Category Archives: Life

Super Doubles

Posted on by
Reply

I just checked back to see what I had attempted to budget for groceries this month. My goal for August was $400 and the plan was to eat out of the freezer for the majority of the month. However, I have ran into a small snag in the plan. First, I failed to realize that I would need to stock up on school supplies for the year, and attempt to get them at the lowest possible price. Next we are having a surprise visit from Matt’s brother in law this weekend. It will be awesome as we always enjoy them. But I wanted to purchase some extra food to make it a simple and special meal on Saturday. We decided on doing alot of finger foods/appetizers so that no matter what time they arrive it will be warm and ready to eat. They are travelling home from Disney so the timing is always a question. I checked the budget and so far I have spent around $380 and it is not even the middle of the month. But I was able to catch some great deals at Harris Teeter this week.

Super Doubles means that any coupon up to $1.98 will double up to $3.98 or the value of the item. Harris Teeter is also running some excellent sales on school foods/lunches. I picked up an order through the Express Lane yesterday after work and today Matt, myself and the little kids went to Salisbury. I have saved around 60% on the trips combined but in reality have stocked up on paper Towels, Lunchables ($1 each), chips, Capri Suns (which will be donated for our kids carnival), Chex mix and Bugles(both ended up being 0.44 a bag). I am pleased with what we were able to grab. I am hopeful that the rest of the month will be uneventful in the grocery area~!

Lazy Saturday

Posted on by
Reply

It must be a first, there is nothing scheduled for today, the house is decent, and I have nothing on the “I must get this done list.” So it has turned into a very peace and lazy days. Matt has gone to church for the last workday as we are scheduled to have our first service in the new building in the morning. Haley is still at her dad’s, Amanda is working so the little ones and I have been at home in our pjs. I have had a chance to order some Christmas presents, read all the blogs I am behind on and just sit around and veggie. I also am writing 2 post so hopefully that is a good sign of things to come. This afternoon, I promised the little ones we would go out and pull weeds from the playground as well as a trip to Walmart for tax-free weekend. The most exciting news is that we have started Potty training with Zach. If you know us or have been reading awhile then you realize that we have been working with Kendall almost a solid year on potty training. However, Amanda, Haley and Lily were all trained prior to being 2 years old. Zach has used the potty 3 of the 4 times I have taken him today. So is this the end of diapers in our house?

Shopping Thursday

Posted on by
Reply

We needed to go to Costco to stock up on our monthly items for the pantry. I also had the entire day off so it was decided that we combined a needed trip with several other shopping things that would be beneficially for us all. We ended up at Hanes Mall first where we hit JCPenney’s, Old Navy, Bath and Body Works and of course the Carousal. I did remember to print coupons for Old Navy so the best part of the day is that we saved at least 50% at each of our stops. We were able to grab Matt 5 shirts, me 3 shirts and 2 camis and Lily 4 shirts and a pair of leggings for less than $70 at Old Navy. I stocked up on foaming hand soap at Bath and Body Works while Lily got a free bottle of hand sanitizer. Our next stop was Harris Teeter for some rolls and coffee creamers. After Costco we headed home.

After putting the kids to bed I made a run to CVS, Walgreens and Food Lion. At the three stores I spent a total of 50 but was able to stock up on school supplies as well as finish buying Lily’s school list. The only sore spot of the whole day was at Food Lion, where the cashier was bored and decided to read each word on my coupons. She proceeded to tell me that I was only allowed to use one coupon per transaction to which I replied “I guess you need to ring up 6 transactions. After a snort and call to the front manager who simply started scanning the coupons I left with one transaction and a savings of almost 70%.

July in Review

Posted on by
Reply

Blogging: This is the 11th post for the month, much better than in previous month. I do have to say that the majority of this was due to our vacation but I can hope trend continues at least through August. The goal is 15.

Devotions: No change from last month except have probably been more on the miss side.I am going to make this a priority! Goal: 3 per week.

Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: We are actually under for the month at $630. Couponing continues to make this number go down. Meal Planning on Sunday has also been a big help in keeping us on track. In August our goal is to stay under 400. The one huge way we hope to do this is by eating out of the freezer for the majority of the month. Our extra freezer in the building is completely full. So we are hoping that we can begin to not only eat and save for this month. Our Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.


Financially: July was a different month for us as I expected. We took a vacation to the beach for 5 days. I also have bought some clothes and other school supplies that are needed. I would say that because we were able to met budget and go on vacation. Goal met for this month. It has now been a year of unemployment for Matt. We are going to really focus during the rest of the year on achieving our financially goals. As mentioned above I am planning on reducing our Grocery Budget and using this money to make some house repairs so that we can achieve the Emergency fund ASAP! 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– Have not even stepped on the scale. This will become a propriety in the next couple of months maybe?Or I may eliminate from the goal list all together!

A Different sort of Vacation

Posted on by
Reply
Today has been totally different from any other days I can remember on a vacation. Usually, we sort of get into a routine or at least have a plan for how each day will go. This time we didn’t, on both Thursday and Friday we spent all day (6 plus hours) on the beach. The canopy makes is so easy to do snack, lunch and nap outside there is no need for coming back to the hotel. The kids on both these days have asked to go to the pool. We attempted the pool on Thursday night but the temperature was cool and the water was down right cold. I ended up staying up late last night because of my teenage daughters, so I want a nice easy day. Matt and I decided that this morning we would stay around the hotel room and then spend the day by the pool. Much to our surprise the pools remained chilly all day. This morning we ended up in one of the hot tubs and then came up around 11 for lunch. All the kids went down for naps really easy so we joined them. We headed back to the pool for another round but ended up sitting on the edge. We came up earlier to get dressed to go out for our really nice dinner today. It was nice not to have to rush and to spend time on hair and makeup for a change. We ended up taking pictures on the beach before and after the dinner so I hope we were able to get some decent ones for use in calenders and Christmas cards. Dinner was awesome!! We ended up watch a “Fire and Hula” show at the hotel tonight! The kids loved it. Matt is a very awesome husband today by going to Krispy Kreme to end the night! One interesting thing we have noted is that we are being charged 11%tax on food. This is extremly high in our eye but what can we do! Final note I am having issues publishing my post from yesterday so if it appears out of sequence you know why.

Couponing on Vacation?

Posted on by
Reply
One of the “hard” decision that I had to make last week was if I want to bring my coupons on vacation with us or not. I knew I would be bring my netbook but did not have plans to go shopping at all. I have gotten WAY behind on organizing my coupons. Several people at church have been taking part in our “coupon blessing”, by bring coupons in to be used. Several weeks we have gotten full inserts as well as envelopes of already cut coupons and some inserts that have one or alot of coupons already cut but even more left in the insert. The whole insert are the easiest for me because I simply file them with the ones I purchase, the others I have been placing in a bag. One of the reason I was avoiding these was because I really dislike filing in my baseball card inserts, it seems too time consuming for me. I also have fallen about 2 months behind on going thur my insert and send some to my niece in Alaska and throwing out the rest. I knew that I would most likely have the time to work on the coupons but I was still debating on what to actually do with them, so by not bringing them I could continue to ignore the issues.
I finally came up with a solution so I brought ALL of the coupons with me. So far I have spend about 3 hours on them and Matt spent almost 2 helping me last night with the first stage of organization of them. Currently, I have completed stage 2 and now am ready to go back and catch up on the sorting out of expired coupons. So what is that solution? First any whole insert that I receive or buy will remain filed by date in my organizer. Next all partially cut insert, I am going to first cut out the coupons and then file by expiration date in a second organizer. The idea being that if I am looking for a coupon I will first find it in my whole inserts, check the expiration date and then locate any or all others by locating by expiration date. So currently, I have cut all coupon, sorted by month of expiration and then resorted first by like coupons together and then by expiration date in order. So I have coupons that expire on 7/29 before the ones that expire on 7/30. I also have these coupons sorted in separate tabs by month they expire. Coupons that expire in the month of July are also listed in red on southern savers so that gives me a additional place to start. I plan to spend at least an hour each of the remaining nights of vacation pulling out expired coupons. My goal is to have all the coupons in order prior to Monday so that I can start just maintaining the inserts and new coupons that come in each week. In reality this will mean an hour or so each Sunday to keep on top of these.
Now to the real reason I am so glad I brought my coupons with me. I realized today that we are using sunscreen about double my expectation, so I need to purchase additional sunscreen today. I decided to stop by CVS, use my ECBs and purchase some sunscreen. I was able to save 50% on sunscreen tonight at CVS!! I think this is awesome especially considering that prices at that CVS here were the same or less that that I purchased at home! I did use a 10 off $50 purchase and one $1 off sunscreen!
Couponing is FUN again!

First Day of Vacation

Posted on by
Reply

Today, was the first full day of our family vacation it was peaceful, relaxing and awesome. I am sincerely glad that we chose this date. Today is also the anniversary of the saddest day in our family history. One year ago today, Amanda had a wreck and baby Remington left this earth. I am more convinced today than ever that God has a plan for us and his plan is ALWAYS better than our plans.

We started off today with an trip to Cracker Barrel. We came back to the hotel, changed and spent the next 6 hours on the beach. We have borrowed a canopy from a friend and it was awesome today. It was very easy to set up. We enjoyed lunch, snacks and naps under it. The ocean was calm and both the little girls LOVED jumping, slapping, and even karate chopping the waves. The temperate was lower today and at one point Lily complained of being cold in the ocean. We came in, eat and decided to go on a shopping trip. We purchased the little kids some new shirts, a new chair to replace the one that broke today. Our plan was to go to the pools this evening but the water were too cool for our likening so after less than half an hour, we came upstairs. The kids were in bed. How did Matt and I spend the next 2 hours of our vacation? working on coupons of course. I plan to explain this in detail in the next post!

Wordless Wednesday- Makeover Editiion

Posted on by
Reply

Matt made Zach a new bed. It matches the floor and looks really cool with new wall color.

No more pink and purple walls for him!
After finishing Zach’s room I wanted to make some changes to the playroom. The shelves were previously in the building holding alot of work items for me. So with a coat of paint they look AWESOME. The baskets, I purchased several years ago to use in the playroom but had never really got them placed.


I am so pleased with the way both the rooms seem larger and more useful. Total cost including paint and the material for Zach’s bed around $75. Otherwise we just used what we had!

June in Review

Posted on by
Reply
Yes, I realize it is July 4th. But Kendall’s birthday occurred on the first and I wanted her to have a day of post all alone!

Blogging: 7 post for the month. This seems to be closed to where I am staying for the year. I am okay with that but want to get more in the swing of things and at least post “Wordless Wednesdays” and Coupon Blessing on a regular basis. I should be ahead of the time this month with 4 post in 4 day, so thankful for the holiday. The goal is 15.

Devotions:This seems to be hit or miss. Our Pastor is currently preaching out of the book of Deuteronomy. He requested that we read the book along with him. I am trying to use that as at least one of my devotions. I am suppose to ready Chapter 5 today. I also need to get ready for next quiz year so that should encourage me as well. Goal: 3 per week.

Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: I did not stay “way under for the month of June” but instead ended up at $879 for the month. Harris Teeter has ran both a Super Doubles and a Triples event in the month so that at least explains the overage. I definitely do have a stockpile now. One thing that should make a nice impact on this year is the fact that Matt and I are making a menu plan for the week. This allows us to know and use the items we already have as well as helps Matt not have to rush around and “figure” out what to fix for dinner. The most exciting development in this area is that yesterday (Sunday) we were able to provide a couple at church with a “blessing” from our stockpile. I estimate the value to be about $100. I have also been able provide toiletries to my parents. It feels so awesome to give stuff away! Our Grocery Budget is set at $800 per month, this includes diapers, cleaning supplies, food and toiletries.


Financially: We were able to pay off one small credit card this month however due to expected income not arriving I did not place any money in savings or the auto fund. July will be a different month as well since we are going to the beach for 5 days. 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– Have not even stepped on the scale. This will become a propriety in the next couple of months maybe?