About
Hi, I’m Karen!
I’m an Arizona mom of two little boys. Pre-kids, I worked for several years in the medical device industry and then briefly taught middle school math before Quinn arrived in September 2007; Elliot followed in April 2010. Now my life revolves around little league, potty training and Star Wars!
I started blogging in 2008 to share my money saving ideas and inspire other families to save money too! Saving money was necessary so we could still splurge on the fun stuff like vacations while living on one income!
Naturally I also wanted to share fun stuff we did – which led me down the rabbit hole of blogging topics! Luckily Desert Chica Ramblings pretty much covers anything This Tucson Girl wants to talk about!
Thanks so much for stopping by. If you want to connect with me you can email me at ChicaRamblings@gmail.com or find me on twitter, facebook, google+, pinterest and instagram. Oh yeah and check out my silly videos on YouTube!
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello Diva,
Love your blog. It’s great. Anyway, I have a amazon code for diapers. I hope you can use them. Please email me when you can. thanks and take care!
Hi, I just found your site and let me just say “woo hoo”! I have been seriously couponing for about a year and havn’t found anyone here in Tucson with a blog. Don’t get me wrong, I have lowered my food bill by doing deals I have learned about from other sites but it got fustrating when I would go to do a deal and the prices were not the same as what I had read. I have however, found a few places here in town that have helped lower my food bill even more. I don’t know if you know about them but here you go:
Bountiful Baskets – if you go to bountifulbaskets.org you can order a “basket” of fresh produce for $15.00 + $1.50 handling + $3.00 for the first time you order = $19.50 for the first basket you order. (YOu can get organic baskets for $25 base price.) The baskets are the small white laundry baskets and you get one of veggies and one of fruit. (THis counts as 1 basket.) Now on the down side, you can not choose what produce you get. The organization purchases the produce directly from suppliers to grocery stores.
Only 99 cent stores:
I dont know what side of town you are on but this is one of my favorite stores!! (there is one on the east side @ kolb + golflinks and I think there are 2 on the northwest.) I get tons of fresh produce here!!! Everything in the store is 99 cents. For example, my girls love fruit. I can get a 1 1/2 bag of “school boy” sized apples for …..99cents. (the school boy size is the small, just perfect for a 2-7 year old tummy) I can get most of my produce and many of my pantry items here. On the down side, they do not take coupons but they do get shipments on Mon, Wed and Fri and they get some great itmes!!!
Again, thanks and I can’t wait to get saving with you!
Kristen
Hi Kristen,
YAH! I love new local readers! So Wooo Hooo from me too!!
I have never done Bountiful Baskets, but am tempted… maybe I will try it out one day soon. I keep meaning to do so. I hear lots of great things about it!!
I do love the 99 cent stores, we have one near by and they opened one near the tucson mall which is sort of nearby. They do have pretty good prices on produce, although I do watch the loss leaders at the grocery stores too because sometimes those are smoking hot deals too. I love the random good deals they get the 99 cent store, like toddler table toppers (plastic placements) and crystal light!
I was using my overage, extra CVS coupons to buy the table toppers for Quinn at a premium, and just as he stopped needing to use them I came across them at the 99 cent store! Smoking deal!! I stocked up since I knew a #2 would happen eventually! Now Elliot is just starting to use them!
Then a few weeks ago I came across a whole endcap of the tall Crystal Light Peach Tea Cannisters… that is THE FAVE flavor in the house and I RARELY get that good of a price. Maybe with a smoking hot deal at store with a smoking hot Q… but I can’t recall the last time I was able to do that.. I bought like 30 cans!!
Anyway, Thanks so much for stopping by, if you ever have any questions please email me @ desertdealsdiva@gmail.com or if you score an awesome deal let me know!!
It was great meeting you at Mom It Forward yesterday. I already love your blog. I am trying to cut our spending down so I can do a few less shifts a month and spend more time at home with my daughter. Thanks for being an inspiration!
Amanda and Lily
Hi Amanda,
I am glad you found me! It was very nice to meet both you and Dana yesterday. I love meeting other moms, especially local bloggers!
Your daughter is so adorable and I love the running posts. Such an inspiration. We were doing great with evening walks but have been slacking lately. Perhaps we will start back up today!!
Thanks so much for stopping by, please let me know if you have any questions I love talking coupons and deals!
So I have a question. My husband isn’t into the coupon idea because his motto is “It’s always cheaper at Walmart anyway.” I’m not a big fan of that store, and I’m guessing you might not be either because there are no posts about it on your blog. Do you have any good arguing points I can use? Or is he right? I’ve been following your shopping adventures and I am very intrigued!
Amanda
Hi Amanada!
I am not a big Walmart shopper. I can do better matching coupons at the grocery stores.
However some people like the convenience of shopping at Walmart. If you do shop at Walmart make sure you are pricematching. Just bring your ads with you when you shop. I have done that a few times, when I don’t need to use coupons (Walmart will take coupons of course, but won’t double them).
Also now Walmart is accepting all coupons at face value. So you could get “overage” towards other purchases. It is a recent coupon policy change, so I haven’t been over there to try… I will post a trip within the next few weeks to share how it goes for me. But basically if you have a $2 coupon and the item is only $1.50, they used to adjust the coupon down and you would only receive the item for free. Free, I love free! However it’s even better now because they will redeem the coupon at the full value, meaning you can use the $0.50 towards the rest of you groceries!!
Anyway, if you have any other questions and don’t want to comment (feel free to comment though I am sure other people have similar questions too), you can email me at desertdealsdiva AT gmail DOT com
Oh and as a far as arguring points, maybe just start small with really cheap/freebies at the grocery store that you can stock up on (or even donate) and then build your way up. I think sometimes actually bringing home the deals is the best way to convince skeptics.
Hi KC, I’m so glad I found your blog…it rocks and it’s local so totally 100% useful
I saw your post about the couponing workshop for June 18th and was wondering if you could give more details please? Thanks so much for the hard work you put into your blog to help moms save some money! ~ Christy
Hi Kc I was wondering if you would teach me how to coupon. I would appreciate it, I would love to help out my family out and lately we been going through hard times. Hopefully u consider it write to me if you can. Thank you
Let me know if you have any specific questions.. this comment slipped through the cracks!!
Hi!! I just found your blog when I did a search for AZ coupon blogs. We currently live in SoCal and are moving to the Phoenix area at end of May. We don’t have a perticular city picked out, as were still in the early stages of reasearching the different areas, but Surprise looks to be my favorite so far. We are planning a trip in April to check everything out and see where we like best.
I was wondering if you knew of any other AZ(Phoenix to be more exact) coupon bloggers. I just started couponing about a month ago and I would love to continue to do so when we move.
If you have any advice about AZ or couponing, I would love to hear it!!
Thank you!
-Sarah
Yup. I have a link to a few other AZ blogs with coupon matchups… they are all in phx. We do get hte same sales in Tucson but I don’t really do match ups like they do.
http://www.desertdealsdiva.com/?page_id=4648
I have several general resources on couponing under “coupon resources” on the top of my page. I hope that helps and please let me know if you have any more questions…
Good luck with your move!!