Couponing

This is something that is new to me.  I have never really been a coupon type person, I just buy things when they are on sale.  Usually the generic brand of items is cheaper than the regular brand is with a coupon.  

A couple months ago a friend started couponing and as we chatted I became more and more intrigued. Started looking at one of the sites she told me she checks each week.  www.coupondivas.com

I was amazed at the prices of some of the items when you combine coupons with the sale prices.  

I decided to sign up to get our local paper and also started picking up the Chicago Tribune for their coupons. Each week I take a look at the above website and see what items are at a good price and are items I could use.  I DO NOT purchase items just because I have a coupon for them.  I make sure it is something I could use.  I also don't go crazy with stockpiling, but I will grab several of one item if it is something I know I can use.  For instance I was able to get 6 tubes of toothpaste for .50, 4 boxes of waffles for $2.00, 4 bottles of dish soap and a carton of eggs for $1.42.  

After a couple weeks of small couponing 'hauls' I started getting excited.  I began to wonder if I could find coupons for generic brand products.  There are several local grocery stores here.  I googled each of these stores generic brands to see if any of them offered coupons.  The only one that I found was for Essentials Everyday (which is at Al's Supermarket here).  They usually have 1 coupon in the papers once a month and they are usually GREAT coupons.  Once I find one that I know I could use, I head on over to ebay and check for their coupons there.  I can usually get between 10-20 for about $2-3, but they save me between $10-$30.  Here are some of the hauls I have gotten from Al's using these coupons.

This was my first haul from Al's using Essentials Everyday coupons.  This particular coupon was 'Buy 1 item, get 1 item FREE - amount not to exceed $2'  PLUS everything here was on sale that week, PLUS because it was around the holidays they had coupon booklets with additional coupons in the amounts of .25 - .75 off each of these items.  It was amazing and as the cashier was checking me out she said, 'I feel like there should be cameras here filming this.  This is so cool!!'

 Here is my receipt.  I paid less than $40 for over $100 worth of groceries.  Woohoo!!  This was SO exciting for me.

This was from my trip today.  My total for everything was $11.01.

I went to 2 different stores.  

CVS:  I got the 4 bottles of dish soap and eggs for $1.42.  The dish soap was on sale for .99 and I had 4 coupons (2 for .25 and 2 for .50).  The eggs were $1.79.  On top of the coupons I had $3.50 in ExtraCare Bucks which act as cash!  

Al's Supermarket:  The coupon I had this time was for $1.00 off any 2 Essentials Everyday products.  All items aside from the cereal was $1 or less.  So most of these items I got for .50 or less!  

I think couponing is going to be essential for our family in the coming year.  With me not getting a consistent paycheck in the summer we are going to need to stock up now to get us though the summer.  We currently have 2 refrigerators just so we can use both of the freezers.  We are looking to get a deep freezer to help stock up.  :-)  

Excited to continue couponing!!  

2014 - The Year of Unofficial Holidays

HAPPY 2014!!!   

I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas and New Year with their family.  I know we did.  Jason's employer goes on shut down for 2 weeks, so it was nice to have him home while the girls were on break as well.  

I sell Thirty-One Gifts.  A direct selling company that sells organizational products.  I use unofficial holidays to themed parties.  As I was thinking about things I wanted to accomplish in 2014 I thought it would be fun to make it a year of unofficial holidays.  I would use this site to see what holidays were coming up and I would plan activities with the girls around the holidays.  There are some pretty fun holidays that you could get very creative with.  Here are a few in January that I plan to do with the girls.  

January:

8th - Bubble Bath Day

9th - Play Good Day

12th - National Pharmacist Day

13th - Make Your Dream Come True

15th - National Hat Day

19th - National Popcorn Day

21st - National Hugging Day

23rd - National Handwriting Day

24th - Compliment Day

25th - Opposite Day

27th - Chocolate Cake Day

29th -  National Puzzle Day

30th - National Insane Answering Machine Day

There are several more ideas.  There is almost one for every day if not 2-3.  I think this could be pretty fun.  Just a little something to encourage more intentional fun with the kiddos.    Check out the website, but each month I will be posting the holidays that I plan to partake in with my girls. 

Which of these bizarre and unique holidays do you think you might do something for??

Keeping it Simple (part 2)

In part 1 of my Keep it Simple series we cleaned the girls' playroom in little over 9 minutes.  The toys that they have are kept very simple so that even when it is a mess it is easy to clean.  This is the goal for the rest of the house.  I would like to make clean up in each room in our house this simple as well to make for a quick clean up.  

Part 2 of this series was to clean the girls' bedroom.  Here are the BEFORE pictures of their room:

It doesn't look too bad, but there were a ton of little toys and random items, trash and papers all over the floor. So this took us a little bit longer because there were so many random things to put away.  

Here is our stopwatch time:

 End result including vacuuming the floor:

Tips:

*I usually make a list of things that need to be put away in the room.  

example: books, clothes, stuffed animals, puzzles, cups in sink, make beds, etc.   I can then let the girls know what needs to be done and they can choose which item they would like to start with.  This way things get done, but they get a choice of what they would like to clean up.  

*Having the timer running while we were cleaning made the girls work a little faster.  They thought it was neat to see how quickly we could get their room done.   Next time we clean we will see if we can beat out previous time.  Each of the girls have a sticker chart (more about sticker charts later) and they may get a couple sticker for their chart if we can beat out time.  :-)  

$50/week Shopping

I try to keep a pretty tight weekly grocery budget for our family of 6.  I have strayed from sharing my weekly grocery hauls (I guess they aren't really hauls, but, whatever!), but I have recently had a few people asking me about how I do that, what do I get, what do I make, etc.  So, I figured I would try to get back into the habit of posting them at the end of each week. 

$37.05 was the total for my first trip.  We already had meat in the freezer so I didn't need to get any meat.  We did however need shampoo, conditioner and kids toothpaste. 

We were also able to stock up on some shredded cheese, pringles (this was a real treat!), potatoes and bread. 

This is not grocery related, but wanted to share.  :-)  I needed to get some ink for my printer and as always when I go into CVS I scan my care card and the scanner to see if there are any coupons available.  There was a $4.99 coupon for this acetaminophen which was on sale for $4.99.  FREE!!  WooHoo!!

When I got home, I realized I had a $5 off coupon for an ink cartridge so I returned the ink the next day and then bought it again, but used my coupon.  I got the ink for $17.49. 

I was disappointed with is quick trip.  One thing we always have in our cupboards are pasta and pasta sauce.  Well, I was making chicken parmesan for dinner and realized I didn't have any sauce.  I make a quick trip to our local store and had to pay $1.99 for this jar of pasta.  :(  This was a bit more than I would usually pay, so I was kind of bummed. 

This was my last trip and I was MEGA excited about this one!!  I am NOT a couponer, but recently a friend of mine and I were talking about it and she was telling me that she was trying couponing.  After chatting for a bit I was getting a bit excited and after looking a couple sites I started printing a couple coupons.  I don't like using coupons because I usually buy generic products and there aren't many coupons for store brand items.  So I thought......

As I started looking I found several coupons for the generic store brand items I had on my list!!  This got me pretty excited.  I was able to combine all sorts of sales and coupons and finish off my week with a trip that cost me $8.85!!  I saved over $21.00!!  This has gotten me motivated to try couponing a little more.  Am I going to go crazy?  NO, but I won't rule it out completely.  ;-)

Keeping it Simple (part 1)

Sometimes I get frustrated with how messy my girls' rooms get and how quickly they get that way.  I find myself and/or my husband telling them things like 'Do we need to throw some of these toys away since you can't put them away?' or 'Maybe you don't need to get anything for Christmas.'  But when it actually comes time to clean their room, I realize how many toys they DON'T have.  Compared to the amount of toys their friends have, you would think we didn't have any money!!  This last time we cleaned their room I decided to take before and after pictures and time us to see how long it took myself and the girls (ages: 6, 4 and 3) to clean their room.  I wanted to show myself that even though it may look awful, it really isn't that bad and maybe we really don't need to threaten with getting nothing for Christmas.

The room I am going to share with you today is Emery's room/playroom.

BEFORE:

Pretty bad, huh??

Well, like I said, I set the timer on the ipad and......

Yep, that's right!!  LESS THAN 10 minutes!!  and that includes getting it vacuumed!!

Not too shabby, huh?!

AFTER:

 1st picture -  You can see we have the work bench and a chair and there is a basket in between the crib and the tv stand with all the dress up clothes in it.

 2nd picture - All of the stuffed animals and dolls go into the blue bin.  The baskets on the shelves have little toys that aren't necessarily a part of anything else.  

3rd picture -  The desk and any workbooks, a couple coloring books and pens.  Really anything to play school with.  The purple shelf in this picture is one of my favorites.  It is magnetic!!  I didn't take a picture of the shelves on the other side, but it has baskets with play food and dishes, magnetic dishes and the tools for the work bench.  

All that mess for so few things!!  See when I type out what they actually have it really isn't that much.  KEEPING IT SIMPLE makes for a quick, easy and painless clean up!!!  

Stay tuned for other rooms we KEEP SIMPLE!!

Clean Eating - A New Way of Life

I was recently introduced to 'clean eating'.  I joined in on a 90 Day Clean Eating Challenge a little over a month ago.  Some people have asked me what kind of diet I am on or is there a weight loss program I am doing.  Clean Eating is NOT a diet, it is a lifestyle change!!  I recently posted this on our 90-day Clean Eating Facebook Support page.....

At the beginning of the year I weighed 195lbs. If I ever told people how much I weighed they usually wouldn't believe me. I am 5'10" so my height helped me to carry the weight well. I had also had 4 babies within 5 years (none of them were twins). So, needless to say, my body had taken some hits with not much time to recover between pregnancies and lots of cravings. 

Although my body and weight weren't where I wanted them to be, I felt relatively healthy and in decent shape. I played basketball every now and then at the park with the guys, did Zumba occasionally, would go for a run sometimes and had been able to complete 2 mini triathlons during the past 4 years (I was pregnant for both of them). 

At the beginning of the year one of my resolutions was to lose 20lbs. In April I decided to make a change. I tried a 21 day cleanse (no carbs/dairy type of thing). It was intense, but I lost almost 20 lbs! I was so excited! However, it didn't teach me anything and the weight started to come back pretty quickly. By the end of summer I had gained 10 of it back.  

As I mentioned earlier, I carried my weight well, but I was eating JUNK!! Looking back it was ridiculous!! I could easily eat an entire package of EL Fudge Double Stuffed cookies by myself. Not a sleeve of them, an ENTIRE package. I would actually buy them and hide them so my girls wouldn't get any of them. Then after they went to bed, I would sit on the couch with my bag of cookies and a glass of milk and eat. My breakfast on my way to work consisted of a package of ho-ho's, a bag of chips and a pop (Roglenda Smith can confirm that). I had no problem eating half of a bowl of brownie mix and making and 8x8 pan instead of a 9x13 because I had eaten so much of the mix. Pretty sick, huh?!?! I didn't think so. 

I was VERY nervous about this 90 day challenge. First of all it was NINETY days! That's a LONG time and I am a picky eater so I was worried about failing, but I needed a change so I figured I would give it a try. I am AMAZED at how I am feeling!! 
I have already lost 15 lbs, but what I am more amazed at is how easy it has been to not eat the sweets. Some people are struggling with this, but when I see how much energy I have by having apples and peanut butter as my go-to snack instead of candy and cookies, I am even more motivated to pass those things up. 

My best friend came over the other night and I knew we were going to be getting pizza (one of my cheat meals). We got Little Caesars because that's my favorite and I was craving their bread sticks!! I was ready to CHEAT! After only 1 piece of pizza and 1 bread stick, I sat there wondering why I hadn't already gotten up to get another piece of pizza or even 3 more bread sticks.....weird.....was I really done??? I WAS!!!  What a great feeling to know that I didn't NEED to have more. I was satisfied! YAY!!

This IS going to be a LIFE CHANGE for me and I am excited about learning more and being able to share this experience with others. This challenge is so different from the cleanse I did. That just deprived me from eating things I liked. This still allows me to eat those things, but it is also teaching me the RIGHT things to eat. Roanna and Karla, you have an amazing program here and I am so grateful to both of you for this opportunity for me to change my life! 

We are into the 5th week of the challenge and I have already lost 20lbs!! Can you believe it?!?!  20 lbs, just from eating better and exercising  20 minutes a day.  I am loving the way I feel and how much more energy I have.

The ladies who started this challenge are working on copyrights to the program so I can not share too many details about it, but here are a few:

*you are on a team of 4-6 people
*there is a points system (I love this, it keeps me motivated) - points for getting at least 7 hours of sleep at night, points for communicating with a member, points for watching certain DVDs or reading certain books on a given list, attending classes.
*report in with your team leader once a week with weight and points
* 2 'cheat meals' given each week

I will keep you posted on my progress in the next 6 1/2 weeks.

Meal Planning

Now that I am home all day meal planning is something I am hoping to get much better at.
Breakfast - is usually pretty easy and doesn't consist of much planning
Lunch - I watch another little girl during the day, so I have 4 kids here for lunch
After School Snack - the littles I have during the day eat about 15 minutes before the big kids get off the bus. Then when my oldest gets off the bus, so do the other 3 kids I watch after school.  So that's 8 kids for snack
Dinner - we are usually all (6 of us) home for dinner.

On the night that someone is not going to be home is when we usually have leftovers or save them for a busy weekend.

This weekend I went to a class on Clean Eating for Kids.  I am a picky eater myself and found many of the topics discussed very useful.  One of them was about meal planning.  I am going to try it this week for dinner and see how it goes.  This will be our menu for the week. 

Meatless Monday - Grilled Cheese
Taco Tuesday - Regular Tacos
Souper Duper Wednesday - Pizza Soup
Crockpot Thursday - Chicken and Stuffing
Fishy Friday - out of town for the weekend

My grocery list:
chicken
hamburger
lettuce
taco seasoning
milk
bread
eggs
cream cheese
butter
mayo
sugar

With a $50 budget this leaves me quite a bit of wiggle room.