frugal

Shopping to feed the tribe…How do I do it?

/ Jeanette / Leave a comment

So we are awful with staying on a budget, but when it comes to food, I think I am finally getting the hang of it. For the longest time I would shop at just Walmart, then all those reports came out about the milk and what not so I quit. And then I was shopping at Sweetbay, but lets just say I found something in my pork chops one day that just totally grossed me out. So I shopped at Publix for a couple of years. But they are the most expensive grocery store in our area. Now I shop for the majority of my groceries at BJ Wholesale.

Another thing I do is Coupon! Yes, I am one of those people with the notebook trying to score cheap to free items. But in this economy and with a large family you have to stretch your money in all places. Couponing is amazing. No, I don’t go all Extreme Couponing and buy 200 bottles of mustard; just to realize we don’t eat mustard. No, I can’t get my total down from $2000 to a penny. But what little bit I use saves me in the long run and over time adds up to be huge.

But how do I combine my coupons with a wholesale club?

BJ’s accepts coupons! They even mail you out store coupons every month to use with manufacture coupons. Plus at the store they have more store coupons that get switched out every 2 weeks. Saving you even more. I also upgraded my membership to the plus which allows me to receive 2% back on certain purchases~ food one of them. Every 6 months I receive a gift card with my rebate. And with the amount I spend I actually get my membership free with the 2% back.

Now the upfront out of pocket may seem crazy, $10.99 for 4 packages of bacon. But when you break it down. The best deal I can get from the local stores is 3 for $10 and this is rare. For an extra $0.99 I got that 4th package of bacon. Enough for a month or more depending on our bacon cravings. Milk, eggs, butter and oj are a few items that are always cheaper and they sometimes put coupons out for those items also. Very rare with a regular grocery store. They have an amazing organic selections. I have organic spices for $3-5 for a huge bottle!

Non-food items are also a better deal. I originally started shopping here because we had just added little man to our tribe and was looking for diaper deals. Every month you can count on some kind of diaper coupons in the monthly savings book. And a lot of the diaper boxes have manufacture coupons that you can use combined for the next time. I always get about $5 to $10 off a big box of diapers which is priced about the same as a smaller box at Walmart. My printer ink is a much better deal also instead of the 2 for $70; I am getting 3 for $70. They just started offering Forever Stamps at a discounted rate. I just recently started filling up the gas tank when I am there because again $0.30-$0.50 cheaper. And propane tanks are $5 cheaper for a refill.

More money out of pocket upfront but the items last longer and break down to be cheaper. Why am I going to go the store to buy toilet paper every month and pay a $1 more a package, when I can buy the industrial package store it, pay less in the long run and not have to buy more for a few months?

Product Review~ Batter Blasters

/ Jeanette / 1 Comment

This morning I decided to try out my Batter Blasters. This is a product I wouldn’t normally buy due to my large family. But I saw a buy one get one (BOGO) deal plus had coupons making it a dirt cheap deal. So I thought “why not, sounds like fun.”

For those of you who don’t know what Batter Blasters are, they are pancake or waffle batter in a Redi-Whip type spray can. The price for one can is about $3.99. With my BOGO deal and coupons, I was able to get 2 cans for $1.99. But was it worth it?

The directions on the can state to shake can, turn upside down and push nozzle to spray batter on hot griddle or skillet.

I did this but the can didn’t state how much to put on the griddle so in my opinion the pancakes turned out a little small compared to what I usually make.

Another thing, the batter didn’t bubble up the pancake batter usually does, telling you it is time to turn so the first batch came out a little too dark for most of my family. Thank God for Bri who likes them dark!

I have 7 people in the house to feed breakfast too. So I didn’t think 1 can would be enough with the pancakes being smaller.  SO I got out the second can.

Half way through the second can, disaster struck! The spout wouldn’t quit spraying out batter and then it started sputtering and then it burped and then died. The spout wouldn’t do anything. I lost half a can of batter because of a packaging default.

The good news is while the can was uncontrollably spewing batter I moved the batter along the griddle enough to make my lil man a hummingbird pancake. He was thrilled!

In the end, the pancakes tasted good but the batter was very sticky and hard to flip over. The cans were fun until the volcano erupted then disappointing because my money went in the garbage. The pancakes came out significant smaller causing my large family to eat more and the leftovers were much less than if I made my homemade pancakes.

For my family this deal was not worth it. Maybe if I had younger kids, but I have 1 teenager and 2 preteens that eat like horses. So batter blasters is one item I won’t be buying again.

Breakfast for Dinner

/ Jeanette / Leave a comment

Some days are absolutely crazy in a large family.  Some days I am trying to get so much done that I forget about dinner, or to read the recipe and make sure I have all the ingredients and also how much time it takes to cook. This is me scatter brained (but what’s new).

I hate when I get home from my bus run (some days 3:45pm and some days 4:15pm) and listen to the question what’s for dinner! When I am in a pinch like this I try (and fail) not to do the whole fast food thing. Well this past week I ran into one of those days. And what did I do? Take a look at the picture……

 

I made breakfast. Homemade pancakes which only take a few minutes. And defrosted some bacon and fried it up! Yum Breakfast for dinner is Heaven! By the way I make 30 pancakes with the hopes of having some left over for another breakfast for my 2 youngest kids. This day I walked away with 7 left over. THAT’S ENOUGH FOR 3 KIDS!

Homeschooling with a toddler part 1

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Homeschooling a middle schooler while having a toddler at home can be VERY challenging. My son would very happy watching Toy Story 2 (has to be 2) or Mickey Mouse Clubhouse all day long but it makes me feel guilty! So I decided that there has to be some kind of compromise on homeschooling my older child while homeschooling my youngest. I needed to be organized, not my strongest area. But it was the only way to quiet my guilt and make me feel like a supermom.

First was getting my daughter on a set schedule. This way she knew what to expect and I knew what was coming next. I sat down wrote out all the subjects and then wrote out our timeline. Because we do have 2 other kids in Public School we have to finish by the time I go on my afternoon bus run. Now this is our second schedule, I had to some tweeking. I originally had math as our first subject because this is one she struggles with and I thought that if it was the first subject of the day she would feel refreshed and understand it better. But after many weeks of stressing because our schedule was being thrown off I moved it to our last subject of the day. This gives her the whole rest of the day to work on it ( if need be) and I am not stressing her out saying we need to move on.

At first we had Mondays off but my hubby didn’t like that. Another long story…..

One these days I promise I will tell all my long stories.

Okay back to Mondays. So on Mondays we do a review of what we learned the week before. Which makes sense to me more than Friday reviews because chances are they are going to forget over the weekend not from Monday to Friday when you have been working on for 5 days straight. Plus my youngest daughter gets out an hour early from public school.

Tuesday and Wednesday we wrap up everything as far as me teaching by 2:30 pm. I go for my bus run and my daughter stays working on math if need be.

Thursday and Friday, my youngest has tutoring so I don’t have to leave until 3 pm to get my oldest. That gives us and extra 1/2 hour so we try to fit in Music, Art and Clickschooling.

Then I factored in when my son would take a nap and also when lunch would be so I could schedule the more hands on lessons during that time. I also put a more hands off subject the hour before lunch which would give me time to make a healthy lunch (no sandwiches here, well maybe once in a while).

Yes I still have to stop and give the assignment and possibly teach a lesson or two but I am not sitting here dumbfounded going UMMMMMM when asked what’s next. We both had the schedule right in front of us and could easily look ahead of time and prep.

Part 1 accomplished!

City Girl living a Country life

/ Jeanette / 1 Comment

I have been a city girl my entire life until I was 24. That year, Hubby and I decided we needed to move to a bigger house with a bigger property. 2.9 acres to be exact.  Now we are living the country life. But some things need some getting use too. Like remembering to buy softener salt for the well and Rid X for the septic because we don’t want that problem. But the things that take the most getting use to is things like this!

Yup right through Hubby’s workshop. This rat snake decided to pay him a visit and check out the cabinets he was working on. Hubby about had a heart attack. Needless to say I had an anxiety attack! Especially since snakes are my phobia. Now in the city, yes we have snakes (I guess) but we don’t see them very often if at all. But here in the country they are everywhere. Never did it cross my mind  that I would have to deal with snakes.

What is even better is the night before I was telling Hubby we should get chickens. I was begging him to let me get some chickens. Well these snakes are also known as chicken snakes! Guess what we ARE not getting?