Completely free HelloFresh boxes

HelloFresh is back on Swagbucks. You get 1000 Swagbucks for signing up for a plan that includes a percentage off your first several boxes. If you pick two meals per week for two people, the first box ends up being $10.95 including shipping ($40 off). The next box is $30 off, so, $20.95. Then the next two are $10 off, so $40.95.

I set my HelloFresh to send me the first box right away and paid $10.95. Then I skipped several weeks. My Swagbucks credited, which means I got the box for free, or actually a negative dollar or so. (You can redeem Swagbucks to get a $25 Visa gift card for 2175 SB, and then add the $25 to your Amazon account which gets you $25.50, which means 1000 SB = $11.70 using them this way.)

You know how I've mentioned that the cat is an asshole? And how the cat is such an asshole that I made a label just for all the times the cat shows up and bothers things that I'm trying to blog? Well, the cat is an asshole. Seriously cat, no one said you could go and stand on the HelloFresh box and make a judgy face like that.

If you don't already use Swagbucks, my referral link is: https://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Locomotive1313

When I signed up for HelloFresh, it gave me four free boxes (six meals each box) to send to other people. They are actually free, including shipping. You will need a credit/debit card (I suggest one of the Swagbucks Visa gift cards for these sorts of subscription things so you aren't risking it charging your actual bank account) on which it can run a pending charge of a dollar. I still have two free boxes left to send to people. Note: When you click on the e-mail to redeem the offer, it will commit you to receiving the free box for the upcoming week, so don't click yet if you have other plans for next week, and check out the menus here to make sure there are things you want.

First two people to comment with an e-mail address to which I can send an invite will get a free box of six meals. 

Preference for people who are struggling to afford food, can't get benefits or enough benefits, etc. I won't require proof, but please be honest.

Make a lamp shade for your thrift store lamp for about $2

So, a few days ago, I was trying to figure out what to do with a broken IKEA floor lamp. Could the pieces be recycled, or could someone use it for something? The hollow threaded part that connected the bottom section of the, uh, stalk? Stem? Post? Pole? to the base (I think this part is called a nipple. Seriously.) had broken off and broken in half, and of course it was an unusual size, because IKEA. I actually had a package of these in graduated sizes, because I once fixed a ceiling fixture I got from a thrift store, so 1) I was able to try them and see that this fixture was in between two adjacent standard sizes and 2) while they were no longer in the original package, I'm pretty sure they're called nipples. Hurr hurr.

I eventually realized I could just take out two of the three sections and make a table lamp. How would I do that though, when the post sections are threaded onto the cord? Oh, easy. Unwire the whole thing, reassemble, and then rewire! Some friends on social media were placing bets as to whether it would work and whether they would need to call 911. Assholes.

It did work, and on the first try. But then I needed a lamp shade. Of course lamp shades often cost more than the lamp, when we're taking about basic stuff like this, and thrift stores never have shades because lamps last longer than the shade. I started looking around for something I could make a lampshade out of. I was thinking I could probably use poster board and reinforce it with coat hangers or something, but then I saw this wastebasket that I got for a dollar at Dollar Tree.

The lampshade was the perfect shape and size, was lightweight, and the mesh made it even easier to sew fabric to it than it would have been with a cardboard shade. So, what I did was:

1) Cut the bottom out of the wastebasket. I guess you could actually leave it on if you like, as it wouldn't be in the way and light can of course pass through it. I cut mine off because lampshades don't typically have a top, and it made it easier to attach fabric later on. I used wire cutters. Heavy-duty scissors or a utility knife would work well too.

2) Find something that has a hole in it that is slightly larger than a lightbulb base. This seems to be the most secure way to attach a lampshade to a lamp, and is what IKEA lamps use. It also allows for any type of bulb. I used a closet pole socket like this one, since I had one lying around in a drawer. Mine were cheaper, I think $1 for the pair. You could also make something similar out of a fairly sturdy piece of plastic, like a plastic lid out of the recycling. It just needs to fit around the bulb and be able to have holes drilled in it. The closet rod hardware was perfect, since it already had three holes. If I were building it from scratch, I'd probably put four so it would be easier to get it centered and taut. 

3) Attach the middle part to the basket. I used wire to do this. The wire I had is thin craft-type wire, so I twisted it and wrapped it until it was fairly rigid. If I were purchasing wire, I'd probably use something a bit heavier, but not quite as hard to bend as, say, a coat hanger. The basket made it easy to get centered and level, because I could just count how many diamonds down from the edge and count how many diamonds were around the basket and divide by three. Measuring would also work, but that would involve getting up and finding one more thing, so I didn't do it.

4) Find fabric to cover the basket with. I unfortunately didn't take measurements or photograph every step, but you'll need roughly a foot by three feet maybe of fabric. If you wrap it around the basket and it fully covers it, you're good. Any material should work. If you aren't the type to own fabric waiting to be used for projects, use a good part of a worn sheet/blanket/pillowcase, or a shirt you don't need any longer.

5) Attach the fabric to the basket. The easiest and most secure way by far is with a needle and thread. Wrap the fabric around the basket so it covers the whole thing, trim it so you have a seam that runs straight up the shade (parallel to the pole), and then sew it to the basket. This part will be hidden, so no need to stitch neatly. Then, once one end is attached, stretch the fabric all the way around until it overlaps where you just sewed. Trim it so you have a straight edge with about an inch overlap. Fold the fabric under to make a nice seam. Then stitch through all three layers of fabric and around the basket wires. I did one diagonal stitch around each diamond.

6) Next, trim the top and bottom of the fabric so it barely overlaps the basket. If your fabric has pretty much no stretch to it, overlap about half an inch. Fold the fabric over the basket. Go around the edge and stitch it so the basket is between both layers of fabric, stretching it taut as you go. A whipstitch/overcast stitch/whatever you want to call it (shown in the picture) is going to work best at holding the fabric taut and looking the best. The sewing involved here requires really no skill; it's basically the same as those wooden sewing cards my kids had when they were preschoolers. The equipment needed is just a needle and thread, found in any drugstore sewing kit. If you're really opposed to sewing though, it should be possible to do this with hot glue or duct tape or something, or ribbons covering the edges, or whatever works for you.

Have I mentioned that the cat is an asshole?

Lots of stacked coupon deals at Stop and Shop right now

$32.73 for everything you see here

Stop and Shop has certainly been making the stacked deals easier lately. So, if you haven't already done this, you can go to their website and register your Stop and Shop card, and then you can load coupons onto it. This is a feature they've had for a while. Over the past couple of months though, they've been featuring the same coupons that coupons.com has. This means you can use the Stop and Shop card and the paper coupon together, resulting in twice the savings (or 3x if the coupon is 99 cents or less).

At the moment, many of these same coupons are also on SavingStar. Depending on the price of the item, it can be free or close to free after you use all three coupons on one item. Some examples that are currently active:

General Mills Tiny Toast cereal:
rings up as $3.00 (on sale until Friday, normal price $3.99)
-$1.00 Stop and Shop coupon
-$1.00 Coupons.com paper coupon
-$1.00 SavingStar rebate =
...come on, you can do the math here. Free cereal, beeotch!

Cascadian Farms Granola:

Same price, same coupons, same deal. Also free!  

Other cereals had higher shelf prices or smaller coupons, so they ended up being 50 cents or a dollar per box. 

Old El Paso vegetarian refried beans:

rings up as $0.74 (they're being discontinued at S&S, usually $1.69) x 3 = $2.22
-$1.00 on any three items Stop and Shop coupon
-$1.00 on any three items Coupons.com paper coupon
-$1.00 on any three items SavingStar rebate
= -$0.78 for the three cans

Note: They only had one can on the shelf, so I ended up getting two 99-cent taco seasonings and the one can, so it was -$0.28 instead of -$0.78. Still, um, I'd say that's a good deal.

Totino's Pizza Rolls (big package):

3/$10 (on sale until Friday, usually $5.19 each)
-$0.75 off of three Stop and Shop coupon
-$0.75 off of three Coupons.com coupon
-$0.75 doubled coupon
-$0.75 SavingStar rebate
= 3 large packages of pizza rolls for $7.00 instead of $15.57

Purex laundry detergent 150oz:

I did this over two trips, so there are only two bottles shown, but here's how to get the best deal:

On sale for $5.99 (on sale until Friday, usually $9.99)
Bought three of them, used three dollar-off coupons from their website
SavingStar rebate: $5 off $25 purchase (it goes by the full price, not the sale price)
SavingStar rebate: $1 off any Purex purchase (it will credit both rebates)
Pay $14.97, get $6 back
= $8.97 instead of $29.97 for three jugs of detergent

Oh, and I'll earn $1.50 wotth of Swagbucks for the 15 Coupons.com coupons that I printed through the Swagbucks site. It takes 2-3 months for them to credit, but since I regularly use coupons from there, I see the deposits showing up regularly. Total of $32.73 includes SavingStar rebate, iBotta rebate, and Swagbucks.

Have I mentioned that the cat is an asshole?! I may need to make a label for that.

Another meal for a buck or two

I forgot to snap a picture until they were mostly gone

Here's tonight's dinner, which I tossed together with some stuff from Fair Foods and a few things I had in the pantry. It probably cost about two dollars for everything.

I make these potato wedges quite often. They're ridiculously easy; I just chop up a potato, toss with Goya Adobo, paprika, and dill. Then place on a greased baking sheet and cook at the same temperature as your other stuff (usually around 350-400) until soft and slightly browned. You can also toss with flour to give them a bit more of a skin, but I didn't bother. They're really just vessels for condiments anyway, right? I served them with a variety of condiments (obviously) and some veggie burgers made using my usual recipe that I've mentioned here before. The potato wedges were made using potatoes from Fair Foods (part of a bag of about 20 lbs of produce acquired for $2) and spices I had in the cabinet, so they cost maybe 10 cents for a batch large enough for the whole family.

The veggie burgers cost probably a dollar or less to make about 12 of them. It's the recipe I've talked about before -- equal parts cooked steel-cut oats and equal parts black beans cooked until they're basically like refried beans, then mixed with desired seasonings, formed into patties, and baked or pan-fried. The buns are a bit sad-looking, but they were 66 cents for a bag of eight of them at Stop and Shop, so I can't complain. I opened them up and tossed them in the oven for about five minutes to toast them, which always helps cheap white bread. I sauteed some onions and mushrooms, also from Fair Foods, to put on the burgers for those who wanted them.

We also had some corn, also from the Fair Foods haul. A friend of mine recently taught me the method of putting them in the oven still in the husks and baking them for 20-30 minutes. It's much easier than my usual method of indoor-corn-cooking, in which I basically try to grill it except in frying pan or in the oven. I do like corn better if it's slightly grilled, but this was just fine and it was so easy to just stick it in the oven and leave it there until it was done.

And you know how I said the cat is an asshole? These pictures were taken with me sitting a foot away from the cat, trying to shove the cat off the table. See how effective it was? See how afraid and remorseful the cat looks? See how much the cat cares about anything other than corn right now? Yeah. Be on the lookout soon for posts about how to sell cats on eBay. 

Where is the cheapest place to buy cat food and cat litter?

So, we seem to have another cat. I'm not really sure why. It decided it wanted to live with us, and who am I to say no?

The cat is pretty cool. Apparently the things have no short-term memory, so they do things like flinging themselves up on the windowsill in horror and amazement every time a car drives by. Or repeatedly trying to jump up on things that are too high or trying to run under something that's too low. And of course being absolutely stunned. Every time.

It's possible we got a dumb cat.

Either way though, bitches gotta eat, and that goes for feline ones too.

So, food for this thing. The cat will eat wet food and dry food. The vet says that it's best to give both, since the less-processed food is better for organ and digestive health, and the kibble is good for their teeth.

Here are the best deals on canned food I've found so far:

This 24-pack of 5.5-ounce cans at Amazon is $9.49 with free prime next-day delivery. That comes out to about 7 cents per ounce.

Edit: Make sure you are shopping at Amazon through Swagbucks, so you can get points for every dollar you spend.

Dollar Tree has 13-ounce cans of Friskies for $1.00, which is also about 7 cents an ounce.

Dollar Tree is also probably the best source for pet toys, bowls, brushes, cat pee cleaner, and so forth. They seem to be decent quality. I would probably avoid the toys though if you have a dog or cat who chews toys to the point that pieces come off and they could swallow them; the pet stores make expensive chew-proof ones for pets who do this.

Now, for dry food:

Dollar Tree has 14-ounce bags of dry food for a dollar. I haven't bought any, and I'm a bit hesitant because it's an off brand. I wouldn't normally care about this for human food, which is highly regulated, but pet food doesn't seem to be, and I've heard horror stories. If anyone has more information about this food producer, I might consider it. (Some Dollar Tree products are actually reputable brands repackaged.)

So, moving on to a little more pricey. If your cat isn't picky, it's possible to get cheap food by buying whatever brand is on sale and has a coupon. Purina often has coupons available on the coupon sites. They often run one that's a dollar off any size bag, and they make a small bag that's $3 or so. The coupons will print two times per computer, and you can follow the various coupon matchup sites to see who has it on sale, and then you can often get the bags for a dollar or two.

Purina has an online pyramid scheme, which was previously getting me a free huge bag every 6-8 weeks, but apparently people were reproducing the coupons, so they're physically mailing the bag of cat food and it requires a lot more points to earn. Still might be worth it for free stuff.

If you're really in a bind, Reddit has a "Random Acts of Pet Food" forum where you can explain your need and people will help you out. Like any of the "Random Acts" pages, it's not meant to be sustainable and is intended to just use once when you run into an actual emergency. Please don't take advantage of these pages, as they're such a great thing for the people who participate and I would hate to see them so overrun by scammers that people stop donating.

EDIT: I should include cat litter too, huh? This is the cheapest clumping litter I've found. It's $13.28 for 40 pounds with free prime shipping. Dollar Tree usually has bags of clay litter for, well, a dollar, but my cat* seems to only use the sand-type litter and will use the couch if said litter is not provided in at least one litter box, because apparently this cat doesn't support using coupons and finding sales.

*The other cat**, not this new one

**I may need to call them The Asshole Cat and The Dumb Cat or something to differentiate