Say Yes to the Dress First Communion edition...extreme dress shopping

Starting to look for a dress for the princess' First Holy Communion. She of course will expect the perfect dress, what girl wouldn't. I should never have allowed her to watch the communion episode of My Big Fat Gypsy wedding. She even suggested asking her cousin, an aspiring fashion desginer to create a dress for her. Nice idea however he's busy living the life of a HS senior.

I've been looking online to get some ideas. As you might well imagine there are price points ranging from reasonable to extremely outrageous. Now if I could only get her to stand still long enough to get a good measurement I could probably shop alone. I'm not the most patient when it comes to shopping with her. Hey, she's a squirmy kid. There have been a few shopping adventures gone awry and I really don't want to add another to the list. Wish me luck

To coupon or not to coupon,that is the question

I watched in awe a program on TLC, Extreme Couponing. I like a great deal as much as the next girl but this is way over the top. Thrift is in my DNA however a 30-40 min grocery shopping adventure is my limit. Buying some things in bulk make sense but not everything. My trips to the warehouse club are twice a month, and with a very specific list. There is only so much room in the house. I also browse the weekly sales flyers for the grocery store; there is one store I prefer over the others. I see no sense in spending valuable resources such as gas and time shopping loss leaders. My usual savings is 25- 30% with sales and coupons,and very little effort on my part. Time is money they say. There is no such thing as free anything, these shoppers are spending their time in order to save some $. I figured out that if I spent the amount of time on the couponing and shopping thing I'd actually be losing money as the time would be take from from my billable work hrs.