Dollarama finds

If it's not already a past time of yours, it should be because you never know what you might find.  First up is this magnifying mirror x2 with this amazing border.  I am debating painting the frame black but am going to hold off till we have a permanent place because I don't know what my long term makeup décor will be.  Second up is Nicole OPI nail polish is hard-kourt fashionista for $3.  Considering these easily retail for $10+, it was a no brainer.  Also there which I am not sure about was a nail stamping kit.  For $3, I figured it was a cheap way to try it out.

$3 Mirror that looks more expensive that is

Nail stamping kit and Nicole by OPI nail polish, $3 each

Cheap Thrills

Went to the local Salvation Army on the way to visiting my parents and picked up a few things.  I love the one that's by my parents because I don't think I've ever walked out of there empty handed.  There are always one or 2 unique things I pick up.  I have a shopping problem and it's a good way to satisfy the need to shop without going broke.

First up is this top for $6 which looks plain jane but check out the back.  That's what I am talking about.... 

 

This purse is something I can use for special occasions or as a regular day to day purse seeing as how it still has straps.  This cost me a whopping $3.

Le Chateau Dress that I can wear to weddings or with a cardigan and leggings in the winter.  $6

 

Winter jacket that was half off for $10.  I like that there's a belt to cinch the waist because I have big hips, I find if my waist is not cinched, then I look like a big blob.

Finally, miscellaneous yarn ranging from $1-$2.  I want to knit a scarf again but don't want to spend $20 buying yarn from the store.  For that price, I might as well just buy a scarf from the store.

  Total spent: $33.95.  Not too shabby.

Got my cardswap gift card in the mail

Despite my concern that my gift card getting lost in the mail, it arrived safe and sound today.  Paranoid me had to check right away that there was indeed a $100 on the card and sure enough there was.  $4 saved which is not much but is a free starbucks drink to me.

There was also a $10 coupon if you sell a gift card of >$125 which I don't think I'll be able to take advantage of.

Now that I know this is legit, I am going to try check it every once in a while in hopes their grow their assortment of cards.  i.e. petro canada gift cards, I am looking for you.

Select Sedu Products 50% off on Folica.com

I love my sedu flat iron.  I've had their 1 & 1/2" iron for almost 7 years now if not more & it's still my go to straightener.  I have thick coarse hair so I need the wider plate or else it would take forever to straighten my hair.  Smaller plates work great for most but not for my crazy curly hair.  I also have their 1" curling iron which works great.  I'd love to get 1" straightener but it's a want and not a need even with the 50%.  If you are on the market for a straightener, get the sedu especially at these prices.

Boy Short swim bottoms spotted @ Joe Fresh

I only ever wear boyshort swim bottoms when it comes to swim wear. I can't do bikini bottoms. They make me uncomfortable and erk me out. I like them on other people, just not me. Call it my insecurities if you want. The thing is, I have no problem wearing a super skimpy top. Go figure....

These guys are pretty hard to find though, so normally when I find a pair that fits nicely, I fork over $ for it because I don't dare wait for them to go on sale. Chances are the colour & size I want is almost always gone by the time sales come around. So I was pleasantly surprised when I found a pair at Joe Fresh recently @ less than $20. I can't remember the exact price but I remember trying to make a mental note. They only had a navy blue one when I was at the store but said they were hoping to get other colors shortly. If I see a black one in stock, I'll definitely be buying one!

Hair & OPI Mini Merries

I decided to get my hair cut at The Bay. That's right The Bay. I am not picky on where I get my hair cut. I've done everything from hair schools to super pricey places and I've had both good and bad experiences. It's really about the person cutting your hair and not the place.

The Bay happened to be the first place I stepped into at the mall so I decided why not check out their salon. The cut cost $30 and can I say I am super happy with it! I was expecting a so-so hair cut...I don't know why I even went in with low expectations but I was so overdue for a haircut that pretty much anything would have done. Well the lady that cut my hair did an amazing job. I was so happy with it that I even asked her for her business card because I would definitely go back to her. Good hair stylists that know how to work with my hair are hard to come by.

While at The Bay, I noticed a half off table and I found this mini opi collection for half off! $7 total for 4 mini bottles whereas you can buy one full sized bottle for $12+ at Sephora. I love the mini size of it because I have countless bottles of half finished nail polishes. This summer, I am banning myself from buying any new polishes! There were still a couple of boxes left so if you want this, head on down to The Bay. They also had other half off deals but didn't strike my fancy.

2 for 1 gift box/sets at Lush

I was browsing the mall while waiting to pick up my dad and I walked into Lush and what do I see there? 2 for 1 Christmas gift sets. If there are products you like and you could care less that the box has a little tag that has some Christmas cheer on it, I think it's a really great deal. I bought some for some friends who I know like their stuff. The best part is they come wrapped in nice looking wrapping paper!

In other news, I need to figure out what I am doing with my RRSPs for the year! I have finally decided that I have the savings cushion I wanted and that it is time to lock some money up till I retire years and years away. The thing is I don't know what to invest it. Mutual Funds? GICs? Stocks? bahh!

Entertainment Book 2010 Toronto

I decided to buy the 2010 Toronto edition of the Entertainment Book. It's a book full of coupons with about 50% or more consisting of 2 for 1 foody type coupons. I paid $20 minus a $3 rebate for shopping through greatcanadianrebates.ca, so a total of $17. I was on the fence about buying it before because I wasn't sure whether I'd be spending extra trying to use the coupons going to places I typically wouldn't or actually save money going about my regular purchases. With the new discounted price, I decided to give it a whirl.

I just got the book last week and after looking through it, I think it'll be a winner. I saw a few coupons for places I regularly go to such as discounted movie tix (though I can get them for the same price at CAA) and 2 for 1 dining at restaurants I normally go to. I think it's safe to say, I'll break even but now the question is will I save money? I am going to try and keep track of when I use the coupons and see how much I end up saving in 2010 and see if it was a worth while purchase.

Does anybody have any experiences with the massive amounts of money they saved with the book?

Urban Decay at your local Winners!

I haven't posted in almost a month! Life's been throwing me things I didn't necessairly want to blog about to the whole world so I decided to take a break. Well the original break was going to be a week and that suddenly turned into weeks. It's like anything with life, once you fall out of the habit, it's a little hard to get back into it.

Now back to my regularly scheduled post. I was at Winners today and what did I see in the makeup section? Urban Decay eyeshadows for $4.99! These little guys retail for $16 at your local Sephora so it's a steal if you are able to get them at Winners. The only thing is the selection was small. I got Chains which is the colour pictured right. They also had some green colour that was not for me.

I plan on stopping by more often to see if they change their colours because at $5, it's even cheaper than most drugstore eyeshadows. They also had some Two Faced lip stuff, Bare Essential kits and Eco Tools brushes at good prices but none of those interested me.

Costco Girls Bomber Jackets

Went to costco today to pick up some medication. If you don't know, they have cheaper dispensing rates so the meds work out to be slightly cheaper than if I had gone to Shoppers for example. I was given a 20minute wait time to come back and pick up my meds so off I went to browse the store....

I like costco because their quality is typically great and also because you never know what hidden gems you'll discover. I am a big fan of their Tuff Athletics line for yoga pants and also if you don't know they're having a great deal on Heys Bags right now. My family ended up buying 3 bags! We orignally bought one over the weekend, loved the deal so much that we went back and bought two more. Check out this post at Listen To Lena if you want more details.

Anyhoos back to my browsing. Their girls bomber jacket similar to what's pictured above is on sale for $20 and I couldn't resist having a casual fall jacket to wear. I mean it's not something I'd wear to the office but for the weekend or just being casual, it's perfect. It's a girls jackets and either girls have gotten bigger or I've gotten tinier but I had no problems fitting into the jacket and in fact, I actually didn't get the largest size possible because it was too big for me!

Roots = No, Jacob = Yes

Remember my post about Roots Yoga and not being sure if they still exist as I couldn't find the line on their corporate website... however, I found out they have their own yoga studio :S Well on my way home from work yesterday I stopped by the Roots outlet hoping that if they were phasing their yoga clothing out, I could find stock at their outlets. Well no success and the employee tells me the line is still being sold at corporate stores. Not only were there no yoga clothes at the outlet, the prices on their clothing weren't that great to be honest.

I also ducked into the Jacob Outlet store because they occasionally have amazing deals (i.e. 50% off entire store multiple times a year). Well no 50% off this time but great prices like it was pretty much 50% off. I was able to score two button up work shirts @ $10, a tank top @ $5 and a tube top @ $5. I really love the tube top because it's one of those flowy tube tops that you can wear with jeans for a casual look or with a cardigan for a more dressy look. Awesome because I love double duty clothing. If you have an outlet near you, I'd recommend dropping by. They had other great deals on baby ts, dress pants, dresses, jackets....you name it but I really don't need any of those things.

My button up shirt collection is fairly small as I typically only wear them when I have a client meeting and I need to dress corporate and snazzy all at the same time.

MAC Friends & Family sale online from June 16th-18th

MAC Canada is having a friends and family sale online. I think the code is SUMO and you get 25% of all their products online. Shipping is free once you reach $60. On my to get one of these days list is their blacktrack fluidline but there is nothing else I am itching for so instead of getting it online and having to pay for shipping, I am holding off. I probably wouldn't save too much once shipping is factored in anyways.

Normally I'd get something >$60 just so I could get the free shipping, even more so because I missed out on the warehouse sale BUT, I am being a good girl and holding off for now.

Self Restraint

I was @ Old Navy yesterday & they have an amazing deal going on. 50% off already reduced items. The BF got 2 shirts @ $2.74 each! How amazing is that? The ladies section had sweaters for $10 & under with the deal. I was this close to getting one. So close that I had picked it out, gotten my size & even the colour I wanted. Then after thinking about it, realized I really don't need another generic sweater in my closet. I asked myself the question whether I'd want it had it been regular price. The answer was no. With that in mind, I got nothing. Yay me!

Boxing Day Shopping

So who went shopping?

I go just about every year for clothes. I am a girl after all. I have the patience to sift through clothes & wait in lines for great deals. At least for a few hours. So I went this year again. What's the damage? $120 on clothes & $30 on a makeup brush set from costco. So $150 in total. I am also debating returning about $30 worth of clothes back as I am not sure I will actually wear it. Pretty good if I do say so myself.

The brush set at costco as seen below is an awesome deal. I started getting into makeup a little over a year ago. I have a pretty decent eyeshadow collection and brushes are key to a good application. I am willing to pay the extra buck for a quality soft brush that will last the test of washing & other abuse. This set has gotten great reviews at makeupalley.com & I trust the girls on there. A decent makeup brush goes for $10+. MAC easily has brushes that go up to $40 and that is something I am not willing to pay yet. So to get 10 brushes plus a makeup roll for $30 is an amazing deal.

Smart Set Sale

Smart Set is having a 25% off everything in their store sale. Normally I wait for items to go on sale but one thing that hardly ever goes on sales are their satiny tank tops. Sometimes, colours get discontinued & that colour will go on sale but hardly ever does the black & white ones go on sale so I took this opportunity to buy them.