Frugal Friday (Night)! - Mop Pads

Last week I found a link to a site where a woman made tops for her swiffer mops that she could throw into the wash instead of throwing them away. When I saw it, I had just cut out coupon for the rubbermaid version of the same thing. I was feeling pretty frugal for having a coupon, but when I saw the post I realized I could do better. FREE is a lot better! The process was fairly simple, cut a burp cloth down to size, sew on pockets from the scraps, and clean. Only one problem - I am not a seamstress, in fact I couldn't remember the last time I had used my machine. :) But, nonetheless I was fearless, I got everything out and pressed ahead. I'm glad no one was awake to see the carnage, but the end result was two great mop covers and the pride of accomplishment. :)

Our not so amazing Publix trip

I think I was still on a high from my CVS trip when I went to publix today, because I did not have my thinking cap on. I made several great buys and made up for those by buying tons of bags that were not on sale...what was I thinking? I needed to buy bags, but I could have just used my coupons on the size I needed and bought more later when they were on sale, instead I just bought to use up coupons...urg! Maybe I will return them tomorrow :) Ended up spending $100.13 which is way high for us, but I was also completely out of meat, poultry, fish, and shrimp. I didn't buy any fish, but I bought the other 3 in fairly large quantities. Luckily the shrimp was on sale. Had a really good deal on Cheese - there is a Kraft coupon fo $5 off of 5 items and the chunk cheese was on sale for $2, so I think that was pretty great. Got some yogurt packs for under $1, and I ended up with $25 in coupons all told, so I'm not unhappy, just wish I had been thinking on ZipLocs. I guess I can just learn from my mistakes...right?

CVS Deals - Sept 5, 2010

****UPDATED 9/6/2010***

My daughter and I try to go to CVS on our way to church (when your day starts before 6am you have plenty of time before a 9:30 service) every sunday. This week we went for our weekly deals and I think we did a pretty good job.

We picked up the 2 pack of Dawn Ult that is on the monthly deals for $6 and had a $.25 coupon for that plus we got back the 2 ECBs.

With those ECBs in hand we got
2 Wisk Ultra on sale B1G1 for 8.49 - We had 2 $3 off coupons on these, so this was our deal of the week!
Then we got 4 of the St. Ives soaps that were 2.99 if you bought $10 worth then you got $5 ECBs. If you are looking for the best deal on this this week you should go to Walgreens, but I don't love our Walgreens, and I didn't want to make a second trip, so I went with this deal. :)
Finally, the pullups were 8.49 (or maybe 8.99) this week, so we got a small pack of these.

We used our $4 off of 20 coupon, our $2 ECBs, and our 2 $3 off Wisk. In all we spent $23 and change on this transaction. So in all for under $30 we walked out with Pullups, 2 laundry detergents, 4 soaps, and 2 dish soap. I think we did pretty good.

UPDATE!!

My daughter and I went back to CVS today because one of the coupons the machine spit out was a $3 off of $10 in Grocery items. Milk was on sale for $2.99 and cereal was on sale for 1.77 a box. We Brought our $5 ECBs from yesterday, our coupon from the machine, a coupon for 2 boxes of Raisin Bran and a coupon for 2 boxes of Corn Pops. Walked out with 2 Gallons Milk, and 4 boxes of cereal for $2.56 OOP. Man did that feel good! :)

She's teaching me!

Here is my frugal idea of the week! Let your kids talk you out of purchases. My daughter did a great job of that last week.
I took my toddler with me to pick out a birthday present for her cousin last week and let me tell you, she is the good shopper! I was drawn in by the clearance aisle and pillow cases and other things for her, but when I asked her if she wanted to take things home she said no. She was quite content to play with the toys for a few minutes in the aisle and then return them to the shelf. She didn't feel entitled to a toy just because we were getting one for her cousin. Amazing, she talked me out of purchases, and she is two!
For more great frugal ideas check out Frugal Friday at Life as Mom.

FRUGAL FAILURE!!!

I was determined to stick to plan this week, and thus far I have, however....While I was making dinner tonight apparently I was out in la la land. I used the sticky chicken that I planned on making for freezer day (finally got around to making it yesterday, and then ended up eating with extended family, so it was around today) and turned it into Chicken Pot Pie. Unfortunately I managed to forget to salt and pepper my chicken as I was putting it into the pie, used a mixed veggie can that had potatoes (I HATE potatoes), and last but not threw it all in with cream of mushroom instead of cream of chicken! Agh!!!! Let me just tell you that none of us ate a whole lot of dinner tonight. Oh well, better luck next time!

Freezer Follow Up.

We finally got around to having our June Freezer day today, and it was great. We followed our original plan pretty well, and I only managed to mess up one thing significantly :) When I made the clazones this time I guess I didn't crimp the edges well, because when I opened the oven there was cheese everywhere. Oops! I also forgot that I planned on making a ton of them and only made 6 for my friend, we have some more in the freezer and I figured I could make some more in a few days if I decided I wanted more.

We made 4 lasagnas, 4 dinners worth of the Southwest Roll-ups (we doubled the recipe), 6 calzones, and 4 batches of the lemon chicken. We worked over at my friends house, and she doesn't have a bread machine, so I promised to bring some butterhorns over later, and I made the sloppy joes early when I got nervous that she was going to have the baby before our cooking day, so I will bring some of those over to them later.

The lemon chicken and the southwest roll-ups are both new recipes to us, but both were easy to put together, I just hope they are yummy!

All in all, I think the our freezer cooking day was a success, and because of the choices we made, today we got it done in about 3 hrs. :) Yay!

Frugal Friday

How can I save money and still hang out with friends and family? I love eating with friends and family, but going to a restraunt can be a pricey trip for us. This week I think I figured it out! I convince my friends and family to come eat at my house! Last night dinner with 2 of my sisters-in-law and 3 of our children cost me a grand total of about $6. I found chicken on sale (6 leg/thighs) for $2.53, ingredients for some yeast rolls probably totalled $.45, a bag of salad for $2.50 and salad dressing to season the chicken and put on our salad probably around $1. One sister-in-law brought the green beans and "fun stuff" for the salad, and the other brought (her own) birthday cake. We did not make her bring her own cake I promise, her daughter wanted to help make the birthday cake. The night was definitely less expensive than a restraunt and with our crazy band of children being where they could run and play was definitely an advantage for all. There is a little bit of effort involved in the prep and the clean up (especially where children are involved) but hands down this is way more exciting than sitting at home by myself while my friends go hang out in a restraunt together. :)

For more ideas for Frugal Friday check out life as mom.

I love bread!

I love bread and I have really been loving the bread machine that I borrowed (ok, begged and pleaded with) from my mom. My favorite has been an oatmeal bread that I can make with whole wheat flour or without....whatever floats my boat at the moment. Apparently Money Saving Mom has been trying out some new recipese on her new bread machine and I am ready to try the one she put up today. I'll let you know how it goes!

Frugality Tip of the Day

When trying to save both time and money, it is not a good idea to throw your first batch of anything on the floor and break your favorite mixing bowl into a million pieces :)

Found a great read.

I am reading a book this week by Mary Ostyn at http://www.owlhaven.net/ called Family Feasts For $75 a week. It is great! I love that she not only includes recipes for everything, but she also tells you why to do certain parts of the recipe. As an example when she gives her biscuit recipe she reminds you to handle as little as possible to get the fluffiest biscuits...things you may (or may not) know, but is always nice to be reminded of. We tried out her recipe for Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookie Bars and they got the seal of approval from my husband, my toddler, and of course my dear, sweet sister-in-law (she stopped by to hang out, but confessed later that she was certain I would have "good stuff" around). We are enjoying it and hope you get a chance to check out Mary.

Processed or not?

I am finding that as I have more time at home I am more inclined now to make things from scratch than I was in the past. There are multiple reasons for this 1) it is often cheaper, 2) now that I have more of the staples on hand once I run out of the mix for something it is less time consuming to gather the ingredients than to run to the store and buy a new mix, and 3) I am finding more and more about mixes and processed foods that are just not good for our bodies. Today we ran out of pancake mix and I was all ready to run to the store and get more and my husband says to me, "I'm sure there is a recipe on the web for pancakes, why don't you try making that from scratch." It seems I have won a convert. So, we'll try the pancakes out and let you know how it goes, meanwhile if you have a good recipe for pancakes, let me know!