Category Archives: Life

Black Friday Shopping

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I actually started my shopping on Thanksgiving morning. After getting all the good things in the Crockpots, I headed out to CVS where I met a couple of friends. I was super pleased with my first transaction which I ended up paying $1.69 for, next was a flop in my eyes because I paid around $35 for it even rolling ECBs. I think what happened is that I was missing 5 ECB from  my first transaction that were out of stock and I added several “free” items that I originally didn’t plan to purchase. I ended up with my final purchase using rain checks to purchase Diet Cokes.  Overall I spent $40 and came home with over $40 in ECB. Matt and I went to a different CVS in Winston on Friday and used Amanda’s card to grab the “freebies” that were left. I ended up buying 2 boxes of eye patches and some children’s medicine with the ECB I earned. With Amanda’s card I spent $20 for everything I purchased and got lots of rainchecks to use in the next several weeks.  I am most excited to go to CVS tomorrow because I will be using the ECB and plan to spend nothing out of pocket except for tax. I will try and get a picture and details together ASAP. I also went to Walgreens on Thursday morning with a friend. The register was printing free movies so I grabbed 3 to watch. I was able to do okay at Walgreens. I did realize that several of the items that I got are “nutrients supplements” I usually do buy this type of stuff so it will go in the donation bin.  I was able between the drugstores able to definitely restock out toothbrush and toothpaste box as well as deodorant. After this week at CVS I should have enough shampoo, conditioner and diaper to last several months.

Friday morning,  Matt and I headed out around 2:30am to shop, we called this our date, as it was the longest that we both have been away from the kids at one time ever. We returned home around 11:30.  I have heard the horror stories but honestly it was not bad at all. We did stand in line at Belk’s for about 5 minutes. I wanted to purchase boots and did but I will be returning this week because they are too narrow. I did grab several bras and Zach a Christmas sweater.  After checking out at Belks we headed to Walmart, with a quick stop at McDonalds for breakfast.  We purchased several Christmas presents there but missed one of the major items we were looking for. So after discovering out mistake we took at second trip to a different Walmart and found several more gifts.  The rest of the day was Lowes, Best buy, Starbucks, Costco, Krispy Kreme and home. I have also purchased several items online including 2 TVs and the one portable DVD that we couldn’t find at either of the Walmarts. The longest line that we waited in was at Krispy Kreme.  The reason I think it was so easy on us was that we were shopping at the off time, hitting stores after the initial opening but still early enough to grab most of the deals.

As for shopping, I am finished except for a couple of additional items for my nieces. I hope to purchase these locally. I would post more details but my girls like to read so I am not giving away the surprises! Stay tuned for Christmas pictures~

So Much to be Thankful for..

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This will be my last blog post on the things I am thankful for this year…although it really shouldn’t be because I need to have a grateful heart all year long. I do have plans for several more post on this extended weekend. But to stick to the topic here is the extended list of things ( I have been posting each Friday in Novmeber so in total this will make 24, don’t forget to catch up !)
1. Being at home for this Thanksgiving. Matt and I have been together now for 8 years, in each of the previous years except 2009, we have travel to Michigian to celebrate with his side of the family. I LOVE each and every one of those folks but it is hard to travel with small kids. So I am thankful for cooking my own dinner in my own house this Thanksgiving
2. Having time to enjoy my husband. Matt and I plan to spend a good portion of the day tommorow shopping together. Haley is baby-sitting, with pay so she is also thankful for this chance to earn some extra money. One of the benefit of traveling together is the extended time in the car in which we talk and get caught up with each other. So instead we are going to each shopping and maybe even a meal out alone during this busy season.
3. Friends that have the same interest as I do. I really enjoyed meeting both Sandy and Dana at CVS this morning and rushing through the store grabbing the deals we wanted to share!
4. Crock-pots. They are a huge time and money saver. (More details on this soon)
5. My children growing up as friends, the older girls are starting to become mature friends. I am happy to see them want to spend time together and not always fighting over clothes. I LOVE watching the younger ones play! Yes I enjoy having 5 kids!
6. God’s blessing in my life. Several years ago Matt and I attended a small group that used the book “A Blessed Life.” We have struggled to live in this manner and in all honest are really enjoyed this blessed life!

Saving Money with little Time

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One of the biggest challenges that comes with using coupons and shopping the deals is finding the time to do all this in a real world time frame. I don’t have 2 plus hours a day to spend on the Internet looking up deals or hand matching coupons and ads. I also live in a very small town with only Food Lion and Walmart as far as grocery stores go.  But I do LOVE a good bargain so I thought I would share some of the ideas/thoughts/secrets I have figured out over the past year for finding time to coupon.

1. You don’t have to be at the store first thing when the ad starts to get the good deals. The one exception for this rule is probably Black Friday. So since in the case of CVS, I am not going to the store prior to church on Sunday, I have discovered that the store restocks on Thursday am. So I usually try to hit the store after the restocking if I really really really want a certain deal. Rain checks are awesome so most of the time if the store doesn’t have a deal, I simply get a rain check. Usually in 2-3 weeks the deal is back in place and I can use both the rain check and the expired coupon.  I ended up at CVS last night at 8:15pm after the kids were all in bed. I was pleasantly surprised that they had everything in stock.

2. Combined trips with other activities whenever possible. For example, last Thursday I was at a workshop in Winston. So I decided to use the express Lane at Harris Teeter for groceries as well as a quick trip into the CVS in the same parking lot after my class had finished.

3. Spending 5 minutes on Sundays to sort and file coupons saves hours when I am matching up the coupons with sale items.

4. Decide on what you are going to buy prior to going to the store. Stick to the plan.  I could never just take my binder to the store and shop.  On average I spend about 30 minutes a week planning shopping trips. But this allows me to spend less than 30 minutes in the store at a time.

5. Set a goal for where you are going to spend the money you are saving. This way you know that  you are making progress.

Finally, if you miss a sale or need to buy an item. So what?  The world will not end nor will your couponing license be revoked.

The End of September Hits

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At least that is my prayer at this point. On Wednesday, we got confirmation that Zach is a healthy but petite guy with no heart problems. After that appointment, we headed over to Costco to put new tires on the car. In addition to this our new to us dryer is still working great and the van seems to be running well with it’s new tire as well.

All that leaves is my surgery, to say I was not very very very nervous about it would be an understatement. I also had to go on a high dose of antibiotics for the first 2 weeks of October due to the infection in my mouth. I also was taking ibuprofen every day for pain. So I knew it was necessary but still very scary for me.  But I must say that the surgery itself was a breeze. I took the medicine as instructed an hour before arriving at the office. The one problem was with the billing. This office insist that even with insurance 1/3 of the estimated bill must be paid up front, in addition I had to pay the consultation fee up front as well. But after some discussion and a call to my insurance company the total OOP was less than $200. I do expect to re-coup at least half of this from my insurance as well. Matt will tell you I was “falling asleep”waiting in the office. I was taken back to a room, given “laughing gas” I remember the IV being started after I warned them that my veins roll. After that I honest, remember the doctor moving around, then a nurse saying you did great, lets go to your car.  I do remember thinking “Am I in a movie?” when the nurse added that my husband had brought the car around to the back alley.  I have been painful since the surgery, almost 36 hours at this point but I am doing ok and even managed half a day without pain medicine this morning. I am praying by Monday I will be back to normal with no pay at work!

So the hits of September have now passed!

Stress Relief Day

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This day actually turned out to be much better than I had hoped or prayed for. Zach had an appointment with a Cardiologist this morning. One of the things that has been mentioned several times in the last two years is the possibility that he is so small maybe be contributed to a heart condition. When the doctor at his two year old check up “thought” he might hear a murmur, it was decided to get it checked out. Today after waiting a total of almost 2 hours we received the best news possible. Zach’s heart is perfect, in fact it never needs to be checked again unless something major happens! YAY! Matt and I have both agreed that as of today, we are no longer worried about the why Zach is small. He is small because God made him that way! As Matt put it “he is small until he is not small anymore.” It feels like a huge burden has been lifted off of me. We have decided that Zach is healthy and we claim it in our Lord Jesus!

In other news we were able to get a new set of tires on the car. Matt also has cashed his first income as a web designer!  He is going to slowly over the next 4 year try to build up and maintain a business that will allow him to be a stay at home dad as well as keep his foot in a door!

GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!

Sticking to the Plan while Life happens!-Menu Planning

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One of our biggest money reducing/saving efforts this month is eating out of the freezer/pantry to reduce at least by half our food budget. So far this month we have spent $294. Honestly, this is the point where I usually have the biggest problem. We are running low on bread and milk, so someone is going to have to go in a grocery store to purchase these in the next several days. The trend is that because I have to buy 2 things, I go ahead and make a list of our wants. The goal is to change this habit. We are starting to run low on snack foods as well as quick/easy items for lunches. But again, I don’t want to purchase because that will definitely sink the budget.

Now is where planning and a little next thought takes place. First I am going to share ways we have been trying to waste not, then I am sharing our plan for this hectic week. Yesterday, for lunch, I made tuna salad. We are short on loaf bread so I cut the hot dog buns from earlier in the week in half and made “subs” for the kids. Lily loved it so much she asked if she could have a sub in her lunch as well. Matt and I ate our tuna salad on hamburger buns. Today, I made a Shepard’s pie for dinner, adding left over carrots and fruit cocktail to make it a meal to feed 6. The reason I chose the Shepard’s pie is that we had a huge bowl of leftover mashed potatoes.

Next is the planning. This week is so hectic with Zach’s cardiac appointment on Wednesday and my oral surgery scheduled for Friday in addition to all the regular weekly activities. Another budget buster for us is grabbing food on the run when things get busy. So I went ahead and planned a couple of meals that are quick and easy. First is spaghetti, no preparation just heat and eat. We have some lettuce that needs to be eaten so it will probably be added in on Monday to make this a healthy meal. Wednesday, we have no idea how long we will be at Amos Cottage but previous experiences have said that we need to plan on a long long day. So I have all ready gotten some chicken drumsticks out of the freezer. On Wednesday morning, we can throw in the crock pot with some BBQ sauce, add the rest of the left over mashed potatoes, frozen green beans from the summer and crescent rolls if time and we have an awesome meal. Finally Friday, Matt was concerned about me not being able to eat and needing to buy something. I checked the freezer we have several varieties of soup and also several cans of soup. I also found a couple of boxes of Jello as well as applesauce so nothing else is needed. Tuesday and Thursday, Matt will have to grab something out to grill or a frozen meal but that is not a big deal! Best news of all will be less than $10 at the store for bread and milk.

Waste Not…..Want Not..

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Sounds simple and straight forward, a good principle to live by. I have always thought I was pretty good at living by this principle as well. But today, I am beginning to realize that maybe I am wrong.
One of the things we attempting to do in the month of October is live out of our freezor/pantry with as little shopping as possible. Matt and I have been doing really well getting together a menu on Sunday so that we don’t need to rush out and eat somewhere. In reality it is actually working. We have begun to empty out the meat from the freezers in the house and even need to bring up some items from the big freezer in the next week. We are also beginning to see a difference in our pantry as well. Let me be clear, in no way, shape or fashion are we running out of food. Instead we are beginning to run out of our favorite snacks and foods. For example, currently we have one Poptart and only have 7 boxes of cereal. The strange thing is that I noticed this afternoon that my first instinct was to start a grocery list and plan a trip. Then I remembered wait this is a good thing. Next Matt mentioned that we will soon need more cereal. Finally, Haley is looking for something to snack on and say Mom you need to buy more Poptarts. So now I am thinking, maybe it is not always simple to waste not want not.

It is simple to buy food on sale or purchase in bulk, plant a garden and freeze thinking “I don’t want to waste this so I will save it for later.” We, as a family, are discovering that it is not as simple to use what we have on hand, things we have saved for another day instead of rushing out to get our favorite foods.

Since I want to end this on a positive note because I really thing this is a good thing for us and it will help us save at least 1/2 if not 3/4 of our grocery budget this month for other things. I am going to mention 3 meals this week that have used items that are on hand. First, I made a chicken casserole on Sunday from the cooked chicken we put away last week, rice that had been cooked for other meals and some cheese. Second on Wednesday, we had hot dogs and used left-over manwich meat with a dash of chili pepper to top. Finally, today we had Taco Rice and left-over chicken casserole for dinner.

IKEA makes me smile!

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So as of this afternoon a momentous occasion has occurred at our house…we all have enough space to keep our clothes and the majority of our clothing is now in the room of the person it is being worn by. The exception to this is Kendall. Her hanging clothes are still in our closet and I don’t see that changing until someone moves out.

On Thursday, after the girls eye appointment we headed to IKEA. I had a plan in mind. We received in the mail over a month ago a coupon for $25 at IKEA. My Mom was so nice to save me the same coupon she received because she will never convince Dad to drive for a furniture store. Thursday morning I was having my hair done and mentioned to the hairdresser that we were headed to IKEA later. She had also saved her coupon and gave it to me. So I had a total of $75 free money to spend. The one slight problem is after arriving there was a sign that stated “one coupon per customer.” Matt and I both redeem our coupons, dropped the kids off in the play place, thank goodness that Kendall was tall enough and thank you nice IKEA lady for making sure 3 different ways without shoes or hair :). After loading the first purchases in the car I realized they had change employees at the front desk set up for validating coupons so I used the third one. We purchased 2 dressers for the girls room. One with 4 drawers and 1 with 3 the original plan was to purchase 2 with 4 drawers but of course they only had one in stock. I also picked up 4 teacher gifts. We also saw something I have been looking for. Wire drawers that stack. We ended with a 2 combination sets. Both are approximately 6 feet tall. Mine has 2 plastic 3 gallon containers and 6 wire drawers, Matt’s has 3 plastic containers and 4 drawers. I had planned on pictures but that just did not happen. The plastic containers actually hold all our jeans in one without a bend. They are awesome!!!! I actually have 2 empty drawer currently. One is the top of the dresser we moved in Zach’s room and the second is in the dresser that is in our bedroom. I have plans for both but we will see. For now I am happy just to have all the clothes with a home!

Staying Busy

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I was so excited to exceed my blogging goal in September, that I honestly thought it would continue over in October. Well today is October the 8th and this is my first post. So I seriously have my doubts now.

The biggest item on the calender for this week has been a Bible Quiz meet. Matt and I spent about 2 hours last Sunday and another 2-3 hours on Tuesday working on questions. Haley and I attended the quiz today in Winston for half the day. The last remaining part will be an hour of tabulating score on Sunday. I always say I am not going to wait till the last minute to start working on this each month but I am going to definitely add it to my goals for next year. Finding a scheduled time each week to work on quizzing so it doesn’t ended up consuming a week.

Lily is currently on a cheerleading squad that is starting to practice 2 nights a week. So with Kid’s club this a a total of 3 nights a week she has something going on.

Kendall is going to a Tumble class on Tuesdays which is great for her as well as Zach who gets some “Daddy time.” Both Kendall and Zach have a school readiness person who is coming out 2x a month to make sure they stay on track. Kendall completed her annual testing this past Friday and to our surprise she is scoring on the high end! YAY Kendall. Zach will be tested next week and I hope to post the results as well.

Haley is enjoying school and doing well. Amanda is currently splitting her time between school and work with as much social life as she can squeeze in.

To add to the schedule this week, both Kendall and Lily had eye appointment in Charlotte. Both have increased their vision. Kendall is only patching now 3 days a week for one hour. Lily will continue to patch for 4 hours a day for at least another 6 months. After their appointments we headed to Cracker Barrel and IKEA. I hope to post pictures tomorrow of the purchases.

So if you are keeping count then we are home as a family on Tuesday nights. No wonder I don’t have time to blog much.

September in Review

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BLOGGING: I had 17 post in September, including this one! I am so excited that I have met a goal! Now to just keep it up for the next three months! Maybe this month I just had more to write about? I think I just made more time. Goal: 15 per month

Devotions: I am getting better, averaging 2 a week, same as last month but at least it is improving from one a week! Goal is 3 a week.

Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: This month we spent almost $1100 in groceries. I do have serious plans for this number to do down. Matt and I spent an entire Saturday cooking some freezer meal. So this should help reduce this significantly in October. We also need to eat alot out of the freezer in order to really be able to justify a large meat expense in November/December which is my plan. My plan is to reduce the budget to $500 or less for the month of October. If I go below this amount it will be set aside for meat in November. Our Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.

Financially: September was a hard month in this area for us. We had several unexpected expenses but the good news is that we were able to stay caught up on bills for the month. In addition, we paid off 2 small medical bills from earlier in the year! A huge step for us! I had a 3rd paycheck for the month which was a great help. I am going to try something different in the area of savings. I am planning to place $10 a check into savings. This way we are working on our Emergency fund, baby steps. We did spend over $300 in car repairs this month which would replace our car payment. Goals in this area: Emergency fund of $1000, car fund equal to a payment of $300 each month and by January- debt free except for mortgage.
Weight-I exercised 4 days this month. Not much but a start.