The Coupon King is Born

This week's receipt!

Last week Elijah, who is 11, watched a marathon of Extreme Coupons.  That was a huge mistake because after the marathon of coupons and stockpiles, Elijah went grocery shopping with me.  Elijah usually goes grocery shopping with me.  He likes to make the list, and then come home and organize everything.  Elijah has a little OCD streak so, if he's going grocery shopping there is a way the buggy has to be packed, unpacked and stored.  Ever watch an 11 year old tell a bagger their packing the cart wrong?  I have on several occasions.  "Soda goes on the bottom, not in the cart bagger person!"  The struggle is real people!

Last week's savings!

Last week Elijah was able to save $63.28 with the coupons that he found in the store.  It was a family record.  He was excited and the lady ringing us up was excited.  My husband was not only excited, but impressed enough to get him an official coupon binder and some more coupons.  Elijah ordered his sister to clean out her closet so he'd have a place to start his stockpile and she did it.  What the hell?  Where did I go wrong? Why is he so interested in doing this? Why do I have to be his wing man?  My idea of good grocery shopping is get in and get out as quickly as possible.  Ever go grocery shopping with a budding extreme couponer?  It is its own special hell. 
 

This week's savings!

THE MADNESS!!! MAKE IT STOP! STOP ENCOURAGING IT!  More episodes of Extreme Coupon.  A woman who's 8 months pregnant diving in a dumpster for coupon flyers, seems legit says the 11 year old Coupon King. No it seems like you have a problem and might want to consider medication.  With new binder in hand and several coupon flyers, Elijah (now known as the Coupon King) cut out coupons, made a list and uploaded on line coupons.  A plan of attack was made all before 11AM this morning.  Grocery shopping took two hours.  We were those people who had two buggies of groceries.  We were those people holding up the line.  We were those people who the check out lady rolled her eyes and sighed when the Coupon King pulled out his stack of coupons.  The bagger girl was enthralled with our little Coupon King.  She wanted to take a picture to show her economics teacher.  People were starting to lean over and gather.  The manager came over when the cashier started to struggle with the amount of coupons, looking agitated, until the bagger girl informed the crowd that it was not me engaging in this madness, but a cute little 11 year old boy.  The total kept rising and you could tell the Coupon King was getting nervous.  His goal was to beat last week's record.  If he could get to $100 in savings his dad promised him $25.00 and going out to eat (and yes he has a coupon for that too).  When the total savings got over $75.  even the cashier was starting to get excited.  The total reached $90.00 and people were impressed until the Coupon King informed the crowd that the cashier did not put is online coupons in.  With the press of some buttons the online coupons went in and the grand total of savings was $107.99.  The Coupon King was spelling his name for onlookers and people were clapping!

The unpacking begins!

Now we are home and the rest of the kids are impressed with the Coupon King's haul.  The Coupon King's subjects are putting away groceries and the Coupon King is basking in the glow of a successful trip to the grocery store.  The Coupon King's wing man has been asked to get some Sunday papers for future trips.  Too bad the Coupon King's mom has banned him from the grocery store next week!  If you see my son on an episode of Extreme
Coupon please know that I am not encouraging this madness, but he's having a great time and saving money so the rest of the family is!

Mississippi Blues Half Marathon

The Mississippi Blues Marathon is held in Jackson. It has been billed as a race you should do due to the swag and the guitar medal that finishers receive. I don't know if the nylon vest and the plastic harmonic are tops on my swag list, but they're alright. The cd of blues music is pretty cool but still, not enough swag to put this half marathon on my running bucket list. The field is about 3500 runners, over three (four if you count the kids race) races. The quarter note race is a 10k and it gets all the previously mentioned swag and a smaller medal.

Let's start with the things that need improvement.  The race expo is the smallest I've been to for a race of this size. Someone could of made a lot of money selling cold weather gear due to the unusual, unexpected freezing temperatures. The three clothing vendors were hawking their left over summer apparel, and one was selling only shoes and race nutrition. The marathon also ran out of shirts to buy for this year's race. Perhaps, an option when you register to order a shirt (which were pretty cool) would be a good idea. Next, the paper insert about the race was a huge disappointment. No map of the half or quarter note races. Turn by turn directions were provided for each race, but when we tried to drive the route a few of the roads were one ways and we ran the opposite way. There was information about the bar crawl after the race, but not any information included about other cool things to do in Jackson.  Chamber of Commerce needs to get on that because Jackson is a pretty cool little city! Lastly, the roads in Jackson are horrible. They could compete with any New England road in spring! I've never seen a Southern city with so many potholes and frost heaves as Jackson.  The packet pick up volunteers were warning out of towners about the potholes so, I anticipated that some of the larger ones would be marked, but they weren't.  On a side note, because this was a freakish polar vortex thing and not the norm, some warning signs through the water stations that ice is on the roads would have been helpful.  The water stops were slippery messes due to ice forming from the water cups.

Now all the good parts to this race. First, it's not expensive to register for. Second, the  volunteers and the community as a whole were wonderful!  Polite,  encouraging,  helpful,  the epitome of southern hospitality!  Third, this is the first race where water stations and Porta potties were close to every mile. I didn't even have to use the water I normally carry. There were also generous time limits for the races and the awards were later so more people could enjoy. Due to the extreme cold temperature (and it was frigid) I didn't get the full music experience,  but the band's that were there were excellent! Pizza (and beer but I don't drink) were plentiful at the finish line in a heated tent (not for vip's but for everyone). Lastly, the medal for this race is beautiful and huge.  No one could miss it on your neck or hanging on your wall!

Overall a great experience. A warning about the course, it's hilly, like rolling  hills hilly. There is no escape and no flat section. Being that I live in South Georgia,  where there are no hills, and not being fully trained up yet, I walked most of this race (as evidenced by my 3:34 finish time).