My chilly run and a bargain buy

Well the past couple of weeks it has been pretty chilly in the south.  Last Tuesday, it was in the mid 20's when I was supposed to run, and I bailed and went to the gym and did 30 minutes on that stair stepper instead.  I was too cold that morning to face the weather.  Well yesterday, it was supposed to be in the teens.  Well I went ahead and wrapped my head around it on Monday night and decided I would conquer the cold this week.  Yesterday the temperature was 16 degrees when I started my run (yeah, about 10 degrees colder than last week, oops).  I had my layers on though, cold weather running tights, long sleeve dryfit shirt, sweatshirt, polar fleece, gloves, hat, socks and my running shoes.  The run wasn't that bad.  That first mile I even had a pretty good time (for a pregnant me).  My face was a little chapped after the run, but other than that, it was pretty good.  It helped that the sun was shining, and the wind was minimal. 

Ok, my bargain buy.  I was making dinner on Monday, and I would have sworn up and down that I had polenta in the house.  Well I already started boiling my liquids when I realized that I didn't have any.  I did a quick search online to see if there was a good substitute.  One woman recommended using cornmeal.  Well I have that for dusting my pizza crusts with, so I gave it a try.  Worked that a charm!  And guess what it's soooo much cheaper than polenta at the store.  I went to the store on Tuesday and did a price comparison.  Now I had in my house the dry polenta, but I just found the precooked one when I was looking.  For 18oz. of precooked polenta, it was on sale for $3.99 ($0.22/oz.).  Well the off brand cornmeal was on sale for $1.00 for 24oz. ($0.04/oz).  That is a huge savings to just use cornmeal next time.  No more polenta buying in our house anymore.  Tasted the exact same. 

Do you have any bargain buys you use or ways to save?