Wordless Wednesday
1
Monthly Archives: March 2010
Successful Shopping Sunday
This is the picture of my “nap” trip to CVS on Sunday. I spent $23 and saved $71, 75% savings. I did split this up into 3 separate transactions. ECB were only given on the first purchase of diapers but because of the coupons I had ($3/1) and with rolling ECB. I decided to stock up. I only counted the drinks and diapers in when calculating prices because these are the items I would “normally” buy. The cost of diapers was at $0.08 each for all 5 packs.
My 3rd and final trip to Harris Teeter for Triples was this afternoon also. Matt decided that he and the little kids would go with me. He admitted he wanted to see how this was done. I was not expecting this to be as profitable as it was. I had a $4./ off shopping order from my second trip and was able to earn another $4 off by separating this into two transactions. I spent $26 and saved $56 for 69% savings.
For the day I spent $49 and saved $127, 72% overall savings.
At Harris Teeter this week I have spent a total of $95 and saved $172 or a total of 64%. I am very excited that the currently plan for April is only to buy Angel Food and things we run out of like Laundry Powder. This should let us reduce the grocery budget by $300 for the month!
Easter Egg Hunt
On Saturday, the church, actually the young married couples SS class, hosted an Easter Egg Hunt. It was AWESOME! We were so surprised to see that it was an afternoon of fun. Enjoy the pictures!
Lily got an Egg painted on her face. She was not sure about even touching the bunny but later she did rub “Buddy” the dog!
This was one of Kendall’s favorite things ! She and Lily actually played together in this for a long time
Zach just “hung around” with his dad most of the afternoon. Lily also enjoy “tossing the eggs.
I had planned to upload a couple of other pictures but blogger is not working so I give up!
Monday Menu Post 3-29
I am really like posting my menus on Monday. Last week we change things up a little bit because I had a ton of potatoes that were starting to go bad so on Thursday I made a huge batch. We tried the Dion mustard beef steaks from Angel Food. They were actually ok, I broiled instead of using the grill because it was raining. I took some of the potatoes to make a Shepard Pie for dinner on Friday. This actually turned out really good and we will have for lunch several days this week. I still have a LARGE bowl left so I am thinking of freezing or making potato cakes for a breakfast for dinner night!
I am also trying something new, typing it up on Saturday when I had some extra time and schedule to be posted on Monday. Let’s hope it works.
This weeks Menu:
Monday: Ranch chicken, sweet potato cassrole, and of course mash potatoes and slaw
Tuesday: Spaghetti and Garlic bread
Wednesday: Crock pot chicken with onions and carrots (slow cooker recipe)
Thursday : Pork chops (not sure how)
Friday: Breakfast for Dinner
Adventures in Couponing
I have been debating how much information to put in this one post.. but think I have decided to keep this a general post of all things related to coupons and not include my actual trips today. I saved a ton at both CVS and Harris Teeter! I will share about these in a separate post so I can “link up ” on several of the blog I read! So this is a tidbit post!
Since posting pictures of my Harris Teeter trip on Wednesday, Lily has asked several times to see the picture. After the second time, I started wondering why…. So she looks at the picture and says “Mommy, where is THAT gum?” Since gum is a treat around here, I gave Matt a pack and hide the others. Lily has figured this out and since she didn’t know the name of the game to ask for, she figured out that she can look at the picture and ask where certain things are since she has proof I have bought them.
Yesterday on our way home from the Easter Egg hunt, which was awesome! I reminded Matt that I wanted to get a paper with 3 coupon inserts this week. We literally checked 10 different paper boxes before locating a single local paper at 4pm in the afternoon. I was totally shocked but guess that someone has figured out that $.50 for the Saturday paper with coupons is better than $1.50 for the Sunday “big city” paper!
Speaking of papers, I am still currently only buying one paper but usually I get the majority of coupons each week from my mother and several of the ladies at church have started bringing me coupons as well. On Wednesday I received a whole envelope full, this lady sent them on Wednesday instead of Sunday because she knew I wanted to go to triples. Today I had someone else bring me diaper coupons! I am definitely becoming known as the coupon lady or as the lady who used ALOT of coupons!
Matt and the little kids all went to Harris Teeter with me this afternoon. He told me last night he thought it would be fun to go as a family. He actually wanted to see what I was buying and saving! I think he was impressed! He did say that his favorite part was watching the amount of tax go down with each coupon!
I am done shopping for the week and actually think that I may skip the Costco trip in April because of the stockpile we have now! I am excited! I do plan to go to CVS weekly depending on the deals but no more trip to Harris Teeter until Supers!
Random Thoughts
I like to do little blurbs about our life and I also want to be able to sort blog post by labels so if I ever get some followers (don’t you want to be the first?) then you can skip the post that don’t interest you.
Matt bought and put up a new clothes line for me on Thursday. Clothes line have gotten to be expensive. So I determined that in order to make it “worth” the expense, I will need to hang up at least 100 loads of clothes this summer. So far, I have the 4th one on the line now and am planning to hang up a load of towels to decide if I can handle those on the lines. I LOVE sheets and in fact will hang them out even in snow! I remembered on Thursday how nice it is to hang “dress/causal” clothes up because they come out looking almost pressed! I refuse to hang out underwear or the little kids clothes ….too much work!
I was super EXCITED on Thursday to be featured on Caring with Coupons with my trip to Harris Teeter. I was hoping a couple of people would click over and decide to come back! I called Matt at work and Amanda at school to have them see it!
I worked 10 hours on Friday. This was an extremely long day for me and I really missed the kids. I was pleasantly surprise to come home and the house not totally destroyed, supper ready and the little kids feed. I hope not to do this again in the near future but am glad to know that I can handle it if I have to.
Zach has been eating ALOT, especially during the day and even waking every 3-5 hours at night. I was wondering if my milk production had slowed down and when I pumped yesterday after 6 hours I only got 3 ozs. So after talking to Matt last night we decided it would be best for everyone if we moved him to formula. Matt went to Walmart last night and learned that soy formula is expensive it was $15 for a week or less supply. I am planning to use up the rest of my stash and probably all of my quarterly ECB to buy up some. I also plan after a week or so to “mix in” one a day at first regular formula to see if he has an reaction. I am hoping that we can isolate better exactly what cause the reaction and not just assume it is milk. If this doesn’t work then Soy formula it will be! This morning it took almost 45 minutes for him to get hungry enough for a bottle. We are going to try several different ones today and hopefully by Monday get him straighten out!
Matt is hard at work in the big bathroom with plans to seal the gout, hang the door and finish the closet today. We also NEED to get our yard mowed and some outside stuff straighten up but we will see. The little girls have an Easter egg hunt today from 1-3 and my plan is to go back to Harris Teeter either tonight or Sunday for my final trip. It is busy but also manageable!
Harris Teeter 2nd trip
I returned Thursday night to Harris Teeter for my 2nd of 3 planned tripped. This trip took a little bit longer and was more expensive but overall I am pleased. I spent $54.91 and saved $55.64 so a little over 50%. I ended up buying 14 more containers of baby food to use the coupon I received from the last trip. I also bought Graham cracker crumbs without a coupon to use for the desert Haley is responsible for this weekend. I did receive a $4 off my next order so that will be nice on my final trip. I need to sit back down go through and make a new list to make sure I use at least 20 coupons on the final trip. This trip will probably be the most expensive since I will be purchasing items that are not on sale but I have a coupon for that triples and are items that we normally use!
I did realize that I am ok with saving only 50%-75% because we like certain items and I would buy some or most just on sale for the same price or more without the triple coupons!
82% Savings at CVS and Harris Teeter
Yesterday was the first day of Triple coupons at Harris Teeter. I have been working and planning for this for the past couple of day. I would estimate a total of 2 uninterrupted hours but it ended up beginning 4 for me. My plan is this I will shop 3 times. Yesterday the trip focused on “free items” but I also picked up 10 packs of baby food because they were on “sale” and I had store coupons which did not double. I spent a total of 30 minutes in the store because I had a list printed and my coupons were sorted by “free”, “good deals” and “check”. On my first time through the store, I picked up the wrong band of taco seasoning so I went back and got just the two packs that I needed. The coupon for 0.75 off 2 would not go through so she had to call a manager to put it in. So it tripled and the register showed I owed 0.26. She looks at me and says “I guess you get it free.”
I spent $14.45 and saved $60.15.
After Harris Teeter I made a quick trip to CVS, unfortunately somewhere in the store, I lost my card so now I have to call to get my new and old card linked. I want to be sure and get my quarterly ECB in April. I bought 1 pk of Pampers size 5 and 2 packs of skittles and 2 packs of Starburst. I had a BOGO coupon from facebook for each so I used a filler to reach my $10 because of a 3 off 10 from Walgreens. So OOP I spent $1.73 and walked out with 3 ECB!
Total savings was $75 and OOP was 17.22 for 82% saving! I will be heading back to Harris Teeter tonight for my second trip!
Wordless Wednesday Birthday Edition
Happy Birthday Haley
So today is Haley’s 15th birthday. I have been debating on what to include in this blog today. I had debated on just making this a post about how awesome and special Haley is to me right now or doing a post about her “birth” day. I decided to post the later because as each year passes I am sure I forget some of the important details that one day Haley will want to know.
So Haley was born on a Tuesday. I was employed with Health Focus and at that time, it was a perfect job for a working mother and especially one that was pregnant. I actually started this job on the day I found out I was pregnant. I took a test in the bathroom of one of the facilities I worked at because my bf bought it on our lunch. You were paid for full time as long as you were able to cover all the patients at the 3 facilities I covered. So I just didn’t feel great that morning and decided to hang out at home until after Amanda’s nap. I only had 2 patients to see that day. I was laying in the bed watching “All My Children.” My plan was to drop Amanda off at daycare and go to work at 2ish. But Haley of course had different plans. My water broke during the show. It was not the gush you hear about. I called my mom and she insisted that I go to the doctor. In fact I called and she and Dad met me there.
Amanda and Pawpaw went to go find Destry because even though I had already called and asked that he met me at the hospital we didn’t think, he would get the message. Of course we were correct and Pawpaw drove in behind his cement truck just as he was going out on another run.
I was admitted to the hospital and IMMEDIATELY wanted pain medicine. Unfortunately the meds slow and almost stopped my labor. The meds began to wear off at 5 pm and Haley was born just before 6pm. After Destry arrived I sent my mom and dad home with Amanda and Destry’s mom home as well. It was during this delivery that I realize I like to be left alone.
After Haley was born, Amanda arrived back at the hospital within half an hour to see her new sister. We had done a good job preparing Amanda that I would have to stay in the hospital but we forgot to tell her the baby would too. The nurses were awesome and took a polarid picture which Amanda took home and carried with her for the next 3 days to show anyone what her new sister looked like. I still have the picture and you can see the finger prints from where it was carried around. This was also the beginning of a tradition that has continued with all 5 kids. Haley brought Amanda a purse with crayons in it!
Haley is super excited today because she got the call last night that she starts the driving part of Driver’s ed today. She was awake before 6am to start celebrating. Hopefully tomorrow I can post a couple of pictures.