The World for $1

From LastMinuteTravel.com:

Starting in January, you will have 15 minutes,
Monday – Friday for 2 weeks to buy any hotel for $1 per night.
You won’t know which 15 minutes you will be able to put those dollar bills to use, so sign up for our email hints to get ahead of the game.

So, get a hotel room, for up to 7 nights, for $1 a night. Sounds pretty good – I made sure to sign up for their emails to get the hints. I looked in Cincinnati, and they have a number of good hotels listed. This would be perfect for a random “get away” night.

The fine print:

Of course there are some conditions to qualify:

* 1 reservation for 1 room per person during entire campaign
* Maximum booking of 7 consecutive nights
* To qualify the booking must be made online through http://www.LastMinuteTravel.com
* The booking must be completed within the 15 minute time frame
* LastMinuteTravel.com reserves the right to end the campaign at any time

Squash soup, shoes, and a new blog to read

I’ve been quite the cook! With it being cold, hearty food just sounds like a good idea.

Talking about cheap, I made Butternut Squash Soup. I had bought a butternut squash back in October, and somehow it made it’s way over to the boyfriends “side” of the produce bin, and was covered by a sack of apples. I thought it was long gone, but I found it and cut it open. It probably wasn’t at it’s height of flavor, but it was two degrees out and there was no way in hell I was going to leave the apartment.

It was made in the Crock Pot, took little effort, and smelled so fucking good! It’s a very rich and hearty soup.

After I ate too much soup I decided to top it off with too many cookies.

I used Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles recipe and they turned out perfect. I am not a *huge* snickerdoodles fan, but in order to save money and try to use up ingredients here I found a recipe that would work with what I had on hand.

I also made meringues:

I wanted something light and sweet, and these fit the bill. I didn’t have peppermints or chocolate chips in stock, so I just threw a spoonful of cocoa powder and took some shredded coconut and put it in the coffee grinder to refine it a bit. They meringues ended up tasting really good. They were a bit undone in the center, so I might up the temp by a few.

With absolutely no segue, we were at Target tonight and they had an awesome clearance going on. I got 2 pairs of pumps that I almost bought when they were full price! Instead, they were $5.94. And I used a $3 coupon that they sent me because of a customer service/food issue, and both were under $10 together! Hell, at that rate they are practically handing me cash!

..ok, maybe not. But without further delay:

So cute!

Also, my friend Mariah has a new blog, called Mariah Cooks. It’s pretty new, but it already looks awesome – recipes, restaurant reviews, and other fun food stuff!

Sam’s Club!

Right now at Sam’s Club you get a $25 gift card with every new membership [pdf, has the coupon]. The deal runs from January 15-21. If you buy the $40 membership, that’s like getting it for $15 after the gift card!

I typically go there with my boyfriend’s mother (who has a membership) to get things like generic Benadryl, Advil, etc. The savings on that type of stuff there is huge!