Mikey D

I find the whole Ohio State story very interesting. As a former Michigan fan and life-long OSU hater, watching OSU's downfall has made me feel a sense of subdued joy. But what I can't stand is all this talk about Pryor and the seemingly never-ending debate on whether athletes should get paid. Ugh. The answer is NO.

I don't understand why a free education, room and board, meals, trips across the country, and the chance to play collegiate athletics isn't enough.

But the kids come from underprivileged backgrounds! They don't have the financial support as some other students!

And? Think about the alternative. You don't take the scholarship. What are you doing instead? For most of these athletes, college would be a pipe dream without sports because of their academic grades. You want money? Quit the team. Quit school. Go work at McDonalds. Then you'll have money. Or you can do what a majority of college students do and live off peanuts, and just have fun. You're an athlete in college! Why can't you just enjoy it??? YOU GET A FREE RIDE. Stop being so greedy. I would have killed for that. I'm sorry you don't have extra money for tattoos and fancy whips. I shed a tear for you.

Well schools could throw them a little bone...just a little pocket cash...

Yeah, just to the football players? If you give spending money to the football team, you better be prepared to do the same for the baseball, basketball, and tennis teams. All sports. Men's and women's. Do you think athletic departments and universities are prepared to shell out that kind of money?

Think about all the money they make off ticket sales, jerseys, etc! They must be rolling in dough!

Only the most high-profile programs have a chance at making cash. And if they do, the revenue generated is dispersed amongst the other lower revenue generating sports. To put it in perspective, Duke basketball even lost money last year. Duke! Shaka Smart, head coach at VCU, gets a million dollar raise for making the Final Four. Where does the money come from? A tuition hike, not a substantial amount, but enough to bring the VCU an extra million dollars from admissions. Well what do ya know...And don't get me started on Title IX. A blessing for women's sports, but an economic burden on athletic departments.

Look, the NCAA is just trying to create an equal playing field for all its student athletes. Do they have a perfect system right now? No, definitely not. But it is what it is right now, and receiving benefits is against the rules. That's why I feel little sympathy for Tressel getting the axe, or Pryor feeling the heat. Do things the right way, act like a student-athlete should, and there are no problems. If OSU did, Tressel would still be the head coach and Pryor is leading OSU to another BCS bowl, is the big man on campus, and continues to improve on his NFL stock. Not thinking about possibly moving to a D3 coaching job and worrying about the supplemental draft that may or may not happen...

Anyway...

Shifting gears completely, I noticed that my students have no concept of time. They can read a clock and everything, but time means little to them. I find this sad and fascinating at the same time.

My clock in my classroom has been off for the last month or so. It's one hour fast, and I don't know how it got that way, but it is. I could easily change it back to the right time, but that would require me getting a chair out, standing on it, and turning the knob on the back of the clock, and I'm too lazy for that. Heck, just subtract one hour exactly and you have the current time. Not hard. Plus I'm all set for daylight savings time in the fall.

But my kids don't get it. If a student wants to use the bathroom, he needs to right down the time on his hall pass and get it signed by the teacher. Today I had a student at 8:30 in the morning ask to use the bathroom, and he wrote down 9:30, the time on my clock. Maybe he was just rushing? Maybe. But this happens all the time. It's the first period of the day! How do you not get the 8 o'clock hour correct?

And there are times when kids will write passes later in the day and they will do double-takes at the clock and say things like, "Is it really X:XX o'clock?" I always just shake my head, because if it were really an hour ahead, they wouldn't be in my class anymore. How do they not know this? How do they not know the time when they're in a certain class period? It's baffling to me.

And finally...

OUR WEDDING DATE IS SET.

October 12th, 2012. Book it. We've also secured a house in the Outer Banks, and it's beautiful. Adam and Kevin, I will try to send you a link to it in the next couple days.

~Mikey D

I think a lot of people have this idea that a “couponer” is just a really, really cheap person. These couponers seem to go to all these efforts to save money, but in the end is it truly worth the hassle? When does couponing cross the line from making economical sense to creating an overly frugal consumer?

For Grace and me, it never crosses the line. Saving money is saving money, plain and simple. If you can do it, do it. When we plan (yes, plan) weekly shopping trips, we never deprive ourselves of anything we want. We sit down and make a shopping list of items we’ll need for our weekly dinners, lunches, snacks, desserts, etc, and we buy it. It’s not like we are saving money by having our weekly dinners consist of Ramen noodles and Easy-Mac. But we do find ways to save money through coupons, bonus card savings, sales, and in-store specials- like most smart couponers- and we use those deals to our advantage.

See we’ve learned the couponer philosophy. The trick isn’t to spend less by buying less; the trick is to spend less while buying more. And more is good.

This week Grace shaved $16 off our average grocery bill total. While that’s not an astronomically large number, it’s still pretty darn good. We bought everything we needed for the week, but more importantly we were able to contribute our growing stockpile. Here are the “extras” we bought this week:

-2 tubes of toothpaste
-1 toothbrush
-1 large bottle of mustard
-2 bottles of dish soap
-2 jars of spaghetti sauce
-1 box of penne pasta
-1 box of spaghetti
-1 Polish sausage (free)
-2 packages of rice (free)
-2 bottles of salad dressing
-2 boxes of cereal
-1 box of taco shells
-1 bag of jelly beans
-1 bag of Reece’s peanut butter cups

These are all things that went straight into our stockpile. The best part? We paid around a dollar or less for everything on the list. These are all items that when we plan future dinners we will have on hand and will not have to pay full price at the grocery store. Of course my favorite part was getting the sausage and rice for free. There is nothing like pulling an item off the shelf and knowing it is 100% free.

In all, Grace and I received a stellar $52 off our bill because of coupons, bonus card savings, and specials. But we weren’t done!

We noticed that Target was having a special on Gillette Fusion razors- the exact razor I use. I have very sensitive skin, so electric razors don’t work out for me (I wish they did, though). I can really only shave twice a week without getting my skin super irritated. The plus side of only shaving a couple times a week is that my razors last longer. The downside is that when they go dull I have to pay $10 for a new one. So when there is special on razors, I like to take advantage of it.

So Target had a special where if you bought two razors, you’d receive a $5 Target gift card. Grace and I had been collecting $4-off Fusion razor coupons the last couple months, and had four of them saved. The plan was to go to Target and buy four razors, save $16 with the coupons, and then receive $10 in gift cards, which we would then turn around and use to buy two bottles Aveeno face soap- coupled with a $3 off coupon we had- to essentially get the $6.50 soap for free.

Mission accomplished. In all, we spent $25 on 4 Gillette Fusion razors and 2 bottles of Aveeno face soap. The retail price of those items was $55- so we ended up saving $30, or 55% off retail. With the razors purchased today, and the pack I already had in our stockpile, I am now set on razors through Christmas. It’s an expense I do not have to worry about, especially in the summer, when money is a little tighter.

This week Grace and I saved a grand total of $82 on our purchases. So is couponing worth it? For us, a full pantry, peace of mind, and 82 extra dollars in our bank account makes it all worth it.

~Mikey D

The pantry is almost full...

...working on the upstairs closet.

Grace's coupon binder.

With coupons.