Our Jewel/Albertson had a deal (ending today) of buy a Mrs. Smith's pie for $3.99 (regularly $7.99) and get a free Dean's ice cream (which is usually $6.99 but this week is on sale for $2.99).

I purchased three pies for $12.00 plus tax, and ended up with three cartons of ice cream as well. I will use one pie at Thanksgiving, and another at Christmas. The ice cream we'll use at the girls' birthday party on Black Friday. We'll keep one pie as a spare.

Similarly, in the spirit of friendship, I've invited (as a surprise) the families of my girls' bffs to the party. Younger daughter has had a friend since preschool, and the new bff comes from a very friendly family of 5). Older daughter's bff is from a nice family but we've never socialized with them. So our guest list at this point stands at: 31. That is a lot of people! I'm going to do Italian beef sandwiches and baked ravioli. I purchased six bags of frozen meat torellini for $9 (it was a buy one, get one). I'll spend another $30 on Italian beef (10#s). All in all, I do expect to be right on budget.

I also went to CVS and got a large Triaminic Cold & Cough kid medication ($7.49) and a Nivea lip treatment ($3.99) for $1.39 OOP. Feeling good about the amount of money that I'm spending for what I'm getting!