Blueberry Goodness

What do you get with 2 cups of your own fresh handpicked blueberries after a night in the kitchen?

Hopefully it will be as delish as it looks! I will patiently wait to slice into it with our friends tomorrow evening for dinner before FPU.

Down on the Farm

We just got home from a wonderful weekend at our friends family farm. (Can you tell we enjoy the country life?) Maybe someday we'll get to be out a little farther and own more than a half acre place, but until then we'll make due with getaways to the countryside. Usually we're crazy enough to camp this time of year and have faired pretty well, but I have to admit with the temperatures so far this summer I am sooo glad for the AC and indoor plumbing we got to enjoy this weekend.

We enjoyed great food since everyone shares in the meal preparation. We ate watermelon non-stop, which Baby T probably enjoyed the watermelon the most, so cute! Each family served one meal the whole weekend. I spent the last couple of weeks getting ready for the trip in advance, because it's no fun to be stuck in the kitchen all day when you're on vacation. This time I decided to be budget friendly and shop from my pantry trying to use what I already had on hand. The meal I prepared was vension BBQ, homemade buns, slaw with creamy homemade dressing and with fresh pickles and carrot sticks.

I really like to make our own bread because really it's pretty easy, far less extra stuff in there and it taste's pretty good too, if I say so myself. Here is a pic from Bowman Bakery the day O made the buns. I threw these in the freezer for safe keeping until the we would make the trip down.

When these come out of the oven it is so hard not to eat at least one!

The meal I planned was little bit bold since I don't usually spring venison on people without warning but, I figured this group was adventurous enough to handle it. After all we had 6 families consisting of 12 adults and 5 children into this cute old farmhouse. I think the venison BBQ went over pretty well. I know it's definitely a different taste on the pallette and it's taken me getting used to it, but I have to say that I'm enjoying the venison more now and I'm glad for the lean meat option as well as the budgetary benefit of using it.

Front of the house.

Check out the tree!

During the weekend we enjoyed fishing at the pond sprinkled with a few fire ants otherwise I think that there might have been a bit more fishing going on. The men fired off several rounds of shot with clays and completely killing a stack of wild boxes sitting at the edge of the soybean rows. They did their best to keep the women and children safe. Even a few of ladies fired the shotguns, but not me. I'm interested to maybe try a handgun sometime, but no more shotguns unless well, hopefully I'll never need it. The ladies made a trip the town junk shop. We looked around and were hard pressed to find many deals because the prices were a bit steep for our frugal minded group. However, I think we were all jealous of the vintage Liberty of London silk scarf for $1.50 that J got. I guess I didn't take a pic because I was too jealous. Oh well! I did however make up for the lack of bargains by picking over 10 cups of blueberries, fresh, ripe beautiful blueberries! We all scored big on that one. I can't believe how loaded the bushes were! We also came away with a far greater appreciation for the price of blueberries since we had to climb all up in the bush to score those beauties. I will baking a bit this week and will have to share some pictures of the results!

Later in the evening the kids got to do a tractor ride. As usual the kids were great.

The kids having fun in the wagon.

My buddy for the weekend, little J.

Ah well, the weekend is coming to a close and we've got to get back to work here at home. Hopefully, we'll get this room together this week and be able to move on to our bedroom finally! All this while living on a budget. We've almost survived a whole month living by the budget. I'm feeling pretty accomplished. We've got to keep it up though.

Painting in progress.

Have a great week!

Missing the mountains this weekend

So we had a super fun and busy Father's Day weekend. I wanted to talk about it all week before we went out of town, but I resisted temptation in an attempt to not let the world know that nobody was home. You gotta be careful here on the world wide web, just in case, ya know?

Anyhoo. We left town at 3:30 straight from the office to hit the highway. Normally I would have been feeling super happy to be leaving work early, but I had received a call from Uhaul to let us know that sorry they didn't have a truck available for us to pick up in Tazewell on Saturday. So why did I bother making a reservation? I'm not sure. That meant between wrapping up my work and trying to make a reservation with Budget Truck Rental, I didn't quite make it out of the office at 3:30. Oh well. We were off and enjoyed the ride.

The rest of the weekend was a blur, between picking up the rental, dismantling a barn to salvage the wood for projects around the house, going to a Birthday party, visiting relatives, going to a family reunion, packing and loading the truck, rescuing a kitten, the drive home to Richmond and returning the rental by Tuesday morning. Whew. I'm tired thinking about all of that again! Here's a few pics from our action packed weekend.

One of the barns Rennie's Grandfarther built that got blown over this past winter. A connection to a piece of Rennie's past is coming home with us in the wood we salvaged to make some things around the house and yard.

Rennie working to pull the boards down from the side.

Bobby D's birthday party. I think he got about 50 t-shirts!

MIL with new farm kitty! We're calling him SweetPea of course that's subject to change since Rennie says it's not masculine enough.

I love going to the mountains. I hate leaving them behind me. Someday maybe we can own a piece of the mountains. A girl can dream, right? Until then this is the drive home taking furniture and memories of the mountains with us.

Buy what you need; want what you have.

I have long been a fan of Mary Hunt of Everyday Cheapskate, her free email newsletter. In her newsletter on June 7, 2010 the thought for the day was this, “Buy what you need; want what you have.” This phrase she says is the key to living below your means. This was a good reminder and inspiration article for me, as me and the hubs have just started Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University (a.k.a. FPU). I know what both of these people teach is pretty basic and “easy” to do. In fact up until purchasing our home a little over a year ago we were debt free and had a small savings started. We were ecstatic to have paid off consumer debt and school loans in record time. To quote Dave Ramsey we accomplished this with “gazelle intensity.” For us paying off the debt was relatively easy.

We have since becoming debt free gone into debt to purchase our home, which even most of the conservative financial guru’s will tell you is okay. Regardless of their approval I still felt/feel sick to my stomach with the amount of the debt. Here is the hard part for us, a year later and never having successfully created a budget that we could live by we hadn’t really seen our savings account grow. This has been frustrating. Plus these two selfish sinners (me and the hubs) “try” to share money it doesn’t always go so well. We are different. First off you know the whole man (just do it) versus woman (plan it and talk it through) way of thinking, combined with different experiences and attitudes about money.

So this summer our church is finally hosting FPU, hooray! While I have to admit I’m a little bummed that we are in summer school because we have failed to come up with a passable grade on the budget, I know that with a commitment to pass and work together we can whip the budget into shape and move on to the next grade (or baby step according to Dave). Today is our second class and we’ve already put a ton of thought and effort into the simple budget, probably a little more than was required at this stage, but that’s been our sticking point.

All this time, we’ve been married five years, I realize that I’ve been pushing so hard to make the numbers look good and add up fast on paper that our budget hasn’t been realistic. This has made for many accusations on my part directed toward my hubs about his reckless spending. Meanwhile I haven’t even managed my own behaviors to get a passing grade on the “outlined” budget. I’m am so sorry. It’s not me against him. We’re in this together. At least that’s what I promised, for richer or poorer.

I’m glad to say we’ve got the start of our budget, a real and livable budget. I’m sure that the farther we get into this that I’ll realize we’ve missed a few details or things will change (a.k.a. the cost of things will most likely go up) and we will readjust. I don’t “like” the way the numbers add up on the budget anymore now and it looks like it’s gonna take forever to get some sizeable savings now. It’s gonna take us a long time before we take any big vacations or get those beautiful hardwood floors I’ve been dreaming about since buying our home. We’ll have to see how things take shape of course, but I see it now we’ve got several options.

Be patient and usually I am not. I will go to the opposite extreme and often to the detriment of other important things. In the past I have worked so much that I neglect my home and even worse important relationships—not recommended. This also means waiting until I have saved every penny needed to make that big purchase—this is really hard too!
Create more income. I used to work part time and the hubs is already working regular overtime each month. I might have to really get creative here, but I’ve always said that I’ve wanted to have my own business and dream of my creative outlet that just happens to net an income.
Learn to live with less. The budget I am speaking of still isn’t glamourous so I definitely think that this will be challenging. This aspect will also hopefully inspire creativity so that we expand our knowledge and skills. I’m seeing lots of furniture making projects in my future.
Buy what we need; want what we have. In a word be content with what the good Lord has already provided. He has already supplied us beyond our needs. So we can live on less than he has provided. The logic is there. It needs to be practiced.

So hopefully in the coming weeks and months I’ll be able to share our successes and hopefully not too many failures.

Keeping it real here is test number one for me. I just got a fab new haircut and color just this past Thursday. Of course the new do “requires” a flat iron to get it just right. Well, since I failed to plan ahead on that front, I’m gonna be saving up for my flat iron and waiting for it to go on sale. In the mean time I’ll just have to be patient and be happy with current set of beauty tools. I want to stay debt free more than I want this:

…so I will wait probably until my next hair cut before I buy this. So if I don't look totally together I'm blaming it on my lack of proper tools (although I should blame it on myself for failing to plan ahead). I'm learning.

Happenings...

Well this blog is still here despite my neglect of it. Funny how that sort of thing happens to me all to frequently. I get all excited and geared up to go and promptly lost heart once I realize how much work it takes. I enjoy reading other people's blogs and I even enjoy writing so I thought this blog thing might be for me. Well, I'm not giving up yet sorry to disappoint you. I am going to challenge myself to make regular posts though and hopefully even with trying to get back on the project bandwagon that won't keep me from writing about what's been going on here in our lives.

One of the reason I make excuses for not blogging is not having any pictures to show for all the happenings around here. While my writing might entertain me (slightly) I know it's really all about having some good pictures to illustrate your point.

So here's to a renewed effort to document our lot in life and maybe there will be a few pleasant sightings and stories along the way!

Look what I found hiding in my garden:

Fruit Harvest at Lot 31

Strawberries are coming in already and it's not even May! Here's the first bowl. The six I ate yesterday that didn't fill the bowl as I was too eager to sample to think of taking a picture. Looking forward to more in the coming weeks....

Hopefully we'll be getting back on the home improvement bandwagon soon, but just in case you thought we weren't doing anything. I wanted you to know we've been keeping busy. We've got swiss chard, lettuce and snow peas in the ground (as long as the squirrels don't uproot them looking for their nuts).

Januaray Projects and Goals for Lot 31

So, I'm trying to get some projects actually accomplished so perhaps at some point this year we'll have our two guest rooms actually furnished and acting in that role.

So for January these are the projects that we'll attempt to get checked off the list and help get us back into the mode of moving forward in the home improvements. These smaller projects have been waiting a while to be done and will buy me a little time to really decide on the upcoming projects.

January's DIY List:
Finish the Guest Bathroom:
Paint the small bath cabinet and hang (done 1/18)
Hang artwork that I purchased months ago (done 1/18)
Touch up a few spots on the walls
Replace Bath Rug

Living Room:
Paint the mirror (started)
Attach new hardware and hang

Office:
Convert closet to office (done 1/18) Will reveal in future post.
Get wireless network back up
Organize office

Master Bathroom:
Repair leaky toilet (this is Rennie's job, but I'll be there for moral support and runs to the hardware store)

My next dilemma is to finally make a decision on colors for the two guest bedrooms and our master bedroom suite. One of the guest bedrooms will someday, Lord providing, be a childs room so I want to keep that in mind. The other guest bedroom will also double as the craft room for any creative arts that I would like to explore (the possiblities are endless!). Our master bedroom will include a big closet reno, but on a serious DIY budget. Hopefully we'll have an efficient closet so that the only furniture we'll really need in our bedroom is a bed and sitting furniture for our personal quiet space.

Ukrops Double Coupon Wednesday!

I'm loving Ukrops double coupon Wednesday, however I do wish it wasn't limited to Wednesdays. Maybe someday not too far away that will happen, we know there are lots of changes in store for Ukrops and I'm hoping that's one of them.

So here's finally a picture of my sales stash for the week. It's not overflowing, but it was definitely a good value for my money. Here's the breakdown:

4 Cans Hanover Kidney Beans .66 ea (-1/4)
4 GM Cheerios 2.50 ea (-1 Savings Spot, -.55/1 IP x 4)
2 Halls Cough Drops .99 (-.50/1 IP x 2)
1 Chobani Greek Yogurt 1.00 (-1/1)
2 Yoplait Smoothie 2.50/ea (-1.50 Savings Spot, - 1/1 x 2)
4 Hormel Naturals Lunch Meat 80z 2.50 ea (-.75/1 x 4)
1 Steamfresh Mixed Veg 1.00 (-.50/1)
-.15 Bag Credit
Total OOP = 12.75
Total Savings = 17.40 or 57%

I will have to go back next Wednesday since they were out of the Johnsonville Sausages. They are 3.48 through 1/30 (I think) and with the internet printable from Hormel's website that makes is 2.38 a pack. Too bad I missed out on this .05 Bonus Fuelperks though!

Also another tip, stock on your vitamins. Ukrops has the Naturemade Vitamins 50% off combined with $1/1 coupons and Naturemade has a program to log their codes to collect points toward a $7/1 coupon. I think that is also good through the end of the month.

Hope that helps someone out!

Trying to maintain self-control in the name of saving money

Happy New Year! I've been missing here at Lot 31 lately, but I'm trying to get back onboard with what's going on over here.

2009 wrapped up way faster than I could have imagined and to boot January is approaching that half way point ALREADY! Time sure flies whether you're having fun or not. Work for me has been BUSY since the beginning of the year, which I hope is a good sign. It does unfortunately mean that I anticipate bringing some work home here to Lot 31. Oh well, I guess paying the bills is somewhat important and I couldn't get as many grocery deals either.

Of course I'm like many who start the year off with great intentions and high hopes for change for the good. I think that one of the most important changes that I need to make is to reign in getting all of these "super deals". Don't misunderstand me to say that I don't believe in stockpiling, because I do. My good intentions to save and get the best prices I think has gotten a little off course. Some things that I have to remind myself is that deal is only good if (a) I need it (b) it's budgeted and (c) I have my cash with me. I am so guilty of letting myself fall prey to the line in my head that this is a deal that is too good to miss because I will be saving so much money, right? WRONG! Mary Hunt wrote recently in her column that when you buy that good deal you only save money (truly save) if and only if you take the money that you didn't spend on that item and go put it into your savings account. In other words that money that I "saved" when I bought the super deal will just get spent somewhere else.

So this is the question I have to ask myself. Do I need/want more stuff? If the answer is yes then that's okay to get more stuff. My problem has been that I want a bigger savings account as we look to the future. So there's where I am drawing a line in the sand. Okay grocery budget I get the point now and I will listen and behave myself.

Have you had any revelations about the money you are spending or saving?

Inspiration

http://janeryanart.com/index.html
Check out this artist's website. I found her work very inspiring and thought you might like to see too.

A long day and some warm bread

After a long day it seemed fitting that I should relax with a nice cup of tea and a slice of warm Amish Friendship Bread that had cooled enough to be eaten. After all, I had gotten up early to go to the dentist that morning, put in eight hours at work, came home to help Rennie finish with dinner preparations, bake and separate the bread starters into new bags and then I went to the grocery store at 9:00pm. I had just gotten home from double coupon Wednesdays at Ukrops just before 10:00. My thanks to Ann for the coupon match-up and the bread starter.

I now interrupt today’s post for a brief commercial break…Ann a faithful Ukrops employee and shopper has really won me over to Ukrops now that they double coupons, have there CLP deals and pretty decent sales to boot. All of that combined with Ann sharing her match-up for the week on her blog http://annscrazyworld.blogspot.com/ has been wonderful for me since I really live within walking distance to Ukrops. Now if there was a nice sidewalk and a shopping buddy to help me schlep (sp?) all my bargains home I’d really walk to the grocery store. Check out her weekly deal match-ups, usually posted on Tuesday, if you like to shop Ukrops or if you want to save money but didn't think you could shopping at Ukrops, and now back to our story of the end to my day.

Rennie had helped put away most of the groceries and I was looking to the last few items. I had already flipped the bread out of the pans. One dirty pan was in the sink and the second was sitting on the front burner of the stove where Rennie had set it when he pulled it out of the oven to cool. I should have put both pans in the sink, but didn’t for some reason. Maybe I had thought it still needed to cool a bit more or I was just tired and not being logical or effiecient? I sliced off a piece of the bread and turned on the stove to warm some water for my tea. I then turned back to finish putting away my reusable grocery bags and checking over my receipt. A couple minutes and I started hearing a heat popping noise and an odd burning sort of smell. I thought that my new copper tea kettle must be getting broken in or something? I turned around to see the empty Pyrex loaf pan sitting on a red hot burner! All I could seem to say was “Oh no!” I said this several times as I tried to collect my thoughts quickly, turn off the burner, find a hot pad and move the hot loaf pan between the burners on the stove top. Of course my worried husband came into the kitchen after I was unable to tell him why I was saying “Oh no!” I met him walking into the kitchen as I was pushing him to get out of the kitchen. I said I thought that the pan might explode and to get out of the kitchen. I knew that Pyrex was not intended for use on a stovetop plus I had read those email forwards about Pyrex exploding when baking too. Sure enough not ten seconds or maybe it was even less than five seconds after I said my warning the pan exploded.

Fortunately, no one was hurt. Lesson one I learned is do not put anything on the stove burner unless it really belongs there. Lesson two I learned is double or triple check to make sure that you have turned on the correct burner. Lesson three is that email you read about the possibility of Pyrex exploding is very possible. I don’t believe I’ll be replacing my Pyrex loaf pan. Maybe lesson four should be don't try to bake past 9pm lest you're too tired and have a kitchen disaster.

So, after getting the cleanup completed I had to throw away one loaf of the bread because it was right next to the explosion and I didn't want to take that chance. Fortunately though I've got plenty of starter. I offered my hubby some bread, but he didn’t want any. Then he asked if I would now have my cup of tea. I said no and that I didn’t want it anymore. Oh well not such a relaxing end to my day.

Keep learning to save

Even though I've been doing the coupon thing for quite a while I'm still learning. Just like anything else you have to keep up with the changes. I love to share with my coupon buddies what I'm learning. After all that's how I even managed to get this far with the couponing bit.

What I learned this week.

Ukrops:
They will double coupons that are barcoded started with the number 5. Even if the coupon states not subject to double/triple. If it scans right the first time, then you should be fine.

The revised fuelperks format requiring a $50 purchase to earn a .05 discount/gallon is based on your out of pocket cost. (This is different from Kroger where you coupon value including the doubled amount counts towards your fuel savings).

Always scan your card at the Savings Spot for in-store same day savings. A couple of weeks ago I scored Bosc Pears for .49/lb.

Check out my friend Ann's blog http://annscrazyworld.blogspot.com/. She's been so kind to share her Ukrops coupon matchups. This has been helping me make it to Ukrops which I love since it's so close to my house that I could walk if there was a better pedestrian route--maybe someday. Wouldn't that be great if I could get some added excercise benefit, save on gas and save money on groceries too? I'll be the lady walking by the side of the road with my personal grocery tote, don't run me over please.

Kroger:
If you're getting ready for holiday baking or just bake regularly there is a catalina deal for Fleischman's yeast.

9/7/09 to 11/29/09 Buy any Fleischman's yeast strip and get .50 off a future order with coupon. But any Fleischman's yeast jar and $1.00 off a future order with coupon. I checked it out the other day and the yeast is either 1.56-1.59 for the 3 pack strip combine with .40/1 and that makes for some super cheap yeast. Net cost is max .29 after the catalina is accounted!!! What I don't yet know is if you can buy multiple packs all in one transaction or if you max out with a certain number of packets in your transaction. If it's like last year's deal there is no limit.

Any store:
ALWAYS no matter what take your entire coupon notebook where ever you go, at the least take keep it in the car so you can run back in. You don't want to kick yourself when you see a super deal that you know you have coupon for somewhere else. Last night when I went to Ukrops for double coupons I missed out on free Betty Crocker Whipped Frosting on sale for .99 each. I had just printed several .50/1 IP's earlier that evening. Oh well.

DON'T FORGET to make sure your get your bag credit. I seem to forget rather frequently and I am usually too done and/or too embarassed to ask for my .10, .15, .20, etc bag credit at the service desk.

Have you learned any tricks to the game lately? Please do share.

Saturdays are the busiest day of my week

Rise and shine! It's Saturday and my sorely neglected house is demanding that I get up and get moving. Little does the house know it's just gonna have to wait a wee bit later in the afternoon before I get to cleaning things up.

So the agenda for today was run errands (translation get needed groceries and pick up a few freebies while I'm at it). So I left the house at 7:30 am, which is later than I hoped but I'm trying to stick to $25 a week food budget so I had to do my homework. When I left the house I already knew I probably wasn't going to make that but I'm not gonna kick myself because I did get good prices on items, including meat for my man. So after Walgreens, Kroger, Ukrops, Food Lion and one more Walgreens for good measure (although they were out stock too--I should've known), I pulled up to our lot and unloaded the grocery getter.

Here's the scoop:

Walgreens:
Transaction #1
Chapstick 2.99
Halls Refreshers 1.00-.75/1
Total OOP: 3.39 & $4.00 in RR (Register Rewards)

Transaction #2
Vaseline Sheer (whatever new expensive lotion) 6.99-3.00RR from Tran #1
Total OOP: 4.34 & 7.00 in RR

Transaction #3
Halls Refresher 1.00 - .75/1
Chapstick 2.99
Emergen C 3.49
Reese PB Lover .69 (I needed a filler since the Emergen C was actually on sale and I didn't know it until I was at the register. I hate being unprepared!)
-7RR from Tran #2
Total OOP .76 & $7.50 in RR

Transaction #4
Halls Refresher 1.00- 3.00RR from Tran 3
Vaseline Sheer (whatever new expensive lotion) 6.99 - 3.50RR from Tran 3
Total OOP 1.84 & $8.00 in RR

Walgreens Recap
Total Value of items purchased 28.49 (incl tax)
Total MC 1.50
Total RR 26.50
Total OOP 10.33
Net Savings $28.00 (including RR) (98%)

Thanks for inspiring me to get back in the game at Walgreens Miriam.

Kroger:
Pork Shoulder (.77/lb) 7.28 - $1/1 Pork Coupon (Thanks Sara!)
Kroger Value Hamburger Buns .88 - .55/2 Kroger buns
Kroger Value Hot Dog Buns .88
(2) Red Bell Peppers 2.00
(2) Orange Bell Peppers 2.00
(1) Yellow Bell Pepper 1.00
Pork Half Loin (1.77/lb) 7.17 - $1/1 Pork Coupon - gonna slice this into some chops
(2) Snuggle Exhilirations 3.89 - $3/1
Febreeze Naturals 5.99 - $4/1 & $3/1

Total OOP $20.50
Total Kroger Savings $22.80 (54%)

This time I got a bag credit. I don't know what to expect from Kroger with the bag credit anymore. At least I got it.

Ukrops:

(2) Gallons Skim Milk 2.49
(2) Barlett Pears .88/lb
-.10 Bag credit

Total OOP 6.00
Total Savings 1.43 (19%)

Food Lion:
Jalapenos .89
Hominy 1.89
FL Peanut Butter 1.50 - $1/1 FLIP
Mini Golden Oreos 2.49 - $1/1 FLIP
(6) SaniHands 15ct 1.00 - $1/1 (YAY FREEBIES!!!)
Holly Farms Chicken Thighs (.67/lb) 2.87
3lb bag Apples 2.00

Total OOP 9.67
Total Savings 16.60 (63%)

So I was only supposed to spend $25 on food and I ended up spending $34.39. I spent $12.11 on other sundries and HBA items. So I'm done shopping for the week. I've even got a meal plan to get me through to the next week. I'm not too regimented with the meal planning yet, so the day/order is subject to change.

Saturday - Blackeye Pea Supper Dish with mini french loaves (gonna try this from scratch)
Sunday - dinner with friends and/or leftovers
Monday - Chicken Posole
Tuesday - Pork Ribs with the my sis--I'm bringin Apple & Walnut Salad
Wednesday - Ham & Brown Beans with biscuits
Thursday - Chicken Posole
Friday - Ham & Brown Beans with biscuits
Saturday - Dinner with MIL
Sunday - Chicken Burgers & Potato Wedges

All that's done, so now it's time to start cleaning!!! Time's a wasting.

Fall Football, I Mean Coupon Training and Game Schedule

Well, after trying to get back into the swing of things this week I have a confession. Not only did I totally blow the budget but I did not do a good job with the coupons. I spent almost $100 in one trip to Kroger! *gasp* That hasn't happened in so long I was shocked.

How could that happen to me you ask? Well it's been at least two months since I regularly snipped and organized my coupons. Coupons supplies have been depleted due to hit or miss newspaper purchases. Its been at least as long since I've regularly written a meal plan. Keep in my mind meal planning is more a list of ideas to prompt me on what I've got in the pantry and sometimes a suggestion about a day of the week to prepare it if I have schedule constraint. Works well enough so far, at least when I actually do it. Then while in the store I was not paying attention to details. I picked up wrong items, which not only cost more than the sale items, but they weren't participating items so I had to go to Customer Service. I called myself a dummy as I walked out of Kroger. I need to get my head in the game and keep it there. So I guess the next few weeks it might be a little rough getting back into top couponing shape but, I'm hoping it will get better. It's gonna take some work because with the economy being what it is everyone is looking for the deals more and it seems more competitive than it used to be when I really got into the coupon game about three years ago. That's okay I like a little competition anyway.

The consolation in all of this is that out of that $100 shopping trip some of that will actually go towards Christmas gifts so it's not a total negative reflection on loss of shopping skills. I also had a successful CVS trip-Free toothpaste, free toothpaste and razors (After ECB's). So next time I'm at CVS I will have minimal OOP (out of pocket) cost. I'd post a pic but it's not much to look at three free items. I also had a good trip to Target stocking up on the kitty litter deal this week. I'm loving that I keep getting $5 Target gift cards for buying kitty litter, that's the only positive I kind find about buying kitty litter so be excited with me okay! Everthing else about it stinks.

Good thing I've gotten the shopping out of the way early this week. Tomorrow I get to quilt. Maybe I can actually get some pics to share with you about my progress. I'm so looking forward to this project....I'll keep you posted.

Photography slacker!

We just got back from a great weekend camping trip at Bear Creek Lake State Park. Fun with friends whilst enjoying the great outdoors.

We managed to survive our first rain. It came in the middle of the night--I'm not sure of the exact time as I try not to be too bogged down with keeping the time on vacations. I laid in my tent waiting for the drip on my head or through the sleeping bag and blankets but it never happened, thankfully. Thanks to Coleman and some waterproofing (ugly can with bright orange lid). The rain did get me to thinking that we really should always be ready for it. Next time for group camping I will make sure to bring shelter so we can escape from tents if necessary. It wasn't that bad though--this time.

Well, I promise it was fun but this slacker didn't even pull out her camera. Got to go fold up the now dry tent for storage until the next trip/

Saving Strong!

Well as many of my friends know I love to save money. And I love to share with people in learning how to save money. I do that in large part by shopping the sales and clipping my coupons. I had to apologize to Rennie on Friday night, because it had taken me so incredibly long to get my stuff together for my first real grocery trip in a month. Yes, when I went on my blogging hiatus, that was not the only thing that got put on the backburner. Fortunately, my cupboards were well stocked and we could coast through that month without too much trouble. This is also the reason that I really needed to be organized and get as much as possible to restock (we were completely out of cereal)...but back to the story at hand, my time spent in preparation was not in vain.

I walked out of Kroger with all of this:

And it only cost me $41.24!!!

Here's what I got:

5 Cocoa puffs
3 Total Cereal
2 Trix
3 Hellman's Light Mayo
2 Strabucks Frappuccino (total splurge but still cheaper than going to Starbucks)
2 Nature Valley Trail Mix Bars
2 Fiber One Cereal Bars
1 Lipton Tea
2 Breyers Ice Cream (such a small package these days, it's a shame)
1 Activia 4 pack
2 Mountain 2l
1 Pepsi 2l
1 Nature Valley Granola Snack Mix
2 Reynolds Baking Cups
1 Clabber Girl Baking Powder
1 loaf of multigrain bread
2 loaves sesame seed italian bread
1 demi loaf
1 4ct sesame seed bagels
1 Uncle Ben's Ready Rice (FREE)
2 Sargento String Cheese
2 6ct Klondike Bars
1 Smithfiels Bacon (FREE)

Total before sales & coupons was $135.96 for 70% savings. I was so excited and that doesn't even take into account the regular price on all that bread since it was marked down. Usually I bake my own sandwich bread, but I picked up a bunch of markdown breads since I needed italian bread for Sunday dinner. Whatever I don't use, I'll just chop up to throw in the freezer for stuffing mix.

I owe all of the awesome savings to these sources: Kroger Mega Sale, Sunday newspaper insert coupons, internet printable coupons, shortcuts.com, cellfire.com, Kroger direct mail coupons, hotcouponworld.com and Rennie (he would run to the other end of the store for me when I forgot something).

I'd love to hear what you were able to score. I'm also glad to help you learn to maximize your savings too, so let me know what you need help with and I'll do my best.

Hiatus from blogging...

Well, I was off to a good start with this blogging endeavor and then I had to put a lot of things on hold and get down to business on the 5th Annual White Elephant Gala. Whew! It has been such a busy month, but all the efforts paid off. Virginia Chapter ASID was able to bring in over $12,000 through the event. Half of that goes to the Richmond Metropolitan Habitat for Humanity. I am so proud of the crew that we had working to pull this together. What an incredible team! I hope to add some pics from the event, when I can get my hands on them.

Just in case you wondering what I picked up this year at the auction. I won a gift certificate to Keep Good Company (I'll show you what I got later once I get things up in the house), a four piece cordless tool set for my man (maybe he'll let me use it on occasion) and check out my new chair.

The chest you see in the background is from the 3rd Annual White Elephant when I got hooked on this event.

Tada!

Here is the foyer and....

here's the kitchen!

I LOVE IT! It finally feels like my kitchen. We still need a few things up on the walls but that's an easy fix. Enjoy the pictures. See the before kitchen in my previous post http://bowmanlot31.blogspot.com/2009/07/welcome-to-our-lot.html.

Everything All at Once

So I have yet to master the concept of changing just one thing at a time (that's probably why I find myself often overwhelmed)! Here are my recent changes and projects.

Painting the kitchen and foyer--in progress and should be on deadline for company arriving tomorrow after church.
Dealing with a few nagging excess pounds--due the current disarray in the kitchen I have not been as careful about what I've eaten the last 3 days and nor have we taken a walk once this week. We will have to recalibrate on Monday.
Starting a blog--I've wanted to do this for a long time! Why now when I should be at the grocery store or painting the kitchen and cleaning the house, I don't know.
Getting organized--I've written down a daily schedule with some basic for everyday. Also need to recalibrate on this one-since I've been mostly missing rather than hitting the target.

That's the update for today. Now seriously I've got some bargains to nab, painting to finish and cleaning to do! As usual I get no help from these two!

Crazy Project Timelines

I'm crazy, but my hubby still married me. He probably didn't realize what he was getting himself into though when he signed on for the job of 'til death do we part. Not my fault that he didn't require a full disclosure right? He saved some for me too, so I think that we're even. He said that I might have to get a new hubby when I decide to paint the kitchen cabinets, but I told him maybe my new hubby can just buy me new cabinets and that I was just trying to make the most of what I had and I wouldn't be doing that for a long time anyway.

There is nothing like having company as a motivator to make the next step on that project that is nagging to be finished! It's only been dropped in a pile in the corner of the room under the dust, cat hair and the mail that needs sorting for a few weeks or months as the case may be. (Side note we actually have been pretty good about the mail making it to it's designated location and sorting out the majority of the junk straight to the recylce pile--what a stress reliever.) The project at hand was/is to finish the painting from my inital move-in inspirations. Living room was the first one checked off the list and the guest bath followed shortly behind, but still needs some touch-up. We'll get to that eventually. After a few weeks off for camping and visiting with family we're back in the part-time paint business and the hallway got done quickly. We needed a good confidence builder and easy-to-get-back-into-project if you know what I mean. Back to the reality of peeling wallpaper, patching holes, sanding spackle, vaccuming dust and priming!!! We were up until the wee hours just to get the first coat of primer done and cleaned up. Can I say I love and hate oil based primers and paints. Good quality coverage and nasty messy cleanup. Thankfully Rennie took over the cleanup and I got to heat up some food. Why I didn't fix food before we started I don't know, bad call on my part.

So the timeline for kitchen and foyer painting project to be completed and not mention have a functional and clean kitchen for company on Sunday. Yes I said Sunday and today is Friday. My friends it is going to be a late night or couple of nights. Whatever it takes, I want it done. Wish us luck that we'll get it done, get a little bit of sleep and not be too cranky with each other in the process.