nursery

The hubs made these shelves inspired by Pottery Barn

WWYD

Thinking of changing our kitchen to this:

What do you think of the fridge there? That's my big hold up.

It's that time of year to spread the special cheer!

Alright it's that time of year! Nov 1st makes my skin tingle, my eyes water and well, and my heart swell!  It means Christmas tunes are crankin' and I'm holding back on decorating the house with red, green, and snowmen!!!

Last year we missed the boat on sending out Christmas cards because our little peanut was due right about then and so I figured I'd send out Birth Announcements instead..... Yea that didn't happen because in my post-baby fog I okay'd a misprinted announcement, and since the pics were from a pricey photog I couldn't get them fixed or reprinted.

THIS YEAR I'M NOT MAKING THE SAME MISTAKE!!

I'm taking the cards into my own hands!  I'm going to order from Shutterfly, who I've used in the past and never had issues with, they are high quality, ship quick, and have great customer service. And if I make any editing mistakes (which I won't) I can afford to reorder because their prices are so great!

So my plan for this Christmas is to take a picture of little man in one of two ways:

a) With his santa pjs bottoms to camera looking up a decorated mantel/fireplace looking for Santa.  (Too cute right?) If that's the pic I capture I will use this card layout from Shutterfly: I love that it's actually a card that you can open. I also love it's simplicity.

Find this card here:

b) The other picture I'm going to try to get is one of little man with a big red bow, cloth diaper, and all tangled up (safely) in Christmas lights.  If that's the picture I capture I'll use this card.  This one is not a card that opens, but if you know me you know I'm obsessed with snowflakes! And I love the crisp colors of this card.

Find this card here:

So how much are these cards? Well............ If you're a blogger you can contact Shutterfly by using this link:

Blog and get your own cards free!

and get 50 free! Yes free! 

I have used Shutterfly for several orders in the past.  We had our open house party in 08 and those Biscuit inspired invites were created with Shutterfly  The shipping is always super fast and the quality is top notch. I hope you enjoy Shutterfly as much as I do!

My next Shutterfly order is going to be Thank You cards for little man's first birthday party, which is right before Christmas (eek, how'd that happen!)

I had his birthday invite pictures taken this weekend and we'll be using this shot:

And this card, found here. It goes perfect with his (my) Raggedy Andy theme!

Get snappin thos pics!

Deal of the Day

Can you smell fall coming?  I can! Well possibly because I went to the mall today to find Wee Andrew some fall clothing....... and as I was walking by guess which store loured me in...

Yankee Candle!
All the fall smells enticed me, as well as the big sale signs. Then I remembered....... I FORGOT MY COUPON!!!

I had a $10 off of $25 coupon from the mail...........I told the store clerk, and she brought me out a coupon for $15 off of $45. Close enough I guess!

So I purchased the following sale items: 4 tumblers: 2/20 and 5 $1 votives.  Total bill: $30 Not too shabby.




Did I mention the tumblers were gifts?  I purchased late fall/Christmas scents so that I could gift these in the upcoming gift season.  That means I got 4 Christmas gifts for $25.

Then the very wonderful clerk asked me if I got their emails....... Nope.  She said if you sign up online you receive a $10 of $25 purchase!  Woohoo!  So I'm using both my email accounts to get this deal and I'm going to head back in for more Christmas gifts.

http://www.yankeecandle.com/cgi-bin/ycbvp/retail.jsp

Leftover Pizza Friday

Hot wing pizza!

Yum!
This week I made buffalo wings, broccoli, and rice. I hate messy wings, so when I make wings it's boneless chicken tenders.

So here's what I did with my leftovers this week!

Pillsbury pizza crust (still some from my coupons)
Ranch dressing as the sauce (see tip below)
Shredded buffalo tenders (Leftover)
Cut up broccoli (Leftover)
Shredded cheese


(picture from allrecipes)
I learned a tip for making a great pizza. As a teenager I worked next to a pizza place and dated one of the "pizza boys" so I picked up a few lifelong tips........... the most important one being:

DO NOT OVER SAUCE YOUR PIZZA!!

You know your ice cream scoop?  Use that as your measurement! You don't need much more than that if any at all! This will help keep your pizza crust crispy and the flavor of the sauce not over powering.

Fail but try again (#2)

Frozen week was a FAIL.......... why? because I chose the last week of the month and this is when most of my coupon's expired, and my goal was to NOT grocery shop at all.............. I ended up at the store spending $100 because some of the coupons of things I "needed" were going to expire.

I know my rule is, don't buy it just because you have a coupon for it, but I didn't use ALL of my coupons, I only used SOME! LOL. For example, we use lots of chicken broth and I had a coupon for canned chicken broth. Was I cooking with it this week? No, but I don't want to be cooking with it next week and paying full price!

So RULE change (this is a learning process)  ............. frozen meal week will be week 1 of the month, not the last week!  This way the last week I can use the coupons that are near expiring and not waste them!

8 months old!

I love my momma!

And I love Celtic! (soccer that is)

Weeman sure is growing!

So embarrassing mom!

I really look like a toddler here!

This is how the rain makes my hair!

Almost crawling!

Week 4 Menu Planning- No Grocery shopping

Each week I've been spending around $100 on groceries, however I've been planning ahead for this week and Baby A's dedication party.  So this week was my attempt at no grocery shopping and only using freezer items or other menu items that  I have.  I do make some exceptions, for example each week I buy one fresh fruit and vegetable, and I also make a leftover pizza on Friday's and currently I'm out of cheese.

So my "no grocery shopping" list for the week looks like this:
Shredded cheese
bananas and berries
corn on the cob
So the total cost will be about $5.00!

My Menu Plan for the week looks like this:

Sunday-
Chicken Tenders and Perogies

Monday-
Eating out (mystery shopper assignment)

Tuesday-
Mini burgers on English Muffins, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob

Wednesday-
Chicken breast, rice, and broccoli

Thursday-
Ham steak and hashbrowns

Friday-
Leftover Pizza with either ham or chicken and broccoli

Saturday-
Tortellini and turkey bacon

Alllllllllllllllll from the freezer!!!

Leftover Pizza Friday

I looooove pizza. In fact when I was pregnant with weeman it was one of the few foods I ever craved or was hungry for. (Un)fortunately I wasn't one of those famished eat everything you see pregnant women.  I was eh, I don't feel like eating, but I must force myself to because I'm growing a person.

So pizza was my go to.

I could eat it everyday, Papa John's is my FAVORITE, but it is pricey.  So I figured why don't I try and make my own pizza?  So I tried it with this crust

and it's not too shabby. Not the best, not the worst, but I had a COUPON for it so it helped save money.

So last week I threw my leftovers on top of the pizza and it went something like this:

Taco Pizza

Pillsbury Pizza crust

Sauce- taco sauce packet from taco kit (Leftover)

Cheese- shredded taco cheese (Leftover)

Meat- ground beef with taco season (you guessed it! Leftover)

It was delicious!  We had it for Friday dinner and then a quick Saturday lunch!  So basically I stretched out my taco dinner to 3 meals! 

Another $ saving Website

Groupon.com

This website you can sign up for your local deals. For example today's current deal is $50 for $25 at the Gap.  Earlier this week I was able to sign up for a month of Gymboree for $32 with a waive of the initial sign up a $40 savings!

I'm baaaaaaaack!

Alright the hubs was gone for two weeks and I was a single momma............ so it made it quite tough to spend time on here. Especially with a 7 month old who really missed his dadda and wanted no parts of momma walking out of the room!

Here's what I've been up to while I was gone:

Deals at CVS-
SOBE BOGO with BOGO coupon- free

Successful Grocery shopping trip:
ACME-
Before total- 217.00
After total-$111.72
Savings- $106.25
So did it fit into my $80 a week budget? Nope...............

BUT
I made several future purchases:
BOG2- detergent
5 for 12 soda for Andrew's dedication
BOGO hot dogs

I Hate Leftovers

Seriously hate them.  But when you are budgeting you have to eat them.  I try my best to not waste any food.
So what I've been trying to do is re-purpose my food vs. re-heat and eat.

So here's the rule I've been stickin' to.
1. Re-heat leftovers are for packed lunches or Saturday lunch. (=fridge cleanout)
2. Re-purpose 1 meal a week.

My examples so far:
Chicken breast, baked potatoes, and veggies.
Re-purpose meal- BBQ chicken and veggies pizza-  I used the left over chicken and veggies to make a pizza, so the only new ingredients needed were pizza crust and cheese! (I used bbq sauce as the pizza sauce)

Tacos, mac n cheese, and refried beans
Re-purpose meal--Mexican shepherd's pie- Yum!  Used the ground beef, layer of beans, (Andrew loooves refried beans) frozen veggie medley and instant mashed potatoes.  Easy! Delicious!

Home

I looked back at my original posts and realized I never showed you home. (let alone my motivation for staying home)

First time holding him, and first time falling in love!

A few months ago, letting me know he wasn't happy with my photo shoot!

More more more!!! Coupon links/websites

Alright in my "goal" to get my groceries cheaper I've been webbin it up and found more places.

hip2save.com
dealwisemommy.net

Fail but try again

Alright so I was a bit upset about my grocery failure. So today, once I finished my daily cleaning routine I sat down and went blog searching.
So far I've found:
Mommysavers.com
I had thought about buying the Sunday paper in order to get access to the day's coupons.  But I found a link on mommysavers.com listing the coupons and none of which we would have used. I did put this "rule" in place for my grocery shopping:
Don't buy it because you have a coupon, buy it because you will use it!
In the past I've made "coupon" mistakes and bought it because I had a coupon. This lead it to sitting in my pantry, fridge, cupboard unused.

Couponmom.com
Coupon mom offers tutorials on using your flyers wisely and access to more coupons.

Addition:
couponalbum.com Not just groceries!
smartsource.com
redplum.com

Fail

So I send Andrew to the grocery store with a list. He stuck to it....... pretty well...... minus the $4.00 can of refried beans.............. but I went over budget. I set it at 80-90 and we ended up at 110. Boo!
I do have to remind myself that I bought the following things for freezing/later:
Bacon
1 lb of gr beef
Perogies
lean cuisines
Fiber one bars (for when Andrew goes back to work)

So hopefully I can get closer/under budget next week.

Step 2- Efficient grocery shopping, meal planning

Budget- $80 a week (all groceries, home care supplies, and baby supplies)

Thursday is the day our grocery fliers come so this week I decided not just to grab the Giant flyer, but to actually page through all of the fliers.  Initially I was handwriting all of the different ad's items and prices, but 5 post-it notes later and a ceiling fan "incident" I was frustrated. So I decided using technology was the best way to plan my grocery calculations.

First I categorized the items in the A column.  I started my spreadsheet the way I typically went through the grocery store.

Produce
Lunch meat
Snacks
Boxed goods
Home/Beauty/Cleaning
Baby
Meat
Frozen
Dairy/Bread
Deals/Bonus Card

Then across the spreadsheet I put the store names followed by a Coupon column.  I gave myself a time limit (this could take me 2-3 hours if I really left it) of 30 minutes.

I then thought about what would make it worth to shop at what stores.

1. Most sales vs. cheapest items (most sales one this time)
2. Deals that could be used later (Giant and Walgreen's had these)
3. Most items on sale from meal plan menu
4. Closest to one another
5. If I could use Coupon.com coupons or other newspaper coupons

By the time I was finished I decided which 1-2 grocery stores and which 1 pharmacy I was going to go to.  I'm going to head out to Giant and Acme as well as the Walgreen's.  Giant and Walgreen's each had a deal/bonus card that will later reduce another bill.  Giant's shopping will save us 60 cents a gallon in August and Walgreen's we will earn a $10 gift card.

I also sat down and meal planned for the week. I selected 4 "first dishes" and 2 leftover dishes. Leaving me one day of no planning, but using a freezer supplied item.

Good luck with your grocery shopping!  Once I've used my spreadsheet a few times and worked out the bugs I'll be willing to share!  I'll update later how much money we saved and how close (hopefully below) I stuck to our $80 a week budget!

Step 1- Reduce bills

So step one of me becoming a SAHM is to be able to afford to be one.  Last year my husband lost his teaching job...... we were 6 weeks pregnant and didn't see the layoff coming. We spent a year on 1.5 incomes (he found work, but not full time). So our budget was already tight. Now he is working full time, getting a "raise" (or back up to his old pay).  I also am/about to be was/ a teacher and make less than he does.

So we calculated it.... cost of childcare being covered by my job leaves us an extra $800 a month. So.. we calculated again... where can we cut out $800 a month so that I can quit my job to raise our son.  We made a list, we researched money saving things on the internet and here we are:

1. Called cable/phone/internet company- reduced bill by $80.
2. Called car insurance and said I'd be a SAHM- reduced bill by $50
3. Called cell phone company- reduced bill by $20
4. Called grocery store and reduced bill to $250. (okay I didn't call the grocery store we set ourselves a budget)

Budget reductions-
Eating out- sorry thunder thighs, no more eating out 2-3 times a week (reduce grocery/food bill to $250 gives us back another $200)
Gas money- out goes my 23 miles each way trip to work, in comes $100
Thermostat- up to 78 in summer down to 72 in winter (not sure of savings)
Target- oooooooooh so that's where all my money went....... no more $100 trips every 3-4 weeks. (Can't even tell you what I was buying anyway)
Cloth diapers- back fully into cloth reduces our spending habit by $50

So let's do the math
Need 800
-150 (bills)
-450 (budget reduction)
=600 still 200 bucks short.

Well............ we're still going with it anyway. My husband supplemented our income while he was laid off with construction. He was bringing in an extra $500 a month (we didn't add this into our initial budget) and I can tutor kids or sub a few days a month.

I'm also going to research more ways to save money.
First up: Coupon hunting and efficient grocery shopping

Be SAHMone-- What does that mean?

Everything. SAHM- Stay at home mom

So be a stay at home mom, be someone. Someone that matters. Someone that makes the biggest impact on my biggest accomplishment so far- my son. I have the opportunity to raise him, to be his primary caretaker, to be his teacher, to be his guide, to be his set of morals, to be his parent. I won't have time to be his friend, this is what I would have been if I had gone back to work. I would have been so guilty that I would have ended up his friend. He's not ready for that. I'm not sure I'm ready for this, but ready or not, here I come. I'm becoming someone. I'm going to be SAHMone. This is my journey.