Extreme Couponer For A Day

When I shop with coupons, I save an average of $25 to $30 each trip.  My savings run about 50-60%.  Sometimes, I only save $10 off $70, but hey, every little bit helps.

Once in awhile, I save big and it makes me feel like I'm one of those crazy coupon ladies that walk out of the store with $300 worth of groceries and only paying $5.

I had one of those days recently! I have to share:

 Martin's food stores was running a special-- Buy 5 Quaker Oatmeal bars at $2 each, and recieve a $5 catalina to use on your next shopping trip. (A catalina is a coupon that prints out with your reciept, to be used later) They happened to have coupons on the display for 75 cents off 1 box. I grabbed 15 coupons and made 3 trips. Here's what I did:

1st trip: Bought 5 boxes = $10  Used 5- $.75/1 coupons (the first gets doubled to $1) for a total of $4 off. Pay $6 and get a $5 catalina.

2nd trip: Bought 5 boxes = $10  Used 5- $.75/1 coupons for a total of $4 off AND the $5 catalina.
Pay $1 and get a $5 catalina.

3rd trip: Repeat #2, pay $1 and get a $5 catalina.

That makes $30 worth of Quaker Oat bars for only $3 after subtracting the catalina! That equals to .20 cents a box!!   Nice!  A round of applause please!  Thank you, thank you! 

Next, I went to Target.  They will price match any store's current ad, so I took a Food Lion ad which had a sale on 12 oz boxes of Rice Krispies for $1.50.  That alone is cheap, but there was also a manufacturer's coupon for $1 off 2 kellogg's cereal AND a Target coupon for $1 off 2 Kellogg's cereal-- nice! Instead of paying $2.94 a box, I price-match and save $1.44 per box. After price-match, buy 2 boxes for $3, use both Target AND manufacturer's coupon and pay $1 for BOTH boxes! I got lucky today, though, because the clerk made an error and entered $1.25 eight separate times for eight separate boxes! So I ended up getting 8 boxes for 50 cents each after coupons! Sweet!

I also had my eye on a large picture frame that suddenly went on clearance and with a birthday gift certificate burning a hole in my pocket, it was the perfect time to pick it up. It was marked down 50% off, $24.99 down to $12.48. A twin-size sheet set in a boy theme I had my eye on was also on clearance, and I was waiting for it to come down lower, but since there were only 2 left, I had to grab it-- marked down 50% off, $17.99 down to $8.98.

Picked up the new Velveeta Cheesy dinner kit, too, for $2.04 and 2 toy cars, priced at $3.29 each. Lucky for me, there was a coupon on the Rice Krispies box that stated: Free car with purchase of 3 boxes of cereal! With 8 boxes of cereal, I had more than enough, and I found 2 coupons, which means 2 free cars! The cars will be put away for Christmas.

Here's the breakdown:
8 boxes Rice Krispies- $1.25 each
2 toy cars- $3.29 each
1 Velveeta Cheesy dinner $2.04
1 Frame $12.48
1 sheet set $8.98
Grand total: $40.08 (Total value is $75.12)
Used 4- $1/2 Kellogg's cereal Target coupons
         2- $1/2 Kellogg's cereal manu. coupons
         1- $1/1 Velveeta coupon
         1- $.50/1 Velveeta Target coupon
         2- FREE car wyb 3 boxes Rice Krispies coupons

Paid: $27.28!!  Had I not bought the frame and the sheets, my total would have been only $5.82 for 8 boxes of cereal, 2 cars, and the velveeta dinner!!  Pretty good to me!!

Any good couponing trip for you lately??  Do tell! :o)

Another Year Gone

My birthday has come and gone.

Another year wiser, I hope.

Family came two days in a row to help celebrate my birthday.

That's the best gift right there-- spending time with family.

My kids gave me hand made cards-- so precious!

I made cake Friday to share with my Aunt, her birthday was on the 7th.

It was german chocolate, her favorite.

The kids wanted to know why it was called "german" chocolate and we explained about different chocolates and locales and Germany. Andrew went on to tell them that they are part German, since Andrew and I both are part German.

Sylvia piped up, "And now since I'm eating [german chocolate] cake, I'm even more German!"

Too funny!

I made a second cake on Saturday, to share with my Father-in-Law. His birthday was on the 10th.

This time it was both of our favorites-- Pineapple Upside Down cake. yum!

I don't need much, as long as I have my loved ones, I'm happy.

Here's to another year!

Old Rotten

I'm hungry.

I sit here sipping chicken broth because I cannot eat normal food right now. I have a big hole in my mouth where a tooth should be. I broke a tooth a while back, but it didn't bother me and so I left it alone, not going to the dentist because a) we have no dental insurance and b) we have no money for expensive dental repairs/bills.

More than a month ago, a small dull ache would come and go in that tooth. I'd promptly gargle with hydrogen peroxide or warm salt water, and the pain would go away. Then the pain wouldn't leave. I'd try everything-- brushing, flossing, gargling-- to no avail. Then came the pill-popping, downing 2 aspirin, then 3, and I'd feel better again. But the last couple of days was the absolute worse-- tossing and turning, the pain radiating up to my brain and my ears, throbbing and pounding. No pill would help and every movement just made it worse.  I'd bend down to pick something up and the blood would rush to that tooth and pound some more. Peter's screeching was a whole 'nother level of pounding. Something needed to be done.

I had visions of dying because of my rotten, old tooth. Old Rotten getting all infected and sending armies of germ soldiers carrying yellow puss-filled buckets and dumping it onto my brain, causing me to die and leave my four young children mother-less. I saw my children and husband crying at my grave site and inscribed on my tombstone, instead of my name, Rotten Old Tooth. I was losing it!

If we had the money, I would go for the root canal. Painful, yes. Expensive, yes. But I'd still have my tooth. But we are barely making ends meet, every bit of money going for gas, bills, food. The cheaper option is to have it pulled. So, Old Rotten is now in a shiny, plastic, white container, shaped like a tooth. I attempted to nap earlier, but with four children, naps for mamas are impossible. Sylvia asked me if my tooth was under my pillow, sweet child. Maybe I will put it under my pillow tonight. Might get lucky.

So, the pain. I feel better. No more throbbing aches, no more little trolls pounding on my head. I inhale and the cool air doesn't hurt my tooth. My mouth is numb still, I can taste blood, and it feels different inside my mouth, a big gaping hole where Old Rotten used to be. Am I happy? Not really. I would have liked to try and save Old Rotten. Instead of visions of germ soldiers, I now have visions of a future me, my falsies popping out when I laugh, my children giggling when my teeth are soaking in a glass while I sleep.

I used to wonder how people let their teeth go bad. I have the answer now.

Wishful Thinking / Pet Peeve

There's been a lot of crafting around these parts lately. By me, and the girls.  Not so much Peter-- unless you count eating play-doh. I'm happy the girls are picking up the crafting bug-- it's something I remember Mom trying to get me to do when I was their age and it never stuck with me. Now I start doing it when I am a busy mother of 4 trying to do everything else that needs to be done around here. Why didn't I do it back when I had all the time in the world??  I must like a challenge!

I get a lot of my supplies from yard sales and thrift shops, or there's a good sale at the fabric store with half-off coupons. I'm lucky Andrew indulges me my crafting and encourages me when I get on a sewing binge. I try to return the favor and not break the bank on crafty purchases-- like I can afford a whole lot anyway.

Today for home school, the girls all wanted to sew and make dolls. So it turned into Home Ec class and the topic was embroidering doll features, sewing bodies on mama's sewing machine, turning inside out, stuffing and yarn hair. Finished 1 doll; halfway through a second; still need to assemble a third. Doll dresses are slated for tomorrow.  My patience ran out when, first, I was feeling like I needed to be mama octopus and help 3 girls all crying for help at the same time and Peter constantly screeching that ear-piercing scream while knocking down his blocks, and then Gretchen getting pickier and picker about the yarn hair or the eyes or the heart and how it wasn't looking like Evelyn's. I slammed my hand on the table, grabbed all the fabric, yard, thread, hoops and put it up. Went to the bedroom to get 5 minutes of peace and quiet.

I hope tomorrow will go smoother, brand new day and all that.

 With the girls jumping on the crafting bandwagon, I'm finding myself short on supplies to share. I hate that I have to run 45 minutes into the next big town for the closest store that sells fabric and supplies. It's been my mantra since the day we moved here. Why is the closest craft store 45 minutes away?! In six years, I still have not discovered any sort of crafting store around here and I know there are quilters in this area and lots of the town fairs are full of people hawking hand made stuff, so there are other crafty people here. I can't believe that they all go 45 minutes to the next big town for supplies??  Or else they have money and order online, which I wish I could do but online stuff is expensive and I like to see/touch what I'm buying first.

It would be nice to open up a shop of my own. Couldn't afford to lease out a store space, much less purchase all the stock. Plus, start up costs, liability insurance and all that expensive stuff. A woman I knew liked to quilt and she found it cheaper to order her fabrics whole-sale, by-the-bolt, but then she had too much fabric, so she opened a fabric store in her basement and, by-appointment-only, sold her surplus fabric. She had a nice shop, but way overpriced. I ended up just buying a  teeny small bit, feeling obligated, because I made an appointment and I was taking up her time, after all. I think about that set-up a lot these days-- how nice to have a store in my basement, to run down and pluck what I need off the shelf. Have a sign out by the road on days I'm open to the public or by appointment. No overhead costs, no lease to pay, just a bit of advertising and finding crafting supplies to stock the shop and sell. Is it worth it? Would I be offering a desired product? Would it succeed? Can I fill a need? Profit would be nice, but even better would be the convenience of a shop closer than 45 minutes. It's all a nice idea, maybe just a fantasy, since we're really tight on money and starting a business in this economy? hmph! 

I'll have to make do and look for an old teddy bear no one loves and cut it open for it's stuffing. I don't have enough stuffing for the dolls the girls are making. Can't afford a trip into town just for stuffing, and while I'm there, I'll be drooling over all the other stuff I'd really like to bring home with me. What I really just want to do is take the whole store, strap it onto the roof of my van and park it in my back yard.

WIP: Blue Flowers Embroidery

A great embroidery blog called Feeling Stitchy hosted a stitch-along in August that I just had to jump onto the bandwagon for. The project was to pick a fabric with a pattern and then embellish it with thread. I'd seen other examples and wanted to try it, too. I found this great vintage linen towel at a yard sale and I knew it'd be perfect for the stitch-along. The stitch-along is over now, and I'm not done with it yet, but I wanted to show my work-in-progress.

 The vintage linen.  It took some courage to actually sew into it. I was brought up to keep things in their original condition and I am slowly learning that it's OK to personalize something the way you want it. If it's yours, and you aren't 100 percent pleased with something, then shouldn't you be able to make changes to make it better?

 The embroidery thread all picked out and matched to the linen.

My work so far..

Adding the thread adds a dimension to it and I think makes it look more interesting. I found a great oval frame for it from the thrift shop and I've marked the area I'll sew to fit inside the frame. Looking forward to finishing this and seeing it in the frame. I already have just the spot for it in my bedroom.

Family Game Night: LIFE

Now that the kids are getting older, we're breaking out some of the games that require more than climbing ladders and sliding down chutes. We have longed for the day we can gather around the table and play games that we remember playing with our own families growing up.

We recently played LIFE with the girls and they love it!

We're skipping over some of the complicated bits, like getting insurance and stocks, but otherwise, playing the game as usual. They get especially pleased when they get married and they plot how to get the wheel to stop on a certain number so they can have children.

 We usually have to set Peter up with some toys or put a movie in for him, or else he gets into a screaming fit and starts swiping every one's money, which gets the girls screaming, which gets me screaming. ahem.  Anyway, it's pretty fun to watch how the girls arrange the "people" in their cars.  As soon as Gretchen gets married, she puts her husband in the driver's seat.



Money, money, money!

Gretchen loves the money!  She could have eight 100,000 bills, but if she has no other bills, she thinks she's so poor and cries that she has no money. She's only happy when she has several bills of each color. Silly girl!

We've played this quite a few times, and I think they're ready for a game of Monopoly soon.

 All of our games are older, either mine from when I was a kid, or Andrew's from his childhood, or games we pick up from yard sales and thrift shops. We like the older games better. The girls recently played LIFE at a friend's house with a newer game set, and my girls complained it wasn't the same as ours. I just told them that we had an older game and sometimes the manufacturers update the games and make them look different.

Do you have memories of a certain game and remember how much fun it was, then play it again as an adult and it's the most boring game ever??  My husband and I both have a game like that in our past.  His is Mousetrap and mine is a game called Mystery Mansion. I'd never played Mousetrap before and he went on and on about how much fun it was, so we bought a new game and started playing it and I kept waiting for the fun part to start. He looked at me sheepishly and admitted it wasn't as fun as he remembered it. My sister and I spent hours, hours! playing Mystery Mansion. You built the mansion as you go along, looking for secret passageways and treasure. Sometimes you'd find a chest and it would have just cobwebs in it, or the secret passageway would take you down to the scary dungeon. I couldn't wait to show Andrew how to play this super fun game and then when I broke it out and we started playing it, I realized it was our imaginations that made this game so much fun. I'll give it to the girls and see if they like playing it and hopefully their imaginations will make Mystery Mansion as much fun for them as it used to be for me.

Peter and The Strawberries

Peter thinks he's so sneaky.

He swiped a box of strawberries from the fridge after I told him, "no, we're eating lunch soon."

He knows I cannot hear him sneak behind me and open the fridge.

He thinks if he grabs it and runs away quick enough and I don't see him, he's in the clear.

Good thing he doesn't know I can feel the vibrations of his feet and recognize the difference between walking steps and running steps.

I go and investigate.

He's watching for me, expecting me to come from the other entrance.

He doesn't hear me sneaking up on him!

 "There you are!" I say.

"Ahhh!" he screams and jumps, startled that I was behind him!

"Show mama what you got!" I ask him.

And there are the quickly disappearing strawberries!