Another Change

This didn't really fit with the previous post, but it is a new change none the less. I made our own laundry detergent! It was SUPER easy to do and I have now washed two loads of clothes in the "new detergent" and so far, I am very well pleased! It was VERY cheap to make. And it makes a TON! I am super excited about this since it is something I can do that is quick and easy, and cuts down on the budget just a bit! Interested? I used this link which I found very easy to follow and when it talks about grating soap, I used a whole bar of ivory soap. It was what I had on hand! Feel free to ask any questions! Not sure I can answer since I have only done it once, but I will be happy to try!

Changes

WOW! It has been a LONG time. I have not forgotten this blog at all, it has just been a bit removed from the front page of our lives. We are beginning a whole new "diet" at our house which really is nothing like what we have done in the past. We are trying to eat only whole foods, mostly organic, and raw.

Our oldest child has a few digestive issues, that most doctors want to treat medically. They have suggested putting him on medication indefinitely, which honestly just scares me. He is only four. I can't imagine starting him on a medication that I am not sure when we will stop. We have some "other" options. And one is to change our diet. That is where we are. This has been a gradual process. Well, I suppose it has. It seems very all of the sudden, but at the same time a long time coming.

If anyone is still interested, I think I may start "venting" here. Sharing what we have change and what we are trying to do. I would love questions, as they help me to figure out what we are doing and why!

So for now, we are working to only buy whole foods (which is HARD) and rid ourselves of the non-whole food items in our home. We have begun to buy only raw milk, eat beef that has come from the people who raised the cow, not the supermarket. We are trying hard to eat mostly organic fruits and veggies, meat and dairy too for that matter. We have just bought a grain mill attachment for our kitchen aid mixer. We will be getting wheat berries to grind and make wheat flour. We also bought a bunch of whole oats.

I have no clue where this is leading, or where it will end. I suppose we will see! Are you interested in reading and walking this new road with us?

What could possibly make me post??

Well I do suppose there are a few things that would make me take the time to post...BUT I can't think of many that are more important than giving a shout out to some of our best freinds in the whole wide world! One of my best freinds and her husband are living their lives fully to the glory of our Lord. They are serving Christ in Kenya! That to me is one of the most awesome things in the world! I love them and am so thankful that they were obedient to the call of Christ. I miss her greatly and I am longing for November when we get to see them again! I can't wait to hug her neck, and snuggle her sweet new baby. I highly recommend you follow their blog and see all that they are doing there in Africa. They have three beautiful babies and lots of interesting stories to share. It is so much fun to see their lives unfold as they serve Christ. If the excitement of life in Niarobi was not enough Nathan and Candace have recently decided to start giving away things from Africa. How cool is that? They are currently giving away an African bowl. You should really go check it out. It is neat. Enter to win! You have nothing to loose, and while you are there...read a bit, see what God is doing in their life!

Now the other thing...free chocolate! I am not sure how long this link will work...BUT you can get a free candy bar, one per email address, four per mailing address. That rocks! I hope you get yours quick! Check it out here!

TARGET!

I went to Target today and had NO IDEA what I would find! I am so excited to report that I found some SMOKIN hot deals! They had:
Pineapple on sale for 2.99
Asparagus on sale for 1.49 a pound
Eggs on sale for .99 a dozen
Strawberries on sale for 1.99 a pound

About a week ago, I received some several Target coupons in the mail. All of them were grocery related. There was a

$2 off Pineapple (making that .99)
$1 off Asparagus (making that .49)
.50 off Eggs (making those .49)
$1 off Strawberries (making that .99)

So that photo was about $3 at Target (if that had been all I bought!) I was thrilled to make such wonderful purchase. YUMMY!

Also, I read over the $5 off a $50 grocery purchase and it doesn't say that it must be only grocery. We did make a $5o dollar purchase so I tried it (I had some items other than grocery) and it worked. I then gave the cashier several other store and manufacturer's coupons and finally my gift card from a prescription...I ended up spending $22 on a $50 purchase! YAY!

I wanted to let you know since many of you should have gotten these coupons. These were deals to YUMMY to pass up! Happy Saving!

Back again :)

Hey guys! I know it has been an EXTREMELY long time since I last posted. I miss this so much. I am done making statements like "I will get better." I am just going to try and we will see what happens! I will say that I am not doing so well at school and I am really praying about whether I should even go back next semester. It is such a hard call. I love school and I really want to be there, but I may be in a new place now. :( However, God created me to be my husbands helper and that is my greatest calling. Right now I may be a better helper if focused my time and energy more on saving money than in school. He needs my help at home, with raising his kids and buying his groceries! I would love your prayers as we are working towards making some decisions for the next several months of our lives. For now I will just post when I can...so stay tuned...there is a great post coming about a great deal at Target!

Where have you been :)

Hey guys! I have missed you! Where have you been ;) I know, I have been gone for a long time...I am sorry. I do miss this blog. I SO wish I had more time to blog.

Life has just gotten a little crazy lately. Hopefully since this week is spring break, things will sorta level out and we will find a groove for our family. Not really sure that will happen but, hey, a girl can dream right?

Well...a couple of you have asked me about things I do on-line to earn a little extra. There are two things that I love that I would love to share with you because they really do not take any extra time.

I want to start by saying that I have an email account specifically for these type things...that way my personal email does not get bombarded with "junk". I highly recommend this!

So, the first thing I want to tell you about is Swagbucks. I LOVE SWAGBUCKS! I like to search for things online and have always just used Yahoo, or Google now I use swagbucks! IT ROCKS. As you search you earn more bucks and they can be redeemed for gift cards and such. It is awesome. You should check it out!




The other thing I like to do is called InboxDollars. This is really cool because you simply earn CASH by checking your email. You have to click on the emails and you only earn .02 per email, but when you hit $30, you get a check in the mail! You can also earn more by participating in surveys or taking an offer that they give you.





I really enjoy these and they don't really take any time. Have you tried them? Do you like them? What has been your experience?? Do tell!

Can't seem to keep up...

Okay, well I had planned to get back into this pretty steady, however it just doesn't seem to work for me...I guess I should just be happy to post when I can. I am thrilled to say that we have about two weeks left in our "month" and I still have about $75 in grocery money left, that is only $5 less thank I am supposed to have! (Now mind you I did get a little bit of refund money in (rebates on products I have bought) So that has helped, but we seem to be staying on task this week. But this is the first time in over three months that we have even attempted to stay within our budget. I am very excited to be working on it again!

I had hoped to post about all the great deals I am planning to do, but honestly I just don't have time. I do hope to show you what awesome deals I got, assuming I get some!

For now, I am off to read, being back in school is more challenging than I expected...:)

Because I know you will understand and laugh...

Well, we are trying to teach our children (the boys) not to come out of their room until about 8 am. This is because Mommy really needs this time to get awake, read for school, spend some time with the Lord, exercise and get some housework done. Not that I would do all of that in any given morning but those are all options that I "need" right now :)

So in order to do this, we put a digital clock in the boys room and told them they could not come out until they saw an 8. (I am quite certain Matt showed him where the 8 needed to be) They are more than welcome to get down and play with their toys or whatever they so choose so long as they stay in their room. Joshua assured us that he understood (which is important, because HE is the one who can open the door).

Well, I removed Lydia from the room when she started crying around 7 this morning. Nursed her and put her in her pack n play in my room. Then went back to my studying. Then sometime around 7:15 I heard the boys. I thought this would be a good test. We really didn't expect that it would work on day one, but I was willing to try. Work with them and help them learn.

Joshua and Asher came running down the hall at about 7:20, I was shocked. I really thought this would have lasted a little longer. I was even more surprised to hear Joshua saying, "Mom, my clock has an 8 on it" followed by the words "and a 7, and a 1" Yeah, it was 7:18...

Oh well. I did get some studying in this morning. And it was a good learning experience for me. Tonight I will make sure that Joshua knows where the 8 needs to be on the clock!

Do any of you do something like this? If so how does it work? Have you always done it? If not, how long did it take to get it in place? I would love any advice on this!

KROGER AGAIN!

That great Kroger sale I told you about last week...well it seems like they are doing it again!!! YAY!!! I will be there Thursday night after class!! I can't wait! If you go, tell me now you did! Have fun!

More on the Sweet Potatoes

I really got tired of every Sweet Potato recipe calling for brown sugar and cinnamon. Don't get me wrong...I like those two ingredients, but we needed some variety. SO I found this recipe! It was pretty good, nothing GREAT but not too bad...
Sweet Potato Wedges, serves 4

Ingredients
2 large sweet potatoes, peeled
1 teaspoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
freshly ground pepper

Directions
1 Preheat oven to 425F degrees.
2 Cut sweet potatoes in half lengthwise, then cut each half lengthwise into six wedges.
3 Mix with remaining ingredients in a bowl.
4 Toss gently to coat potatoes thoroughly.
5 Place wedges on a baking sheet without letting them touch and bake for 25 minutes or until very tender.

I doubled it and did not have cloves, so it was a little different, but I don't think it changed it too much.

CVS

SOY JOY!!!

I initailly made three transactions, that were basically all the same...

I bought:
1 head and shoulders 4.99
1 box Soy Joy 6.00

I used $1 mc coupon on the Head and Shoulders
then $9 ECBS (the first time I only used $7)

I then payed teh remaining, using a gift card for all but 0.15!!!

Then I realized that I could get more Soy Joy and went back and did three more transactions...
1 box Soy Joy 6.00
1 $6 ECB
Total 0.00

That was fun! May even go back for more Soy Joy, it says I have not met the quantity!

Walgreens

Well as you can see I had lots of fun at Walgreens this week. I was able to transfer a perscription and score an extra $25 gift card too! That was fun!

So in the photos you see:
1 Ink cartridge refilled $5.00 ($5 rebate in Easy Saver Catalog) FREE
2 Reynolds Wrap Aluminum foil .89 each ($1 off mc)
8 Hersheys candy bars BOGO (4 BOGO coupons) FREE
1 Colgate Toothpaste $2.99 ($1 off mc & $2 RR) FREE
2 PreSchool Workbooks $2.99 BOGO
1 Spill Proof Tumbler $1.09
1 Book of Stamps $8.40

I also used a $10 Register Reward from last week.

Therefore my total off the new gift card was $11.83!

AND I will get $5 back on my Gift card!!

I am very happy!

Sweet Potatoes

While in Alabama Matt's grandfather gave us a 20 pound sack of sweet potatoes. There is no way we can eat all those sweet potatoes before they go bad, SO I decided to peel, cut up and boil about 20 potatoes this morning. I then added a little bit of brown sugar, a stick of butter and divided them into four dishes and stuck them in the freezer. We ate some prepared this way last night and we all really enjoyed them, even Lydia!! More homemade food for her! Tonight I am making sweet potatoe wedges...trying to be creative and think of new ways to eat sweet potatoes! (Though these are not really new, I usually add a ton of brown sugar, pecans, eggs and other things to the sweet potatoes and we haven't ever tried the wedges, I have heard of them but not tried them!)

Apples!

Well, I am not sure if you noticed or not, but in that last trip to Kroger, I bought a bunch of apples that were beginning to go bad...I had muffins in mind. I have a yummy recipe that has oatmeal, apples, and raisins. Well on the third batch, I ran out of raisins. SO, we ate a dozen this morning, then I put two dozen in the freezer...yummy for later.

However I still had some apples left. I really didn't want to wast them, and they didn't seem like they would be good to eat raw (they were browning just a little bit), so I made applesauce! YAY! Espcially since Lydia eats applesauce and oatmeal almost every morning. HOMEMADE applesauce! I am thrilled. And I must tell you that I have tried this before and FAILED miserably, but this time I simply peeled and diced the apples, added a LITTLE water and then put a top on them (in a sauce pan) and let them cook on low for a little while. OH how easy! I am so excited!

KROGER!!

I am so sorry this is taking me SO long to get everything up. I hope you all read this and get to take advantage of the awesome sale at Kroger this week (this ends today...SORRY)! I had a BLAST...here's the deal...they have LOTS of items that are included in a special sale. And when you buy 10 of those items they subtract $5 from your total bill. That is like getting an extra .50 off each item you buy. You can do that as many as three times per transaction. On Wednesday I bought 30 items in the sale it was SO much fun!!!

I do not have time to list all the wonderful things I got at all the wonderful prices. BUT you must go and enjoy the sales...it was GREAT! I even went back LAST night after class and got some more great deals!




If you have questions I would love to help! Just let me know :)

Walgreens...

I did two transactions at Walgreens and spent a bit more money that I would normally, however I bought lots of grocery items as you will see...



On the first transaction I bought:

5 Pepsi product 12 packs 3.00 each
1 Tostito Queso dip 2.50
Doritos Nachos 2.50
2 Orval Popcorn 1.50 each

that totaled $23 dollars
I used a $1.50 off 2 mc coupon for the popcorn

total after tax was 22.67 (used gift card)

I got $10 Register Rewards back(for the soda and chips and dip)...

I then bought:
6 jars Ragu Spaghetti sauce-1.99 each
1 jar Skippy Peanut butter 1.99
1 box Lipton tea bags 24 ct 2.99
2 dawn dish soap .99 each after in ad coupon
2 Reese whips candy bars 1.59 for both
3 packs Wrigleys gum .33 each after coupon in Easy Saver catalog

I used these mc coupons:
2 - .50 Dawn
2 - 1.00 off three on Ragu
1 - 1.00 off two Reeses whips candy bars
1 - .60 off Skippy Peanut butter

I also used my $10 RR from the previous transaction.

My total after tax was 7.09
I ues a gc for 2.14
so my OOP was 4.95

YAY! And I got a $10 RR for my next trip!

CVS

Okay FINALLY here are the details!

So when I arrived at CVS I found some really good deals! Here is what I bought:

2 Tylenol Severe Allergy 24 ct 1.82 each (clearance)
1 2 pack wrapping paper .49 (clearance)
2 CVS brand Allergy Meds 3.79 each (Free after ECBs)
3 Hallmark Cards .99 each ($3 ECBs when you buy three)

Total = 14.68
-2.00 2 $1 mc on the Tylenol
-10.00 ECB (from previous purchase)
New Total = 2.68
+.32 tax
Final total $3 on Gift Card YAY

AND I got 10.58 in ECBs back!!!

I am coming back!

HEY! I have missed you so much! I have thought about you often. I have wanted to blog here...it has just simply been CRAZY! We are now done with our travels and back home settling in, so I hope to begin something more regular here! I did get to go shopping yesterday and I scored some SWEET deals! Just to give you a quick summary I got everything in the photo below for about $45! I hope to come back and give some juicy details a little later today...we will see :)

All this came from Kroger, CVS and Walgreens.