A Big Little Bundle of Love!

We could not possibly be more excited than we are to welcome Uncle Bryan and Aunt Janie's little girl ...

Kathryn Ruth

Born June 21, 2011 at 9:22 a.m.

10 lbs. 4 oz.
22 in.

Behold, children are a gift of the Lord.
Psalm 127:3

Praising the Lord for this newest gift.

Our hearts are bursting with love for you little Kate!

Happy Fathers' Day!

Happy Fathers' Day

to
our Daddy,
our Grandpas,
and our Great Grandpas!

We love you, and are so thankful for each one of you!
(And many thanks to Grandma H. for the matching shirts!)

This Moment ~ Vroom!

Matthew discovered remote controlled cars this week ...

And was quite captivated. :o)

Thrifty Thursdays ~ Planning to Save

Saving money at the grocery store takes some planning. (And honestly, the planning is MUCH more important than the coupons.)

1. Plan your menu for the week (or two weeks ... or however long you go between shopping trips.)


2. Identify the ingredients you need to serve the meals you've planned. (Don't forget about breakfast, lunch, and snacks as well.)


3. Check your cupboards to see what you already have in stock.


4. Make a list of the ingredients you need to purchase. (It'll be easier if you at least roughly sort it by section of the store.)


5. Buy the ingredients on your list, your whole list, and nothing but your list at the store that has the lowest prices across the board (... for me, that's Aldi).

If you have not been doing these things already, they are the first steps to reducing your grocery budget.

Once you have those down, start checking the weekly sales at one grocery store. My favorite store is Publix. Why? They're coupon friendly, run great sales, keep the store impeccably clean, and have incredible customer service. Their motto is "Love to Shop Here, Love to Save Here" and they've managed to make it true! We have two other stores in the area, but one is not coupon friendly and the other does not seem particularly clean, and neither of them can touch Publix's customer service, so I generally just stear clear (unless they're selling chicken for $2/lb or something like that.)

SouthernSavers.com is an incredible resource for those in the southeast. Each week she matches store sales with the coupons currently available (including links for printable coupons) and posts a list of the "best price" deals at each store. You can click on the products you want to buy and print a shopping list. It's great! (And easy!) Pull the coupons you need from your organized collection based on the list you printed, put them in an envelope or something else small, and head to the store.

When I see products in the Publix sales flier for less than I would spend at Aldi for the comparable product, I plan to buy as many as we'll use in about 2 months. By doing this, my pantry is well stocked with the ingredients I need to feed my family our standard recipes (i.e. pasta, rice, spaghetti/alfredo sauce, baking supplies, canned tomatoes, canned/frozen veggies, chicken, mayonnaise, peanut butter, olive oil, salad dressings, cereal, M&Ms, etc.) On a weekly basis, I generally buy dairy products, produce, a very few recipe-specific ingredients, and then whatever items happen to be at stock-up price. (Among other things, this week I stocked up on olive oil and spaghetti sauce, last week it was cereal--both weeks I spent about the same amount for produce and pantry items at Publix.)

One final word about Aldi vs. Publix. Aldi's prices are generally about 40-60% less than Publix's prices for comparable products. Which means that if Publix is running a B1G1 sale, it will probably be about the same as Aldi's price on the comparable item. When you add a coupon on top of the sale, it's almost always cheaper than Aldi. So, I buy produce and shop the sales at Publix (along with buying whatever ingredients Aldi doesn't carry.) But shopping at Aldi is already about equivalent to saving 40-60% on my Publix grocery bill.

So, collect your coupons and keep them organized, but planning and shopping at frugal stores in the first place will take you a long way to cutting the grocery bill.

How have you saved money on groceries?

An Excellent Use for Milk Chocolate

In my opinion, it doesn't take much willpower to leave Hershey's milk chocolate bars on the shelf.

However, melted into a smore? Now that's another matter entirely!

Mmmmm!

I do enjoy smores! :o)

(And I'm glad my munchkins and hubby do, too!)

This Moment ~ Stories & Snuggles

We all enjoyed extra snuggles with Matthew this last weekend as he was a bit under the weather ...

Snuggles are nice. :o)

Thirfty Thursdays ~ Collecting Coupons

Once you have a means of organizing your coupons, it's time to start collecting them.

Where do I get coupons?

#1 - the Sunday newspaper

We're able to have the paper delivered to our home for $1 a week. I'm definitely saving enough on my grocery budget to cover that. :o) That's the only copy I buy though. I have a friend at church and a couple friends in Chris' office who will often give me their coupon fliers after they clip the few coupons they're interested in. (Thank you, friends!) And our town delivers a Wednesday paper for free. There will often be at least one coupon flier in there as well. So, some weeks I end up with five copies of the coupon fliers ... and some weeks I have just one. I don't worry about it too much. I have more than enough clipping to do without going out and intentionally buying more copies of the paper.

#2 - the Internet

For a while I was printing LOTS of Internet coupons ... not so much now. I was seeing far too many expired coupons printed with my ink on my paper leaving my black box each month. Now, for the most part, I'm only printing Internet coupons for items I intend to purchase at the store that week. (I find most of my Internet coupons through links at SouthernSavers.com, but more about that next week ...) I try to make very few exceptions to that because I invariably end up throwing them away ... and wasting our resources in the process.

#3 - the grocery store

Publix keeps a stash of store coupons behind the service desk. I simply ask for a copy of what they have available as I leave so that I can have them for next week's shopping trip.

When do I clip coupons?

I realize this won't work for everyone for various and sundry reasons, but I generally clip coupons as we're driving to and from church. We have a 20-minute drive and are often listening to audio stories with the kids, so I clip coupons. I simply bring a good pair of scissors, a grocery bag for the waste, and a small basket for the clipped coupons and wa-la! Portable clipping at it's best. As I get coupon fliers throughout the week, I slide the fliers into a folder on my desk, so they're not cluttering things up, but are quick to grab as I'm scurrying out the door. Clipping coupons is definitely something you can multi-task with though, so find a time when you can do double-duty.

Which coupons do I clip?

I clip coupons for ...

1. Products/brands I would buy even if I didn't have a coupon (i.e. Mahatma brown rice, Bisquick, Crest toothpaste, etc.)
   These are my few exceptions to my personal Internet printing policy--if my stock is low, I'll print these anytime I stumble across them.


2. Products/brands I would buy if there was a good deal (i.e. Breyers Ice cream, name brand cereals, spaghetti sauces, frozen veggies, salad dressings, mayo, etc.)
   My definition of a good deal: Sale + coupon < Aldi's price for the comparable product

I do NOT clip coupons for products that I wouldn't use even if they gave them to me for free (i.e. sugar cereals, artificially flavored or colored anything, etc.)

For personal hygiene products, we're a bit brand loyal on deodorant, so I only clip the coupons for those brands. However, I'll take whatever body wash they want to run a good deal on, so I generally clip all body wash coupons, regardless of brand.

When do I sort my coupons?

For what it's worth, I do NOT try to organize my coupons in the van. For me, it's a 5-minute job that's very easy with a large table in front of me. It's just not worth the hassle to try to do it on my lap in a moving vehicle.

Once all my coupons are clipped, I simply start at the top of the stack and go to the bottom one-by-one, putting the coupons in piles according to the categories in my black box. If it's a week with multiple fliers and a wide variety of coupons, my piles will cover most of the table. Once all of the coupons are in categorized piles, I simply slide the piles into the appropriate folders in my box. This is a very quick process for me--I know my categories really well and I know exactly where I want each coupon. It took me a bit longer at the beginning.

And that's about it. Start small ... buy one Sunday paper, and clip coupons for products you're already buying. Sort them and file them. Next week we'll talk about using them effectively.

Feel free to ask questions in the comments here, on Facebook, in person, by email ...

The Big Shovel

Peter's been faithfully continuing his efforts to dig out the oil tank ...

(My laundry basket has born ample testimony to that fact!)

However, this Saturday, while Mommy and Hannah went to the Ladies' Brunch, Daddy decided it was time to bring in the big shovel while Matthew napped.

Before:

After:

A John Deere can move a lot of dirt. Quite quickly.

And Peter had a blast seeing his project completed with Daddy's help.

And one of those big piles of dirt we got over New Year's is now significantly smaller.

The John Deere helped with that, too. (Thanks, Grandpa!)

On the Move!

Matthew is quite pleased with the new addition to the living room furniture ...

Definitely beats using the kitchen stool.

:o)

This Moment ~ Puppets ...

make Matthew laugh :o)

I love your laugh, Monkey!!

Thirfty Thursdays ~ Keeping Coupons

Since most of the questions directed my way have concerned couponing, I'm starting Thrifty Thursdays with a simple series on couponing. This is not going to be a comprehensive evaluation of every method out there. This is going to be "The Jenny Version" of couponing. :o) It's what works for me. And you're probably going to need to tweak it if it's going to work for you--because you're not me. :o)

So here we go. If you're going to coupon, you're going to need a means of keeping those valuable pieces of paper organized and accessible. (The day coupons go digital will be a blessed day!) You can start small, but if you get serious about couponing, you're probably going to graduate to something larger.

I originally tried the photo album/baseball sleeve method. It did not work for me. It took too long to put the coupons in the slots, I had blank spaces when I pulled expired coupons, and it was expensive to buy more holders as I grew my coupon stash. Enough said. Based on articles I've read, some people love it, so it might work for you. (In fact, I think that's the method Jenny at SouthernSavers.com uses.)

What does work for me is my black box.
I can put all the categories I want for my coupons in it, it's SUPER easy to file my coupons, and all I have to do to find a coupon is pull the folder and flip through a small pile of clipped coupons. And when I pull expired coupons, my pile to flip through simply gets smaller. A good thing.

And for what it's worth, even though I usually put the tabs for hanging files on the back of the folder, for my coupon box, I put the tabs on the front. It makes it easier for my fingers to quickly file the small pieces of paper. I rarely take my black box to the store or even in the van. My black box sits under my desk. When I'm preparing my grocery list, I pull the coupons I need and put them in my smaller pink holder. Since it has a limited number of sections, I simply consolidated my categories.

Have I ever missed a random deal because I didn't have all of my coupons with me at the store? Yes. And I'm okay with that. :o) Since I'm often shopping with three children, and rarely without at least one, I simply have not a spare hand nor room in my cart for my black box.

And now, for those who are interested, here are the categories in my black box:

• Food (the first folder for each section is the misc. folder)



• Beverages/Tea



• Breads/Cereals



• Canned/Boxed Goods



• Condiments/Seasonings



• Desserts/Baking Goods



• Frozen Food



• Frozen Veggies



• Meat



• Refrigerated



• Refrigerated Bread/Dough



• Snacks/Nuts



• Yogurt



• Health & Beauty



• Body Care



• Facial/Cosmetics



• Hair Care



• Medicine/First-Aid



• Tooth Care



• Household



• Air Fresheners



• Cleaning Supplies



• Kitchen Products



• Laundry Supplies



• Paper Products



• Miscellaneous



• Baby/Childcare



• CVS Coupons



• Dining



• Retail



• Coupon Fliers

Next week I plan to cover Clipping Coupons ... which coupons do I clip, where do I find them, when do I clip them, and how do I sort them?

What method of keeping coupons has worked (or not worked) for you?