putting me to the test

The next couple of weeks, and perhaps longer, will be a test for my frugality. R's hours are being cut to 32/week. Currently he is scheduled 40 but they have been sending him home early each week so he has been getting 36 hours or so. Cutting out another 4 hours won't be so bad considering that it will cut out some hours that we need a sitter for. With his current hour cut, it doesn't help out with the babysitting but this way it will help cut out possibly 8 hours depending on what day he is off. Thankfully I have a good stockpile of stuff we need. I do need a few things next week from Walgreens (vitamin shampoo and conditioner is free after RR!).

Today we got new shoes (doesn't help out the thrifty-ness but they were necessary for both R and I). We love Skechers and the outlet had them buy one get the 2nd half off so $68 for 2 pairs of shoes....not exactly thrifty but they were needed.

We stopped at the amish produce stand and got a giant sweet onion and 3 green peppers for $1.50. The kids love fresh green peppers and eat them like apples. A trait inherited from R. We went to our favorite bent and dent and scored!! Not on food stuff though. They had boxes full of tylenol cold liquid and caplets. 50 cents for each package of caples and 50 cents for the bottles of the liquid. IDK why they had them, didn't have a chance to ask. I assume because they are close to date but not expired. They were all still sealed and in date but expire in the next month. No biggie for us. I got a couple boxes of pills and 2 bottles of the liquid. I also picked up some markers for work and a few grocery things for us and for my brother. He is currently unemployed and they are hurting for $$ (who isn't) so if I can help them out $5-$10 here and there I will. I got them some bacon, margarine, and cat food. In a few days I plan to pick them up some diapers from Walgreens on sale. I can't help alot but we have been in that situation and every little bit helps tremendously.

Back to school sale

Even though neither of my kids are of school age, back to school sales are a perfect time to stock up on art supplies for the kids. We get markers, crayons, paper, etc.
*****************************
The coupons lately have not been for anything we need so I have been slacking in that department. Since Walgreens got rid of the easy saver booklet I can count on one hand how many times I have been in there are actually bought something. I went last night to check out the vitamin shampoo and conditioner that will be free after RR's in a couple weeks. I might get a couple to try but won't be stocking up. While I was there I picked up some stationery sets for K and our neice for Christmas for 50 cents each and I got some jaw clips for my hair for 45 cents for 3. I am hoping to go back today and pick up a couple more packs of jaw clips (on for my mom for her Christmas gift basket) and the other stationery sets (perfect for the neice and Kaitlin. They are really cute sets with stickers, stamps, pens, cards and envelopes..originally $2. Definitely would not pay that for them!)
*********************************
I picked K up a new shirt the other day from the place where I work. They have an employee only store on site which sells unused returned goods, samples, defective items (seam not sewn evenly or stuff like that) for super cheap and they also change the discount every week. All the tags are colored and depending on the color of the tag your discount could be 30% to a whooping 75%. I scored yesterday with K's shirt being originally $5 but 75% off that. AWESOME! It was a sample so it was perfect!
*****************
Lately we have been shopping the sales at the grocery store. Only buying was we truly need for the week (bread, milk, bananas) and then stocking up on what is on sale that we need or want. This week we bought 8 cube steaks, 1 jar of grape jelly, 4 malt cups, bakery bread, milk, mac n cheese, 6 lbs of ground chuck, diet coke 2 liters, (on sale for $1!!) and some discounted day old cupcakes since the kids were good while I shopped.

We made a trip to my favorite bent and dent too. I got a HUGE bag of the hashbrown patties for $3, southern style hashbrowns for $2, and some other miscellanous things. I added some green pepper and onion to the southern style hashbrowns. YUM. My picky little K ate 3 HUGE helpings with ketchup of course :)
*******************
Work is really picking up so it is nice to have so many groceries in the house. I don't have to go shopping on a weekend if I don't want. I can stop after work before I pick up the kids and get the few things we need.

Fortunately my work is picking up because R's work is falling off quickly. This week he worked 37.5 hours. Last week he had 36. The only reason he had the extra 1.5 hours this week is because he had to wait for a truck that didn't show. He got alot of his coworker finally at one point and the co worker told him to just leave. He had been sitting there for over an hour with the lights off all he had to do was load one skid and then lock up. It was a last minute order and shipping and there was a lot of miscommunication (it happens A LOT where R works!!!) and he thinks the poor driver was never even told he had a pick up there. It would not surprise me, considering the company where R works decided they would cut everyone to 36 hours a week, then said 32 hours, then STILL did not have anything figured out by the time they left on Friday evening. So he still has no clue what hours, how many hours, what days, or pretty much anything at all about his job next week. Whereas I know I am working Monday, Wednesday, Friday for sure and potentially Tuesday. I orginally requested Tuesday off but no longer need it so I am going to try to work. My boss was off Friday so I won't know until Monday.

new updates

It looks as though DH will be working for at least another month. Last Thursday they got in some orders. Hopefully more orders come in over the next month. The owner of his company is out of state on vacation so nothing is definite until he returns and make a decision but at least we know he has work for a month.

I am still plugging away at work. I figured out the issue (something I was doing that was making my job harder for me than it needed to be) and am currently working on rectifying it so my job should become easier within the next week....hopefully.

We had a nice 4th of July. Nothing fancy. I enjoyed a 4 day weekend. The first day was spent doing much of nothing. Just running some errands and we took the kids to the lake in the evening. Friday we did not do much either. Saturday the kids and I took a 4 hour total trip to see family. It was nice. I packed snacks for myself and the kids as well as juice and soda so we only stopped once and got some fries. K and I had to use the bathroom and it was the first place off the interstate so we stopped. O has really been expressing an interest in the potty lately so she has been going on it sometimes as well. More often than not she just sits there and claps and says "I big girl momma" but I will take it. It is a sure sign that she will be ready to potty train shortly. We are getting close to the end of our diaper stockpile so I will start to work with her a little more. She is not quite 2 yet so no hurry but to not buy diapers at all anymore would be so awesome!

We ate at the family picnic so we had really no food expense either and because next payday my check is going to be small because I was sick, my parents paid for my gas to drive there. I told them no to worry about it, I would figure out a way but they insisted and gave me $20 to cover gas (which more than covered my gas expense). I never ask them for money, I would rather go without something myself or raid my change jar than ask someone for money but they knew I had missed 10 hours of work last week and was only scheduled for 24 to begin with and ended up getting done a couple hours early the other day I worked. Ah well. We are purchasing my dad's birthday cake (which will be about $20) so it evens out. Today we mowed lawn, grilled some pork chops, and never left the property at all.

updates

nothing much new here. Just living life. Still on a couponing hiatus while we eat from the pantry. I still check the coupons ever week but lately there has not been any deals that I needed so I am still taking a break.

We recently scored a great deal on Mountain Dew. $4 a case...yep a case 24 cans. This week Walgreens has 5 12 packs for $12 which I will also be getting in on. R should be set for soda for a while.

I recently received a raise. R's work is very slow but as it turns out I am making just 18 cents less an hour than he is on his regular shift but making 12 cents more per hour than him when he works days. Since his work is slow, we do not know what might happen but are prepared for him to get laid off again. We have a plan in place. What will happen is I will go back to working 5 days a week. I should get 36-40 hours per week then. He will get a little unemployment. He will keep the kids everyday rather than paying the sitter to watch them and I will be the breadwinner again until he gets called back to work or finds something else. Is it what I want? well no, but whatever keeps us afloat. Do what ya gotta do! It will be quite the change. Because my checks are for groceries, the sitter and paying off my car, we will do a switch and his unemployment will go toward my car and groceries and my checks will go toward the household bills, like his currently do. We can make it work. I have faith in us and mostly my financial management skills. :)

Thrifty cooling down after a hot parade

The kids were hot after the parade so I set up the pool and filled it. When O woke up from her nap, the kids went and had some fun....thrifty style. Like the redneck waterslide? They sure did. I think we need a bigger pool however. The girls are getting too big for our mini pool.

What I will do for my kids

She got me to ride on that with her tonight and I am terrified of heights. Absolutely terrified. So that is the ONE ride she wanted to go on. I tried talking her into the tilt a whirl, my favorite ride but nope she wanted to go on the ferris wheel so we bought our tickets and got on and I held on for dear life while my 3 1/2 year old was looking over the side and saying mom, I hope they stop when we are at the very top so I can see the whole world. and here's me..uh huh...then K... wouldn't that be sooo cool mom? then me...yep.that would be just FANTASTIC. I would love that...all the while praying that we wouldn't get stuck on the top. Of course we did and she is peaking over the edge and saying wow look at the little people...and I am sitting there, knuckles turning white holding onto the edge of the gondola with one hand and the pole in the middle with the other. Then the little turd starts rocking the gondola. Not cool at all. But that is how much I love my daughter...willing to conquer errr...somewhat supress...my fear of heights.

we get home and she tells R "mom is a scaredy cat. She was 'fraid of the ferris wheel. what a dork!"

t ball was a bust

T ball was a bust for K. She hated it. We left early. She hit once and ran the bases and ran up to me and said she quit and that was that. I asked her once we got home if she wanted to try again next week and she said yes so we'll see I guess.


In other news, R told me today that the owner of his company had a meeting with the accountant for the business and it is not looking good. SIGH...another round of layoffs coming? IDK. I hate this instability right now. I know we will be fine should it happen again but still. IDK what R's unemployment would be. So let's hope that it doesn't happen but if it does, it does.

2nd day of vacation

not going so well

I woke up with a headache. I tried for an hour to just let it work itself out with some excedrin but it wasn't going away. I put the kids in their rooms to play and I laid down for about an hour. I ended up falling asleep but I woke up without a headache.

I had to take the kids to the sitter while I had a doctor's appt. I did not want to take them because I was having some personal stuff done. I told the kids that we were going to the sitters but we had to clean the house first and they moved very fast.

Now we are home and they are "resting" in their rooms because K has her first t ball game tonight and needs some rest beforehand.

putzing

Today is the 1st day of my vacation. What have I been up to in this 4 hours of vacation I have had so far? WORK! HAHA That is what I do on vacation. I am not the beach sitting, margarita sipping, feet in the sand type. I have issues with just sitting still. In fact, even as I sit here typing this, my feet are tapping and my mind is running. So far today I have:

gone to the store to get some deals ($2 12 packs of soda, $1 generic oxy clean, etc).

Took the kids outside to play for a bit

made a batch of laundry detergent

currently doing my 2nd load of laundry

As soon as I am done with my break, I am going to tackle the housework. All while trying to keep the kids quiet so R can sleep.

I was so upset last night. Yesterday was the first day of the $2 twelve pack soda deal and they had NO regular diet cola, only caffeine free. I don't need caffeine free, I drink soda for the caffeine. If I wanted caffeine free I would drink juice, water or milk. LOL. I was in a rush so I didn't ask last night but figured I would go in and ask today and sure enough, I checked first and there was a huge pallet of it. HOORAY! My plan to get a bunch will work. I have 7 coupons for it limit of 5 12 packs per coupon. I do not plan to buy 35 12 packs though. 10-20...enough to last awhile. The next booklet will come out in 2-3 months and they usually have the $2 12 packs in the booklet. I probably won't even buy enough for 2-3 months because diet coke should be on sale soon and that is my favorite soda.

great deal on strawberries

Our local Aldi had the pint size containers (I think they are a pint anyway...they are the ones that are normally $3.99 ish at my local store) of strawberries for 49 cents! Yep 49 cents!! We got 6. They are the same brand that we would normally buy. We do not buy fresh produce at Aldi because we have had pretty bad luck with it going bad quickly but for 49 cents I will take my chances. They are sooo good! Glad I picked up 6.

a Funny

click on the comic to see it all.

Because I am so obsessive

about our finances, I went on turbotax last night and estimated our return for 2009. I have to say if I did it right (and the tax laws don't change too much) we will be sitting with a nice chunk of change in the bank. We will have more than enough to get our new furnace and pay the bills we need to. Hooray!

not much thrifty to report. Went to a garage sale yesterday and spent $1.50. I got O a Dora PJ set, K a Tinkerbell dress and a butterfly rug for her room, which I ended up putting in the bathroom.

The sun is out now so I am going to take some laundry out to dry.

Just when I feel

like something has to give, it does. I got out of work early today. We had a slow day so I was able to get done in just over 5 hours. I was able to leave the kiddos with the sitter for just over an hour while I mowed the lawn. R will be getting off early tonight which will be really nice because he will be home to help with the bedtime stuff and then I can have some help tonight with the housework. I have no laundry to do tonight. The yard looks great. R picked up the house before he went to work today. So I am able to sit here and relax for a little bit. I am going to take the kids outside in a bit to play and just enjoy the nice weather.

so. tired. worn. out.

I am exhausted, mentally, physically, emotionally. I just cannot do one more thing for someone else. I haven't been sleeping well but I get up at 5:45 every morning for work. I get ready, eat breakfast and pack my lunch, then I get the kids up by 6:30. I get them dressed, give them breakfast and then it is out the door. Then I drop them off at the sitter and I go to work. I bust my butt for 8 hours and then come home, make dinner, try to keep the kids occupied and get some quality time in with them. Then it is dinner, baths and bedtime. After they are in bed, I try to keep up on housework, laundry, dishes and being thrifty. I can't do it all anymore. I am so burnt out. Thankfully I have 3 more days this week, then the weekend. I work on Monday and then I am off for a week. A whole glorious week. I am going to sit down one night and make a list of everything I want to accomplish during this week (besides enjoying time with my kiddos). I started a mental list earlier. Mostly it is stuff that will make my life easier while I am work a lot. I want to stay thrifty but I am finding it harder and harder to fit in things. I refuse to cut quality time with the kids so I am trying to fit in more during the weekend in the way of housework and thrifty stuff. UGH!

So where is Rodney you might ask. He is working 2nd shift but he does help. He picks up the house, we take turns mowing the lawn. Rodney does whatever I ask, I just have a hard time remembering to ask him. He does put away dishes when they are in the drainer drying and he will do dishes. It is really hard for him to help out at night without waking someone up so he doesn't help much, if at all, at night but he does do little things during the day before he leaves for work that make my life just a bit easier.

I know many people have it much worse than me. At least I have the option to work only part-time. Thankfully starting the week after vacation, I am only available 4 days a week. I think my stress and anxiety comes in part from adjusting to this new job. It is a whole different world from my previous department. We work 8 hour days. There is no calling you off if they are not busy. There is no days where you are available but not scheduled. You are scheduled every day you are available. Sure we might get done early but generally we work at least 6 of the 8 hours. I know that many people are without a job now and would love to work so I am definitely not complaining. I just need to figure out a better way to balance myself and find out what is the most important things and what isn't and how to do what I feel is important and skimp some of the not so important things.


My mental list of to do's for next week:

• price everything upstairs for the garage sale (this is a HUGE task! I was so organized with it for a while but then slacked off and now I have a bunch of stuff to price)
• get rid of the cans in the garage
• get a big container and grate 4-5 bars of soap so I have pre-grated soap next few times I need to make laundry detergent. This will cut about 20 minutes or so off my prep time for making the laundry detergent.
• go through and declutter the house.
• reorganize laundry room and kitchen cabinets
• sort kids clothes again and take out all long sleeve stuff
• household inventory for insurance
• stockpile inventory for insurance
• SLEEP, NAPS,
• weed garden
• clean garage and get ready for garage sale (garage sale is not for a month yet but I need to clean it well so I can just sweep, set up the tables, set out the stuff and rake in the cash. LOL

UGH! my vacation is a work-cation.

*******edit******

I think the kids (especially O) can sense my stress. As I was finishing type this post, O hugged me and said cuddle. So we sat on the couch and cuddled (all 3 of us) until their bedtime. So sweet!

Can't always be the cheapest person around.

Nope it can't happen. Case in point: I went to the grocery store tonight to use more of the $1 bag of cheese coupons and to get some A1 and raspberries on sale. Raspberries are a special treat because they are usually so darn expensive. The kids and I love fresh raspberries but they are so expensive normally. Anyway I had coupons for A1 $2/1 and $1 off beef when you buy A1. I should have been able to use both the $2 off A1 and the $1 off beef together as they are for different things but the one coupon requires the purchase of both and the other requires just the A1. Evidently that is a many vary thing because the computer would not take off all 4 coupons. So I decided to just use one of each to get $3 off. We really didn't need the meat but I was at a self checkout, the store was very busy, and the kids were getting whiny and wanting their raspberries. I got flustered when the coupons wouldn't all work and I just put 2 back in my purse and said oh well and proceeded to pay. Had I been thinking I would have used one of each but I was so flustered I used the $1 off when you buy beef ones and not the $2 off A1 coupons. Dang! I cost myself $2 in coupons PLUS the $5 ish for the meat that we did not really need. It was on sale so that was ok but still ugh! $7 I did not need to spend. Sure we will use the A1 and the ground beef but dang it. I wanted it to work out. At least I still have the $2 off coupons to use at another time but still. I hate when I get flustered like that and screw up. I can't be perfect and it was worth the trip for the raspberries alone. They were so good.

We also got 2 snuggle fabric softener ($2.99 in store special and I had $1 coupons making it $1.99 each.

frozen shredded cheese

I used some of the mozzarella I froze last time it was on sale when I made lasagna today. I defrosted it overnight in the fridge and you could not even tell it had been frozen at one point. Good thing to keep in mind for the future.

K and I went to the store this evening to pick up milk for over at the sitter's this week and I got more of the $1/bag cheese to freeze. The sitter and I have a pretty good system down. I buy the milk they drink for over at their house for the girls (2%). If the girls are there 4 or 5 days I buy 1 gallon, if they are there 3 days I buy 1/2 gallon and if they are there less than 3 days I don't buy and she supplies it. It works out pretty well. If they are there 5 days there is usually just a couple glasses left at the end of the week so the sitter keeps it. This is pretty fair considering she supplies 99% of the food. I supply the juice every week, snacks about once a month and all the diapers, wipes, bug spray, sunscreen, tylenol, lotion, etc. whenever she needs them. When the kids were still using formula and baby food I supplied all that too. It is only fair. Now the kids have breakfast there (some mornings, but not all) 2 snacks and lunch. Lunch is whatever the sitter is making for her husband that day. Snacks are usually a piece of fruit, some yogurt or ice cream, or cookies or veggies or whatever. She always gives me a rundown of what they ate that day and bathroom business and if there were any behavioral incidents. She also tells me about O's nap (or lack thereof). I couldn't ask for a better sitter.

let's talk grocery shopping

Last night, I was having a hard time falling asleep. Instead of laying in bed tossing and turning, I went to the grocery store to get a few things that I was going to have to get today anyway. While there I was using some instore coupons for $1 bags of shredded cheese (did you know that if you freeze it you can still use it on pizzas, in lasagna or whatever else?) and $2 gallons of ice cream. The cashier handed me a bunch more when I checked out which made my day. They mail these to people so you can generally only get one set of the coupons but sometimes the cashiers have a few that they give out. Hooray! As I was wandering the store, I saw they had big containers of cottage cheese marked down to 49 cents because they were expiring today and tommorrow (can you freeze cottage cheese?). I picked up two but they had a bunch more so I was thinking if I could freeze it I would pick up more. But anyway this brings me to my original reason for this post, my grocery shopping way (which I posted about before) and why I do NOT meal plan for the most part. I do meal plan kind of. You see I will think a day or two ahead about making a roast because I know it will be a busy day at work or we have a bunch of things to do that evening so I will throw something in the crockpot in the morning so we can avoid fast food. In general however I do not meal plan. I find it difficult to plan what to eat for a week ahead, let alone 2 weeks or a month like some people do. We have some fall back meals that we make if all else fails, spaghetti, mac n cheese, hamburger gravy over mashed potatoes or egg noodles, hamburger helper, etc. I know a lot of thrifty families do meal plans based on what is on sale that week and that is a good idea but it just does not work for us. I prefer to look into my stockpile and decide what sounds good. That is why I have a stockpile. I can make what I feel like eating that night with little to no extra expense. Which brings me to grocery shopping. Since I do not meal plan I can pick up a stellar deal on something that is expiring soon (like the cottage cheese-normally $2.49 a container so $5 per lasagna that I got for 49 cents each last night) and use it right away to make dinner). Last night worked out pretty well for me in terms of dinner for tonight. A pan of lasagna normally costs:

Noodles $1.69 for generic

cottage cheese $5 total

Shredded cheese $4.38 for 2 bags

meat and sauce I already have here (but I don't remember the costs right now-it's early, cut me some slack...lol)

$11.07 a pan not figuring in the meat and sauce.



1 pan will last us about 3-4 meals



tonights lasagna

noodles $1.69 for generic

$.98 cottage cheese

$2 for shredded cheese



$4.67 for tonight's dinner



nice huh? That is a huge savings.



*************

I have noticed that even though I am still on a couponing break I am still deal hunting and using a few coupons here and there. I am slacking terribly lately on keeping up with the deals and as a result we have run out of bacon, a summer staple for BLTs. But in all fairness we have a huge stockpile of stuff and I am watching what I buy and basically just buying for the freezer and pantry whatever is on super sale and using what we have here. So still doing the usual just not the couponing part of it. But I have noticed that I haven't really missed much. Everything that has coupons out is stuff that we haven't needed or wanted so this break has been pretty dang nice.

*****

I will be back later with more. Kids are up and it is cleaning O's room time.

talking thrifty

I just LOVE when people talk thrifty to me. I was chatting with this older lady at work. She is probably in her 60's. Nice lady. She was telling me some things she has started doing lately to save money. The conversation originally started with gardening and turned into a thrifty conversation. As we were talking, I mentioned making my own laundry detergent. She was very intrigued and asked for the recipe. As I was telling her about it, my boss walked up and overheard and is also interested in getting my recipe. Since I don't follow any exact recipe, I typed out what I do and my notes on where to find the stuff needed locally.

I hope they like it. I do. I made more last night and used it tonight and this batch is much better than the last one

rockin' the housework today

After work the kids and I got takeout for dinner (a rare treat!) and we played outside for a bit. I pulled some weeds while they played. After we came back in, the girls had a drink and some ice cream while I started cleaning. During their bath, I started a new batch of my homemade laundry detergent. We found out that the culprit of R's and O's breakouts with the last batch is borax so I have been omitting the borax and so far so good. I used castille soap on this batch this time so we will see how they react (if at all) to that. So far the fels naptha and washing soda recipe works well. We will try the Castille soap and washing soda this time. I added a dash of fabric softener to this batch as well. We are no longer cloth diapering. I just do not have the time with working like I am and O's waist was getting a bit too big for the one size bumgenius that I use and I am not buying more cloth diapers for the hopefully short time remaining that O will be in diapers. Because I am not cloth diapering anymore, I am able to add the fabric softener to the laundry detergent (you cannot use additives with cloth diapers). I sold the cloth diapers to a friend and she is getting good use from them. WIN WIN!

So now the laundry detergent is made, I am working on my 2nd laod of laundry, the dishes are done, the house is picked up, the bathroom is cleaned. All I need to do yet is take a shower and go to bed!

good news today

My new boss at work is an old neighbor. She was about 4 years ahead of me in school but her brother was in my class. We know each other pretty well. We were talking today about scheduling because there is an issue with my old job and my new job. I won't get into the issue but I told my new boss that I really only want to work part-time. We can afford for me to only work part-time and that is what I would prefer to do. It will take a little longer to pay off my car I realize but the time spent with my kids is more important than the time I spend at work, making money to pay off my car. I only get to keep about 1/2 of my net pay anyway. After I pay the sitter I get just slightly over 1/2 of my net pay each week. I would gladly give up getting my car paid off two months early just to spend more time with my kids. I explained to this boss (since she knows my family, I feel more comfortable sharing family stuff with her than I would with any other boss) and I also explained that I do not NEED to work other than to pay off my car. I explained how our bills work and how we budget. She has 2 children of her own and completely understands my desire to be home with them but needing to work. She has no problem at all with me lessening my availability to just 3 days a week, in fact it was her idea. I am so happy that I have an understanding boss. For the time being I am going to be available 5 days, then as of the week of 6/15 I am taking vacation. When I come back, I am changing my availability to 4 days and then as off 7/1 I will be available only 3 days a week for awhile. I am not sure if I will make this permanent or not. It would be a nice balance of at home and at work time so we will see how it works out. My desire has been to be home with the kids but still have time away, among adults. Working part-time just might be the answer to that. I need to be available to work on Fridays and Monday so I think I will make the other day I work Tuesdays. 2 days off in the middle of the week sounds nice to me!