     Well readers, any requests? What would you like to see here?  Let me know if you have any ideas that you would like to see me try out for our Thursday series!
• Friday: Weekend Warriors: Fast and Furious Daycations    This will focus on day/weekend trips you can easily take from Omaha. I would love to also have readers guest blog on this one sometimes to tell me about good "daycations" or weekend trips near your city.  It will be coming soon! Local readers-please let me know where some of your favorite daycations are near Omaha! 
• Saturday: Service Spotlight Saturday     I love saving money! That is why I started this blog, but I also feel very strongly that giving back is SO important.  This series will focus on service opportunities as well as spotlighting examples of service.  Posts like this one about my brother's service project will go here. And the best news is that you can submit any service project you know of, get help with Scout projects, or you can write a spotlight about an example of service in your community and I will post your story/event on here. You can be a guest blogger! :)  A preview of this week: since it is Mother's Day Sunday, I will start this series with a spotlight on a couple of ladies that have served myself and my husband for our whole lives: my mom and my mother-in-law. 

Reader Andres (who happens to be my sister) asked how I signed up to get The Disney Store deals in my email. So I thought I would tell youall how. Go here and near the bottom of the page ont he right you will see a picture with a link to get their emails (it will look just like ht epicture in this post-though the one in this post is NOT a live link). Click on the "Sing Up for Emails" button and get signed up.

Remember, if you do not already have one, I would go set up a "junk mail" email and send all your email subscriptions and free samples and things you sign up for there. That way you do not clog up your main personal email. Just a tip! You can set up a free email through Yahoo or Google really easily-I personally prefer Google, but that's just me! Click hereto get started setting up a new Gmail account.

Is there a store you love to shop at or a product you seem to never find on sale, but have to buy? Are there deals you WANT to find but cannot? If so, send in requests, and I will do some homework and see if I can find a deal for you. I make no promises-I am still a relative newbie to this, but I HAVE figured out a couple of tricks, and I will try to find what my readers need. So, if you have a request, please email me at beckeesdeals@gmail.com or leave a comment. If you are my friend on Facebook, you can always ask me there as well. If the following on this blog continues to grow, I plan to make a facebook page just for the deals. So help it grow by telling your friends and family about it!

Thanks,
Beckee

Well, Marisa asked me if I had any great deals on cloth diapers. I have to admit that having never used them (well, that's not true, I did "use" them when I was a baby, but I have never had to buy them) I have no clue what a good deal on cloth diapers would be, but since you asked Marisa, I looked it up and found a website that might help you out.

Cloth Diaper Sale is a website that posts all the cloth diaper sales they can find out there. So, hopefully that will be a useful website for you to check out.