Help Children Without Shoes!!

I love when cheap and free fabulous-ness can help others, it really is the best way to be thrifty... Well, on April 8th, we all have that opportunity. Tom's Shoes (super comfortable, super cute) is hosting One Day Without Shoes. They are asking people to go barefoot on April 8th to raise awareness for all of the many children who go barefoot everyday and how hard it is to go barefoot. I'm sure that my going completely barefoot all day wouldn't exactly fly at my job, but I am going to wear a shoe that I can slip on and off fairly easily and will be as barefoot as I can on April 8th. If you are in a position to go barefoot, go for it! If you can't go barefoot all day, at least try and be barefoot on a hard surface of some sort, just for the appreciation of what these kids go through. And, just for those of you who don't know, when you purchase a pair of Tom's shoes, they give a pair of shoes to a child in need. What more motivation to buy a great pair of shoes do you need other than that?

Groupon.com

I just discovered a fabulous website and it was completely by accident. I was looking for deals in Las Vegas and stumbled upon the fabulous website Groupon. They have daily deals for all sorts of cities throughout the United States, so this isn't just a Cheap and Free in Charlotte deal or even just Las Vegas. Anyone can take advantage of it! Here's how it works... A business offers up it's deal for the day and they seem to all be at least half off of something, that I saw, Groupon says the deals are 50-90% off, pretty awesome! Then people start buying the deals right there online and the business sets a minimum number of people who have to buy the deal before anyone gets the deal (hence the group in groupon). If the minimum number of people sign up, they charge your card and send you a link to print your Groupon. If not enough people join, no one gets it (and you won't be charged). It seemed that it was often 20 people, but for instance, today's deal in Charlotte is for an equestrian center and 318 people have already bought the deal and it's only 9:20, so doesn't seem like meeting those minimums is an issue. You can even sign up to receive the daily deal to your inbox, click here to sign up. Definitely check it out, I want to hear about the great deals you get!

The new Bloom

I'm so excited because a fabulous new grocery store has opened up right around the corner from my house. If the location wasn't enough, it's a Bloom grocery store which is a specialty style grocery store owned by the same company that owns Food Lion, so apparently it's cheaper than Harris Teeter. The only reason that I say "apparently" is because I haven't gotten a chance to actually do a good comparison, but it does seem cheaper. It certainly doesn't hurt that I got in the mail 4 coupons for $5 off of a $25 purchase each dated for one of the first 4 weeks they are open, so they at least have my attention. Couple that with the fabulous goodie bag that I got at the sneak peak happy hour Tuesday night before the grand opening. It was a great Bloom reusable shopping bag stuffed full of full-sized food and products: cereal, soup, peanut butter, chips, snack mix, dryer sheets, cookies, pasta... that maybe isn't even all, but the point is it was good! They have all sorts of computers all around the store so that you can look up a price or look up info about a product, so they also have me from that fun, techy standpoint. Overall, like I said, so excited!

Starting up my blogs again!

OK, so I took a looooong break from my blogs, very near a year. Well, I hope you all are ready and excited because I am starting them back up again! I got busy with my paying job and just didn't have time to blog (though I never stopped looking for great deals!) There are still a ton of great Charlotte deals to write about, so keep checking back! I'm bursting with tips, so I hope you enjoy!

Easter Brunch at 131 Main

OK, so this wasn't all that cheap and it certainly wasn't free, but I want to give them a shout out because they didn't jack up their prices simply because it was Easter. Plus, 131 Main is a nice restaurant with pretty nice prices, in my opinion, if you are looking to have a slightly fancier meal (Buddy and I love going on dates there).
Do you know that they were charging $50 per person at the Ballentyne Resort for Easter brunch? That's just preposterous to me! Three of us had brunch for less than that at 131 Main. Now, they weren't doing a massive buffet, we just got our meals, but do you really need all that food anyway. I know that I certainly don't. My fantastic Brioche French Toast was plenty enough for me, and it was one of the most delicious things that I have ever tasted!

Dogswalk Against Cancer

How about a super fun time for you and your pet that also raises money for a very worthy cause. Well, that's what the Dogswalk Against Cancer is! It's $20 to register and you do get a cool shirt for that money, plus it's a donation to the American Cancer Society to fund research to find a cure for human and animal cancers. I have lost some close family members to cancer and am also a huge animal lover, so I participate in this every year. The walk starts at Metro Paws, where there were free Chik-fil-a breakfast biscuits, Starbucks coffee, and Monster Energy Drink. We then walked to Canine Cafe for free (dog) treats and mingle time and then we walked back to Metro Paws for playtime. Like any good walk, we picked up tons of swag. Free tennis balls pet food cups, pet food samples, key chains, magnets, pens, tons of great giveaways. This is one of my favorite events all year, can't wait until Dogwalk 2010!

Cocktail Class at Cantina 1511

I was so psyched when my friend Sharon invited me to this! It's funny how people have gotten into the fact that I will almost always be in for a cheap and/or free event. Here's how the cocktail class worked at Cantina: for $15 you got to learn how to make and then subsequently drink 3 differents cocktails and then there was food too. My first thought was, OK, how much food and drink are we actually going to get? Well, the answer is a ton! Let's just say that it's a good thing that I walked after having my cocktails and I was stuffed. There was even dessert, 2 of them! The other cool thing is that we all got copies of all of the recipes for the food and the cocktails. Plus, there were a few drawings too, and we actually won Bobcats tickets. How cool is that?