A Time To Give

I am so jazzed about a new blog carnival:  A Time to Give.  Most of you who read here know that I am passionately committed to the idea of giving --- using coupons and hunting down deals and steals just means that I can give at a level that would never be possible otherwise.  I love the way Saving and Giving put it --- "part of the reason we live frugally is to be able to give generously".  Yes, yes, yes and AMEN even... that is so on the spot.

We give in a number of ways --  one of which I want to share here --- many of you know about donating to the food pantry etc ---- well, we also support our local Humane Society.

I have to admit that when this began I had no idea that the Humane Society needed anything other than time and money.  Little did I know.

The Humane Society ALWAYS needs laundry detergent, garbage bags, paper towels, Q-tips (for cleaning ears), cleaning products (for cages and floors), and shampoo (dogs gotta get clean too).  Our local Humane Society also runs a Pet Food Pantry (how cool is that?)  They discovered that many of the people who were surrendering animals were doing so because they simply couldn't afford to feed them.  With the pet food pantry, those dogs and cats can remain in their homes with the people who love them.  It is less heartache for everyone!! and fewer animals to manage in the shelter.

Last week with the Unilever deals at our supermarket, I was able to bring in 12 bottles of laundry detergent!! It cost me NOTHING -- just the time to organize the deal, clip the coupons, and run the two transactions.  The free Mighty Dog coupon in the paper a few weeks ago yielded a pile of free dog food for the Pet Food Pantry.

This week, I'm giving to our friends at the Humane Society in a different way.  I'm cleaning up at CVS on the Mars Candy bars -- using the $1/2 coupon from the paper and my free Mars coupons from the Chocolate Fridays to get a whopping total of 30 Mars Candy bars --- for NOTHING (actually CVS is paying me $5 to carry them out of the store.)  I'm setting up two candy bar bouquets --- 15 candy bars each (they're big -- the first one is done already).  One of them will go to the Humane Society as a treat for the many volunteers who work countless hours cleaning cages and walking dogs.  The tippity top bar is a $100,000 Bar --- with a note --- If I could give you this, I gladly would --- in the meanwhile, enjoy this basket of appreciation

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