Author Archives: Sheila

What’s Happening?

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I have been so tired several night for the past couple of weeks that I have been in bed around 9pm.

It is daylight from 5:30ish am until 9ish pm, this makes going to bed prior to 9 really impossible.

Last Thursday we took both little girls for an eye appointment. Lily’s eyes are improving but we are going to continue patching four hours a day for another 4 months. Kendall has begun to cross and we have started patching her right eye 1-2 hours a day.

Kendall HATES the eye patch. The first day she asked to take it off 4 times and actually took it off and threw away behind my back. We have added coloring and stickers to the eye patch and she at least tolerates for an hour without removing but still ask if she can take it off at least one time.

After the eye appointment, we spent time and money at IKEA. We bought a shelving unit for our bathroom and some nice baskets to go on it. Matt has stained and assembled, it makes that area feel more complete.

I also made a trip to Walgreens on Thursday, spent 4.50 and made 5.50 in register rewards. I also discovered on their rain checks they actually list the price minus the Register rewards, so now I have to locate my coupons and return for cheap razors.

On Saturday, we visited both Food Lion and Costco as well as picked up a online order from Harris Teeter. I am very impressed with Harris Teeter and plan to try the online version again to see if it works on special events.

I have been working alot of hours close to full time so trying to keep up is hard.

Our square foot garden is producing!!! I plan to post pictures on Wednesday but so far we have been able to harvest and use a couple of squash, 5-10 cucumbers and enough green beans to serve as a side dish! Matt is still growing and using the herbs so this has been really awesome to have our own produce.

CVS has several fun deals this week including Diet Coke 2-Liters for 0.79 so I will be making 3-4 trips this week and plan a post with all the details on Thursday!

Haley has finished school, last Friday and will be volunteering at the hospital I work at, 4 hours a day on Mondays and Wednesdays all summer.

It is dark and almost 10pm so I am going off to bed.

Coupon Blessing 6/12/2011

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I aplogize for my absense over the first 12 days of June but I have been one busy mom. I am hoping to catch up on some post over the next few days as things are settling into a routine busy.

These items are good deals (free or cheap) that cna be used for personal use or donated. This week, the deals require two transactions in order to reduce out of pocket expenses. IF you have Extra Care Bucks (ECB) from last week, simply do this as one transaction using them.

CVS Phamarcy

Transaction 1: Schick Hydro 3 or Hydro 5 Razor $8
Use $4 off coupon from 6/12 Smart Source and purchase 1 razor. Out of pocket cost $4 and you will earn 4 ECB.

Transaction 2: Schick Hydro 3 or Hydro 5 cartridge 4 pk $8.97
Use $2 off Schick Hydro refill from 6/12 Smart Source plus the 4 ECB from Transaction 1 to pay 2.79 plus taz. You will earn 4 ECB from this transaction.

Purchasing these together makes it awesome to donate. However, I will only be purchasing the Razor because I have discovered that I can buy Razor for less than $1. This amount makes them all disposable!

May In Review

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Blogging: I definitely increased over April with 12 total post. Matt is complaining that one or so didn’t count because it was a picture of the garden but hey at least it is an improvement. The goal is 15.
Devotions: I sucked this month. I am honestly ashamed of how little time I have spent. So this is number one on the improvement list for June. Goal: 3 per week.

Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: After two awesome month of coming in right where I had budgeted, this month we are way off! I have spent around 1500 on groceries this month. The good news is that this included the money for entire summer of the co-op and also the expense for the square foot garden that we planted. I have added to the stockpile this month but now in June, I plan to focus on meat and staying way under the $800 budget.(Not sure why I can’t seem to un-bold the above statement?)


Financially: Catching up from April so nothing new paid.

Weight– Have not even stepped on the scale!

Homeschool = Success

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If you ever have a chance to talk to Lily, it takes just a few minutes to realize that she is smart. She loves to learn! Since before her birth, the topic of education was discussed. Because of the area we live in the options are really limited. We are limited by the fact there is only one private school within a 20 minute drive. Personally, I don’t feel that this school provides a good education and therefore it was never on our list of possibilities. Matt and I both agree that the public school are not the best but not the worst either. Homeschooling was the other option. We both are torn on this issue, but agree that neither feel we can provide an education better than the public schools and that socialization is just as important as the education. I don’t want to offend anyone who has a different view but these are our thoughts after much discussion and pray. These fact together with our realization that Lily is very intelligent have been discussed many times at our house. I realized that you need to teach a child when they are ready to learn and feel that if you don’t start when they are ready then you miss the opportunity. Lily was ready to learn at around age four. We have starting doing Preschool with her prior to Zach’s birth. Kendall joined as she was ready probably around 18 months or so. Last spring, I started looking into options for Kindergarten for Lily. Because of her age she was not allowed to start public school until the fall of 2011. I talked to several people and discussed a little known fact that if a child attends a private school then when transitioning into public school they will be placed according to ability and grade complete at the private school. Homeschooling seemed like an option to give Lily the best start we could. I checked with the state on regulation for Homeschooling. North Carolina will not recognize a home school until the oldest student attending is at least 8 years old. So we had no assurance that by completing a year of homeschooling she will definitely be able to start public school as a First grader.

Matt has spend the majority of time this year providing the schooling. I have been responsible for developing the ideas and paperwork to complete on a daily basis. I chose not to purchase a curriculum because of the expenses as well as my feeling that I wanted her to go as far as she could in this first year. I did purchase several work books from the Educational story and used my own knowledge to try and guide the process. Teaching her to read was big on the agenda and I took a suggestion from a teacher and purchased “Teaching your child to read in 100 easy steps.” Matt has used this and Lily is now officially a reader. Writing I taught using Handwriting without tears. Mainly this year has been practice as she already knew the correct formation of most of the upper and lower case letters. I have returned to the Educational story several times to purchase Math books. Currently in Math, she is adding and subtracting up to 20, telling time to the half hour and using money for simple things.

In February, I contacted the local school to find out if and how we could try and register Lily as a First grader. After several conversations, it was determined she would need to be tested. The principal arranged the test for Memorial Day 5/30. The testing occurred yesterday. Lily is officially a first grader in August! She was given the test that is completed by Kindergarten’s at Davis Townsend. In reading, she scored at 98% fluency and 100% comprehension, in math she scored at 100%! We are pleased and excited to realize that we did what was best for Lily and hope that the foundation laid this year will serve her well into the future!

Coupon Blessing 5/29

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I blogged about wanting to use coupons in a bigger/better way at our church to encourage donations. So this week, we were able to take a major step in the right directions. We did get envelopes in place at the welcome center and side entry table to collect any unwanted coupons. We did have coupons placed in both of these! I am so excited. Next, this morning Matt was able to type up a short deal that can be used at CVS this week to encourage donations. We are hoping that we are able to do this on a regular basis and that at least one other person will use it to help either save money or collect items to donate.

I have several objectives when putting this list together. 1. Out of pocket cost is less than $10. 2. The items purchased are ones that can be easily donated and needed at any time for most organizations that request donations. 3. The coupons required are easy to locate, for this reason I prefer not to use internet coupons but will stick to coupons from newspapers. Along the same lines, I am going to try to keep the coupons needed from the same month so that they will be easy to locate for most people. 4. I want to keep the list down to one store a week unless something is free at both locations and mets all the above criteria.

Matt is help out with this by working on the wording to ensure it is easy to understand and follow and with typing and sorting. He was also the one to come up with the name “Coupon Blessings”

So now here is the list for this week. I will add a suggestion here that were not on the list printed for church. If you break these down into 2 simple transactions then you reduce your out of pocket cost to $5 instead of $8 and you still have 2 ECB for next week. I am also planning to roll these weekly if possible.

CVS Pharmacy

Free Candy
Purchase 2 Mars candy singles.
Total is $1. plus tax
Earn 1 ECB

Cheap (but Good) Shampoo/ Conditioner
Purchase 2 Pantene 12.6 oz bottles for $3.48 each.
Use $3 off 2 coupon from the Proctor and Gamble insert of May 1st
Use 1 ECB from previous transaction
Total is around $3
Earn 2 ECB to use next week or on another item in the store you need.

All My Children UPDATE

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Amanda- With some (okay lots) of encouragement from us has decided to take the summer off from college. She passed her CNA test in April and is currently working as a home care provider and is suppose to start as needed at a Nursing Home 3rd shift next week. This should give her a chance to save up some money to make college much easier in the Fall. She is also continuing with her fire fighting classes. I am very proud of her for making it up in the mornings and to work on time on a regular basis.

Haley- Haley is finishing up her Sophmore year at high school. She currently is on the A-B honor roll with 2 Honors classes (chemistry and Civics). She decided that she wants to be in color guard next year so is working on that over the summer as well. Haley will spend the majority of her summer as a Junior Volunteer at the Hospital. She was one of 30 people chosen out of the 95 that applied. Way to go Haley.

Lily- Has officially completed home school for the year. She is currently reading simple books, working both addition and subtraction problems, telling time to the 15 minute and knows alot about money. We will continue to work on a more informal basis over the summer. On Monday, she will be tested to determine if she will enter school in First Grade or Kindergarten in the fall. Lily has also started cheering on a competition squad. She is a flyer. Lily enjoys stretch and is doing an awesome cartwheel and working on a back walk over!

Kendall- Kendall is growing by leaps and bounds. She is beginning to recognize colors, loves to sing and dance. She is wearing big girl panties all the time except nap and night. We are still having one or two accidents a week. I am so proud of the way she has learned to express what she wants and will pick things even if everyone else wants something different.

Zach- Is walking, beginning to put two word sentences together and is one of the most strong willed children in this house! He is a climber and a screamer. We are sure he is gaining weight and will no longer be going to Brenner’s for weight check every 3 months. We are not certain about his allergies but are justing being careful at this point and will see in the future what is best for him.

$5 CVS Trip

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I have to admit up front this is my 4th trip to CVS this week, and I will attempt to make another tommorow (Saturday) unless I get to busy. CVS has been running some really good sales this week, Diet Coke 12 pks are buy 3 get 1 free or 4 for $10. In addition Revlon nail polish is on sale for $4.99 with $4 ECB and a limit of 6. The red box is also printing out the same coupons all week of FREE Green Bag tag and $1 off 2 Crystal light.

I started with 4 ECB from a previous nail polish and 0.99ECB from previous purchase of gum.

My first transaction was for 1 pk of Dentyne gum, 1 bottle of Nail polish, 3 individual packs of Crystal Light. I used the red box coupons for Crystal Light along with a B2G1 free, $2 off color cosmetic revlon coupon. Total out of pocket 0.23 (tax) and earned 4 ECB from Polish and 0.99 from gum.

Second Transaction was 4 12pks of Diet Coke and 3 individual packs of Crystal Light. I used another Crystal Light (1.00off) along with a B2G1 free, 4 ECB from previous transaction and both $0.99 ECB from gum purchases. Total out of pocket $4.74 and I earned another ECB for using my Green Bag tag 4 times.

Total spent $4.97, saved $27.11 for a total of 85% or in reality I spent 0.10 a can on 4 packs of soda and the rest was free!

Extreme Couponing

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The new catch word seems to be “extreme”. Everything is extreme these days from sales to prices to couponing. As I am trying to get my head around an idea this title/show keeps popping up.

First to be honest, I do watch the show and enjoy it most nights even to the point where I DVR it so I can skip the commerical or fall asleep. But while watching, I look at their shopping trips as not their “usual” trip but it fact their most successful trip every! If you listen most of the couponers on the show will say at least once “this is my biggest/best trip”. In reality they spent months trying to put this trip together and on most occasions as I am learn get extra help from the stores or the producers. Now that I have established my thoughts on the show, how does it relate to me? or this idea I am talking about?
Second question/step- Yes, I have been called an extreme couponer. Yes, I plan specific trip to a store with a list in place and plan to purchase what is on sale. And YES, I have a stockpile. I started seriously couponing about a year ago as a way to save money so I could stay at home longer. Now, I am playing a game and couponing is my hobby. In the process, I have learned alot and we are actually enjoying a higher standard of living becuase of couponing.

Third- I want to share this idea with others and also use it to bring glory and honor to God’s kingdom. So how can this work? I have blogged in the past about the deals I have gotten. I plan to continue to do this but I want to move it up to the next level. Over the past several weeks, I have been able to make several donation of soap,deodrant and toothpaste to different ministries at our church. With each donation, it seems that we still want to do more. Matt and I have been talking about how we can use couponing to make a difference. Now this is in hopes of getting the ball rolling!

The Goal: To accumulate a stockpile of items to be given away at our new church building to anyone who will take them.

I am hoping that I will be able to start collecting unused coupons from people in the church, develop list of free or items that can be purchased for less than $10, share this information with anyone and everyone I can get involved. I have already talked with a couple of people at church and we have made an announcement about bring in the unwanted coupons. I also have gotten at least 2 other people who are willing to go shopping. So the ball is rolling. Now comes my part, I am planning to develop a list on a monthly basis of things to donation that can be purchased at Walmart for $10 or less. Next on a weekly basis I am going to develop list that can be used locally to pick up free items to stockpile for this drive.

With all this being said, I guess it is official I am an extreme couponer and proud of it!