bread machine=best $4 I ever spent.

I have been using the heck out of my bread machine. Today I tried something new. I have been using all purpose flour in it because I had it on hand and it made a decent, albeit dense, loaf. Rodney is not as fond of dense bread so I tried some bread flour today. What a world of difference that makes! the loaves are light, fluffy and super delish.

I made the dough in the machine and then divided that dough into 2 bread pans. I let it rise more and then baked the loaves in my oven. That is the best bread I have made yet! The girls and I ate almost a full loaf tonight and the bread did not get done until 3 pm. We love our bread in this house. Not so much store bought bread but homemade bread we love!

day off today

My shift for today got cancelled. Due in part to new training groups for the holiday season at work and also due to business being slooooooow. But it didn't bother me, I don't mind having a day off :)

We had a pretty good day so far. The girls and I went to Aldi for baking supplies. I usually get sugar, flour, brown sugar, oatmeal, oil, cooking spray, and pancake mix and syrup there. I often get the frozen juice concentrate there as well. They have really good prices on the essentials. Price vary by store but at ours flour is 99 cents for 5 lbs, sugar is $1.39 for 5 lbs, brown sugar is $1.19, Oatmeal is $1.59 for a huge container, and pancake mix is $1.39 a box. I needed all the baking supplies replenished. Our total for everything was $24 and that included 3 bags of flour, 1 each of brown sugar, regular sugar, raisins, oatmeal, cooking spray, some Hannah montanna dried fruit, 2 containers of frozen juice, 3 packages of Halloween peeps, 2 bottles of syrup, 2 boxes of pancake mix, and a few other things that I don't remember off the top of my head.

After Aldi we stopped at the thrift store and spent a whooping 58 cents. A barbie for 50 cents and a pair of feetie pjs for 5 cents. I buy from the nickel bin for pjs for Liv. She likes to strip herself and it is too cold for that so I cut the feet off and put the pjs on her backwards. Then she can't strip herself at night.

We stopped at our local grocery on the way back home for some bread flour, a head of lettuce and a tomato. We have having tacos for dinner tonight and BLTs tommorrow night. I have been using all purpose flour in my bread machine but am hoping that bread flour will give me a lighter loaf as the all purpose flour makes a tasty but dense bread.

Finally, our last stop before coming home, was a quick trip into the local thrift store where I found a long sleeve harley davidson tee shirt for $6. That made my day.

challenges

on a board I frequently there is a challenge this month to eat out of your pantry/freezer and buy the minimum amount possible. Sounds good right? I wish I could do that. Every time I say I am going to challenge myself to doing something like that something happens, like this week when we have all been sick at one point or another. Each of the 4 of us but hubs and I have been sick all week. Yuck! We haven't felt like cooking, we ate out once or twice, and the rest of the time it was soup, sandwiches and whatever. Had a been doing a challenge, I would have lost big time. It always seems that when I set up to challenge myself the thing that we actually do need is on sale that week. Sigh!

I want to challenge myself to not spend except for the very basics because there is really nothing we need but I also know that in just over a month our busiest time of the year starts at work and I will have no energy left for shopping or deal chasing after working at work and at home and spending time with the kids. Should Hubs get laid off again that leaves even less time for deal chasing because I will start working 6 days a week the week of Thanksgiving through the week of Christmas. GAH! but such is life and that time goes by really fast.

so anyway the point of this is to look for posts very infrequently for the end of November and most of December. I plan to try living mostly off the stockpile those months but moreso out of sheer shopping laziness than anything else. Working 10 hour days 5-6 days a week and trying to do anything besides spend time with the kids and sleep is not one of my strong points.

a good way to spend a a rainy Saturday

Liv, Kait and I went "thriftin" this morning. We hit up 3 thrift stores and dollar tree. At the first thrift store we only got a musical jewelry box for Kait. It has the dancing ballerina in it and plays "somewhere over the rainbow". She found it and had to have it. It was only $1 so that was fine.

We went to Dollar tree next and I got an assortment on things: a ride on pony stick for Liv, a hannah montana notebook for Kait, pastry brushes (because I made some breadsticks with dough from the bread machine the other night and wanted to put some melted butter with garlic on them but realized I have no brushes for that), a bottle of diet coke, and a few other miscellanous things. Then we stopped at the 2nd thrift store where the only score was a Hannah Montana shirt for Kait for a quarter. Our third stop was pretty good. We got a $4 little tikes shopping cart and a $2 sweatshirt for Rodney. We came home for a bit and Liv went down for a nap.

Rodney was home so Kait and I decided to run out to my parents for a bit and dig through the basement stuff to see if we could find a couple more sweatshirts for Rodney and we found 2 that would work. He needs them for work and I hate to buy new ones for that purpose. He works in grease and clothes don't handle that well. They used to supply uniforms there (and they still might) but they are really uncomfortable and stiff and cost $5 a week so he chooses to wear his clothes (special clothes that are just for work that I get from the thrift store and it ends up being cheaper than the $5/week rental fee anyway :) ). So when we were there mom and dad decided that we should go to another town. We stopped at a Goodwill and I found a hooded sweatshirt for $4, finding a hooded sweatshirt was part of my mission today. After Goodwill we went to Walmart and I got another hoodie for $10. Cool! We also made a quick stop to the bent and dent but there wasn't much I needed. I ended up just picking up a few things that I always get there (organic butter YUM!).

went to the bent and dent and wally world today

got a few things at the bent and dent. Nothing really to brag about except a gigantic bottle of olive oil for $7. This is a HUGE bottle. And some bread machine yeast (85 cents a jar) for my newest thrift store prize....a almost new bread machine for $4!!! Super excited about that! It didn't have the book with it but I found it online so I saved the site. I have made 4 loaves of bread already.

At Walmart we had to get a new carseat for Liv. She outgrew the convertible seat but it was actually easier to move Liv into Kait's seat and get a new one for Kait. We scored some ground beef for $1.20 a lb. It is the stuff in the tube that we really don't like all that much but it works great in homemade jerky or hamburger helper or chili and it saves having to use the good stuff for those things.

I also used a couple instore coupons today at our local grocery. 77 cents for 5 lbs of potatoes and $4.99 for quilted northern 12 double rolls.

Decluttering day and thrift store scores

I took the last bit of stuff I had to get rid of to the thrfit store and set out with $15 with the intent of spending a few bucks to get another kitchen chair so Liv can be out of the high chair. I came home with $11.58 left and a new chair for $2 and a Cinderella dress from the disney store for $1. The dress was at the thrift store and is in very good used condition. The chair is nothing pretty to look at but it is sturdy, tall enough and Liv likes it. That is what matters. I am especially excited to be rid of this clutter and almost done with baby stuff!

I'm BAAACK

Yep, tis I. and I am back. Not really back to couponing, just back to blogging about my thrifty family life. Things are pretty well here. I am working, R is working. The freezer is full, the pantry is full. The basement pantry is not full but full enough. I have some slightly blurry updated pics of the stockpile to share




I found ground beef on a 3 day sale for $1.48/lb last week. Needless to say, we went a bit buckwild stocking up but we are absolutely FULL in the ground beef section of the deep freeze. Awesome, yes?...I think so.




and now on to the pics
The formatting went all crazy but you get the general idea..yep we are stocked. Bring on the snow!

blog from 8/13 that I never posted...oops

Wow. Haven't blogged in a couple weeks. It has been a rough couple weeks.

O got 2nd degree burns on a slide. I contacted the zoo where she was hurt and got nowhere. I was not suing them or anything, just wanted to let them know so other parents were aware this could happen. After talking to our doctor, I decided to do a newsstory for a local TV station, which turned out good and bad. Good because the news story went well. I think I did a pretty good job, but bad because I was completely amazed at the rude comments I received. Anyway, it's done and over and I feel good about doing it so whatever.

Because of Liv's injuries I will miss a total of 1 week at work. ouch! That hurts the checkbook, especially since R was only working 32 hours that week. We will survive though. I missed 4 days last week and will miss part of a day tommorrow because of a follow up appointment for her infection.

I am almost done with Christmas shopping. My employer is offering their employee additional discount (the regular discount is pretty substantial and they offer more above that for a limited time twice a year) so I bought everything that I wanted to get people for Christmas. I ordered the items today. My total was just under $150...some of which was stuff for me and R for now. I hated to put that on the credit card but I will pay it off ASAP and not have to worry about Christmas shopping later in the year. Christmas is always such a hard time. We have 3 birthdays to celebrate (me, K and my mom), and I end up working a lot of hours and generally only get one day off a week from Thanksgiving until Christmas and I would HATE to spend that one day off having go shopping.

Per Mary's request

I am blogging today :)

Not much new to report really. I am back to couponing a little bit. I got some coupons in a magazine and one was for hunt's ketchup which was on sale this week at a local store I got two bottles for 98 cents. Can't really beat that!

Hubby has started back at the employer he was laid off from. They called him on the morning of the day he later found out that his employer at the time was cutting his pay. It sucked. So he made a decision to return to his previous employer. He liked it there a lot better. He had better hours, more hours and more pay. This was his first week back and he (and the rest of the family) are much happier.

My job has picked up hours wise, which is nice and not nice. I like the early out days when we finished in 6 hours or less. Those were the good days. Pretty much from here through the end of the year, the early out days will be at a minimum.

2 weeks ago I was able to do some Overtime and that check was nice! Not as nice as I had hoped because they took out more for taxes and 401K then I was anticipating but I was still able to send $300 to my car. I now owe under $1000. I should have it paid off before the end of the year. Hip hip Hooray!!!

We are still plugging along with our plan to be debt free. Once the car is paid off I intend to continue to put that amount away each week...for savings for a car, house repairs, new tires for the jeep, whatever. It will be so nice to be able to put money away.

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.
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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!)
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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!
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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 :)
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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.