Hubs’ vehicle is in the shop getting fixed so he took my car to go to school last night so I was “carless” until he got home about 10:45, so I finally made it to Harris Teeter last night at 11:00 p.m. (right before their triple coupon sale ended) and RACKED UP!!!  Check out what all I got…

 

Transaction 1…

6 cans of Pillsbury Grand Jrs.

Total OOP = 3.99

BUT got a $4 off my next order coupon print out

 

Transaction 2… (I used the $4 off next order coupon I got above)

Kraft single cheese

Box of Kashi Cereal

Quart of International Delights French Vanilla Creamer

2 – boxes Barilla whole wheat spaghetti

2 – boxes country crock stick butter

3 – 16 oz containers Breakstone Sour Cream

2 – packs of Oscar Meyer Turkey Bacon

Total OOP = .75

 

Transaction 3… (I had a $5 off $40 order coupon I got in the mail)

Martha White Muffin Mix

Joy Dish Detergent

Gallon of milk

Quart of International Delights French Vanilla Creamer

½ Gallon of Silk Soy Milk

Package of Oscar Meyer Turkey Bacon

2 – 1 lb bags of Rold Gold Pretzels

3 – packs Chinet Coffee To go cups (the nice ones with the lids)

2 – envelopes Ortega Taco Seasoning

4 – envelopes Ortega Fajita Seasoning

3 – bags of Texas Toast Croutons

2 – packs of Tuna

9 – packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts

2 – bags of Dole frozen fruit

2 – boxes country crock stick butter

Total OOP = $31.61

 

Total OOP = $36.35

Total Saved = $146.22

Should have cost = $182.57

Savings of 80%!!!

 

Yes, this may be a bunch of random stuff but with the savings it was worth it.  So we have enough butter to last for a long time (four boxes of the country crock sticks) but I got them for free so that saves me money in the long run.  They were buy one get one free at $1.39 with a .55 coupon that multiplied, so I bought four and used two coupons and got all four for nothing.  You have to stock up on weeks like this and if you shop your other weeks and stock up then too you end up with a pantry full of food and plenty of things to choose from for meals.  You just have to stock up each week with all the free and cheap stuff that you can and then shop from your pantry for your menu!

 

Thank You Hubs

Here is a huge thank you to my hubs for making me a Harris Teeter snob! Yes, I am admitting it and at the same time placing blame.
I used to be anti-HT with excuses that they were to expensive to shop there. I used to say that my usual shopping place that advertises everyday low prices was cheaper but I have been proven wrong. Now that I have fully embraced the joy of coupon shopping I see the error of my ways. So my apologies and thanks to my hubs for showing me the error of my ways.
Granted I haven't made it there yet this week to cash in on the triple coupon special but you can bet I will be there tomorrow evening coupon book and sale list in hand to stock up on yet even more food and supplies.
Also my apologies for any misspellings as I wrote this from my BB and have fat fingers!
Have a great night everyone. I'm about to crawl into bed and sleep away the night in the most comfortable bed ever. Remind me to tell you how we got it at a greatly reduced price one day (makes it even more comfy)!!

Thought of the Day

When people treat others like crap its usually a reflection of how they feel about themselves!  Smile anyways… you never know what someone is going through.  You could be the only smiling face they’ve seen in a long time.  It’s harder to take the high road but nobody ever said doing the right thing would be easy.  But Karma’s a bitch so CYA!!!

Momentum Gaining Monday

Today is the typical Monday.  I woke up late because (1) I didn’t want to get up and (2) I took a trip with the girls this weekend that required a LOT of driving by myself with both girls.  They did very well though considering I had them up at 5:00 am on Friday and Sunday!

Well, today is typical… I woke up late and am at work and not really “feeling it.”  I have a busy week planned including going through five weeks of coupons and sorting them into my binder this weekend since Harris Teeter has triple coupons and the last day is tomorrow and I’ve yet to go grocery shopping since it started.  I can’t believe I let myself fall that far behind, but life is busy!

After visiting with my girlfriend over the weekend and seeing her unfruitful plight at post baby weight loss it has really thrown me back into the “I gotta lose weight” mindset again.  I have to get down to where I want to be.  Not to mention I bought this super cute bathing suit in South Beach Miami last August that I really want to look cute in, but who wants a drop dead gorgeous husband and not be able to say the same about yourself.  People probably look at us and are like “what is he doing with her?” and I don’t want that anymore.  Yes, I lost a lot of weight after I had Peezy but honestly, I have a lot more to go so I have now dedicated myself back to it.  I want to be my hubs’ equal this summer and look smokin’ hot for him J  I want him to not even want to look at other women because his wife is so hot LOL!  How funny is that for me to even be thinking that!

I can do it and I will do it.  Not to mention one of my girlfriends is joining the gym I work out at so now I have a workout buddy too.  I can’t wait to be able to workout and BS all at the same time.  Will make the time fly by faster and make it a lot more fun than doing it by myself. 

So… here’s to my gaining momentum on my weight loss battle and I will do it.  Will you hold me accountable?  I didn’t weigh myself this morning because honestly I was scared to after eating what I did on our trip this weekend.  I will weigh myself Wednesday to get a better grasp of where I am. Also, I am going to be diving back in head first into using sparkpeople.com.  They are a wonderful website to aid in weight loss and help hold you accountable.  You should try it.  I know I am!

not good at this

OK so I've come to the realization that I can't keep up with a "money savinf," "frugal" blog. I'm just going to have to get over it and post what I know about day in and day out... My life.

My life is great. I love it. I don't like letting little things pass me by and I haven't been great at it lately but what do you expect with my life? Full time work, school, mom and wife. I'm busy but I love it.

Time to switch gears. Welcome to my life!!!

Saving on Other "Others"

Now, where else did I save money?  I started on my other “Others”… eating out, shopping, Christmas, etc. (Yes, I really did list Christmas in there!)

 

I spoke with one of my girlfriends who lives diligently by her budget and they manage very well on their salaries and I was curious about how she did it.  I did so with the disclaimer that she didn’t have to tell me anything because it is quite a personal subject, but she divulged without divulging everything and what an eye opener!!  I will start with saying that I’ve heard through the grape vine that she was very controlling about their money but honestly, I don’t see it.  They have everything they need and are able to have extra money, they don’t freak out when something goes wrong and an extra expense pops up and I was very envious.  How did she do this?

 

Her answer was very simple… the envelope system.  Now I had heard about this envelope system from various websites but didn’t really think much of it but with the days of credit cards, debit cards and checking accounts why would anyone want to take their money out of their account and just let it sit there in envelopes at home?  BUT she said that it works for them.  Her hubs gets paid once a month so on that day she goes to the bank and withdraws cash (she even tells them what denomination she wants the money in) and takes this home and puts in her envelopes.

 

Her envelopes are things that she can control…

Groceries

Birthdays

Eating out

Christmas

His Allowance

Her Allowance

 

Granted, those are only a few of them, but just taking control of a few things allows you to have better grasp of everything as a whole.  If you only saved in four areas of your budget how much could you save?  Think about it… I was spending a hellacious amount on groceries and just that one area is Bug’s day care for the entire year!  That’s a huge difference.  We spend too much on eating out, especially the hubs and I for lunch, but we’re about to get that back into “check” here very shortly and go back to our weekly allowance. 

 

We did attempt to budget our Christmas last year and it worked out wonderfully.  We had gone away to South Beach Miami for my birthday last summer and on the way back (since he couldn’t run away from me on the airplane) I approached the idea of budgeting Christmas.  We listed everyone we had to buy for and how much we would spend on them.  We divided the total by the number of pay days between “here” and the end of November and that’s how much we took out in cash each week and put in our Christmas budget.  This was a huge sanity saver last year.  As I found things that people would like (especially the girls) that were on clearance I went ahead and bought them.  Not to mention that it didn’t hit us all at one time!  That was nice.  We will be doing it again this year and I need to go ahead and start on that.

 

Allowance is definitely the way to go.  Hubs and I were (and are about to implement again) an allowance of $20 each per week.  This was great.  I took it out in cash each week so we wouldn’t be tempted to try and keep to the $20 while using our cards.  This is for everything that isn’t included in the budget… a coke from the gas station, eating out for lunch, tobacco products, if I want a book from the store, magazines, new shirt, and just anything that’s not from the house pretty much.  We do buy clothes every now and again but normally when we find something on a good sale, but because we save everywhere else it’s not a big deal.

 

Eating out… my friend would take out $20 per month to eat out (they only had an infant child at that time so that budget wouldn’t work for my family of four) but this forced them to be creative!  Finding the specials, using coupons, ordering take out instead of eating there so they didn’t have to pay $1.50 for each tea/soft drink or tip for the server and things like that.  I implemented this in a way that would work for me.  We took out $10 per week and when we had enough to eat where we wanted then we would use it.  I also had coupons for a tons of places and searched for deals online before going.  Sometimes we would also throw our allowances together to be able to eat out somewhere we really wanted.  it worked well. 

 

Birthdays… my friend and her hubs sat down and wrote a list of everyone they needed to buy birthday presents for and the amount to spend on each.  They took this out each month and tried to think of ahead.  Example… after mother’s and father’s day a ton of stuff goes on sale and this is when they go out and buy some of the birthday presents for people that are coming up.  She also bought Christmas stuff at this time with money from their Christmas fund.  This allowed them to come in under budget in both areas and left them with a surplus that they then spent on a mini vacation for themselves. 

 

See… being frugal, saving money, being smart does pay off.  The smarter you try and plan things the better the work in the long run.  My friends had money left over and therefore didn’t feel the least bit guilty on spending that on themselves because every other area is taken care of. 

 

Next… see my list on ways to save in other ways.  You may call this my “Other OTHERS List”

Budget (part 2 of ??)

 Now for “place to save #1”… groceries!

 

I used to go to the grocery store, most times without a list or menu, and just buy whatever I saw.  I would buy stuff on sale, buy according to my taste at the moment, hopefully remembering all the things that we actually needed and try to make the best purchase from the shelf and/or advertised price.  I didn’t shop the ads, I didn’t use coupons… I just went and spent.  most times I would shop our local “super” store (I use that term VERY loosely) and wind up spending about $150-$200 per week.  Normally I would spend on the higher side of the scale.

 

Then reality struck!  I lost my job, our income was divided by half.  We had a new baby, one in day care, a house and all the bills that entails, two cars and wow… I was overwhelmed.  Where could I cut costs?  What could I do to make things last longer?  Where could I find cheaper alternatives?  Where could I find solutions that would work for us and make a noticeable difference in our “bottom line”?  I started reading blogs.  I read as much as I could and took it all in.  Since I wasn’t working I was able to jump in with both feet, head first and take it all on!

 

I didn’t want to spend the extra money on a coupon book (saving everywhere I could) so I used a plastic shoe box filled with envelopes.  I tore the flaps off the envelopes and wrote on the front of the envelope which category it held.  This was great as the options were limitless.  I could add different categories as I went without disrupting the system I was using.  Example… I had “cleaning products” as one of my categories… this section got huge so I divided it into subsections of the cleaning category:  bathroom, floors, laundry, kits (meaning the cleaning kit stuff like Swiffer), “Smelly Stuff” (like glade and airwick air freshener).  the possibilities went on and on. 

 

It was great and worked very well for me.  I put a blank envelope in the front of the box and this is where I put the coupons I was using that trip as I went along on my shopping.  I also kept a pen in there for marking off my list and an envelope in the back where I stored my receipts so I could track my spending and savings.  I had different envelopes for various stores with a list of what to get from that store.  I had one for Walgreens where I would print out the match ups from someone else’s blog (let them do the work) and then wrote down what I was getting and paper clipped the coupon to the list to make it easier.  If I was doing more than one transaction per trip I would make multiple lists and clip the coupons to that specific list.

 

OK, now on to how I started with the grocery shopping… Like I said I dove in head first, both feet, yadda yadda yadda.  I didn’t even set a budget and just tried to see how much I could save regardless of how much I was spending.  I saved a ton, but I also spent more than I should have.  I should have set a budget.  After doing this for a month I realized that I really wasn’t saving that much money because I didn’t have a budget.  So, after much debate with myself I set my budget at $40 per week for groceries, cleaning products, laundry stuff, etc.  This was going to be a challenge!  Was I up for it??

 

YES I WAS!!  OK, how am I going to do this was my biggest concern, but considering I had a ton of time on my hands I decided that I would have to do it.  I would make myself do it.  I figured we would barely be scraping by, eating tasteless stuff for dinner and just figured it would be impossible especially with me and the girls always being home for every meal.  Well, I was pleasantly surprised.  I planned our dinners out for the week and made sure we had stuff on hand for breakfast and lunches (leftovers too) and did quite well.  We ate very well and I started to cook a bunch of stuff instead of buying conveniently packaged stuff like granola bars!

 

So, let’s look at what I was spending versus my new budget… I was spending, let’s average it at $180 per week and now I budgeted to $40, so that’s a savings of $140 per week… which comes out to $606.66 per month!  Could you imagine had I been doing this for the year prior to being “forced” to do coupon shopping.  That would have been a savings of $7,280.00!  Now, you can’t tell me that’s not worth clipping coupons each week. 

 

Next, other “others”!!

 

 

Budget (part 1 of ??)

I am no "guru" of budgeting and I don't hold any form of degree in finance or accounting, but I am realistic; which I do believe is one of the first and foremost ways you need to think when starting to budget your money. Here is my disclaimer: I am writing what works for our household and that's it. It is not an all inclusive perfect way to budgeting or managing bills. Take from it what you think will work for you or implement in your house. Or take nothing, just read!

OK... realistic... let's start at where you are. Get out a piece of paper and write each monthly bill or expense in each category below.

Fixed Household Expenses (mortgage/rent, cars, insurance, etc.)

Variable Household Expenses (average bill + $10 for utilities, cable, cell phones, etc.)

Credit Cards (list your credit card balance, minimum monthly payment and interest rate)

Other Fixed Expenses (dance class, day care, etc.)

Other Variable Expense (list what you spend now prior to budgeting for gas, groceries, etc.)

Income (list all sources of income - yours, spouse, social security, child support, etc.)

Other... list about how much you spend each month on eating out, shopping for clothes (even if you already have a closet full) and other spending that is not a necessity.

Now that you have all those figures down you need to add up all of your expenses and subtract that from your income. Are you living within your means?? Most people will be surprised by one of two things... either they should have a LOT of money in the bank and are way overspending on things they can't account for or they are living way beyond their means and don't know how they got there.

Now that you have all those figures down and you have determined whether or not you are living within your means think about how you can improve this and put more money in savings. I started with the Other and Other Variable Expense list. Normally this list will include all kinds of things where you CAN control your spending!

The first place I started was my groceries!

Come back and see how I started saving on groceries and how much I saved! It will astound you!!!

More on Me

Since I am coming back to blogging again I figured I would post again about me. Granted, you could go back and see all about me from many moons ago but so much has changed and so much is the same.

I am a mom of two beautiful girls that are growing more and more each day! My 4 year old, "Bug," is my froo froo girly girl and drama queen. Meanwhile the little one hubs calls "Weeny Girl" but she is far from being a "weeny!" She is my brute and is going to be a force to be reckoned with. They are night and day! Bug is a brunette, Weeny a blonde. Bug is quiet and shy and Weeny has never met a stranger and has an attitude like no other (hopefully with age we can calm it down). However, both are short like their mama!

Now we have Hubs! He is the best in the world!! He is caring, affectionate and like no other. He helps with any and everything and is an adoring father. He works hard and is completing school right now too. He is a police officer close to our home and loves his job! On his days off you can find him and the girls at one of three places... Chick Fil A, the gym or helping around the house. Like I said, he's great (probably an understatement)!

Finally you have me, mom. I work full time and have a full time course load at school too. Luckily this semester all of my classes are online. I've just started back to school after many failed attempts before, but this time I'm giving it all I've got and am doing quite well. Most nights I don't get to bed til after 11:00 but it will be worth it in the end. Short term sacrifice for long term pay off.

Also, I love my coupons. I am a frugal shopper and have revamped this part of my life in the past year. I began using coupons after I had Weeny in Summer 2008. I was working as a temp and my six week maternity leave was unpaid. Tragic, but oh well. After I went back to work I was there for two weeks and was "let go." Because I was a temp there was no unemployment benefits. I did everything I could to save money which is why/when I learned the power and wonderfulness of coupons.

I live by a budget for groceries. Not all other aspects of our money can we control but this one I can. Could you imagine budgeting $100 for your power bill that month and then getting the bill in the mail for $132. They would laugh at me if I called and said "sorry, I only budgeted $100 for power this month so that's all I'm paying." My power would get turned off! So, I control what I can and that would be my grocery budget. (More on my budget and how I manage later)

I try to be everything to my family in hopes that I can nake it better. I focus on making sure it runs smooth, everything gets done and we don't run out of clean underwear. Sometimes the floor may not get scrubbed right when it needs it but sometimes there are more important things that need to get done. But for the most part the house is clean, the kids are scrubbed and all are fed.

I hope you enjoy my blog as I'm pretty new to this. Before I wrote about all the deals out there and tried to keep up with them all but in all honesty there are other blogs that do it and do it better so I'll leave that to them while I write about my life and how I manage to be everything to everyone!

(I apologize for any misspellings as I'm writing this from my BB while Bug is enjoying a "princess tea party" at the local rec center. Told you she was a froo froo girly girl!!)

Cleaning

While there is always something that needs to be cleaned I try to get mine done every Saturday morning. I let the girls run around in their jammies and play while I try and get everything done. Here are my time/money savers for cleaning.

1. Make a sink full of Lysol with water mix to wipe everything down.
2. Use pillow cases to clean off fan blades.
3. Don't do the floors until the kids are taking naps (or contained elsewhere).
4. Start laundry before you start anything else.
5. Put on some music... makes it more fun (if there is such a thing)
6. In the kitchen, clean the microwave first (put a bowl of water in there for two minutes, this will get everything loose and make it quick).
7. Use your broom on the baseboards to get the dust off.

These are just a few that I do and it helps with time and getting everything done. The cleaner you keep everything the less time it will take because you won't have to scrub it all down!

Last night was "whew!"

 Wow!  Was last night ever busy!  I have made it a point to get back to the gym for me, for multiple reasons.  I remember I used to like it!  Yes, I liked exercise because it made me feel good about myself.  I used to love that sore feeling over the next two days because I felt like I did something and was making progress.  Not to mention it made losing weight much easier because I didn’t feel as guilty if I splurged when we went out to dinner.  Then, my attitude… yes, working out affected my attitude!  I was much happier, had more energy and when the end of the day came I slept better and who isn’t in a good mood after a good night’s sleep?

 

SO… to last night… wow!  Hubs and I decided yesterday while at work that we would go to the gym after work.  I got off at 5:00 p.m. and picked up both girls (from different places).  Then, got home and started doing what I could to make dinner easier… thawed out chicken that I’d already cooked, made sure the already dirty dishes were put in the washer, fed the dog, let him out, made the girls keep their shoes on after a few minutes of whining.  Then, hubs got home about 6:15 so upstairs we went to change into our workout best.  We loaded the girls up and headed out.  We went to the gym and I told him before getting there we had to leave by 7:15 to make it home to feed the girls, baths, and get them to bed.  I’m on the treadmill reading my law homework and after that’s done I head on to the weights and apparatus to work on my abs (Yes, they need the most work).  We leave the gym and get home.  I start their dinner and ours (different things because we wanted buffalo chicken wraps).  Hubs took a shower while I got everything prepared.  We all ate and then upstairs to get the girls bathed and to bed.  Once that was done I started in on my homework while my extremely tired hubs headed to bed to watch some TV and go to sleep.  About 11:15 I finish my homework, take a shower and finally get into bed.  It was a very long, tiring day and I’m feeling it today!

 

Hubs is off today and is taking the “baby” (20 months) to her pre-op appointment.  She is having surgery Monday to get tubes put in her ears (perpetual ear infections since before Christmas) and her adenoids out.  I’m hoping this makes a big difference in how she feels.  Poor thing has been miserable, not sleeping well, no naps and not eating.  I’m hoping that after this she will be a much happier child!

 

How was your day?  Any busy-ness going on?  How do you cope with an extremely busy/tight schedule?

Wow... when the bottom falls out

To My Dear Friend…

 

It sucks when the bottom feels like it has fallen out.  I’ve had that feeling multiple times before and it never feels any better than the last time.  Nothing you ever get used to.  Somehow being “mom” you learn how to keep it together in front of those that matter… the kids.  Yes, right now it sucks and its hard but you can and will get through this.  You may have to change a few things so you can cut corners from what already seems like a circle, but it can be done.  There are a few options that you might want to look into.  These are things that I did after I was laid off after taking a six week unpaid maternity leave and there didn’t seem to be any jobs in sight…

 

1.    Cut the cable off… it’s not a necessity.  You can always set up to order movies through Net Flix and get them delivered to the house.  If you choose the two movie option it’s about $15 per month and every day you can have a new movie.  Sign up to get the red box codes text to you so you can get one free per month from there too.

2.    This is when I started clipping coupons and stuck to my weekly budget.  I mean I REALLY stuck to it.  Sorry, some things are necessities while others are just wants and you have to decide which you need more.  You may have to switch brands of some things if they are things you must have now and wait for your normal brand to go on sale.  Like laundry detergent… right now Purex is buy one get one free at Walgreens and there was a buy one get one free coupon in the paper so you can get two and both are free.  However, the register (or cashier) may not let you so the store manager said to buy three… their sale will let you have one free and so will the coupon so you get three for the price of 1, so $5.99 for three… that’s a steal.  Better to have three times more clean clothes than a $10 bottle of detergent.  That just saved you $24 and will last a few weeks.  $24 can get you pretty far with coupons and sales… Harris Teeter is supposed to have triples coming up in the next few weeks so get two papers each week.  Talk to people at work and see who doesn’t use their coupons and ask them to bring them in for you or bring in the ones they don’t want.  The more the better.  You have to save all you can.  Every little bit helps.  It really does.

3.    This is when I started cooking all the time so it stopped me from buying convenience foods and eating out (even fast food adds up quick).  I know it’s not your favorite thing to do but you have to do all you can to save.  Money is a huge stressor so the more money there the less stress so get in the kitchen and cook.  You can buy a big thing of oats and make your own granola bars much cheaper than buying them. 

4.    Make your menu plan every weekend.  Sit down on Friday nights and write it all down.  Try to make the entire week’s meals out of what you already have in the house.  If you don’t have enough in the house then you sit down with what you have and the sales papers (print out the coupon match ups for the stores around you) and see what you can’t get on sale, with coupons and then make your menu from that.  Make your grocery list and hit the store Saturday morning.  Come home and precook some of the stuff so you will be less stressed in the evening or possibly Hubs could do dinner while you’re at school (no eating out).  To start with you will need to use your entire weekly budget each week to start stocking up on stuff.  This will allow you to completely skip weeks of grocery shopping in the future (I went a month!).  Always use the money you’re not using towards that week’s menu towards any meats that are on sale first.  The more meat you have on hand the more meals you can make.  Make your menu “smart”.  Meaning if you cook one night make enough so that it will last you for two.  Like if you’re making baked chicken on night… make some extra ones and then you can make chicken with pasta the next night without it taking so much time and effort!

5.    Take one night a week and have a meatless meal.  Pasta is always a good filler for any meal and can be a meal by itself.  This was not my Hubs’ favorite and probably won’t be for yours either but I could make a meal for all of us extremely cheap without meat when I was just starting to stock up.  A big pot of beans with some corn bread is good too.  Vegetable soup, Mexican casserole with refried beans, and stuff like that.  It doesn’t have to be tasteless!

6.    Make the most of your leftovers!!! If you make enough during the week you can have one night that is left over night.  I have even made pizzas with leftover meats, add a few veggies and there you go… a whole new meal using leftovers!  If you have leftovers that are about to go bad… freeze them.  We never finish off a pot of chili so I take the extra and freeze it.  I’ve grabbed it on the way to work before to eat for lunch that way I’m eating leftovers but haven’t actually eaten it in two weeks.  Or I’ve recycled leftover chili into using it on baked potatoes (yum). 

7.    Don’t forget to pack your lunch.  Don’t spend anything on food if you can take some with you from the night before.  Also curbs wasting it!

8.    Ask your boss about overtime.  Yes, some companies are horrible when it comes to the added expense, but if you explain that you need it to get your job done like it should be done because since the changeover to SAP things were erratic, or come up with something that needs to be caught up or possibly something that everyone just never gets around to but it needs to be done.  Propose the idea.  The worse thing is that you are told no and you are in the same spot you are now.

9.    Time seems of shorter supply than money sometimes and this is so true especially now being in school as well, but you are going to have to plan wisely in order to get things done without incurring extra costs.  Like paying our power bill… online it costs $4.95 to pay online but I could mail a check for nothing.  You may need to open a checking account and only put money in there that you are going to pay bills with.  There are multiple banks right now offering $50 account credit for opening up a checking account.  That’s an extra $50 in your pocket!  I know SunTrust is doing it.

10.  Look for ways to earn money that won’t “kill” you.  Post things to Craig’s list, advertise to baby sit for a mother who works 3^rd shift or weekends, check on Craig’s list for side jobs.  Sometimes people who are hosting a big event will look for people who can come and work just that night.  These would be cash only jobs… they won’t have your SS# or anything.  I know not what you want to hear because already time is short, but it’s just a few hours and can mean groceries and gas! 

 

Everything will work out… they always do but sometimes they just take more effort than normal!

 

With Love,

Me

 

Today's Tip

 OK, I am going to try and start off small here and commit to a tip of the day to save money on things we all love and enjoy.  Today we have tip #1 which is hardly a secret but something that we overlook in the haste of our everyday life.  Sometimes this is something we skip as some of us (me included) find it hard to spend money on myself for indulgences and this I would consider an indulgence, but I have realized that I have to take a time out for myself now and again and I think this might be it!

 

Who doesn’t love a pedicure, manicure, facial or something that makes us feel wonderful and relaxed?  I know I do!!!  While I was logging onto my school website last night the main page has this thing that changes from one thing to another with advertising different curriculums and lo and behold one ran across the screen for cosmetology and esthetics and that they are taking appointments.  OK… this piqued my interest so I (not so) patiently waited on the other ads to roll around for this one to come back so I could click on it and check it out.

 

I was extremely surprised and am happy to announce that I can get a manicure for $5 and a pedicure for $12!!  I can get both for $17 and then if I actually go and get my school ID I can get 10% off, so that would bring the total down to $15.30.  I am so excited about this.  I can get in a little mommy indulgence for less than $20 and probably some great conversation being they are students. 

 

So… today’s tip… for little indulgences that you like try to find a school that’s local that teaches what you love.  We also have one by my work that teaches massage therapy stuff (not really sure exactly what it’s called) but you can get a discount and not feel as bad about spending that money that you normally wouldn’t but need a mommy time out!

 

OK, so really two tips… you need to take a mommy time out every now and again and find places that teach what you like to indulge in so you don’t feel bad about indulging!

School

As I said… I’m in school.  One of my biggest goals in my life is to obtain a degree.  Granted I should have done this years ago before having kids, getting married, and all that but I have never been known to take the easy route for anything.  I have finally decided to go back to school.  I guess one of the things that has always been holding me back is that I don’t know what I want to do “when I grow up”.  I still don’t really know but I think it’s smarter to have something than nothing.

 

I am starting on my associate’s degree through the local community college.  I chose Business Administration because it touches on a little of everything so after I’m done with that I should know what I would like to get my Bachelor’s in.  Also, it doesn’t hurt that the majority of the classes are available online either!

 

I’ve taken on a lot right now, but it has to get done.  I want to set a great example for my girls and this is one of them.  You need an education in order to make it further, make more money to better support yourself and just feel good that you did it.  

 

This semester I am taking four classes…

Business Law

Business Math

Introduction to Business

General Psychology

 

I do anything school related during breaks at work and lunch.  At home I don’t do anything until after the girls are in bed or napping on the weekends.  It’s all about balance.  So far nothing has fell but I’m sure something will wobble eventually.  Everything is getting done in due time.  Granted, the laundry may pile a bit higher during the week than what it used to but we all have clean underwear!

 

Everything is possible if you put your mind to it.  Plan it out.  Write it down.  Stick to it.  You can do it.

Where have I been?

Well, I’ve been missing lately, but now I am going to make a concentrated effort on coming back.  I will try to share all the deals that I find and come across but honestly… I’m slammed!

 

I work full time, am also a full time student, two young daughters, a husband, house to take care of and everything else.  I have been slammed.  Some of my bargain hunting and shopping has been limited to my weekly grocery shopping.  I have decided a few things about my blog and my life…

 

1.    I would like to inspire women that are slammed with everything to join the ride with me and see that it is possible to do everything you want to do.

2.    In the midst of the busy life I need to make time for me… I need to be healthy and happy too (plus lose more weight!)!

3.    My grocery budget has changed a bit but only because of my lack of time that I can dedicate towards shopping.

4.    I am trying to stay organized so anything that I do to help me, I will share with you.

 

I just want to help someone to realize they are not alone… we are all everything to everyone and strive to do it as best as we can.  It is do-able!!!  I have so much on me but I don’t feel stressed from it.  Granted, there are stressful moments, but no long term stress from it all. 

 

I do believe that I posted my resolutions for this year, but they are going to be revised as well.  Stay tuned to my next post which will be coming extremely soon… I promise!  It is smart to be frugal but better to be smart… so I guess that will be my new “tune” that I will sing!