The Hope to Do List for 2012

Hope to do list sounds easier than a goals list.

1. No spend months for January, April and August.
2. $2,000 in savings.
3. $1,500 saved for Christmas by November 1.
4. $500 saved for back to school shopping by August 1.
5. $200/month grocery budget
6. Loose 15 pounds (I write this but numbers are misleading so I'm really aiming for one pants size smaller.
7. Read 10 books (started #1).
8. Pay off some more credit card debt and have no new debt this year.

Now if I go through and accomplish all this and the world ends in December of 2012 will it all have been worth it?

Back for the challenge

Sara over at Living the Frugal Life is starting her 31 Days of Nothing Challenge and I've decided to give it a try. I have been slacking in every department, financial to cleaning, so this will hopefully be the kick in the rear I need.

You can read the rules Sara has set up for her family here. Mine will have to be tweaked to fit us.

1. No spending except for necessities also. Groceries, gas, dentist appointments this month for all four kids. January is a birthday month for us but I've already budgeted in for the party and half is paid for.

2. Groceries will be $75 for the month. We'll eat from the freezer and pantry, both of which are well stocked.

3. No eating out!

4. To save on gas I'll schedule any shopping I need to do around the kid's activities.

5. Since we do have a birthday this month I will need to buy gifts. I'm leaning towards a new desk that the girls can share. Under $150 is what I'm aiming for.

Does anyone shop without their coupon binder anymore?

I haven't posted in awhile and honestly haven't done much shopping. I"ll blame Pathmark and their triple coupon sales for putting a bad taste in my mouth over coupons. I've watched Extreme Couponing on TLC, what couponer hasn't, and it has sparked such a coupon run it is just taken the fun out of it for me.





Pathmark had their triple coupon sales and I made my little list out and had my ten coupons. Went to the store nice and early to avoid the crowds. The store is old and small and understaffed always, I'm not a fan of Pathmark but for triple coupons I'll make do. Most shoppers had their huge 15 pound binders open on their carts as they walked around. I don't have a binder. I'll stick with my orange plastic accordion coupon holder that stays in my purse 24/7. I headed to self checkout after I got my few things. the store has 4 self check out lanes, one was blocked off for customers who had no coupons. All the lanes were being used and two of them were women who had 20 plus separate orders in their carts, these women were their together I noticed after hearing them talk. Now it's a Saturday morning, between 9-10am. How busy do you think this store was? How long do you think it took these women to check out? How annoyed do you think every person in line behind them was who had one transaction to do?

The kicker is this Pathmark is open 24/7. If you need to use the self checkout to ensure your coupons that state do not double actual double or you find it annoying to have to pay for one transaction, walk those bags to your car and come back in to do another to time consuming than come back at 1am. The store finally announced only one transaction per customer at the self checkout, but not soon enough for me.

The extreme -ness of this show is annoying me. Anyone else? If you have paper towels shoved under your kids bed, do you really need more at the moment? Will you use all that toothpaste before your teeth rot out from eating all that free candy? Where's the balance here?

My vent is done, thanks.

Children's Place Monster Sale

If you have a Children's Place Outlet store nearby (I just happen to have one in town) than you can print this page to snag an extra 15% of your entire purchase or 25% off a $50 or more purchase.

I use sales like these to pick up clothes for next season for the kids. I'm lucky my kids have not had huge growth spurts where they skip an entire size.

Capri Sun/Kool Aid deal at Kmart

I'm so glad I saw this deal on Who Said Nothing in Life is Free? I don't usually look at the Kmart circular in the Sunday paper so I missed the BOGO free coupon on the back for Capri Sun or Kool Aid. They're $2 each so with the coupon only $1 each. Limit 10 total boxes but from the comments it looks like you can do more than one transaction. I'm heading back tomorrow to try it again. Remember, you need a Shop Your Way Rewards card to use the coupon.

Shop Rite $.05 trip and CVS

CVS has Stove Top and Heinz gravy on sale for $.77 this week. You can get all these for the same price with the $.50/1 Stove Top coupon and the $1/2 Heinz coupon that was on the inside of Heinz gravy labels a while ago. $.27 each! I haven't been shopping much and I ran out of peanut butter and milk this weekend. I used up $8 in catalinas and my two free milk coupons and got all this for $.05 after Dove, Wise and Chinet coupons.

Trouble using your Minute Maid coupon at Shop Rite?

Have you printed the $1/1 Minute Maid coupons from their Facebook page and tried using them at Shop Rite? If you're like most people they come up invalid at the register.

After reading all the comments on the MM Facebook page I took my coupons to the courtesy desk as soon as I walked in the store and asked the young lady working if they would be accepted. After many calls on the phone and talking to different people and looking in books and trying to enter different parts of the codes on the coupon the nice young lady gave me a dollar for the coupon and kept it to look into further.

I appreciate all her trying and appreciate even more her giving me the $1 for the coupon. I suggest if you have the coupon and plan to try it at Shop Rite to go to the courtesy desk first and ask to save yourself time and some embarrassment in line in case it comes up invalid.

Home made dog treats

If I had known it was so easy to make dog treats at home I would've done this long ago. The pups ate their last store bought treat a few weeks ago and I decided to google how to make some at home. I found this recipe for Peanut Butter Dog Biscuits which worked out great since I had everything needed in the house.

I didn't bother with the cookie cutter. I just rolled them and pressed them with a fork. When hubby walked in from work I warned him they weren't cookies but wouldn't kill him if he ate them (I told the kids that when we were making them). He said they looked and smelled just like the peanut butter cookies his dad use to make.

Weekly Spending Totals

Groceries- $42.69
Total for month- $115.67

Gas- $75
Just me again. Hubby had to fix a buddy's truck who went to Fla and he's been using that. I drove a lot this week with activities for the kids.

Drug Stores- $23.75

Retail- $7.59

Not a bad week.

Valentine's crayons

This year I wanted to do something different for the kids to give out in class for Valentine's Day. I came across this and asked my son (who's in nursery school) if he'd like to give these to his friends. He said yes and even though I've told him a million times they're crayons he constantly asks if he can eat them. I thought my girls wouldn't want to give these out but one of my kindergartners asked for them so we made more. The other two I still need to pick up candy for.
I dug through our bin of crayons to find all the broken ones and picked up the mold at Target for $2. Simple, cute and cheap. Now I just have to remember to write on the back of the ones for my son's class- Crayons-Do Not Eat.

Weekly Spending Totals

I haven't done this in awhile.I've been in a funk. I can't blame it on the weather because I don't mind winter and snow. I'm slowly coming out of it and getting back on track which is what's important.

groceries- $72.98
I've toned down my stockpiling a lot. I had a trip to BJs and two trips to Shop Rite this week. The one SR trip was just to pick up the ground turkey on sale since I was at the card store next door. My $250/month budget is my goal from now on.

gas- $74.50
This was just for me to fill up after almost two weeks. With all the snow I haven't been out and I'm planning shopping trips around the kid's activities which is helping.

drug stores- $0

Medical- $0

retail- $6.92
Valentine's Day cards and birthday cards for parties the kids have this month.

pets- $0

take out- $0
I'm proud of this.


This week we are getting our taxes done. I'm one of those odd people who looks forward to tax time. I'll like it even more when the day comes we can spend the check on something fun.

Chick-fil-A FREE breakfast Tuesdays

For the month of February, the Howell Chick-fil-A will be giving a free "featured entree of the day" between 6:30-10:30 am. One per person and no purchase necessary

February Menu Plan and growing puppies

I thought four growing kids would eat us out of house and home but I was wrong. It's the two growing dogs that will do that. The boys are almost five months old, all 46 and 39 pounds of them.I know I could buy cheaper dog food but we've decided to go with Eukanuba.

A friend pointed me in the direction of The Hungry Puppy and they have a great program where you get a free bag of food after you purchase so many. Eukanuba also has a program if you buy 5 bags you get a coupon for a free bag. When you're going through a 40lb bag of food in almost two weeks, those programs help.

Now to the people food.
1. waffles & bacon (x2) I got a waffle maker for Christmas and love it!
2. pancakes & fruit (x2)
3. no peek beef tips
4. Chicken with mustard soy sauce
5. chicken alfredo
6. Bourbon chicken
7. drunken pork chops
8. broccoli & garlic pasta
9. slow cooker bbq ribs
10. stuffed pizza rolls (x2)
11. sandwiches (x2)
12. hot dogs & hamburgers (x2)
13. zesty grilled pork chops
14. sticky chicken in the slow cooker
15. garlic & herb chicken

Shop Rite Trip

The Can Can Sale starts next week so I wasn't planning on going to Shop Rite till than but I realized I had a $2.50 catalina that expired before than I didn't want to waste. The Betty Crocker fruit snacks on sale combined with coupons and the catalina deal made a money maker trip.

Betty Crocker fruit snacks 4/$6
used (2) .50/2 (doubled even though they said DND)
cell fire .50/2
catalina for $2.50
oop $1.32 (used gift card)
got back $2 catalina

Four kids equals a gazillion teacher's gifts!

A nice and cheap bus driver/CCD teacher gift I found at BJ's. Four in a package for $19.99. Cute mug with hot chocolate, marshmallows, candy cane and piece of chocolate.

Between teachers (luckily no assistants this year), bus drivers, CCD teacher and assistant, Daisy Troop leaders and assistant leaders my gift list has gone overboard. I did gift cards for the main teachers this year as usual, $60 for four teachers. Last year I did candles for troop leaders and candles and scratch offs for bus drivers. Someone I gave a candle to actually was talking to me and another mom about Christmas gifts last year for people and she complained how instead of things like candles she'd rather get a $5 gift card. I'm hoping she just didn't realize and was not just that rude..but I could be wrong.

My kids were talking about Christmas the other day and presents and my oldest said to her sisters and brother that Christmas is really about the birthday of Jesus and not about presents for kids. CCD class is sinking in I guess.