Bargain Shopping 101

Last weekend my mom's housing subdivision had a community wide garage sale.  I totally forgot about it, but she asked me if I  wanted to go to a member of our church's house on Thursday night because they were having a sneak peek/presale for all of the members of our church.  I had nothing else to do, so why not?  I'm so glad I did!  I bought:

1.  Changing table $7
2.  Baby gate $2

The changing table is older, nothing fancy, but I don't need anything fancy.  And I told Tony a couple weeks ago that we may need to break down and buy one because it's starting to get harder getting up and down when I change Gabby on the floor.  So for $7, heck yeah! I really don't like the color of it, so I went to Hobby Lobby on Friday and bought some white spray paint and some primer.  That will match one of the colors in Gabby's room, and it's a neutral color so if we have a boy, perfect!!  I'll need to sand it down first, so I went to Home Depot and got some sand paper. 

Then on Friday morning my mom found a contour changing pad for the changing table for only $4!  It's a nice one too.  She told me that the house she bought it from was about to put out all their baby toys, so I might want to go over there soon to look.  I'm so glad I did! 

I bought these toys for Gabby (which she will get at Christmas) and baby carrier for only $20! 

1.  V tech Move & Crawl Ball
2.  Fisher Price Go Baby Go Bat & Wobble Penguin
3.  Infantino Safari Roller
4.  Leap Frog Learn Around Play Ground with Tube Topper
5.  Baby Carrier
Then I went back to the house from Thursday night to get a better look at the toys.  Gabby fell in love with this bed of worms type toy.  There are no music and lights, very simple.  You push a worm down, and another pops up.  Then you push that one down, and another pops up, etc.  I don't know why she loves it so much, but she does and if she hits one enough times, she actually pushes it all the way down!  So I bought that and a grocery bag full of the brightly colored alphabet refrigerator magnets-both for a total of $2!  With all my purchases, I felt like I had hit the jackpot :) THEN...

On Saturday  I went to Canton for the first monday trade days with my friend Beth.  She wanted to get ideas for her wedding, and since I am a bridesmaid, Gabby and I went along.  I honestly wasn't planning on buying anything, but the first "booth" we stopped at I found this toy box for only $10!!!

It's about 3 feet long, by 1 1/2-2 feet wide by about 2 feet deep.  I thought it was a pretty darn good deal for only $10! It isn't finished, so I'll need to go back to Hobby Lobby and use my 40% off coupon this week for more spray paint and primer...no biggie at all!  Between the toy box and the changing table, I'll finally be able to say I'm crafty!  I also bought this Melissa & Doug Shape Sorting Cube for only $10-another Christmas present for Gabs.  If you clicked on the link, you can see I only paid 50% of the retail cost.  You can get it cheaper on Amazon from other sellers, but I still saved money, which I am very happy with. 

So, I bought all that stuff for a grand total of $51!!!

With everything I could price, the retail price of these items equals $202 which means I only paid about 25% of the actual cost and that doesn't include the changing table, bed of worms toy and the toy box.  I think I am becoming quite the bargain shopper!  I'll be working on the changing table and toy box this week so stay tuned for my craftiness!