I call that getting Tricked by a Business!

Do you ever feel like you’re going to have to go to war to keep your hard earned money? I never really felt ripped off before but in 2012, I scrutinized every receipt and every transaction and wow what an eye opener ~ we were being soaked every which way we turned!  Everywhere I examined our expenses (it seems) the companies that we did business with changed their rules. Let’s start with the fact that my pharmacy used to fill 90 day scripts on our 5 dollar co-pay and changed it to 30 day scripts so that we will incur 3x the co-pay!  I switched to a new pharmacy who hadn’t changed their policy ~ but I’m guessing it’s only a matter of time until they do. Watch out for anything you signed up for online too….somewhere in the microscopic fine print, you are giving them authorization to ‘auto’ rebill you when you pay the first time. Companies like:  Jibjab, Spirit Air and Smilebox are just a few that I have had to fight like HELL to cancel the membership and have my money returned to me! Then there are the reward points that I used to accrue which would pay out about 100 dollars every six months; today I just discovered that my ‘type’ of debit card no longer qualifies as part of the rewards program….of course it doesn’t BITCHES! We also found out that a new law was put into place requiring us to pay a higher premium for our health insurance (because spouse is a state employee) which equates to an additional 5k per year…that’s a loss of approximately 400 dollars a month. What’s even worse is the tax rates for the average Joe were allowed to expire and so we are looking at another 1800 in lost income in 2013.  Add this 150 loss to the 400 and yep you got it, our backwards income slid to a net loss of 550 per month.  My husband has not had a raise in 4 years and so again, I say to myself “How will I do battle to keep my hard earned $?” I forgot to mention that I routinely find cost errors on my receipts from most retailers.  It doesn’t happen just once in a while either!  I would say that for every 10 purchases I make from Meijer, Walmart, CVS (and other various retailers) at least 2 of them have the wrong amount charged to me. And it’s always OVER charges; it’s a rare day when they accidently ‘under’charge me.  Trust me, I think it’s happened 3x in my life ~ did I say anything?  That’s a HELLA NO! So back to my battle plan!  Extreme couponing here I come…and Sweep staking HERE I COME! FO SHO! In 2012 my kids saw no spring break vacation; their lips did not even touch a hot lunch at school. I slashed my office expenses (like printing everything in greyscale and draft mode on my printer and P.S. Bubye to Real Comp!) and worked from home as much as I could. I bought in bulk and I made 99.9% of our meals from scratch. I discovered a 2.49 a bottle Merlot (YAY, LOL that’s a HUGE victory for me!) I started shopping at Aldi’s and the Food Depot more and even used my sisters 25% VIP membership (for a 16 dollar savings at Unique Boutique Thrift store in Minneapolis) when I was there in November.  Did I pay for piece of luggage to bring the (new with tags) items home? That’s another HELLA NO!  I shipped them flat rate for 11 dollars from the post office in Mpls…a piece of luggage on Sun Country was going to cost me 40! I color my own hair (colorsilk on sale routinely @ CVS for 2 for 5.00) and I have begun giving the dog little trims (to bridge the gap) to the ever extended distance between groomer appointments. When Siggy turned sweet 16 she didn’t get a blow-out party for 100, she got a tropical themed table (dollar store) at home and a HUGE pink cake that I lovingly made from scratch (LOL it cracked in half from the weight of the frosting) There will be more yellow dot purchases from Younkers, more Ebaying of collectibles that I retrieved dirt cheap from garage sales and more clever ways devised to stretch a buck.  Watered down OJ really tastes quite good since its way too sweet to begin with! I’ll be that annoying person with a FREAKIN suitcase full of alphabetized coupons and I will be dragging that bitch around with me wherever I go from this day forward ~ COUNT ON IT! And to you plastic eye glass manufacturers that slap designer labels on all of the SAME (made in China) cheap shit ~ yeah I’m talkin to you Henryford optimize, I found Walmarteyes for 1/5 of the price…so you can say goodbye to your scratch protector crap and all that other unnecessary BS that you lay on to me and other consumers. If my kids want lenses that aren’t scratched, well then by GOD they had better be careful with their glasses! Rapper Mackmore said it best: ”Limited edition, let’s do some simple addition,50 dollars for a t-shirt, that’s just some BLEEP! I call that getting swindled and pimped, BLEEP! I call that getting tricked by business, that shirt’s hella dough, and having the same one as six other people in this club is a hella don’t Peep game, come take a look through my telescope!  Then you hella won’t, man you hella won’t!