Triple Coupons Coming to HT Wed, 3/24-Tues 3/30

I have been wanting to eat down my pantry and freezer since January and try to spend $150 or less on groceries. A $200 trip each month to Costco along with HT having Super Double coupons twice this year has kept that from happening. But March I was on track. As of today I have spent $120 including diapers, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene, etc. We are so stocked up on everything. I could really just go for bread and milk the rest of the month.
But now HT is having Triple Coupons starting this week. I am excited and bummed out at the same time. I absolutely cannot pass up triple coupons. In a typical triple coupon week, I will go 6 or 7 days. I would do it all in one day except they only triple 20 coupons per day.
By combining the store sales with the coupons, I usually save $60-$100 per trip and only spend $5-$20. I end up well-stocked on cereal, frozen food, yogurt, pasta, juice, spices, toothpaste, deodorant, cleaning products--pretty much everything except fresh fruits/veggies, milk, and bread.
Even if you don't have any coupons, check out www.coupons.com and this link to Southern Savers http://www.southernsavers.com/2010/03/harris-teeter-triples-list-324-330/where there are more printable coupons. There are many items you can get for free or less than $0.25 by combining the sale with the coupons.
Happy Shopping!!!

Save on Office Supplies--get them FREE

The cost of office and school supplies can really add up. Office Max offers Max Perks Rewards. Just get one of their MaxPerks cards and they will offer 100% rewards on random purchases throughout the year. Check out this week's offers. You get your gift card for purchases the following month and then about a month later they will have another special. I just ordered $120 of office supplies and used last month's gift card of $109. Here is the link for this week's deals. Get your Office Max card today! Once you make your initial purchase and pay for it, if you only buy the things that are 100% Max Perks rewards items, you will never pay for office supplies again!!
Example: order 10 ream case of paper $35, 12 pack of sharpies $8.29, and manilla folders $8.99. Next month, you will get an email gift card for $52 which you can use on the next deal. Just remember to spend $50 or more to get FREE shipping, too!
http://www.officemax.com/promotional-pages/maxperks-member-specials

Time Savers Part II

Besides being a time-saver, this will save you $$.

Make your own 100 calorie packs.
What you need:

• 100 calorie Ziploc bags or regular sandwich bags.
• Open boxes of cereal, chips, goldfish, trail mix, Chex mix, etc.

Read the label to see how much you need for 100 calories. I measure the first one of each kind and then just eyeball it until the box or bag is empty. I also used 2 sleeves of whole wheat crackers and put peanut butter on them.
Today in about 45 minutes, I made about 60 snack packs of cereal, goldfish, and peanut butter crackers. I also made fridge packs of celery and carrots--enough to pack for a week's worth of lunches. You can cut up apples and just add a few drops of lemon juice.

I pack lunch for my husband, kindergartener and pre-schooler every day.
For the kids: fresh veggies, fruit, 100 cal pack, yogurt and a juice box. Done!
For DH: can of soup & box of frozen veggies (or leftovers from dinner), fiber one bar, yogurt, fresh fruit, soda, 100 cal packs.

Time Savers

Here are a few time savers I have recently started:
1. When you make pancakes, make the entire box. Wrap the rest individually and freeze. They go right in the toaster just like a waffle.
2. When you buy meat like chicken and ground beef, cook it all when you bring it home and place in freezer bags in the amounts you will use. I bought 12 pounds of ground beef for $1.28 per pound at a Harris Teeter grand opening. I cooked it all and put it in quart size freezer bags. I have made chili, sloppy joes, hamburger helper, lasagna and baked ziti in a zip by having the meat already cooked. It thaws so quickly under cold running water and in many dishes it can go in frozen.
The same is true for boneless chicken breasts. Cut them the way you will use them. I just made grilled chicken salads in no time by using my pre-cooked frozen chicken breast strips.
**I'll do a separate post on how to get 5 great meals from one whole chicken, some egg noodles, vegetables, and rice.
3. Buy one of those Pampered Chef stone mini-loaf pans. When you make bread or even a cake mix, using the mini-loaf will make 4. Eat one, give one away while hot, and freeze the remaining 2 for later. I do this for banana bread, Tastefully Simple beer bread, cakes, etc.

If you're not sure what can be frozen, take a look at your grocer's freezer section. If you can buy it frozen, you can freeze it yourself, save money, and avoid preservatives and other unnecessary ingredients.

Snow Sledding

Charlotte got some snow. Not enough to make a snowman. Not enough for a snowball fight. But thanks to the ingenuity of our friend Kevin, enough to go snow sledding down our driveway. So what could have been a boring and challenging day keeping the kids entertained inside turned into a great day with kids having a blast sledding. And the best part for me was I got to spend lots of time with my friends, Wendy and Lisa, while the kids had a great time sledding, watching movies and playing inside. What will we do today? Perhaps more snow/ice sledding!!!

Snow Sledding 2010

How Much Does It Cost To Drive Your Car?

Most Americans have a car with payments, fill up their tank when it gets close to empty, probably once a week or more, have routine maintenance performed, and just accept this as part of their monthly expenses. But how much does it cost to drive your car one mile? A few years ago, when gas was over $4 per gallon, I started looking at how much gas it would take to drive a mile and I figured it was $1 for 4 miles. That made me think about how badly I needed to run over to Costco or take the kids on an outing. Many of our outings ended up being to the local coffee shop a mile from our house because I rationalized that even a $5 cup of coffee was cheaper than driving anywhere else and the kids were content to play there.
Lately, I have given even more thought to the cost of driving a car. Let's do some math--you need to know that I am a former math teacher with a master's degree so doing math is tons of fun for me.
Scenario # 1--Purchase car for $40,000 with plan to drive it 100,000 miles. Without any maintenance or gas, it costs $0.40 per mile to drive your car. Over this time, you will probably put another $5000 into the car in the way of oil changes, new tires, and other maintenance. That adds $0.05 per mile so now we're at $0.45 and we haven't even been to the gas station. With average gas mileage and gas prices, it costs about $0.20 per mile for gas. Now we're at $0.65 per mile. Let's hope we don't end up in an accident and have to pay even just our deductible for repairs and we're also assuming that you never pay for a car wash or detailed cleaning. Those things could easily add another $0.10 bringing our total to $0.75 per mile. I didn't even factor the cost of auto insurance.

Scenario # 2--Purchase car for $10,000 with plan to drive 100,000 miles. All other costs being equal (which we know they aren't--the more expensive vehicle will have higher maintenance costs), the initial cost per mile is $0.10 so with gas and upkeep, the cost per mile of this car will be $0.45 per mile.

Scenario # 3--Live in an area with public transportation. Take the train or walk. Your break even point is between 4-7 miles round trip. If your commute is more than 7 miles, it is far more expensive to drive.

I know many of you are thinking: I don't pay that much for my car. I lease it or have payments. Great! Let's do some more math. Let's say you buy or lease a car with $2000 down and make monthly payments of $400 and drive 20,000 miles per year. That's $0.34 per mile plus gas, oil and tune-ups which gets you back to the $0.75 per mile and is assuming you could then sell the car for what you owe on it at the end of the year--which you won't be able to do--bringing your cost per mile closer to more than $1.00.

Now do I want everyone to stop driving? Move to the city and always take the bus or train? Not at all! I'd be a hypocrite to advocate that. I myself drive a $40,000 car and plan to drive it 150,000 miles. I just want to make you aware of where your money is going and to consider combining trips, carpooling. Remember driving 10 miles to get eggs for $0.99 costs $7.50 plus the cost of the eggs. Just make sure your "saving" makes $en$e.

My kids

Hannah:

1. 6 years old
2. Going on 16
3. Independent
4. Smart
5. Athletic
6. Energetic
7. People Loving
8. Great eater--will eat everything from broccoli to sushi and anything in between
9. Stylish--if you consider red pants, pink shirt, striped scarf, yellow headband, pink polka dot socks, and purple shoes stylish.
10. Generous--this kid can't let anyone leave the house without giving them some of her artwork, some of her favorite snacks and a hug.
11. Loves to be on the go
12. Could go to Harvard

Michael

1. 3 years old
2. Going on 3 months
3. Definitely not independent--still at 3 1/2 needs help getting dressed, going potty and pretty much everything else
4. Looks at me like I am trying to poison him if I dare ask him to try a vegetable
5. Favorite thing to do is "sit on the couch and watch a movie"
6. Doesn't want to go anywhere. If we do go somewhere, within 15 minutes of getting there, he says, "I want to go home and sit on the couch and watch a movie."
7. Would be happy to stay in his jammies all day and many days I just let him.
8. Hopefully, he'll get into a good community college!

Both:

1. Fun
2. Happy
3. Healthy
4. Loving
5. Kind
6. I thank God for the blessing of my kids every single day!