Thursday, May 12, 2016

Savings in Las Vegas

Las Vegas is filled with so much fun things that those few dollars can add up very quick! 


But during my families vacation in April we found so many ways to save money. 

First thing I did was book our room. Like I said before (here) I always look for hotels with a breakfast included. This saves on money. 
We booked the Embassy Suites. It's 2 blocks away from the Strip so this means I avoided all those resort fees which can run an additional $10-$30 per night. Yuck!!

Next thing is I ordered our Go Explorer Passes


This was the first time I purchased these and I am now a forever fan. I entered in the city I was wanting to purchase, in this case Las Vegas. It then pulled up all the shows, activities, restaurants, etc that I can chose from. I can chose to purchase a pass good for 3 or 5 attractions. Since my family and I were only going to be in town for a long week I chose the 3 attractions. 

But before I purchased I checked Groupons just in case. I found these passes for about $10 cheaper per person. That's an extra $60 saved. 

And to get the most bang for our buck we tried to chose the most expense attractions instead of the cheap stuff offered. 

We chose The Ultimate Variety Show that's at Planet Hollywood. Tickets are $69.99 on their website. This show is so amazing! I recommend it to everyone. 

Then we chose CSI: The Experience that's at the MGM Grand. Tickets on their website cost $28! This is really fun! Our family is really into crime fighting shows we it was awesome to be able to solve our own murder. Can you tell from my daughter's finger guns?

And last we chose Paris:The Eiffel Tower. The pass only allows daytime hours so make sure to read the fine print. We were totally fine with this. The cost for a daytime ticket is $17.

We were debating on using our last attraction for another show but my kids really wanted to go here. We homeschool and last month we learned about France so they were so excited when they seen the Eiffel Tower. Just don't look down!!!


And now what else did we do? Vegas is filled with coupons.



There's coupons in booklets that lay around everywhere. In our hotel, on the corner, at restaurants, etc. Oh my goodness! People are just handing out coupons as we walked the street.

While walking someone handed me a booklet about a show and I skimmed through it to see if I could find a coupons and Viola'; there was a 20% off coupon for the M&M store. My kids were so happy to visit here. And I was happy to save a few bucks! :)

For lunch we packed wraps, power bars, water bottles, fruit, etc. Everything we could pack to save on cash and calories.

Also in those Las Vegas visitor magazines that are in hotel. Those are my new favorite hidden treasures.


(source)

This places names all the place to:
-Golf
-See a movie
-Eat
-Gamble
-Bars
-Tours <---- and this caught my eye

Hexx Chocolate and Confexxion offers free chocolate tours and tastings! I signed up on-line on there website (HERE) and within an hour we had our appointment. I'm sure the times vary based on how busy they are but we were blessed.
 We got to tour the back room and see how all their yummies are made.
Then we were seated and given 2 trays of chocolates (1 per person) to try all their different chocolates. I now have a new #1 chocolate.

There's so much free stuff in Vegas. So much that my family and I didn't even put a dent into our bucket list. 
There's tons of street performers. It's nice to tip when they put a show on but I don't tip just because they are wearing a costume. These Hello Kitty were dancing then started dancing with my daughters. So I paid each $1. 

Cool dragon in MGM.


Hershey Store 




Looking at waterfalls.


 
Carol's Bake Shop. It's free to look but how could we pass up those sweet smells. So we paid for some cannolis.


  3D movie at the M&M store



 Checking out the M&M race car.


Flower carnival at the Wynn Hotel. 

But beyond the free stuff there's some things we paid for because we just wanted to have that memory. Like lunch at White Castle. We love those little burgers!
And Taste Around the World in the Everything Coca-Cola store. For around $20 we got these 3 trays of kid cups. (18 cups total) and got to try Cokes from all over the world. 


No one liked the Coke from Italy. 


But one thing we absolutely wanted to experience was the Tournament of Kings at the Excalibur. 

But these tickets have convenience fee and taxes on top of the actual ticket but thanks to one little thing my family saved $200! 


I got myself an M life card. It's free to sign up for (21+ yrs old) and there's some great unadvertised discounts. When we got to the ticket counter my husband asked if there's any discounts since the show was starting soon. The employee said only if we had an M life card. And I remember signing up a while ago but never printed it out. So we went to the M life counter and the worker printed my card out for me. When we returned back to the Tournament of Kings ticket agent she took the discount off. So we ended up savings tons of money just because of this little sapphire. 


If you've never heard of this show it's amazing. It's a full 3 course meal and a medieval show. The show is so thrilling, exciting, and loud it just pulls you into the show where you'll be screaming for your knight and banging on the tables. We left with sore throats and hurting hands.

But thanks to my M life card we were able to snag discounts here and there on drinks of soda and small upgrades from being seated first. There's so much more perks that I'm going to have to look into this more.

This is it. We came, we loved, and made more memories with our kids. We were able to go big in one of the most extravagant cities in the the world. (Probably the world!) So hope this helps you.






Wednesday, May 11, 2016

Toys R Us

LastI had some time between appointments and went to Toy R Us to pass it by. 
Normally their prices aren't that good. This is why I stock up when they have they Clearance Blast sale. I can find so much stuff that's all priced around $1-$5!

But like I said I had some time to pass so I walked the aisles and was surprised to find a few deals.

Around this time all the summer items are out and being purchased. All last seasons items are already scooped up by deal shoppers like me or the items are salvaged and removed from the shelves.

So the next big sale will be back to school. So after July 4th. So this is when I'll be back.

But I did score two Melissa and Doug items for my neice and nephew. 
The tool kit is $19.99 but the shelve showed the price of $9.99. I informed the cashier and she was sweet enough to adjust the price. But Toys R Us as the right to decline this request. I just got blessed!
Then I found this chalk/magnetic board. It comes with those cool letter magnets, chalk, eraser, and dry erase marker. 
The th says $16.98 but like I say scan,scan,scan! It came up $4.98!
Plus it was part of the stores promo. Buy one get second 40%off. So this board came out to be $2.98! This is such a great price for this brand.

I also found a WWE building block set. 
Normally it's $70!!! That's a crazy insane price. But for this cheap lady it scanned at $4.98!! This is the perfect gift for our gift closet or to mail for my nephew.
Last purchase was these cute forks. They originally were $4 but clearances to 98 cents. Plus there's a promo buy one get the second 50% off. So I paid less than $1.50 for both sets. I recently gave all my baby items away for a baby shower so now these will be the start to my gift closet. 

Happy shopping! Hopefully you can did some hidden treasures too!