CONTEST DETAILS

Because I met my goal of saving $1000 this year by shopping at Walgreens using coupons, sales, rebates, etc. I am holding a contest.



To enter the contest you can answer one of the two following questions. Answer both if you wish but you only need to do one and two will not get you a second entry. Please post your answer in the comments to this post.



the two questions are (pick one):



What do you do to save money with a brief explanation? (shopping wise; using coupons, watching sales, thrift stores, bent n dents, etc or cloth diapering, gardening, freecycle, etc).





or



What finance lessons do you hope to instill in your children and how do you plan to do this? (for example mistakes you made, getting them to save more, etc)



Easy right?!?



and the PRIZE is a $5 Walgreens gift card. Contest runs until 5/8/2009. R and I will pick our favorite answer and post the winner here on 5/9/2009. Good luck.

EDIT~ if you do not have a Walgreens nearby and would still like to enter. I would be willing to send you a $5 bill if you are the winner. Just let me know (if you win) that you would rather have the $5.

Another Angel got his wings today

A childhood friend's son passed away today. He was 2 1/2 years old. He was diagnosed not quite a year ago with an aggressive childhood cancer. He lost his fight today. I hugged and kissed my kids extra tonight before bed. It is a sad day :(

my story

I submitted our thrifty story for consideration to be published on a blog. Most of you already know it but I am going to post the whole thing I typed up. Read it if you want...if not, skip this post :)

When my husband and I were first married we were both working full-time for the same employer. We had great pay, decent benefits, and as much overtime as we wanted. We bought a house and started planning our family. In November of 2005 our first child was born after much difficulty in conceiving. Life was great. We were able to buy what we wanted when we wanted. The baby was always dressed in name brand clothes (from garage sales and thrift stores if I had the time to shop but otherwise, the baby always got new outfits and toys). We spent money as we pleased and didn't worry about debt. We were pretty secure. Our jobs were really secure and the pay just kept going up. The first 4 years of our marriage, our average gross income was $70K-$75K (which is a lot in this area). In November of 2006, our baby turned one and we started talking about a second baby. This time the pregnancy happened sooner than we expected.

In May of 2007, I was let go from my full-time job during my pregnancy with our 2nd child. I was able to get short-term disability from the company as I was let go due to complications with my pregnancy. We were doing ok. We had $30,000 in vehicle loans, $4,500 in credit card debt, and a mortgage but my husband picked up extra hours to make up the difference in pay. I started to shop more at discount stores and grocers. I bought more generics and we were doing alright. We paid ahead on my car and paid off 1 of our 2 credit cards. I started cloth diapering to save money as well. Just one week before our child was born, my brother in law was killed at work. That turned our little world upside down. My husband saw so much of himself in his brother, always working, never much time for the family, more than enough money to live on but not enough time to spend any. When our child was born, my husband vowed to change his life around. Just one month after she was born, he found a different job where he would be home in the evenings and on weekends. It was a big paycut but we ran the numbers and we would just have to tighten our belts a little more and we could make it. That winter I took a part-time seasonal job to help make ends meet. Life was harder than we were used to but better in so many ways.

Just after Christmas 2007, I was laid off. It was ok. I got a little unemployment and got to be home with the kids. The employer wanted me to come back but did not have work for me at the time so I waited. In May of 2008, I stumbled onto a forum about couponing and my thoughts about spending money and shopping did a 180. I read as much as I could about couponing, started having family and friends save their coupons for me, and started stockpiling. In June of 2008, we experienced significant flooding in our town and my husband was laid off. I was concerned but knew we would be ok. I had been couponing for about a month and already had a pretty good sized stockpile of things that we used regularly. After 2 weeks, my husband was back at work and I received the call from my employer to start back to work. Life was going good. I was continuing to coupon and stockpile and save money. After just a month back at work, my husband was once again laid off. I paniced a little. Our fuel prebuy for the winter months was due in a month, our car insurance was due in a month, and life insurance premiums were coming due in a couple months. We had a savings that would cover those bills but that was it. After one month of being back to work, I was offered a year-round part-time position with my employer. I accepted. My husband's layoff kept extending from 2 weeks to a month to 6 weeks, and on. Finally after 11 weeks, he was back to work but it was shortlived. After being back to work just one month, he was again laid off. We lived off the stockpile. I was determined to not ask for money from family so I picked up extra hours when I could and saved money by couponing, buying only on sale items, and reusing everything and anything. Finally in March of 2009, my husband was offered a job with a different company. The hours are not ideal and the pay is less but we make it work.

During the last 2 years, even with the layoffs, we went from $30,000 in vehicle loans to $1800 in one loan, $4,500 in credit card debt to no credit card debt at all. We stayed current or ahead on all of our bills and never once fell behind or had to ask anyone for money. We went from making $75K-$80K a year to making less than $35K (projected) for this year and have less debt and a better life. .

We currently have enough food in the house for 4-6 months and toiletries for a year. All paid for very cheaply or even free after coupons. Should my husband or myself be laid off yet again, I am only slightly worried. I know we can handle just about anything that is thrown our way. I owe it all to couponing and watching sales. I hope to pass this on to my children. My oldest (3 1/2 years old) loves to sit down with Mommy on a Sunday afternoon and clip coupons. When I take a little hiatus to use up the stockpile, she is disappointed that we are not clipping coupons that Sunday. She gets excited seeing the blinkie dispensers in stores, and loves to tell the cashiers at various stores about mommy's cool coupons. Even my husband, who was very skeptical at first, asks if I have a coupon for something he is looking to buy now. He also asks where the best deal is on whatever it is. I get a huge smile when I hear him brag to his friends about how much better life is now for us than when we used to work all those hours and how it is because of me and my thriftiness.

baby shower leftovers

We were given about 5 lbs of roast beef, ham and turkey lunchmeat and 30 wheat and white rolls. They were leftovers from the baby shower yesterday. We are pigging out on sandwiches today and baby carrots with dill dip. O's new favorite snack. I like her taste. I love carrots and dill dip. YUM! Tommorrow I am starting a new exercise program. I need to lose the weight I gained back over winter and the rest til by goal. I am proud that I did not gain back a lot of weight but I did gain back some. I have not been real careful with my eating so I am working back in the exercise first and then the eating better. Eating better is not a problem for me, I like fruit and veggies. The problem is exercise. I love to go for walks and play outside with the kids but I have issues using my DVD's and strength training. The only gym around here with childcare is uber expensive and I could join one of the 3 24 hour gyms but ugh...to go work out AFTER R gets home just after 10 pm and then have to get up at 5:45 for work. Working out before work is not really an option, I cannot get up THAT early. So my plan is to do the DVD at least 3 days a week after the kids are in bed. I have a good 2 hours after they are in bed for me time and I am going to spend 1/2 hour of that time doing my Cindy Crawford and Kathy Kaehler workout DVD's. I read on a forum I frequent recently about the Jillian Michaels 30 day shred. I looked up reviews on it and I think it is something I want to try after I am bored of Cindy and Kathy. I believe the library has workout DVD's you can borrow for 2 weeks so I am going to try to borrow it first and try it and if I like it I will buy it (amazon.com has it pretty cheap). With getting out for a walk on the good weather nights and my days off and then doing the workout DVD at least 3 nights a week, and my ab exercises every night, I should be in pretty good shape within 6-8 weeks. At least my jeans will fit better again.

So starting tommorrow I am starting the working out, and within a couple weeks, I will start watching what I eat more. I am going to start that now but not as strictly. With my history of eating issues, I have to be sooooooo careful when I diet or change stuff, it is so easy to fall back into the calorie counting/limiting obsession that once ruled my life.

garage sale preparation

We are moving the date for our sale this year. We usually do it the weekend before Memorial day but with my brother's baby being due around Memorial day we are postponing it until later in the year. They are in the process of moving as well so they are sorting as they pack and unpack. They should have plenty to sell as will I. O is growing so fast and K had so many 24 months and 2T summer clothes that I am not sure O will be able to wear so I sorted them all out and threw them in a box for garage saling. I have that box right on top, just in case some of it will fit O. I put 3T and big 2T stuff in her dresser. Before I know it, the girls are going to be in the same size. Crazy!

I have 2 full huge boxes of clothes to price, 3 boxes of clothes that are already priced and ready to go, and 2-3 boxes of other stuff that is priced and ready to go. BIG sale this year....whenever it happens.

I hate going to the laundromat

HATE IT HATE IT! I went last night to wash our big comforter so I can put it away until next winter. I cannot wash it at home. $2 to wash it (not that bad but still) and 75 cents to dry. Should have only been 50 cents but the machine ate a quarter.

Anyway, I hate the laundromat because it is dirty and there are some really wierd people there. I mean really wierd. Had there been no one there I would have just left the blanket in the washer....it locks and won't open until the cycle is done (and I would have been back before it ended) but with the wierdos being there I decided to just stay. Speaking of wierdos, last night just as I was getting in the vehicle to come home, R called and said be careful coming home. Some guy in a truck stopped in front of our house, R looked out the window (because it is odd for anyone to just stop in front of our house (there is a house across the street but it does not face ours) and when the guy saw R he took off. He came back around the block and parked there again. Again R looked out and he took off. The 3rd time, the guy rolled up in front of our house and shut his vehicle off and was just sitting there. R looked out again, the guy looked at him, R flipped open his cell phone and the guy took off really fast. VERY odd happenings.

***************
I found Castile soap last night. I want to try making a batch of hypoallergenic laundry detergent, I think this might work. The sitter informed me that K has been complaining about her butt itching and the sitter thinks it is from my laundry detergent. Well she never complains to me about it so I don't know. I am thinking it might be the toilet paper the sitter uses, or it could be the detergent, IDK but why does she only complain about it at the sitters house....ploy for attention? hmmmmmmm I wonder. The sitter's granddaughter had an infection from scratching her butt and the sitter told my daughter so now she is worried about getting a butt infection and she talks about it at the most inconvenient times, like in line at the grocery store, when I am on the phone with someone at work, or just to random strangers in the grocery store. fun right?

When I take a "couponing break"

I don't actually take a break from using coupons, just from cutting and saving all the ones I might even have the slightest chance of using. When I take a couponing break, I still get my coupons, I just don't buy 2-3 papers. I order my coupons from here. In the little over a year I have been couponing, I have ordered from this site a handful of times. One time there was a mistake on their part, I sent a quick email and they sent out the correct coupons that same day. It takes on average 4 days for me to get coupons from them. If I order on Saturday, they will ship on Monday and I will receive them Friday. I rarely order for sales in the same week I am ordering from them because it does not give me enough time but I will order for upcoming sales or just because I know I will use the coupons regardless of sales. This morning I ordered:

10$1 off Johnson's baby products coupons (more free buddies!)
5 $1 off tidy cat cat litter coupons (makes it .97 for a 10 lb bag at my local Walmart)
3 free pouches or $2.19 off purina cat food coupons.

Each coupon has a handling fee (that varies depending on the face value of the coupon), a mailing fee of the current cost of postage, and a administration fee of 50 cents. my total today was $4.37.

The cost of papers to get the 10 Johnson coupons would have been $22.25. Kinda pointless to buy 10 papers for one specific coupon for a free soap, especially when buying 10 soaps would only be $9.70 + tax. (for the record, this is not something I have done-bought papers for $2.25 for the $1 off coupon but I have bought an extra one or two for a $5 off coupon, making the dog's food free) .I would have had a bunch more coupons too but I am taking a break. I figured I would have spent $4.50-$6.75 on papers this weekend for less "usuable" coupons. So I spent just under the cost of 2 papers for coupons I will use.

Just ask me....LOL....I can justify ANYTHING!

line drying

I love the smell of line dried laundry. I hung out 2 loads today. They took 1/2 hour to dry. It is so windy and warm here today. K and I planted a very small part of the garden today. FIL (my local gardening expert) said it would be ok to plant onion sets soon and radishes. We did the radishes today. 2 rows. We are waiting until papa comes to till the new spot before we plant anything else for the garden. We also planted some Zinnia seeds today. K is very excited about her flowers, less excited about the radishes as she does not know what they are.

In an effort to become more green (and because the weather is nice and I need to lose weight) we walked to the grocery store tonight to get flour so I can make banana bread. I got 3 more reusable canvas bags on Earth day (free) and plan to use them exclusively if at all possible. I am working on that. I tend to forget them but I moved the stash to my car, passenger side floor, so it is harder to forget to use them.

a couple freebies and notes from Today

http://www.schickquattro.com/xmenorigins/#home/razor

http://instoresnow.walmart.com/In-Stores-Now-free-samples.aspx

Today the kids and I went to a couple garage sales. Didn't find anything to spectacular. We got 2 Disney movies, Cinderella and Fantasia, a fisher price little people house (the OLD type-in MINT condition) that I can resell on Ebay and make some money from. I paid 50 cents for it.

We got a small laundry basket so we can put together the baby shower gift for tommorrow. We got that at Family Dollar. I was hoping to find a nice wicker basket but didn't see what I was looking for. Oh well...this will work.

trip to my fav store this afternoon

We made a trip to ET foods today. The girls wanted to go see Papa so we went to ET foods first:

I got a bunch of stuff for $16.95. Got more waffles for the kids for quick breakfasts.

met the goal!

Way back in January I challenged myself to save $1000 by shopping at Walgreens through the use of coupons, sales, rebates, etc. Well as of Today I have met and exceeded my goal. Check the tickers on the side. So because I have met my goal I will be announcing a contest shortly for my readers. Details will be posted soon! I have to decide on a prize yet. I am thinking that an Amazon gift card would be a good prize...considering I just won one with swagbucks and have nothing to really use it on. So watch for the contest...coming soon!

A "deal-icious" day!

What a great day I had today.

First off, I took the kids to the sitter and headed to my dentist appointment. They knocked $52 off my bill because I am a good customer. I laughed at that and am not sure if that is a good thing or bad thing. I mean, bad because I am there a lot OR good because I pay my bills early or on their due date. I assume the receptionist meant the latter. It was nice to have almost 1/2 of my bill knocked off. The reason is because ever since I started going to the dentist on my own I have gotten the nitrous oxide (AKA laughing gas). It used to be because I was afraid of needles. I am not longer afraid of needles, have 2 children by c-section (one of which was induced before the c-section happened) will do that to you. Now they give it to me because it relaxes me...and my gag reflex. I have a really touchy gag reflex and for some reason the gas will relax that so I am not trying to gag up on the drill and other dental equipment. Well, my new insurance does not cover the gas. The dental assistant never checked my new insurance so they found out when they ran my card that it would not cover it so they knocked that off my bill. They also knocked off the price of the base things I had to have. My cavities were pretty deep so they had to fill it in with a hardener before they filled it. So anyway that worked out really well.

Next I went to the outlet mall. I am tired of trying to find pants that will fit K in the waist and the length. She is a 3T in waist but a girls 5-6 in lenght. Almost impossible to find. I know Old Navy and Carter's have adjustable was jeans and I had coupons for each store! CHA CHING!
At Old Navy I got:

1 black V neck shirt for .82
1 blue perfect T for $1.68
1 red perfect T for $1.67
2 pairs of jeans for K ($8.49 and $8.50)

This was after the discounts...grand total was $23.33 Not bad for Old Navy stuff!

Then a quick jaunt into Carter's to check out the $5,$7,$9 sale.
While I only got one thing (a pair of shorts for k for $5) from the sale I found an amazing clearance sale.

I got K one pair of jeans for $7.80 and 2 pairs for $5.99 each. AWESOME! Grand total at Carter's was $26.27. I had a discount coupon for $10 off when you spend $50. I could have spent $50 if I got the kids some pjs (that they really don't need) and some pants (that O could wear now but she has all K's outgrown clothes to grow into.

After my mall deals, I had lunch with a friend. Awesome new Italian place that just opened in town. Good food and even better bread! Decent prices too.

After lunch, I had another appointment and R asked me to pick him up a new pair of jeans. His fav pair actually came from Walmart years ago (like before we had K so almost 4 years ago) and they are getting worn out so I wen tot get him another pair. They did not have the same ones so I got him another brand in the style he likes and I found a pair of Dickies work pants on clearance for $5. They are denim as well. I perused the rest of the clearance and found some pretty good deals. I got some fleece long sleeve nightgowns on clearance for $1 each, 1 for me and 1 for MIL for Christmas, I got 3 pairs of leggings (2 for me and 1 for mom) for $1 each. I love leggings for bumming around at home, doing yard work or whatever. They are especially nice for sleeping in. They had v neck Hanes t-shirts on clearance for $3 and while they are kinda shorter than I like they are a good layering piece so I picked up 2. I can never have enough t-shirts. My workplace is casual, pretty much anything goes, so t-shirts are a wardrobe staple! I used $4 in coupons and got some cat litter. Total was $48 and $30 of that was on R for his 2 pairs of jeans and his sub. He is in love with the subs from the Walmart Deli so everytime I go he has to have me pick one up. They are $5 but are HUGE and make 2 lunches for him.

I did 2 Walgreens runs today as well. They have a coupon out for today only to save 15% on items and 20% on Walgreens brand items and you get a free reusable shopping bag if you have this coupon. I had 2.
1st run:
bic lighter for the grill $2.12
excedrin back and body for R $5.94 (found a b1g1f package buried in the back!)
and 4 walgreens brand pain relievers $3.20 (.80 each)
total paid OOP after coupon and RR was $9.88
2nd trip:
3 walgreens brand pain relievers $2.40
Total OOP after RR $0.53


so all in all a good day :)

Pizza hut online

Order pizza hut online and use code IG (if you are a new customer) to get 20% off.

My new "toy"

I got a great big, giant 42 inch new toy today.



Can you guess what it is?





It is for use outside and not inside. So nope, not a TV. Guess again.















Ok I will just tell you. Acutally I will show you!

Check it out! It was FREE!!! and it works and it is full of gas! My Dad and brother got it dirt cheap from someone who said it didn't run. It sat unused for 3 or more years because the guy that owned it was going to fix it and sell it but never did so he just sold it to my dad cheap. It was only 3 years old when it quit working. So dad took it home, did some minor work to it and it fired right off. So since dad already has an almost new mower, and Josh has a nice rider and mine was junk, Dad and Josh brought it over today. I mowed the side yard in less than 10 minutes. It has a 42 inch mowing deck which is DOUBLE the size of the pushmower we have been using! I am in L O V E!!! Ignore the rest of the junk in the garage...I need to clean it out badly.

This week in sales

Not much. Chocolate milk for $1.99/gallon, The scunci deal at walgreens, canned mushrooms on sale at my local store. Have you seen the prices of canned mushrooms lately? Outrageous. When R and I first got married we could get 3 cans for a buck. Now they are .69 for the Generic ones at my local store and .55 at Aldi. My local store had them on sale for .50/can we ended up buying 48 cans this week. So I spent $24 on mushrooms BUT we go through then like crazy. We have a lot of steak in the freezer and what is a steak without mushrooms and onions!?! I would say that those 48 cans might last us all summer.

We ended up with 5 packs of Scunci ponytail holders. I used 3 of the $2RR to get cd's for R. He needed some blank cd's and Walgreens has 5 pks of colored ones for $2 so I only paid tax after the RR. I got 3 packs. I used to buy blank CD's in bulk because R and I went through a lot of them but now we don't. We use maybe 15-20 a year. Thank you Ipod!

In the next couple of months, I play to make a couple posts on Thrifty yard decoration.

couple K funnies

The other night we took dinner to R while he was working but he needed a few minutes to finish something before he could take a break so the kids and I stopped at Walgreens on the way. We walked in and there was a big display of lotion. K said oh look momma, I bet that lotion would be free with your coupons. The cashier (the mean one) glared at us. eh...whatev. K is so smart.

When we were at the store today, K walked right up to the discount cart (bent and dent items, close to expiring or expireds that they only have one off) and she started digging in. She found marinade for me for 50 cents. It is one day expired. I will use it this weekend. I am impressed with her eye for deals. Takes after her momma!

notes from our week

So far this week we have been pretty busy.

The sun is shining today and it is really nice out. We went for a long walk. We had to mail some stuff, pay some bills, and we stopped at the grocery store. Then it was off to the park for some play time. We came home and went to a couple garage sales but struck out. We only got a Cinderella book for a quarter. We stopped back at the grocery store and got some sand for the sandbox. The girls enjoyed that. I have been working in the yard. I have the backyard almost done. The squirrels really ate a lot of nuts this winter, there were shells ALL OVER the yard. I have never raked them all up before but I am so tired of not having much grass back there that I decided I am going to fix that this summer by actually really taking care of the yard back there. I always rake up the leaves in the fall but never really do much in the spring.

Wednesday I received my bonus check from work. It was not as much as I was hoping for but I am not going to complain. I also was able to sell my stash of cloth diapers to a friend. I am happy for the cash I got from that and I will use that to put toward some bills. I worked Wednesday as well. I started working in the yard Wednesday afternoon because I got home from work early.

Tuesday and Monday I worked and didn't accomplish much else.

so irritated today

I am in a pissy mood. My kids were terrible tonight. O somehow got my big purse down from the hook, pulled out my coupon binder and took out EVERY single page. I could just scream. It is in complete disarray I don't even have the energy to fix it. K was picking fights with me and her sister and not listening at all. I got them to bed and was hoping to enjoy some peaceful quiet time but no that just cannot happen. My stupid neighbor is home and has his bass cranked so loud it is rattling my windows, the kids are awake because of it and the police will not do a damn thing about it. I have tried. So there goes my relaxing evening. I think I am going to take a shower and head to bed.

Happy Easter

We had a good little Easter celebration at home. The kids found the Easter eggs the "Easter Bunny" hid last night. We went to the inlaws for another Egg hunt, O found the most, with a little direction from Momma. I would point and tell her where they were and she would walk over to where it was, laugh, pick the egg up and shake it. My mother in law hides real eggs, while we hid the little plastic ones. O was a bit confused as to why there were no "tweets" inside the eggs, but she got over it pretty fast. After Easter lunch with the inlaws, we headed over to my parents for a non traditional Easter Dinner. We had steaks. O and I took a nap while K played with the neighbor kids and R and my parents sat outside enjoying the weather.

We made a pitstop at Walgreens on the way to my parents' house. Scunci hair ties are on sale this week for $2 and are giving a $2 RR so it works out to $2.11 and then getting $2 back. Not too bad. It is only on the 18 packs. I have gotten 2 so far and plan to get at least 2 more packs before the end of the week. K and I go through a lot of hair ties. We both have long thick hair. Generally mine break because they make great teething rings (ask O about that), or they get stretched out because they double as garter belts (according to K, who insists that the extra 1 or 10 that she HAS to have need to go on her leg instead of her wrist like mommy). So between the bite marks and the stretching, they get abused and/or lost. We need to have more in the house. The dollar store ones just don't cut it for thick hair.

In case you haven't noticed, I am taking my blog in a bit of a new direction the last couple of days. I still plan to post my deals, etc but I am taking a bit of a couponing break. Not chasing the deals so much and just enjoying what we have. For one, I have been working a lot lately and not into the deals as much. Two: R's new job has slowed significantly and because I am a worrier I am going to be working on squirreling away some money. I wouldn't worry so much but if he were to get laid off again, his unemployment would not be much and would probably not cover our bills completely. I worry about. That also leads me into a predicament that may or may not happen in the next week but will most likely happen soon. I have a friend who has moved away. She still works in this town but is looking for employment where she is living now. When she does get other employment she wants me to take her job, in a small office. Because it is just her and her boss, she wants to leave her boss with a very capable employee. She talked to me a lot about the position and it is something I am interested in and my friend thinks that I would be perfect for it. Her boss would want someone to start ASAP and from the way my friend talks, she would hire someone based on my friend's word, rather than interviewing multiple people for the position. So in a nutshell, the job would most likely be mine, if I want it, which I do. The issue comes in because it would be more hours than I currently work but less pay. I would still be paying the sitter the same rate and bringing home slightly less than I do now. I would not see the kids as much. But on the otherhand, I would not work any weekends (I rarely do now except during the Christmas season), no overtime, and I would know week to week what I would be bringing home whereas now I do not know. I may be scheduled 25 hours, I may only work 8 of those hours because they are not busy and they cancel my shift, I may work the 25 hours, or I may work more, if they are busy and they call me in to work an extra shift or to come in early. It is chaotic and hard on the kids. Especially hard when I have a day off, but then I get called in. Nothing is in stone yet. My friend has another interview tommorrow and then I will know more but in the mean time I am sitting here wondering, what do I do? Do I go for less pay and stability considering R's employment or do I stay where I am and consider the money? If I do leave there is no going back until Christmas season. If a person leaves my current employer they do not hire another person to replace them, they just adjust the schedules of others to cover that person's shifts. That is why so many people work in multiple departments. So I am at a loss here. I am not sure what to do. I ran the numbers and they come out to just slightly less than what I make now and working more hours but the stability is what I am looking for, especially with the economy the way it is but really....is any job safe in this ecomony...that is the million dollar question.

Conversations with O

Having a conversation with O, 18 months old, is like understanding a foreign language.

O, What is your favorite song?
ei ei o

oh you like old mcdonald?
ei ei o uh huh

Can you say Kait?
hey hey (how O says her sister's name)

bubble=ball, rain, water (like a puddle after a rain), an actual bubble

wawa=water

jews=juice, milk

hup=cup, cop (or anything with lights and sirens, sometimes even trucks without lights and sirens)

peepees=peeps

meow=cat (mostly referring to Scooter, one of our 3 cats)

neee na bach bach=our dog, Sheena. O calls her "Sheena, bark bark". All dogs are called neee na bach bach. Doesn't matter if the dog even looks remotely like our dog or not.

bobbob square=spongebob squarepants

poppop=popsicle. A staple in this house, no matter what time of year.

tweet=treat

ahhhhhhhhhh (as she sticks her fingers in her throat)=she wants to brush her teeth...err chew on the toothbrush (good thing I get them free or dirt cheap with coupons!)

Ewwwwwwwwww=I pooped and I need a new butt (aka diaper)

nooooo hey hey dop= no Kait stop. Generally means:

• K took a toy and O is MAD
• K is trying to start a fight
• O is trying to start a fight with K and get her in trouble. O is an instigator.
  

When I think of it I will post more conversations with O.

the underwear around my knees dance

So K woke up about 11:30 tonight. She was screaming like a little banshee. R jumped up and went to help her. By help her, I mean bring her downstairs for me to deal with. Of course the Easter bunny had already stopped by and hid the eggs but forgot to bring the baskets out from the bedroom. R evidently forgot that part. Anyway, K said she peed in her pants. We are working on letting her sleep without a pullup and some nights are good, others are not so good. But Anyway, I took her in to use the potty because she had not peed in her pants...yet. There was one of those stupid ladybug looking beetles in the toilet. Evidently, they are butt biting bugs that will fly up (even though they are dead and just floating in the toilet) and bite K on the butt if she sits to pee with the bug in there. So I being the uber-brave mom that I am, flushed that bug down the toilet and told K to sit and pee.
Her response "it will bite my butt. I CAN'T pee in there."
"I flushed it honey. It won't bite your butt now."
"oh yes it will. It is MAD at you."
"oh for pete's sake. Fine I will pee first."
So I sit down to pee and while I am going, K decides that she no longer has to pee. Great (note the sarcasm). As she is pulling up her pj pants, she forgets to pull up her underwear first and is doing this tae-bo, irish jig, chorus line type move. I am not exactly sure what the point of the little dance was but I started to laugh, which in turn made K extremely mad at me. She said "don't you laugh at me" in the sternest voice her half asleep brain could muster, which made me laugh even hard and that made her yell even louder. R comes to see what the commotion is and walks into me, on the toilet, trying to pee but laughing so hard that I can't, K screaming at me and still doing her underwear-around-the-knees dance. He finds the scene rather comical and starts to laugh, which really makes K mad. She puts her hands on her hips and gives the two of us this look of total disgust, all while still trying to pull her underwear up underneath her pants. Gosh, I love my 3 year old. She makes me laugh at even the littlest things.

a pic of the butt biting beetle~evil looking huh?

ET foods trip

I just can't say enough good things about this store. I love going there. I love the element of surprise with what I will find. My finds for today:

Total $23.70-4 bags!

Ore Ida steak fries $1.50 bag (2)

Kraft marshmallow $.85 bag (2)

cookies .85 package (5)

Welch's frozen juice concentrate .75 each (7)

Pillsbury Toaster Strudel $1.25 each (4)

sally hansen nail polish $1

Corn on the cob $1 bag

Cauliflower $1 bag

Ben and Jerry's ice cream $1.50

total retail from a local store other than ET foods is $33.75. Saved $10.05. Awesome!

Free Huggies Sample

Click here. I signed up for my brother's new addition. Who can't use free diapers?

Lands' end friends and family discount

I have been given 20 coupons to give to family and friends so they can receive 30% off an order from Landsend.com from April 17-20. The code and PIN can only be used once. If you would like one, let me know. I have 18 coupons left. I can email you the PIN and code and you can use it only. It is also good at Lands end stores and Land's end in Sears stores, to use it in store, I will need to mail you a card so I would ask that you pay for the stamp. If anyone is interested let me know soon and I will set you up :)

I got my order from Lands end today and I love it! The shirts for me are on backorder but I got my shoes (so comfy) and I got the shirts for R.

Found it!

Fels Naptha soap...I found it in the oddest of places, my local grocery store. 99 cents a bar. I figured out a breakdown of my cost per batch of laundry detergent

.37 washing soda
.33 1/3 bar of fels naptha
.00 borax (got a giant box from my brother for free)
___
.70 per batch. 1 batch makes 2 regular (32 load size) bottles full and some extra. I am going to try this batch without adding anything. I will post how it goes. I am so glad I found the fels naptha and so cheaply and locally. Hooray!

so after letting the laundry soap sit

I decided that I do infact like it. I am still going to play around with the recipe some more but it looks like laundry soap. I think I did not let it cool enough before I put it into the bottles and that is why it looked so running before. It actually looks and smells good now so yeah! I need to get some more washing soda and I want to try the Fels naptha soap. I can find it at hardware stores after doing some research so after payday I am going to stop at the hardware store and pick some up for making my next batch. I hope to make my next batch next week. I do laundry every day so I should have enough empty containers for it. I think I am going to add some fabric softener right to the mix. I will give it a shot anyway.

lovin' it

I am LOVING the new position so far. I love the busy factor. I love seeing all the items I never get to see coming through. One of the good/bad things about my job is that I get to see the items first hand. It is nice because I may see something on the website for my employer and think wow that looks nice but when I see it in person I think ugh...no. But the bad part of that is seeing the items come through and thinking about how so and so (or myself) would really like that. I ordered some shirts for R tonight. He is in desperate need of plain t shirts for work. With my discount they were pretty cheap and I know they are of good quality so I ordered 3 shirts for him and 2 shirts for me and also a pair of sandals for myself. Regular retail would have been $69.50 and I paid $38. A substantial savings. It also helps that the items were on sale and I get a discount, even on sale items.

Solving one dilemma

I had a dilemma for the next couple of weeks. How to let the kids get enough sleep with my new hours yet still give them breakfast. I hate waking them up any earlier than absolutely necessary, yet I want to feed them before I take them to the sitter in the morning. They go to bed around 7:30 each night and usually sleep until 8-9 am. Putting them to bed earlier is not really possible. My new job starts at 7:30 which means I need to leave the house by 7. I could leave later but I like to be to work with minimum of 10 minutes to spare so I can get set for the day before my shift actually starts. So I made the girls some fruit smoothies tonight, frozen strawberries, a banana and milk. I blended really well. I will pair this with a baggie of multigrain cheerios for each kid and they will have breakfast on the run for at least a couple mornings anyway. Then I will have to try something else.

a thrifty birthday gift and more

So we (K and I for a bit and then just me later) went to a get together for Carrie. I knew about the get together about a week ago and I knew just what to get Carrie. We found a cute Easter basket and put some items from our stockpile in it. Things we figured Carrie could use. When we were putting together the basket, K wanted to know where the toys were and the candy. I told her that when you get older you don't get toys and candy for birthdays, you get things you need. She did not thing that was very fun at all. I gave Carrie the gift and she loved it. I put some Bodywash, Renuzit fabric spray, Toothpaste and Oust cleaner in the basket. Handy things. I don't know about everyone else but I LOVE getting practical gifts. Forget rings, necklaces and flowers if R does something like this or this, I am so ecstatically happy. Yep, I love to get and give practical gifts.

Made my first batch of homemade laundry soap Friday night. Yep, that is how I will be spending my evenings now that R is working 2nd shift. I am not very pleased with the results so I am going to play around some more before I post my "official" results. Overall, it did a good job cleaning but it was not nearly as sudsy or nice smelling as I had hoped for. I will still use it in conjunction with my stockpile of purex but I will play around more with it later. I figure I will do a 1/2 to 1/2 mixture of homemade and purex until the homemade is used up and then will try again. It smelled ok but I am thinking I need to add something, a dash of fabric spray, some essential oils, something not sure what yet though.

The girls and I did an Aldi run today. We spent $36 and came home with a box and 4 bags of groceries and 2 boxes of Ramen noodles. Since R is not eating dinner with us, the girls and I are eating more lunch type (read:fast) dinners. Both kids adore the chicken Ramen noodles. I cut down on the sodium by using only half a packet of seasoning. I will add some caulibrocliflower (K can say cauliflower and broccoli seperately just fine but in the same sentence they become caulibrocliflower) on the side with some cheese. The kids and I are going to be trying some meatless dinners a couple nights a week as well. A ramen noodle night, a soup and grilled cheese night, pancakes and eggs, etc. The kids don't seem to mind not eating meat as much as R would but I want to make sure they get their protein so we will have beans, eggs, peanut butter, etc.

I am excited to start my new position with my current employer on Monday. I have yet to hear anything more from the job I interviewed for so I am calling that a loss (on their side-I would have been great at that job, I am pretty sure) and sticking with my current employer. I do like working for my current employer. They are good to me and I love the flexibility that they offer. It is very nice to be able to take a day off without having to worry about having vacation time or unpaid time to cover it. Oh, you need a day off, let us know before the schedule for that week comes out and you can have it off (provided there are not a lot of other people taking that same day off but that has not been an issue yet). It is really great for someone with 2 young children. So after much debate and running numbers and countless hours of just thinking, R and I decided that even if I am offered the other position I should stick with my current employer. When he was still laid off, it was a no brainer, I needed to take that job but now with him working and me able to pick up a job in another department (thus giving me more hours) it is no longer a necessity.

~~Money stuff~~
$1900 until the car is officially paid in full. YIPPEE!!!

Out of R's last check I was able to put away over $200! That is so nice. We need to save $1800 by August at the very latest. August is when our car insurance is due again and Propane prebuy can be done anytime from now until October but the sooner the better. I have been monitoring the pricing on that so when it hits bottom we can prebuy. Some reports say June usually, others say late spring. Then of course in October and November are what we refer to as the "big 3", My life insurance, O's life insurance and R's life insurance. K's premium is due in March. the "big 3" runs us close to $750 a year, add in K's for a total of just over $900 a year. OUCH! Is the kids life insurance really necessary? That is debatable but I do think that it is considering what we went through just before O was born and the aftermath of all that, the peace of mind is worth it. For R and I, the life insurance is a necessity. We are covered enough so that if something were to happen, the house and any other bills are paid in full and there is some left over, not a lot but enough to get by for awhile. R is more heavily covered than I am. R has a policy that his parents took out when he was a baby and a policy through work (that they pay for). I only have the one policy. If something were to happen to both of us, we have wills in place specifying who gets the kids, who gets control of our assets, and a contingency plan should something in the plan of choice fall through. We also both have advanced medical directives set up as well. For those that do not know, R's brother was tragically killed at work just one week before O was born. After that happened, we decided that we needed to get this stuff taken care of. For easy will (and other legal documents) writing, check out Deluxe willwriter. This program is AMAZING. Besides wills and advanced medical directives, it contains any kind of form you might EVER need a lawyer for. All we did was completed the simple questionnaire included with the software. It put everything together for us and we printed them off and took them to our bank to sign and notarize. 2 hours total time and the cost was very minimal. If you have a large amount of assets or more complicated situations, a lawyer might be a better choice but for us this was the best!

a few updates on us

me first: I started a new position with my employer next week. I will be job sharing in a new department. I will be available 3 days in my current position and 2 days in the new one. For the next 2 week I am working Monday through Friday, everyday and then after that I will be splitting my time between the two departments. It should mean more hours. Which is a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because I will be making more money and able to pay off bills faster and build our savings sooner, but bad because I will not be able to be here as often with the girls and will be paying more for daycare. Such is life.

The girls are doing good. Not real excited about my new position next week but what can I do.

R is working his job. He is on 2nd shift now and loving it. It is an adjustment for the family but it is going ok so far.