Monthly Archives: January 2010

What a Weekend

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The weekend really started on Friday, a good friend from church came over on Friday to help me cook for Zach’s dedication as well as with the decorations. We got a lot done in the short 4 hours she was here as well as she offered to make the last 2 pies on Saturday for me! By the time I got everyone to bed and the bags all packed for Saturday, it was 10pm.
On Saturday, we left around 8:30 to head to Faith Alliance in Midway for the Bible Quizzing Invitational. Matt and I were the official score keepers for the 18 teams that were present. I was able to watch Haley quiz in the very first round, she even jumped and answered a question correctly!. At 11:30 Matt and Lily left in my van to return to our church for a birthday party for one of Lily’s friends. Lily had an awesome time, a clown came and made balloon animals for everyone as well as face painting. Lily chose a unicorn for one side of her face and then a butterfly was painted on the other side. Unfortunately, my van started acting up with Matt. We have discovered that the transmission is starting to slip. I am upset because the transmission has already been replaced in this van once. It is still drivable and we hope to try some inexpensive fixes later this week. Matt return to Faith and we got all the first 5 rounds tallied before we left to pick up Lily and drop off the little kids at my BFFs’. She watched the kids until we returned around 5 after finishing up the scoring, shopping for the salad ingredients and a quick dinner for the two of us. I wonder if we can consider that our monthly date? I was kinda of disappointed because the salad ingredients that we had to purchase were $28.08 after $4.40 in coupons. My BFF and I used pampered chef tools to prepare both the salads. We had planned on being at the church at around 6pm but really didn’t arrive until 7. Thankful we were able to decorate and assemble and made it home by 8:30pm. Lily was extremely tired and ended up crying all the way home. Saturday night was really rough, the kids had not been sleeping well since Wednesday so Matt and I decided to take shifts on Saturday night. He stayed up and dealt with the little kids until 1pm. I was up at 1:30 with Lily who had thrown up earlier and was “feeling sick” again. Then I was up at 3 and 4 with Zach. Finally at 5:45 I decided I should give up trying to sleep and start getting ready.
Sunday January 17th was Zach’s Dedication at church followed by a dinner for approximately 40 people in our fellowship hall. The menu was: seven layer salad, summer bean salad, Swedish meatballs, marinara meatballs, pineapple meatballs, crockpot lasagna, baked ziti, stuffed shells, spaghetti, garlic bread, chocolate crackers, peanut butter chocolate squares, cream cheese rolls and cream cheese pies. YUMMY! I was so glad all the food turned out wonderfully! Thankfully lots of our friends from church helped with the clean up! Amanda dropped Haley off at the Quiz Invitational where she called to tell me that they were in the championship round, because of a question she answered. I was able to come home get the little girls to bed and then drive out just in time to see the championship round. Haley and her team “Unfruitful Mind” won the entire tournament!
After reading this you probably realize why we have not really missed the Internet or phone this weekend!

Free Money

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Today I decided to try out this website Swagbucks

The concept is cool. You earn 5 swagbucks for signing up..then when you go through the site to search you can win 1-5 swagbucks randomly. I did 2 searches and won 1 swagbuck. You also earn these same swagbucks if someone you referred wins from a search as well.In addition, they “hide” bucks on the site 3-5 times a week. So I am going to tell you how to earn the swagbucks as I come across them. 45 swagbucks is equal to a $5.00 gift card at various stores including Amazon.com which has EVERYTHING! So if you decide to sign up for swagbucks then use my email mrsbrwnibty@aol.com as your referral PLEASE!

Here is where to locate the swag code for today
There is a new Swag code out worth $1. It expires 1/21.

You need to go to the main page of Swagbucks.com.

Click on Ways to Earn.

Select special offers.

Click on the No Obligation Offers box.

Notice it says this at the top of that page:

Welcome to Swag Bucks Special Offers. Sign up for the free money-saving offers you like,
feel free to skip the rest, and find a special swag code reward at the end.

Skip all the offers by clicking the skip button beneath the advertisement.

After about 7 pages, there will be a Swag code worth $1.

Enter it on swagbucks.com in the Enter a Swag Code box.

Thanks to Couponing to Disney

Roll Like That

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Zach is so proud of himself, he has learned to roll over. For the last 2 weeks, when laid on his back he would attempt to roll over to his stomach. He always get caught on his side. So I was expecting him to start making it all the way over fairly soon. This morning when I got him up he was on his back. He sleeps at night on his stomach so I knew he had rolled over but figured it was just an “accident”. Nope not with him, at church while I was taking Angel Food orders, I laid a blanket down so he could lay out and wiggle. I laid him on his stomach and over he went. So of course , I called his daddy and he did it twice more while I was on the phone. He still gets stuck going from back to stomach but lay him on his stomach and he is going to roll like that!

Hats I Wear

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I have been working on the posting in my head for several days now. I will go ahead and explain this may be my longest post to date because I am writing while at the church taking Angel Food orders, Lily and Kendall are at Tumble Tots and Zach is asleep at my feet. My plan is to do an introduction series; me, each of the kids and Matt. The reason to spend so much time on this is that I want to be able to have a copy of this 20 years from now, so that I can remember where we came from and how much we have changed. I realize that I forget the little things that make life interesting. This became very apparent the other day when Haley asked what she wore for her Dedication. She was never dedicated but I don’t remember what was going on when she was small that we didn’t do it. I hope through this blog that I will remember more of the little things about Lily, Kendall and Zach. One of the most interesting things that I have ever read was written by Matt’s mother before her death. His sister Sue had encouraged her to write down her life story. Although this was written prior to me even meeting Matt it is amazing and interesting to read. Because of her death when Lily was only 4 months old, this story will be Lily’s as well as Kendall’s and Zach’s connection to their grandmother. So I am hoping that one day my children, grandchildren and great grandchildren will want and enjoy a connection to me through copies of this blog. Matt’s mother and sister’s death have taught me that connections and history are important. I don’t think this explains what I am trying to say but it is the best I can come up with!

Who am I- I am going to make a list and then comment as I want to 

Child of God/Christian- I have a personal relationship with my Lord and Savior. I have been a Christian since I was a small child but have strayed several times in my life. But no matter what was going on in my life, I always knew that my God was with me. In the future I may chose to blog more about the times I strayed in my teenage years and again as I enjoy the “freedom” of being a single adult but for now there is no need :P.

Mother- I deliberately placed this ahead of wife because Matt will tell you that from the start of our relationship there has never been any doubt that my children come first. I realize that this may not be the “correct or best “ thing but it is a fact. I am the proud mother of Amanda (18) Haley (14) Lily (4) Kendall (18 months) and Zach (4 months). A post in the future will be dedicated to each and everyone who I love equally! Currently I am a SAHM (Stay at home mother). At this point with the 3 little ones I see no way that I could work a full-time job or even a steady part time job, unless Matt would change and be home. Being a SAHM is one of the things that Matt and I decided prior to having any one child together and I plan to remain at home at least part-time until Zach is in Kindergarten. At that point I would like to work only the hours that everyone is in school. This worked well during the time that Haley and Amanda were in school that I had the financial luxury of doing it! Now if I can just figure out the Stay at home part, meaning it seems that bare minimal of 2 days a week I am out of the house doing something.

Wife

Occupational Therapist- It is hard to imagine that in high school, I saw a video and said “That is what I want to do.” But that honestly is what happened and I have never regretted that decision. I went straight from HS to Stanly Community College for 2 years and received my Associate of Science degree in Occupational Therapy. At that time you were able to go to work while you waited to take your boards. I worked in all types of settings but knew and enjoyed working with children the most. Until today, there has only been a period of 6 months that I have not worked in the field. During that 6 months I ended up taking a job in a daycare but got right back into the school system. I knew early on that I wanted to get my Bachelor degree so that I could work independently with the need of a supervisor. My BFF and I met by chance just prior to starting Stanly and after riding together 2 hours a day we because best friends. Now 18 years later we are still best friends, (sounds like another post!). The reason I mentioned BFF was that together we decided to attend WSSU to complete our Bachelors. We found out that our credit were so old that the majority would not transfer so we began taking classes online. It took 2 years of full time credit hours and some summer session to finish the class required before we could enter the COTA to OTR program. The program was class every other weekend for 2 years and then 6 months of field work. This program was ideal for me because Amanda and Haley spend every other week with their father. I (God) worked things out so that I attended class on the weekends that I did not have the girls. Amazingly enough I was 6 months into this program that I met Matt.

West Piedmont Bible Quizzing Zone Coordinator- Currently this means that I am a quizmaster and head scorekeeper. I also pull questions for the majority of the quizzes during the year, we (Matt and I) help at Invitational in January, this year we are doing the scores. I also manage the scholarship for our zone as well as the checkbook and fees.

Angel Food Coordinator at our church. Angel Food will also have its own post  probably next month while I sit here!

So I think this pretty much describes all the roles I assume in life right now. Plus I have been writing for an hour and need to stretch! I am going to post this goal as well so that hopefully if Matt reads this he will help! I plan to get a picture on my blog of at least me in the next week!

Blogging Boldly

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One of the reason that I felt I should start this blog was MckMama and her ongoing discussion about blogging boldly not just the happy easy stuff. You would think this would be easier for me as I only have a few people who will ever read this but that is not the case. I had intended to blog everyday and yesterday was the second day I missed. I had composed a blog post in my head Monday night but then it hit me; “I have a goal to blog everyday but not to spend time in Scriptures.” Ouch, where are my priorities at, my blog before God. So I decided that until I figured out a realistic time for me to at least read and pray everyday I would not blog. I know myself and if I don’t figure out where something fits in my routine it won’t happen on a regular basis. So now I have decided that I will have my personal devotion time at night right before I go to bed. This worked last night and I am hoping to make it a habit. I am hoping to post another post(the one in my head) later today but who knows as we are heading to Walmart for pictures this morning!

Plans

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Okay so I have already missed one day of blogging. But hey that is life and Sunday (yesterday) was so busy that I just did not have time :P.

This weeks looks really busy from the outside but I keep telling myself that it is normal and I have more time than I think. I pray this is the truth. Today, my BFF came over this morning to hang out before she had to go to work. It was awesome, I enjoyed talking to her and we got to catch up on things. For the rest of the day, I need to do at least 3 loads of laundry, working on getting the snow village down so I can clean the living room, make the peanut butter desert for Sunday. Tuesday, I have to start working on organizing Tax information which includes a major cleaning of the file cabinets. I also need to get the chocolate crackers made for the Dedication. The weather is predicting flurries so Haley may be at home. Wednesday, finish up the stuff I didn’t get to on Monday or Tuesday and clean the house! Thursday most of the day is spent on Angel Food. I will be at the church from 10-1 and then Matt is there from 5-6. Friday, Nancy is coming to watch the kids in the morning so I can cook…….

Ok I can do it 🙂

A Stay at Home Day

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Yesterday, as I was stalking other blogs I was impressed with the idea of DITL (Day in the Life of).The original idea is to document in pictures several times this year a day. Well I just don’t think I can remember to take a picture of everything we do in a day but I want to be able to look back 5 years from now and remember how busy I was and not wonder why I didn’t accomplish more while I was not working on a regular basis. So instead I am going to write about our day. Yesterday was a Friday that we had no commitments outside the house.

The day started at 7:05 when I realized that the alarm didn’t go off and everyone had slept late. Luckily for us Haley’s school was delayed 2 hours so it was not a huge rush. The little girls had cereal at the picnic table in the office as they watched “Playhouse Disney.” I cleaned up the kitchen, folded a load of clothes, got lunch for Haley together and checked email and blogs. Zach had a MAJOR explosion that required a bath as well. By 9:30 Matt and Haley were out the door. Lily, Kendall and I did our “home preschool.” Kendall listens to calender then colors on paper. Lily actually is working on writing her numbers, reviewing the uppercase alphabet, and other preschool things. Lily works about an hour on several different things. After preschool Zach is hungry and so are the girls. For lunch yesterday, Lily and Kendall had a grilled cheese sandwich. Naps are a must with everyone down and asleep by 12:30 when Zach woke up. I started working on dinner around 2 and between checking the computer and the kids it was ready at 4:30pm. Lily helped me make Mandarin upside down cakes for desert and I tried a new recipe for Autumn Chicken casserole. Haley finished Driver’s Ed at 5 and had to be picked up. After dinner I spent about 45 minutes locked in the bathroom and on the phone..me time! Haley and Matt had play practice from 7:00 till 9pm. Kendall got in the bath with me at the end and was in bed at 6:30. Lily had a bubble bath and was in bed at 7:30. Zach got a bath after Matt got home and was in bed around 9:30. I started taking down the Snow village while watching “ALL MY Children.” I got to bed around 10:30 with Zach waking at 2 to eat and again at 6am.

A normal day 🙂

Friday Final

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Ok so I “borrowed with no intention of returning” the name of today’s post, but I like it!
I did make the trip to Harris Teeter on Wednesday, a friend called and asked me to go with her because of “super doubles”. This means that instead of doubling 20 coupons per day up to $.99 they will double coupons up to $1.98. To prepare for this trip, I first printed out the item from Southern Savers
this ended up being about 10 items. I then looked through my coupons and pulled out ones that were over $.99 on items that I would use. I also added two items I needed anyway. My list ended up being 25 items, with my personal coupons I also wrote down how much off each items the coupon would be and what was the limit I would pay for this item. For example, International delight coffee creamer 1.50/1,if less than 2.25. This was the ideal thing for me! I was able to go to the store and know if I wanted to buy things or not. I did take my coupon book which was good because I ended up using 2 different coupons than I had pulled out. I bought only the items I had coupons for except for bread which was on a great sale. Harris Teeter is higher than Food Lion on most items so I will plan only going on “Super Doubles or Triples.”
Total from Harris Teeter Spent $44.77 saved $60.45 with $57.00 being in coupons.

I made 2 trips to CVS this week. On the first trip I spent $2.97 and purchased 3 Diet Cokes, a gallon of milk and a loaf of bread. The second trip spent $44.09 and saved $74.53. For both these trips I made sure I pulled list of things on sale that I wanted and had coupons for and used ECB. I did do 3 transactions on my second trip because I had a $5/20 and $5/30. I scanned my card when I entered the store and got a $4/20. This must be rang up before any coupons to work!.

Since this is my regular week for shopping I also went to Food Lion spent $42.17 and saved 17.32. I also went to Costco spent $165. So total for the month so far in groceries is $432.85. This is about $150 less than my average from last year and we will need diapers and more milk,bread before the end of the month but I am feeding 50 people for Zach’s dedication so for now I am pleased!

Couponing- The Beginning

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One of the reason that I feel a strong “push” to start this blog to share how I am saving money. I don’t make New Year Resolution but this year I did set several goals:

Get out of debt except for the house and car.
Finish the addition. (This will be a whole blog of it’s own, I got to
have something to write about)
Go on a week long vacation to the beach.

All of these involve money. At this point both DH and I agree that I NEED to be home. So me working more is not an option for my family right now so saving money is the way that I am helping in achieving our goals. So couponing and shopping sales,consignments,and ebaying all help me save money. There are a couple of “catches” for me using coupons. First I HATE going to the grocery store. Second is DH’s pay schedule. Third trying to get all 3 of the little one in a car and then shopping well that is just impossible by myself. So I am working to make this as easy as possible and to use as little time as possible. Looking at our expenses for 2009 on average we were spending $579 a month on food. This was our largest bill except for the house payment. So it made sense for me to start working on reducing that bill. I was shopping sales but not using coupons. I “tried” to only go shopping twice a month.

So now that I have written where we started, here is what has changed. First we began ordering Angel Food. If you are not familiar with Angel Food, check out their site (www.angelfoodministries.com) I budget $100 a month to purchase food this way. Angel Food has no income requirement and it is a nation wide program. The site will help you find something close to you. The food is AWESOME! We regularly buy a signature box and a fruit and veggie box. Most months, we also purchase one or more of the meat/chicken boxes. Now for the coupons. I started by going through my mother’s Saturday paper, there is no Sunday paper in this town. I clipped all the coupons I “thought” I would use. I organized them in a notebook using baseball card holders into categories. I daily check these websites, (www.budgetsavingmom.com , Southernsavers.com and Caringwithcoupons. I prints lots of the coupons, but only ones I know I will probably use and have signed up for anything free that is useful!
So far I have shopped at Food Lion, CVS and one trip to Harris Teeter for “super doubles.” At budgetsavingmom, she has a guide on how to get started. This is an excellent way to start. I did save up my coupons for about a month before really starting but I don’t see any need in buying multiple papers to get the coupons. I am trying to have the smallest expense up front so I have not bought anything extra. This is the start, my plan is to post another post on my actual shopping this week!

Work in Progress

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I have just started blogging. I really feel this is what I am to be doing this year. So I am going to try and blog at least once a day for the first year. Later today I am going to write about my couponing adventure. I just got organized about a month ago but am so proud of myself with what I am accomplishing. I plan to use this blog as a way to help other figure out how to save money but most importantly it will be a way for me to talk to myself :). Time to feed the little girls lunch!