Instant Pots are magical! When they first came out I thought another kitchen gadget to take up valuable space in my tiny kitchen no thanks. That all changed when I was at Kristin’s to help with Lularoe and her kids while she was away. The day flew by before I knew it. It was 5 PM and I hadn’t even thought about what to make for dinner. I had 2 options drive 15 minutes, wait in the drive thru line for 10 minutes, and drive the 15 minutes back. Or use one of the recipes on their website. The Instant Pot intrigued me. I went with it.
The recipes all said an hour or less most of them where only 30 minutes. I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think it would work. But I decided to give it a try. Worst case scenario I would just make sandwiches for dinner. I took out completely frozen ground beef added it to the instant pot along with the other ingredients for taco meat. Set the cook time and walked away. In only 30 short minutes the meat was cooked as if I had cooked thawed meat on the stove top. At that moment I knew I had to have one!
I have been waiting for Christmas sales to get one. My grandma told me to watch for sales. When I saw a good price on the one I wanted to let her know she wanted to buy it for me for Christmas. When I saw this deal on the blog I knew it was time. I have been watching the price on these for over 4 months. Normally they go on sale for around $65.00 for an 8 quart. With the current deal they are only $54.99!
Always sign up for rewards programs from stores. Some stores send out $10.00 coupons randomly thru out the year. I can always find a gift for $10.00 or less. It is a great way to stretch those gift giving budgets farther. They will send you emails daily if not twice a day. All you have to do is to filter your promotion type emails to a file. Then it won’t show up in your primary inbox. I take 5 minutes a day to quickly scan my promotions inbox. Things like coupon codes get starred and moved to my primary inbox. The rest is dumped in the trash once a week on Sundays.
I got an email for Eddie Bauer with a $10.00 coupon code last week. When I get those codes I like to hold on to them until the store is having a sale to stack the savings. Last week Eddie Bauer didn’t have much clearance and what they did have still seemed overpriced. This morning I got an email that all clearance was an additional 50% off with code CELEBRATE. That was exactly the kind of sale I was waiting for. I was able to get a graphic t for my husband that is normally $25.00 for only $9.00 shipped to me. The shirt was marked down to $19.99. With the code it went down to only $10.00. Shipping was $7.99. My $10.00 coupon code took care of the shirt cost. All I paid was the shipping.
My grandma did buy my Instant Pot. I only paid for the shirt for my husband.
Money spent on presents – $497.25
Money remaining in Christmas fund – $252.75
Way to shop the bargains