End of an Era— Potty Training Ends!

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Sheila

I am so excited, the biggest and best milestone has occurred at my house. Zach is finally completely potty trained even at night. This means that I have bought my last pull up/diaper EVER! Let me repeat after 8 consecutive years of buying diapers/pull-ups I AM FINISHED!

Each of my children has been very different in regards to potty training. Both Amanda and Haley, were completely trained before they were 2 years old. In fact, I think I remember Haley being trained before 18 months. Lily was also a very early trainer, I distinctly remember that she was completely out of diapers/pull ups prior to Kendall’s birth. Lily was 2.5,when Kendall was born. Kendall does everything on her own terms. The last time she wore a pull up was during our Disney trip in April 2011. I seriously debated keeping her in pull ups during the day at Disney but she refused! Kendall was 33 months old during this trip.

Then we have Zach, he currently is 4 .5 years old. He has been trained during the day for a year but continued to pee regularly at night. We finally decided that we had to get serious. So we made him wear underwear to bed. To our surprise and amazement, he did not pee the first night but did the second night. Our strategy worked and less than 3 weeks later, he has had only 2 accidents at night!

Join me in my happy dance!

Wordless Wednesday 2nd Nine Weeks Honor Roll

Posted on February 5, 2014 by Sheila

This definitely proves we need a new camera!

Lily has made the A honor Roll both nine weeks so far!

Brand Loyalty and Coupons

Posted on February 2, 2014 by Sheila

One of the first things you will read when beginning to coupon or trying to learn more about coupons is that you can’t be brand loyal. I disagree with this statement. I have discovered over the years, that I am more brand loyal than I would have ever imagined. The things that come to mind are deodorant, laundry detergent, toilet paper and of course Diet Coke. In addition, Matt has used the same razor brand since we got married almost 10 years ago. This weekend almost all of the above have been needed and on sale so I have spent $93 of my $300 grocery budget on these items. But most of these should last the rest of the month if not several months

. First of all, let talk about Matt’s razors, I have learned that is it usually cheaper to buy him a whole new “Proglide razor” than purchase the replacement cartilages. When we travel, he will use disposable ones just to save time. So I usually purchase disposable razors when I find a really good deal( less than $1.00) on them. I know his preference for razors so if a good deal is running I will buy at least one and stick back, however this morning, he let me know that he was completely out of razors. I checked my bag and found a rain check so this afternoon he was back in business. I love CVS because their rain checks never run out. I ended up spending $2.00 for his razor of choice!

Next is laundry detergent, I have tried several brands including the Kirkland one but return to Tide because it cleans and does not bother the sensitive skins of Lily or Zach. Tide usually goes on sale once every 3 months or so. I try to stock up but also know that I can grab an ok deal at Costco on Tide if I need to. I feel like the money I spend on Tide is made up with keeping the resale value of the kids clothes in addition to prolonging the life of most of the other clothes. CVS also had a good deal on Tide so I purchased 4 20 load bottles. This should last until the next sale cycle. The one exception I make in this area is a general exception across the board, if an item is free and I am shopping that store anyway, then I grab it. One of the black Friday deals at CVS was their brand laundry detergent, I grab both my free bottles. I will use these on our beach trip because I watch swim suits and towels every day or for towel at home. These are nice to have in a pinch as well. if it is free then it is worth one load of laundry.

Following close behind the laundry detergent is toilet paper. We have a really bad septic systems that we have spent several thousand dollars on in the past 4 years. So I have to be careful what we put in it. I have found that Scott Extra Bath Tissue, first is soft enough to use and then is one of the safest for our system. Luckily, between coupons and sales, I can always find it for $0.45 cent a roll or less. Today, I grabbed it $0.40 cent a roll. In comparison when purchasing from Costco, I end up paying $0.63 a roll for the house brand, I purchased 54 rolls today so I am positive that we will be using them for several months!

Finally deodorant, I have always like Mitchum, luckily I am usually able to purchase for $1.00 or less a bottle I always grab as many as I have coupons for anytime I see them for this price. Matt on the other hand is adventurous in the area. But last year, he discovered “Right Guard” cooling effect. I have been able to stock pile about a 2 year supply so currently unless it is free, we don’t purchase any men’s deodorant!

January 2014

Posted on January 31, 2014 by Sheila

This has been a particularly busy month for me, but I still have managed to make progress.

Financial Goals–

1. Pay off lawn mower by March 2014 to avoid interest being charged. Made the $100 payment Goal Met!

2. Emergency Fund to $2000. $100 moved to this account yesterday Goal Met

. 3. Groceries: Spend $600 a month- Actually spent this month $400 including a Pamper Chef order. Goal Met

4. Gas: Spend $400 a month with any remaining to be move to Auto fund for repairs. $103 left in the budget. With the additional money we spent at the end of January for tires and the repair cost for the January. I am going to use this remaining money to “repay” some of the areas I have recently borrowed from. Goal Met

Blogging: Goal: 15 per month This is post number 15! I am really happy with this as I did not actually post until the 8th this month! Goal Met

Weight: Goal to exercise 3x a week and to be down to 150 by December 2014. I weighed in today for a contest at work and have lost 8# this month Goal Met

Doing a happy dance!

January No/Low Spend Final Update!

Posted on January 30, 2014 by Sheila

~~Get $100 in our Emergency Fund.~~ Transferred $100 today!
Pay off the outstanding Verizon bill from where we switch names
Deposit for Beach vacation
~~Reduce Groceries to$400 for the month with the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions~~. Total spent for Groceries $298.63. I did use the remaining $100 on a order from Pamper Chef! $212 used for Cheerleading competition spending money!
~~Transfer $50 to auto fund by the end of the month~~. This has been transferred! Goal Met!

I have managed to met 3 out of 5 of my original goals, I am extremely pleased with these as they were made prior to our planning a trip to Michigan. This was an awesome way to start the new year! I will have my goals for February posted on Saturday!

Wordless Wednesday- Sledding in NC

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Sheila

No Spend Challenge and Shopping.

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Sheila

One of my goals for this challenge was to reduce our Grocery spending to $400 for the month with the remaining $200 set aside for Cheerleading competitions. This is one area that we are doing excellent with. One of the reason is my winter cleaning has left our pantry much more organized and we also developed a list of items we have and need to use up.

I did realize that we were running really low on fresh veggies to use this week. We decided to make several shopping stops today. First up was a quick trip to CVS. I purchased 2 tubes of toothpaste, 2 2L of Diet Coke and a candy bar. I ended up paying a total of $1.55 of which $0.60 was tax. I received back 4 ECB. Next, was a stop at Aldi, total spent was $14.88 and finally Walmart. I purchased a baby gift and spent 1.71 for a bunch of celery. We check the celery at Aldi but it was limp and Lily wanted celery and peanut butter one day for lunch. Our grocery total is $298.63 for the month!

I have a chance to order some items from Pampered Chef this week so I am going to use $100 from the left over grocery budget to pay for these items that are all going to be used for cooking.

This goal is MET!!!!!! So far for the challenge I am 2/5. By the end of the week, I hope to achieve 3/5!! This is huge for me as the challenge goals were set prior to planning of our trip!

A Space to Call My Own

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Sheila

This weekend the weather has been extremely cold. That was a good reason for me to stay inside. One of the things, I was able to accomplish was organize and cleaning up my desk. We (Matt and I ) did our yearly purge of paperwork.

My desk before….

After! I was able to purchase the words for $3.00 at an after Christmas sale.

Hopefully this will let me be more productive.

Cooking Day-Non Chicken 1/23/2014

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Sheila

Matt pointed out the other day that although we have lots of food to choice from we were running extremely low on quick and easy to prepare meals. So with a few minutes of discussion, we decided that today would be a “cooking day” I am quite pleased with the results.

First, early this morning, I placed the turkey that was purchased prior to Thanksgiving in the crockpot. I must say this is the best way to cook a turkey. I cooked it on high for 4 hours till the internal temperature was 160 then switched to low for another 3 until the temperature was 170*. I cook it breast down, rubbed with olive oil, and coated with Paula Deen seasoning. I did place one onion inside the cavity and added 1 cup of apple juice. We enjoyed turkey for dinner, I have plans to use the rest for at least 2 additional meals this weekend plus at least one or two meals of plain turkey. In addition to the meat, I have already frozen 16 cups of broth with plans to finish with at least another 20 cups today from the bones and skin. Total cost for the meat for 5 meals is $12.

Next, we purchased for the cost of processing some venison in November. We have not been able/ forgot to count the total amount of ground venison we received but we are thinking it was around 60#. Today we used 8# to make and freeze 2 cheeseburger quiches and 11 packs of Salisbury Steaks. Matt and I both worked in the kitchen for a total of 3 hours or less for these meals. The Salisbury Steaks will need to have a starch and vegetable add to complete. Total cost for 13 meals of meat is $6.

This was one of the easiest cooking days that I have done in a long time. In less than 4 hours and for less than $25 total, we have 18 meals for 5 people. That works out to $1.38 a meal. This should go a long way to helping reduce our grocery spending for the first part of the year!