Lima Ohio

Two blogs in one day!...wow!

We spent last Friday in Lima.  We found some great treasures there.  ArtSpace was wonderful and worth the visite to anyone.  Thank you to our guide for a personal tour of teh entire building my husband helped wire in the early 90's.  The Children's garden had so many inspirations and the girls enjoyed it.  Finally the Lima Historical Museum is so full, we didn't get through everthing so are planning a second visit. 

 Three Princess'...Three Princes?

 Magical dinosaurs

 A quick turtle ride

 Getting ready for winter

The Seven dwarfs

The Art of Patience

Ahhh, a new blog entry.  As I patiently wait for God to work in me, I am learning to be a more willing homemaker.  Patience being the key here....patience is not a virtue with me.  But, I am willing.  While I learn patience and that everything is in God's hands, I am filling in the gaps with things like my ghost below for Trunk or Treat at Lena Baptist Thursday night.  Now, since I'm in a little competition, I'm not giving too much away, this is only one part of my Suburban decoration.  My digital compact doesn't do well in low light and doens't want to use the flash, so I will put the finished decoration on Facebook Thursday.

Now a little couponing.  There are going to be bad weeks and last week was one.  We had a family day last Friday since the kids didn't have school.  It threw me bad....I'm not set in habits, but being so new to couponing, change in how I do this just throws me!  Then Tuesday, I realized I didn't get a Saturday paper that was on my list (another busy day).  Don't ask why I didn't remember on Monday, I seemed to have skipped Monday this week.  So, I will be back on the online flyers to make this weeks grocery list.  When you don't get the groceries you need, you do get more creative with dinner.  Last night we had stew that cooked all afternoon....oh yum.  Then on inspiration (and lack of bread) I baked two loaves of homemade bread.  I have the hardest time getting yeast doughs to rise correctly, I'm about every other batch, so I was thrilled to produce 2 soft, fluffy well risen loaves of bread. 

Today will be homemade noodles for Chicken noodle soup. 

$100 week

Ummm, yea, forgot about that homemade peanut butter blog.  Forgive me?  I will get it up!

I think I have graduated to my $100 grocery week.  This week's estimates comes in at $105, but I estimated high on a few things and with my coupons, it looks like I will come in under $100! 

I will definately let you know.

Best deal of the week looks like Kroger brand cheese at 1.79 for sliced, shredded and block. 

Halloween = CANDY. 
CVS has a good deal and you get CVS bucks (learn more about this from their website).  Plus, I have a coupon.  I plan on 5 large bags of mini candy bars to cost me $9.50.  That's less than $4 a bag....for chocolate!

Otherwise, I'm honestly doing most of my shopping at Aldi again, you just can't beat their prices and if you aren't brand loyal, it works great.  Now if you can't eat anything other than Lay's, you may have to give up chips till they go on sale at a big box store and have a coupon ready. 

Oh, and a Happy Dance!  I saved 46% of my grocery bill at Krogers last week.  My goal is 50%, so 46% after only doing this 3 weeks is pretty awesome!

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Week 3 {getting the hang of couponing}

I'm such a bad blogger, love to write, but feel like I"m jumping hoops to get here and signed on.  Open a doc and let me go.  But I'm thrilled to find out people are reading this blog!

Last Friday was week 3 of my new found Couponista journey.  It didn't go smoothly, yet was my best week.  Could it be I'm getting the hang of how this works?

I could not for the life of me find a newspaper with coupon (SmartSource, Red Plum, P&G) inserts.  Flyers yes, Krogers no.  I had Meijer, Aldi and CVS.  Those are what I went with. 

I did week 3 diferently.  I made my weekly menu and list of needed items first, just like I did before my Happy Homemaker Cindy class.  That seemed to make a difference.  Then I went through the circulars and adjusted menus based on meat deals and what I already had on hand.  Not much changed really.

So, I have my weekly menu and list of items we need.  I go through the flyers looking for meat deals first.  Meijer had ribs for $1.67/lb.  I did better than that and found a marked down package for even less - take it home cook it right and away and freeze it for a later meal.  Pork roast for 1.89/lb and ground chuck for 1.99/lb.  I buy enough for 2 or 3 meals, take it home repackage and freeze or cook and freeze.  (Freezer cooking is my next venture).

By this time I have a list going based on what I need for meal or need becuase we are out.  I dived my list by the stores I want to go to Aldi, CVS, Krogers, Meijer.  Pretty much in that order.  I put the price down next to each item and how many.  This way I kind of know what I am spending and if I'm staying within budget.  Then I work on stock up items, those items we use all the time.  It was great this week!  I was able to send my daughter down to the pantry to bring up ranch dressing because the bottle was emtpy, it's a stock up item, so I knew I had 3 in the pantry!  Cereal the same thing and I know as a fact, we have toilet paper and tissue, no last minute special trips into town. 

The bulk of my budget does go towards the things we need for the week, the rest goes towards stock up.  For my family, knowing what we eat, how we eat and how much, I am working on a $125 weekly grocery budget.  If you use cash, you are forced to stay in that budget.  Oh and do not forget your coupons...I did this week, this shows how organized I was with the flyer and list, I only spent $98 and I have pics sitting on a sd card wating to be taken to my office and added to this blog! I had 17 lbs of meat this week.  How much could I have saved with my coupons?

I also got milk free at Krogers.  If you shop at Krogers, you can also add e-coupons onto your Kroger card.  I forgot my cereal coupon, but had an the ecoupon on the card.  With the coupon the cereal would have been 1.75 a box.

BTW, if you're curious, this is this weeks menu...

Friday: Grilled Hamburgers with all the toppings, French fries, fresh fruit salad
Saturday:  Pizza buffet at our fave local small town restaraunt Fletcher Pizza (PLAN YOUR MEALS OUT IN ADVANCE OF YOUR GROCERY DAY)  Yes, I'm yelling this, eating out kills any budget if you are living frugal.  This was a planned event.
Sunday:  Chicken nuggets and french fries - Sunday night football dictates a more bar like mene and I just can't do hotwings every Sunday!
Monday:  Turkey and dumplings from a turkey I roasted last Thursday and a garden salad
Tuesday: Tacos from the roast I cooked Saturday. 
Wednesday:  Potato soup (homemade with cheese) and grilled cheese
Thursday: Leftovers from the week. 
While it doesn't look like much, I cook in quantities for 6 even though there are only 5 of us at home now.  My daughters don't eat a lot and this give me leftovers for my husbands lunch.  If there is nothing leftover by Thursday, it's pasta night. 

My husband and daughters do pack their lunch every day.  School lunches are over $2 and from what I hear, most of what the kids lunches get thrown away.  You can only take being "cool" so far. 

I have a super easy homemade peanut butter recipe to share tomorrow.   Today, I have a speakeasy Halloween costume to get make from all the material I keep in the studio.  Nice to have an outlet for the fabric I retire from backgrounds!

My kids are loving that they are eating name brand cereal!  

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