Errand Day

Today is the day to go shopping! Yesterday I made my menu plan, grocery list, got my coupons ready, and cleaned out my fridge! I hope you did too. I am on a mission today because I have a long grocery list and a just a little money, so wish me luck!

Yesterday I was able to do a little more holiday shopping. I went to Toys-R-Us because I had a $10 gift card from a few weeks ago when they had the coupon in the paper. So, I was able to get one item for my youngest son. It was $20, and I had the $10 gift card, so I only paid $10. Next, I went to Ross Dress for Less and I was able to get 2 complete jogging suits (really nice one's not the cheesy ones made out of parachute material) for $12.99 each, plus some Carter's pajamas for a friend of mine for $6.99. Then on to Wal-Mart where I bought the Elmo Live for my son who is completely in love with it. Normally I don't buy trendy toys like this because they play with them for one day and then they are done. However, Liam loves this thing, so I caved. But, I am still within my Christmas budget, so no worries. I have been finding items cheaper than I estimated by being creative, using coupons, and hitting sales, so I have more $$ to spend! Wal-Mart was the cheapest on the Elmo Live, plus they are the only one's who have it in stock right now. I will probably do the rest of my Christmas shopping online because things will be easier to find online this late in the season. I hope all of you are having good luck too.

Tomorrow is Friday, which is date night! I am going to be spending enough today on groceries, so we will just stay in tomorrow. I will probably cook a nice dinner, put the kids to bed, and rent movies from the red box! It's so cold I could even light a fire and candles for some extra ambiance! I'm sure there are some things in the paper that we could do, but I didn't ask my mom to babysit, so I hate to ask her so last minute. I'll check the Times to see if there is anything free, just in case! Have a great day!

Tabloid Tuesday

Today is the day to check your mail, get out your Sharpie marker, and circle all of the deals in the sales papers! I finally got my sales ads after a week of nothing. I found a few good deals that I was happy with: Adrien's had 10lb bags of chicken for .29 per lb, they also had heads of lettuce for .88 per lb, Super One Foods has certain Post cereal 3 for $1.50 (I will try to find a coupon), and Piggly Wiggly has a bunch of meats for only .99 per lb! Of course I will be price matching at Wal-Mart so that I only have to make one trip.

This week is going to be a big shopping trip because I haven't gone to the grocery store in 2 weeks! The first week we were on vacation for 5 days and when I came back I never received a sales ad in the mail. I had enough food in my fridge, pantry and freezer to last the whole 2 weeks so I never went shopping. But, now my cupboards are bare! So this week will be a real challenge to keep the bill low. Plus, I really need to do some stockpiling! I will definitely be taking advantage of the 10lb chicken deal this week. Tomorrow I will be putting together my menu plan for the week, my grocery list, and my coupons. I know that I can stay within budget, we just won't be doing much of anything else this week!

A few people were asking how we were able to go to California. Well, to be honest, most of the trip was a Christmas present from my family, not to say that we didn't have the money saved. I am very disciplined in my spending, so anything extra is put in the savings account and constantly builds in case of an emergency or necessary expenses. SO, I could have paid for the trip, but we got lucky. When it comes to Christmas gifts I usually ask for practical things. A vacation was something we really wanted and needed, so that's what I asked for this year. Other than that, I did take out $500 of my savings for expenses. We ended up spending about $100 before we even left to get some extra clothes and shoes for the trip. I was happy with this because we needed them! Then we spend $70 on surfing lessons and surf board and wet suit rental. The rest was spent on random things like food and souvenirs in Disney. AND I still came back with grocery money! We stayed with my grandfather, so we were able to eat and sleep there to save money! It was a fabulous trip. The majority of the expenses were in the flights, car rental, and Disney tickets which were covered by my family as my Christmas present. So, I probably spent $300 while we were there. I am uploading photos as we speak, so they will be on the blog soon.

My Christmas shopping is getting closer to done. I need to go through my receipts to get my total number because I did do a little Christmas shopping in Cali. They have IKEA which I am a complete freak for, so I did get some gifts there. I didn't buy much, no more than $30 in gifts, but they are soooo cheap! I love IKEA, I wish they shipped more items because I would buy everything there. I didn't buy much on Black Friday and Cyber Monday because I couldn't really find anything on my list. I was able to get a fantastic deal on jackets and pajamas at Wal-Mart, which we really needed! My husband shopped the Saturday after Thanksgiving because he heard me talking about all of the deals. He bought all of my Christmas presents in one day! He was dying to tell me what he bought because of all of the great deals he found. I was able to get a red 4 quart Crock Pot from Target for $15! I have been using it and I love it. My husband ran to get it for me and when he got there the shelf was empty, so he started asking and was able to find more on top of the shelves! So, I got my Crock Pot! Happy Dance!

I haven't done any other spending this week because the deals haven't been that great. I didn't even see anything very exciting at CVS, but I did get my coupons on Sunday. If anyone is ever in River Ranch on Sunday I'm always at the CC's next to CVS. Sunday is the day that I normally work on the site, so I am usually there from about 11am until 4 or 5.

Tomorrow is Menu Planning Day, so get out your sales ads, print out your menu plan, check your fridge, pantry and freezer, and make a menu. Make a grocery list for the few items you need and whatever you plan on stockpiling and organize your coupons. Post your menu plan tomorrow. Happy Tuesday!

I'm Back!/Black Friday

Hey everyone!
I made it back safe and sound from Cali!! We had a blast! We went surfing, to Hollywood (The guy Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots was playing at Hollywood and Highland), skating, to Disneyland, and had Thanksgiving at my grandfather's house. It was awesome! And somehow I managed to come in under budget!! So I came home with grocery money. Yeah!

I did, however, have to sacrifice my Black Friday because I was on a plane all day. I had to take Dramamine on my first flight so I was wiped out when I got back (I still am). BUT, I did manage to get to Wal-Mart and take advantage of a few deals on jackets for the family ($8) and pajamas ($4). I am still happy!!

Happy Black Friday! I'll write more tomorrow.

Hey Ladies - I did go shopping today for my son's b-day party this evening and to get a few things for our vacation and 2 birthday parties this weekend. I just wanted to tell you about a couple of target deals that you can take advantage of:

-5lb bag potatoes is $1.99 and there is a $1 off coupon on the Target Website, so the final price is $.99 for a 5lb bag of potatoes.

-There is also a $1 off coupon for Archer Farms coffee. The small bags are $1.06. The final price is $.06!! So, I printed out a bunch of coupons and bought as many as possible because I am going to use these as Christmas gifts. I am going to put them in a mug with a biscotti and candy cane. These are perfect for all of the teachers.

Coupon Sunday

Yesterday I did my CVS deals. I got everything that was free with Extra Care Bucks, plus the Joy deal because I had 2 coupons. I tried to get the Kleenex that was on sale, but they were sold out and I forgot to get a rain check. The L'Oreal tinted moisturizer didn't work for me either. It didn't give me my extra care bucks, so I got my money back. I didn't feel like fighting with it this week, I have too much going on, so...oh well. I did however find wine for $2.50 a bottle on clearance at the CVS in River Ranch, so I took care of 4 more Christmas gifts!! I am going to make up some Christmas labels and stick them on top of the original labels. I also clipped all of my coupons before I went to bed and put them in my binder. You know what I was thinking? If any of my friends are reading this blog, which they probably are, they are going to know what they are getting for Christmas!! I'm going to have to figure out how to fix this!!!

Man, it's been a great weekend! I found so many deals this weekend that I have frugal fever. I'm on a roll and don't want to stop. Yesterday I went grocery shopping. There wasn't really anything worth stockpiling for me, so I got all of my groceries plus a few things that I have been holding off on like sippy cups, razors, shave gel, etc. I also got paper towels, toilet paper, a few things off of the "day old" bread rack. The only coupons I used were for the White Cloud toilet paper and the Kotex pads. The 4 pack toilet paper is $2, so with a coupon it is $1. Then the Kotex Lightdays pads are $1 and I had 3 $1 coupons, so they were all free. I love it! Everything else was store brand or sales. My total bill was $52 for this week.

Then we went on a Christmas shopping adventure yesterday. First I stopped at Michael's to check out the clearance. I found this awesome $24.99 very stylish knitting bag for my friend. It was on clearance for $11.99. When I got to the counter I asked if they had any extra coupons and they told me I couldn't use it on clearance, BUT when it rang up my total was $2.15!!! Yes!! Then, we went to lunch and the manager gave us our lunch for free! I know, free! I was so happy. It was totally unexpected. It was actually because something happened to my husband when we were there, but they were so great about it that I don't want to mention the name here. So, on to Toys-R-Us so that the kids could give us a Christmas wish list. They were demo-ing this Lazer Tag game and my son totally fell in love with it. Well, it was $90 and I didn't want to use that much of my Christmas budget, so I kept asking if it would go on sale or if there were any coupons. Finally, the manager sold me the demo for $70. I was so pumped. I used a $10 gift card and used the coupon for another $10 gift card. Then I went back in and got more stuff, used my new $10 gift card, some coupons, and another coupon for a $10 gift card. Anyway, I ended up with 10 items and another $10 gift card and paid about $150. I was very happy. So I still have about $500 of my Christmas money left. My husband wants an expensive lense for his camera, but I still think I can come in way below budget because I keep finding all of these deals! Wish me luck!!

Last night I finally went grocery shopping. Last week I spent $44 on all of my groceries and stockpiling. This week I spent $85! I know, I know, it is a lot for me, but I stockpiled about 30lbs of meat too. I had to buy a lot to get the deal that I was working on. My husband and I also decided to go on a low-carb diet, so this week was the switchover to low-carb stockpiling. Next week my bill will be lower, I promise. This week Super 1 had a 5 for $19.99 meat sale, so I got ribs, chicken tenders, ground beef, chicken drumsticks and chicken thighs. That was over 25lbs of meat. Then they had some FreezerQueen family size frozen dinners that were$.97, so I got the ones that were just meat. (about 5). Ragu was also on sale there for $.88 so I bought 5 for the kids. My last stockpile item was eggs, I got 5 dozen because they are cheaper in bulk. So, all of that, plus my weekly groceries was $85. However, I won't have to buy any meat for another month!

Here is my meal plan for the week based on what I already had in the fridge freezer and pantry:
Sunday - Shrimp Cabobs
Monday - Chili and salad
Wednesday - low-carb fried chicken and broccoli
Thursday - round steak stir fry and brown rice
Friday - Meat Loaf and green beans
Saturday - Baked fish and mixed vegies (I honestly don't know what kind of fish it is, my husband caught it on a fishing trip.)

I also popped into Target because I had a Target coupon for $1 off of 2 Gerber babyfoods. I hit the 75% off Halloween isle and found a few good deals. They had Halloween dish scrubber spounges for $.24. I picked up a few for my kitchen, who cares of they are Halloween! I love them! And I found these cool picture frames that were supposed to be Halloween, but they matched my living room. They were actually red and black snake skin print. My living house has a very contemporary, modern look, and my couches are red, so they matched perfectly! They were $1 a peice. I love my life!

Last week I bought all of my Halloween candy on clearance and froze it for next year.

Let's see what deals I can find today. I saw a flower shop going out of business. I'm thinking of racking up for Christmas!