Jumbled Mess No More...

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I am caught up on my coupons.

Yes, that's right- I have finally completely caught up on clipping and filing my coupons. This may not seem like a big deal to most but for me it is a huge achievement.

For the past few months I have had stacks of un-clipped inserts and a box full of clipped and unorganized coupons. It really was no big deal except for the fact that whenever I went to the store I would miss out on deals and saving money because my coupons were sitting at home in a jumbled mess. I would buy things we needed and then would realize when I got home that I actually had coupons I could have used. My disorganization was causing my grocery budget to be more busted than usual.

Now when I go to the store I can throw my three small accordion files of coupons in my purse and know that I am ready for whatever deals the stores have to throw at me. I will still have to contend with having small children with me whose sole purpose is to sabotage my deals but that is combat that us moms deal with on a daily basis- I like to use snacks as ammunition to keep them at bay and if that doesn't work then onto the bribing.

I wonder how long until everything turns into a jumbled mess again...

La-Di-Da Shopping...

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In my old town I was spoiled. I had a ton of stores within ten minutes of my home and my favorite store, Target, was five minutes away. I could just run out to whatever store I needed to go to and it was no big deal.

Now that we moved my la-di-da shopping days are done. The only stores that are pretty close are Stop and Shop, Dave's Marketplace and Walmart. Everything else is a good twenty minutes away- twenty minutes may not seem like far to some people but when you are busy with three kids it is way far. Add in how much gas my suv guzzles and gallivanting out of town to shop is not something I am going to be doing often.

So, I will changing my shopping habits. No more trips to Target for this girl- I am going to become the queen of Walmart. I hate Walmart but we gotta do what we gotta do and my geographic location has tied my hands. Dave's Marketplace (a local grocery chain) and Stop and Shop are going to be my grocery stores. CVS and Rite Aid are going to be my drugstores. As for BJ's, well that will just have to be a once every few months kind of store. And then there is Whole Foods- I have been buying all of our meat from there and now the nearest one is twenty-five minutes away. Once you've had their meat the regular meat from the grocery store just is not up to snuff but I suppose I need to get over it and maybe give Dave's Marketplace a chance.

Not being close to stores is a blessing in disguise- the less I step foot in them the less I will be tempted to spend lots of money, though I will miss the wonderful Target clearance end caps. And who am I kidding, I have three kids I have to drag everywhere with me so why the heck would I even want to be out shopping anywhere? This whole thing may work to my advantage when it comes to not bringing random crap into my house that I don't need...

Clip, Clip, Clip...

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I just spent a ton of time clipping coupons that I have been neglecting for the past week (or two?). They are all sitting in my coupon box waiting to be filed which will take me more time.

I feel like I put all of this work into clipping/sorting coupons and then I don't even end up using them because getting to the store even once a week is such a hassle for me.

Is it really worth the effort? That seems to be a question that everyone has a different answer for.

Right now, with three kids, I am feeling kind of over the coupon thing. Am I so over it that I won't use them anymore? Probably not because I just wouldn't feel right not being a least a little bit of a coupon queen but it is something that I think is fun to do one day and the next day I hate it.

I used to be one of those people who said that even if I won the lottery I would still coupon- now if I won the lottery I would certainly spend my time doing better things than clipping out little pieces of paper that save me $1.

For now though, since I am am still stationed in the middle class, I will continue to use stinky coupons to get stuff for a somewhat decent price- but only if I can get out of the darn house for an hour to go to the store...

So Interesting I Can't Even Stand It...

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I have decided that I am going to stop posting my shopping trips. It is just too much of a pain to lay everything out to take a photo of and then put it away all while my kids are pawing at me to make them lunch/get them a drink/help them on the potty/etc.

I think I'm going to try and do maybe mini recaps of any deals I've gotten but I'm a total flake so we'll see if that happens.

As for my shopping the fast few weeks- I've gotten some good deals while totally not sticking to my budget. I have been buying all of my meat at Whole Foods and stocking up when things have been on sale- paying more for meat has been worth it because it really does taste way better than the normal stuff at the grocery store. Still not much drugstore shopping as I'm having difficulty trying to figure out where to fit trips into my schedule (I have Extra Care Bucks expiring this week so I guess I'll have to make time). Getting to the store at all has been tricky because Jilly Billy needs to go down for her morning nap right after I drop my son off at school so my errand time got snatched away from me. When school is out for the summer I have no idea how I will manage my shopping- I hate to do it all on Sundays because that is the only day that we are all home together since I work on Saturdays but the thought of taking all three kids to the stores sends chills down my back.

Ahhh, the life of a housewife. So interesting I can't even stand it.

Revisiting My Budget

I am not one for being told what to do- I still feel like I am a rebellious teenager sometimes and when I am told to do something one way I automatically do it the complete opposite way.

This craziness also applies to me telling myself what to do.

I tried making a budget with separate categories for groceries, household items, diapers and pet stuff (not including vet appointments) because I told myself that it would be better for keeping spending in check. I tried listening to myself but now I am rebelling. I hate having all of those categories- some weeks I need more money in some categories and less money in others. I don't like entering in what I spent into my spreadsheet and having the numbers taunting me because I spent  too much on groceries while there is a small nest egg in the household or diapers category.

In an effort to streamline my life and get rid of little annoyances I am going to have a blanket amount for the above mentioned categories. As of right now it will be $100 per week- I think based on what I've been spending that this amount will suffice. If not I can always lower or raise it (most likely raise it because I have been a terrible deal stalker lately) because amongst other things, I am the CEO of my household and can do whatever I want.

Discombobulated...

I haven't posted in awhile due to laziness and the fact that I feel like my brain is all discombobulated.

Things are getting better though. Here is a recap of my wonderful life:

-The baby has been taking a couple of naps during the day in her swing and a couple more naps in my awesome Beco baby carrier. This has allowed me to actually be able to eat my lunch before three o'clock and to clean the house a bit. She is smiling now and doing that silly baby babbling which makes me feel like she thinks I'm an awesome mom. I am still sleeping with her every night on the couch because I don't want my husband to turn into a zombie from lack of sleep, because she doesn't want to sleep alone at night and because I'm lazy and it makes breastfeeding so much easier. I am planning on transitioning her to at least sleeping in her swing at night I just don't know when because I have a feeling she won't like it.

-I decided to treat myself and buy a steam mop, so that has been my new cleaning obsession. Every day I vacuum and then steam mop the kitchen, laundry room, hallway and bathroom- I suppose my life is that boring that a steam mopped floor is a basis of excitement for me.

-My husband got a promotion at work. He turned in his work van and got a car so now on Saturdays I can drive myself to work instead of dragging the whole family out of bed to drive me. He will also be making more money which means that we can bump up our emergency fund to at least a few thousand dollars and then pay off or debt fairly quickly (that is, if my husband doesn't go buy something dumb and expensive).

-My son has no interest in learning the alphabet or writing his name so I am on a mission to help him do these things in a fun way. I have a meeting with his teacher next week to discuss his preparedness for Kindergarten which seems so silly because back when I was a kid you were prepared for Kindergarten by just hitting a certain age. Why is it that our educational system is so awful these days but way back in the day before you were expected to know how to write a novel to enter Kindergarten it was much better? I have many theories on this but I will keep them to myself for now...

-My 2 1/2 year old daughter is the biggest diva I've ever met and I am trying to break her of it. I try to ignore her whining and screaming which she does right away when she wants something instead of asking nicely. Then if that does not work she goes to her bedroom where she throws everyhing off of her bed during her tantrum. When she calms down I talk to her about why she was put in her room and then I make her pick up all of the crap she threw everywhere- sometimes this results in another tantrum but if I threaten to leave her in her room again she ususally stops crying and picks up her mess.

This is my recent life in a nutshell. How very exciting...

Storing Meat and Why Whole Foods is Awesome

To me, being frugal is not just about saving money but it is also about saving time. I have three little monsters to deal with all day which means I try to go to the store as little as possible. One way I avoid the stores is by stocking up on meat. We eat meat at pretty much each meal as we are not the beans and rice hippie vegan type of family so having it on hand is a must.

This is why I stock up- we always have something to eat for dinner and I don't have to drag the kids out to the store for a last minute ingredient. The most important thing about stocking up is being able to store the meat properly. I know others just wrap it up in some plastic wrap and aluminum foil but I use my awesome Food Saver which we've had for over six years and is still going strong. I am very picky about food quality so I like to vacuum pack my food to eliminate freezer burn and any hint of ice crystals. The food also lasts way longer in the freezer when vacuum packed and in my opinion, tastes better. The bags can be pricey but I usually wait to buy them when Kohl's has a 30% off coupon. It is well worth the price of the bags though because like I said, I won't eat meat from the freezer unless it's vacuum packed.

This morning when the baby was sleeping and my other two kids were beating the crap out of each other I packaged up chicken breasts and ground beef that my husband bought on Sunday. He got 6 pounds of boneless skinless chicken breast from Whole Foods which was on sale for $2.99 a pound (and wow, is their chicken breast so much better tasting than the stuff from the grocery store plus I barely had to trim any fat off of it whereas the chicken breast I buy at the regular grocery store has tons of nastiness on it I have to trim) and he got about 7 pounds of 90% ground beef from BJ's for $2.89 a pound (regular price-if you buy the huge tubes it is $2.69 a pound).

I put two chicken breasts in each Food Saver bag which ended up being enough for five meals (we ate two chicken breast for dinner last night). As for the ground beef, I put aside one and a half pounds to make meatloaf for dinner tonight and then portioned out the rest in 10 ounce servings for future dinners (I use a scale to do this).

Here is the packaged up chicken. I made sure to lay it flat in the bags so that it would defrost quickly in cold water.

That is how I save time and money. I buy meat when it is on sale and then I freeze it so that I won't have to drag myself and the lovely children to the store more than I have to.

And just a side note about Whole Foods- the nearest store is about twenty minutes from my house. My husband made a trip there especially for the chicken breast but when he got there they were all out of it. The wonderful people who work there told him that because they were out of the value packs of chicken that he could get the more expensive chicken breast from the meat counter for the same price. What awesome customer service! Stop and Shop and Shaws would have given a rain check and told him to go screw (rain checks are great but not when you need the food that day and not when you don't feel like having to truck your butt out of the house again to buy it, especially when the particular store is out of your way). This is just another reason that I love Whole Foods and really wish that they were closer to me so that I could shop there more often. Plus, their meat and produce is far superior to what I can get at the two crap-holes I mentioned before,