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This past month or so has net Amanda and I some great deals. We’re bargain shoppers and we’re not afraid to admit that. Here are some examples of ways we’ve saved recently. Afterwards I listed some tips on saving money. If you don’t want to read about all my deals I got, at least read the tips. They have helped us tons.

Here we go…

November 23
We stand in line at 4:30am the day after thanksgiving to purchase roughly $400 worth of electronics for about $220.

That’s $180 saved thus far on $400 of stuff.

November 30
I have lunch with my mom for my birthday. She mentions that she needs to go to H&H Furniture for something. I tag along at her request. She takes me to the scratch and dent appliance section and tells me to pick out a clothes dryer. SWEET! Ours was broken and we needed a new one. I looked a bit and noticed a washer and dryer set. Retail was $900. Scratch and dent price, $500. You may scoff at the idea of buying damaged merchandise but get this… the dents were on the sides that faced each other. Once installed in the house you can’t see the dents. My mom then upped her offer and decided to buy both of them for us. Being the bargain shopper she is, she asked for a better price. She got it. Final price, $450.

That’s $630 saved thus far on $1300 of stuff.

December ?
I asked a few ladies for some help on buying Amanda a jewelry armoire. I had a $50 budget and was led to a great product for $40 on the Bed Bath & Beyond website. It seemed to be a good deal. On my way to BB&B I stopped by Target to pick up some household stuff and saw it. An armoire with over twice the capacity and better features overall. It was on sale from $80 to $50. Needless to say, I bought it and Amanda loved it!

That’s $660 saved thus far on $1380 of stuff.

December 18
Amanda and I go to Sears to look at freezers just to see what’s available. Lo and behold we find a scratch and dent 9 cubic foot chest freezer. Retail $300. Discount price $210. After some bargaining and a few tactics I got the sales guy to $180. Nice $120 dent that is purely cosmetic. If you want the whole story read here.

That’s $780 saved thus far on $1680 of stuff.

December 26
Grocery shopping can kill your budget - or lack thereof - so Amanda and I shop strategically. We look at the different sale papers from the different grocery stores in the area. All online. This way we know where to shop, which is usually a couple different places for different items. Our most recent shopping trip got us a big pack of chicken for $5 instead of $15, buy one get one free seafood (shrimp, grouper) and cereal, cheap frozen pizzas, and a lot of the usual. Total bill was $134 but we saved $67 according to the bill. We got what we needed and stocked up on things we didn’t need yet but would need soon and would be better to buy now while on sale. We had a brand new chest freezer to put it all in. It definitely pays to plan shopping trips.

That’s $847 saved thus far on $1881 of stuff.

December 28 (Today)
My mom just moved into a smaller place. She didn’t need a house for her and two boys with both of us now out of the house so she got a house sized for her. (Smart lady) That being the situation she decided to sell her dining room table and six chairs. Up until this point Amanda and I had a 30 year old table we got free from an aunt that had a couple broken chairs and didn’t have the prettiest finish in the world. We jumped on the chance to buy this $1500 table for $500. It is nice. Seriously. It has a great finish with great carvings along the edges of the surface and the pedestal. We love it.

That’s $1847 saved thus far on $3381 of stuff.

Summary and Some Tips

Obviously, Amanda and I know how to spend less and get more. It’s not a boast, just true. We studied it. We sought out these methods. Through some great books, courses, podcasts, and conversations we learned these methods and principles and more. That said, let me quickly list a few ideas to help you save money.

1. Plan. Nothing will help you get rid of your money quicker than lack of a plan. This plan can be reading the grocery store circular to see what’s on sale, making a list and sticking to it, or deciding not to buy something until it’s discounted. Example… we waited on a freezer until we found a scratch and dent. We wanted new but not new prices.
2. Shop around. By this I don’t mean to shop more but to do comparative pricing. Look around town, call around town, look online. If you’re going to buy new, pay as little as possible. It’s easy to find deals online at places like Amazon or PriceGrabber. Doing a search at those sites will help you save big on many things like electronics and housewares. I rarely buy books in town any longer. Even with shipping they usually cost less at Amazon. I get all my camera gear through deals I find on PriceGrabber. It pays to look around a little.
3. Look for discounts. Wait for discounts. Most of Amanda’s Christmas gifts were bought at 60% off retail. I got her 9 pairs of earrings instead of only a couple because of the discounts I waited on. Used or damaged isn’t always bad. Scratch and dent items are great ways to save. Used items (like tables and chairs) are easy ways to spend less. This includes cars! You could even try yard sales and auctions. We’ve done those too.

In summary, there are deals to be had, we just have to look for them.

I’m taking a break before Amanda and I head to my birthday party at our friend Matt’s SWEET… hear me… SWEET condo on St. Simons Island right on the beach. It’s hot.

I want to tell you about an epiphany I had during lunch. I looked at Amanda who still had a little flour on her shoulder from making cake batter earlier in the day. This cake batter was for a cake she was making me. A castle cake. With a moat. It’s pretty sweet.

What happened next might have changed my life.

I looked at it and smiled. She asked kind of cautiously what I was laughing at. I told her I was looking at the flour on her shoulder and it was like hearing “I love you” again. What says I love you better than a castle cake for your birthday? At that time, nothing. But later in the day seeing this residue of her love for me, I couldn’t ignore it. It was a reminder, proof, that she loves me. I got teary eyed as I told her all of this. She saw it and then I got a big sweet hug out of the deal. What a great morning.

So, just like Jesus would have done with this opportunity, here’s a lesson…

Many times we do silly things or things that really don’t seem like that big of a deal. This castle cake is both of those at it’s core. It’s eggs, flour, and icing. It’s in the shape of a castle. On the surface it’s not that impressive just hearing about it. But in my shoes… the shoes of a guy who’s wife just spent all morning making him a cake… this IS a big deal.

That cake said “I love you”. It screamed it.

The flour on her shoulder echoed it.

Right now I’m telling you about it and the echo rings again.

So guys, remember to do silly things. Do things that don’t seem that big. Do these silly little things for people because you love these people. You never know how long the echoes of this love may ring. You may never know how it will impact their lives. You may never know how many other people will receive the effects of this love.

On this note I’d love to recommend a book called “Making Ripples” by Mike Breaux. It’s all about this sort of thing.

May all of you make many echoes and many ripples of love.

So as my birthday got closer, my family was asking me what I wanted for presents.

It was easy being a kid and making a list that said “Nintendo games, money, and a Ghostbusters plasma pack”. Gone are those days.

Now I feel like an old person. When asked recently, I’ve said “a washer & dryer (thanks Mom!), cooking knives (thanks Aunt Paula), an electric blanket (thanks Aunt Elaine), books, and an iPhone”. Who asks for an electric blanket and a washer and dryer for their birthday? Old people.

Wow. I think I’ve hit “old people” status. Apparently 25 is the line. From now on I will call people younger than me “Sonny”, get up at 4am, and hang out at the barber shop drinking coffee and discussion politics.

So to those I will be calling “Sonny” and those of whom I am joining your ranks, thanks for being great friends and family. I appreciate all you’ve done.

Oh my gosh. What the smurf just happened? I got my whole perspective rocked by one statement from a friend that he wrote almost a month ago.

Jamie Goldstone wrote on his blog an honest internal look at how he treats the gifts and blessings from God. His blatant honesty is what I think got me first, then the content. I’ll quote:

Have i come to a place of such contentment that i am just this apathetic about life in general, i am so blessed and sometimes yet i don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t care??? I take for granted the gifts from our Father and gave Him on of those looks like wow great aunt mildred, thanks for giving me this sweet book on dinosaurs for my 16th birthday i really do enjoy dinosaurs a whole lot.

Do I give God those required “thank you’s”, almost rehearsed, and then go put His gifts on a shelf knowing that I would never actually put them to use and really don’t care much about them? Wow.

I’m looking a little more diligently now to see what God is doing in my life. I want to see them for all they are and respond with true thanks. With the thanks He deserves.

There are some shelves I need to take a look at.

WUTS went great. There seemed to be an intense spirit of worship in the place and I believe it was a great experience for people from all across the southeast US and from all kinds of Christian traditions to get together and worship God together. Again, we held Worship Under the Stars under a roof in the Jekyll Island Convention Center. But who’s counting when ultimately, regardless of the name, God was worshiped. I do selfishly wish for WUTS to be held under the stars next year though. Hint hint Fred.

It was good to once again be a part of the use of AV and media to be a part of the worship. Adam Ogden, our Production Director, did a fantastic job leading our team and producing the show. I was the Media Director which put me in charge of photography, designing the website, creating the opening video, creating pre-show graphics, converting other videos for use within Easy Worship, lyrics presentation, and training our volunteers involved with media. It was great.

I had a great couple of volunteers helping me - my wife Amanda and Justin Nazzare. Justin ran the lyrics and video during show and did a ton to help get it all set up. Amanda was faithful in transferring pictures from my 1 and 2 GB cards to my computer so I could keep shooting and not have to stop to transfer from the cards when they got full. Thank you both.

About the pictures. I ended up taking about 3,100 pictures between the two nights. Yeah. 3,100. “Why that many?”, you may ask. Mostly because getting the perfect picture of someone while they are moving, the lights are moving, and the light levels are changing is a daunting task. Getting to my computer and looking at the photos made me glad I shot so many of them. I got so many unpublishable pictures of people with awkward faces, bad lighting, and moving so much that my 1/40-1/100 sec range of shutter speeds couldn’t catch without a blur. I will say that out of the 3,100 photos I did get about 80 unique shots worth posting. I say unique because a lot of the photos I took were 10-30 shot bursts trying to capture the subject in good light, without an awkward facial expression, while not moving too fast, and while they were doing something interesting enough. Using that math, I only took about 100-300 unique shots with 80 coming out publishable. I’d say those were good odds. Fifteen hours in PhotoShop later, I had my pictures.

Below are the links to the final product. The sizes I uploaded aren’t printable so if you want any printed, contact me through this website or call or email me if you wish and we can get that arranged.

View my favorites here on my site.

More are available on the Worship Under the Stars website.

And a side note: I took my 10,000th photo with my Digital Rebel XT during WUTS. Wow. That’s over 10,000 photos with this camera since June 4th, 2006! That’s an average of 74 pictures a day!