Not much on sale for next week....

I've been browsing the sneak peeks and early ads for Publix. Unfortunately, I don't see that many things that I'm going to be interested in. I'm considering extending the Freezer/Pantry challenge for another week.

Here's how I'm doing in stockpiling dry and canned goods. (Cleaning supplies, paper goods are stored separately.) Excuse the mess. We've had to move some items off the shelves to make room for more canned goods. Our late Spring/Summer project is to organize the non-pantry items in the basement.

Our freezer is full. I've found some incredible deals lately and as a result, we need to eat through some things. I've got a couple of turkeys and plenty of beef and chicken. Don't forget about those four Seasations that I got for free!

The great thing about having a pantry and freezer set up is that I can usually find something to cook at any given time. If for some reason, the swine flu makes it difficult or impossible to get to the grocery store, we've got plenty to eat. Once I make a little room in the freezer, I'm going to add a couple of half gallons of milk.

Hmmm, what's for dinner next week?

Kudos to Hubby!

For the second time, we've just had an issue with power windows in our cars.

For some unexplained reason, the power windows drop about half way down overnight and will not roll back up. We had this happen a couple of years ago on a Honda and the repair bill was well over $300. When our Dodge vehicle did this same thing yesterday, we initially were going to take it to the dealer but Hubby decided to take a look at it himself.

Through the vast resources available on the internet, we were able to find some directions and guidance on what may be causing the problem. He picked up the motor at a local parts store and proceeded to take it apart. (My philosophy is that if it's broken, what does it hurt to try to fix it yourself? If you can't make it work, you get a pro to fix it.)

In just a little under two hours, the new part was in and the window was working again. Yea! The part was about $90 so we're estimating that we saved at least $200, if not more. That's $100 saved per hour. Kudos to Hubby!

Menu Monday (Tuesday)

A family emergency has required me to be out of town for the last few days. I'm back now and it's still Pantry/Freezer Challenge week. I pulled together a quick dinner tonight after arriving back in town.

Tuesday - BBQ Chicken (freezer), Buttered Noodles (pantry), Green Beans and Beets (pantry).
Wednesday - Potato Soup and BLTs (pantry)
Thursday - Spaghetti (pantry) with Sausage (freezer) with Salad (on hand)
Friday - Manwich (pantry) (or TBD)

In addition to the items I picked up Friday, I only picked up the following tonight: Milk, Bread, Deli Meat, and two fresh tomatoes. We will be having the Turkey (planned for last Sunday) for dinner next Sunday. If we add a homemade pizza for dinner Saturday, we will have a whole week of freezer/pantry meals.

What I'm reading....

I've been neglectful in keeping my reading list up to date for the year. Mostly, I've been reading as research for my gardening adventure. I've read a few non-gardening books and I just started reading Twilight. I'll be updating my reading list and my savings amounts soon.

Free on Friday!

I stopped by Publix tonight to pick up some of the special items for the week. As I mentioned before, the goal for next week was to prepare dinners from inventory in our pantry and freezer and grocery expenditures would be limited to necessity items and sale items. I picked up the following specials along with some of those delicious Publix chicken fingers, mashed potatoes, and some buffalo sauce for dinner:

Starkist Seasations. These are regularly $5.99 and on Buy one, Get one free this week. I purchased four and used four $3/1 coupons. Net OOP was FREE! I picked up two boxes of Teddy Grahams (BOGOF) for $2.99/2 less a $1/2MQ and a $1TQ. Net price for two boxes was .99.

Skippy peanut butter was BOGOF at $2.49/2 less two .40 MQ (doubled) netting .45 per jar. I picked up three bottles of Suave shampoo for .99 each and used a $2/3 MQ for a net price of .99 for three bottles. Finish dishwasher tabs were a dollar off, on sale for $3.99. I used a $2.50/1 MQ and paid only $1.49 per box. I picked up two and will go back for more if time permits.

Also available at a good price were Scrubbing Bubbles and Shout. I found some Rubbermaid Premium containers in the clearance bin. Normally $3.99 each, on sale for $3.99/2. I used $1 MQ for each one and only paid $1 each. (I love these containers. They reheat in the microwave well and do not stain. I'd love to find some Sandwich size in the clearance bin next time!)

My OOP for the total purchase was a little higher than I would have liked because of the chicken, potatoes, sauce and a pair of pantyhose but at $39.07, I still saved ..... $80.36. If you take out the full price items, I saved 80% on the 'specials'.

As far as our menu plan for next week, the Turkey is being scratched off the menu but I hope to utilize the remainder of the menu and possibly cook that turkey the following week.

Gardening Day

I took today off work to catch up on some things at home including planting my container garden. It has been a very warm day today and the temperature is expected to stay in the high 70s-low 80s through the weekend.

In each of the buckets, I planted one tomato plant and one pepper plant. I have seven different types of tomatoes, both determinate and indeterminate. Most are hybrids and I have one Heirloom Beefsteak. I have two jalapenos, two green bell peppers, a yellow pepper, a Giant Marconi and something else.

Also, in the small pots up front, I have okra planted and in one of the round bowls, I have green onions and radishes. The okra, radishes and onions are all from seeds. The little girls helped plant these in cardboard egg cartons about a month ago. I am planning to plant the okra in a small bed in the backyard once I get it prepared but I think they need to get a little bigger first.

I think I'm about two weeks behind my planting date from last year but we've had some lingering cool weather here. I also had to move the plants indoors a couple of times last year and hopefully, I will not have to do that again.

For my potting mix, I used two bags of generic potting soil, two bags of Scotts Premium potting soil and one large bag of mushroom compost. We got a VERY heavy rain storm tonight* so I do not plan to fertilize for a couple of days. I used the tomato fertilizer exclusively last year but I will likely use that and miracle grow alternatively this year. Hopefully by June, we'll be enjoying juicy homegrown tomatoes and peppers.

I have two window box sized containers as well that I plan to have as an herb garden. I will likely wait a week or two before planting those. We love to have fresh basil and cilantro. I also like the smell of rosemary.

*Unfortunately, I believe that 'Murphy' may be visiting us because during the storm tonight - which included some rather heavy rain, thunder and lightning - our a/c unit stopped cooling. The outside unit is running but the fan is not turning and we are not getting cool air. We're keeping our fingers crossed that it's just a matter of replacing a part to keep us cool for the summer. (Update: This issue was resolved quickly and cheaply. It turned out to be a part that need to be replaced. We're cool again!)

Quick Deal and Looking ahead to next week....

Quick Deal: I got my $5 rebate from Johnsonville Sausage a few weeks ago. I figured that the best way to get the most bang for the buck on this was to buy a large, bulk package. DD and I ran over to BJs (BJs Wholesale Club) tonight. I picked up a large package of 12 Italian sausage. Full price was $8.15 less my $5 coupon making my OOP $3 plus tax. I divided the package up into three packages of four sausages each. That's three meals for only $1 per meal. Thanks Johnsonville!

Thinking ahead to next week, I've decided that we're going to have a Freezer/Pantry challenge. I will reduce my grocery expenditures to necessities (milk, bread, lunch meat, etc.) and deals only. Then, my meals will be prepared using items found in my pantry and freezer. Since my freezer is full, this will help circulate some of the freezer items and it will reduce my grocery expenditures for the week. It really shouldn't be a problem but it will present a planning challenge. If it's a success, I may strive to do this for the last full week of each month.

Here's my preliminary plan:

Sunday - Turkey with Stuffing, Sweet Potatoes (frozen, .59/lb)
Monday - Beef Dish TBD - maybe tacos
Tuesday - Leftover Turkey
Wednesday - Potato Soup and BLTs (should have everything except tomato)
Thursday - Spaghetti with Italian Sausage (frozen sausage and pantry items)
Friday - Manwich with fries (frozen meat and pantry items)

Menu Monday

Sunday - Homemade Vegetable Beef Soup
Monday - Cubed Steaks, Mashed Potatoes, Peas
Tuesday - Leftover Soup
Wednesday - Ham Fried Rice, Egg Rolls
Thursday - Crockpot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots
Friday - Sausage and Red Rice
Saturday - TBD

"I've been involving my daughter in grocery shopping trips since she was very little. Recently, she's been helping to find the deals and watching the internet sites. As she begins to prepare to move to a place of her own, she decided to "do the deals" herself today to start stocking her pantry. I've asked her to guest post." Kim

As an anonymous writer once said "Steak is expensive, spaghetti is expansive." For those of you who have been through rough times, small budgets, or went to college... spaghetti is an essential ingredient to survive (not including all those lovely varieties of Ramen Noodles!) As I find myself about to embark on a new chapter in my life, my frugal side comes and goes. While I would love to have my new place 'magazine perfect', this dream is becoming clearly unattainable. It is time for the essentials, and to save. So this brings me to spaghetti... Why not? Why would you want to spend 3x as much, when you can get a good deal on it now?

Through the course of my mother's insatiable appetite for a good deal, I have learned a few things:

1. If you go into a store buying what you want or what you need, you won't be maximizing your gain.

2. Stock up on good deals, because you never know when you might need it.

3. You can NEVER have enough toilet paper!

So this envitably brings us to spaghetti. At a usual $1.29 per box, Muellers Pasta is not a bad deal. As we all know, Publix has wonderful buy one get one deals, and today I lucked out! Now I could get 2 boxes of pasta for $1.29! Now combine that with some $.55 off of two boxes coupons, and it became a steal at $.37 each! How many boxes did I get? 22! That is 22 POUNDS of pasta... 22 wonderful Italian meals (to feed my wonderful Italian man)... With only two of us, and an occassional family dinner, this $8.14 investment should last a looooooooong time!

While we can not survive on pasta alone.. this is a great beginning to a life of couponing and great deals!

A Great Shopping Day

My first stop today was Publix for our weekly groceries.

High on the list of deals would be the Voila meals, regularily priced at $4.99 each, these were on BOGOF and I had $1 coupons for both that I bought. Net price of $1.50 each. Next on the good deal list would be the Ken's Marinade. These are regularily $2.79 on BOGOF and less a .50 coupon doubled netted .40 each. I got 7. Almost free were four containers of Glen Muir tomato paste. $1.09 each less a $1 coupon each. .09! I picked up four.

Heinz vinegar was only.07 after sale price and coupon. Crystal light was BOGOF. Regularily priced at $3.99, on sale for $2. I had a coupon for buy 2, get one free. Net 3 boxes for only $4. Pam was also a good deal. Regularily priced at $3.39 on sale for $1.70 each less a .55 Publix Coupon.

I also picked up a beef roast, a pork roast, soup meat and chicken along with regular stuff like milk, bread and lunch items. Total value of products purchased was $172.90 for only $99.09 after sales and coupons. That's a savings of 43%!

Second stop was Kroger. For those of us who have missed the free Cottonelle at Kroger, good news! This week, Kroger has the four pack of Angel Soft on sale for only $1.00. There were great coupons in today's paper making this FREE. My Kroger had a plentiful supply today and no limit so I picked up 8!

I also picked up three Quakes for free and got a nice savings on Rice-a-Roni, bread, and bananas. Total value of items purchased was $39.70. OOP was $16.35. Savings of 59%.

Total I saved today at Publix, Kroger and Home Depot (I picked up four plants at BOGOF) was $104.66. (My daughter also made some purchases and her savings are not included in these totals!)

My favorite four-letter word: FREE

Back in February, someone at Walgreens noticed that I had transferred some prescriptions to other pharmacies and decided that they missed me.

I got a check in the mail for $25 to be redeemed when I transferred a prescription to Walgreens. I needed to refill a prescription this week and I had not been completely satisfied with the other pharmacy. I dropped my RX off last weekend and picked it up tonight.

My check was validated and I started shopping.

2 - Hair Colors at $8.99 each = 17.98 less a $5 WAGS Q, $3 MQ, and $2 MQ for net of $7.98/2
2 - Bayer Heart Advantage on sale for $4.89 each (about $2 off each).
2 - WAGS brand Tylenol @ $1 each
1 - Kleenex @ $1.29 - .40 WAGS Q
1 - Chex Mix on sale for .99 - .50 MQ
2 - Planters Nuts at $6.99 for both
1 - Special buy of WAGS Ibuprofen for $3.99

Total Retail value of items was $57.46 register total was $34.07 less $25 check, and $9.07 on a gift card. (I had hoped to use two IP coupons for the Bayer and two Target coupons for the nuts. This would have put my GC amount at $3.07 but alas, they would not accept.)

So, everything was FREE.

Menu Monday

Sunday: Easter Dinner
Baked Ham, Mashed Potatoes, Glazed Carrots, Fresh Green Beans and Rolls
Monday: Chili
Tuesday: Baked Ham with Baked Macaroni and Cheese, Green Beans
Wednesday: Baked Potatoes (with Steamed Broccoli and Chili)
Thursday: Spaghetti with Meatballs
Friday: TBD

It's Finally Done!

After much procrastination, lots of excel spreadsheets, many receipts, lots of questions and research, our taxes are finished. I just clicked the button to e-file the Federal. I'm waiting on them to accept.

It took a lot of work, but our net OOP (since that figure is so important on this site) will only be $350. What a relief! As usual, our state refund will negate most of the money owed to federal.

Believe

Sometimes it's easy to let things pile up and weigh you down. DH knew just what to do to brighten my spirits!

Coffee Deals at Target

I went to Target last night. They have Dunkin Donut Coffee on sale this week for $6.00. Deduct the $1 Manufacturer's Coupon from last week's newspaper AND the .75 Target Coupon to pickup coffee for only $4.25 each. This is a great deal since this coffee has been running $7 to $8 a bag recently. Almost half price. I stocked up. I picked up four bags, along with a couple of bags of candy for the little girls, a case of canned drinks and a snack item. Total price was around $30 with a savings of $15.15.

Hmmmmm! Strawberries

I purchased a pint of strawberries (the rectangular container) at Publix Saturday for our breakfast waffles Sunday morning. My cost was $3.49.

Imagine my surprise when that same size container at Walmart had been marked down to $1! The produce manager said that two pallets had been delivered and selling them for $1 was better than having them end up in the dumpster. I picked up two. Then, I reconsidered and got two more. I tried to walk away but they looked so red, plump and smelled wonderful. I couldn't resist.

When I checked out, I had 8 containers. I spent Sunday evening hulling and slicing most of these. I left one container in the fridge to enjoy this week. I prepared a simple syrup and put 6 quart sized containers of sliced strawberries in the freezer along with two lightly packed bags of whole strawberries without syrup. We'll be enjoying these over pound cake, with ice cream, on our waffles, shortcake, smoothies.

Total saved on strawberries was just under $20. Total saved at Walmart was $30 for the day.

Obviously, I cannot pass up a deal. Blame me?

Quick Trip to Publix, Pantry, Brrr

I needed a sandwich for lunch today and there's a Publix just down the street. For a mere $13 (which included my $5.50 sandwich), I picked up two more Ragu pasta sauces, two more cake mixes, two more brownie mixes, two more Land o Lakes butter, two more Steamfresh vegetables, a Bryers ice cream and a free (.01) loaf of bread. I saved $29 and change.

Speaking of the Steamfresh, I selected the corn on the cob and we had this with dinner this evening. It was the best frozen corn on the cob that I've had in a long, long time. Best part, no pan to wash! Quick, easy. I need to see if I can find some more coupons. These were about .50 after 50% and coupons.

I spent a couple of hours re-organizing my pantry this weekend. It really needed it. I was able to more some storage items and gain several shelves for food storage. As I've said before, my goal is to purchase most of my groceries at deep discounted price and have enough on hand to see us through unforeseen circumstances. (Have I mentioned that I hate to start cooking something only to find that I'm missing something?)

In the mail today, I got my free Campbell's tomato seeds in the mail today along with a Cottonelle sample from Walmart.

Finally, the temperature tonight is supposed to drop near or below freezing. My beautiful azaleas will likely not survive the cold so I snapped a picture. Things are always so pretty this time of the year. The dogwoods are blooming, the azaleas are awash with color and the shoots from all perennial plants are just breaking the surface. I have a couple of hostas that are just peeking above the surface so I've covered them with my planting buckets. Hopefully, it's enough to protect them for the next day or so. Wish me luck.

Holy Moly! Look how much I saved today!

I just got back from Publix and you won't believe how much I saved! 62% $123.24! Whoa!

Publix has some great deals this week on their buy one get one free items. Match those up with the coupons from last week and this week to get some bargain basement priced items. How good are the prices? How does free sound? .14? .39?

Just a couple of details now: I picked up 7 bottles of salad dressing for free! (We eat salad every week, sometimes more. I also use salad dressing in cooking and when I take a salad for lunch.) These Kraft salad dressings usually sell for $2.99 at Publix. This week, they were 2/$2.99 and then apply $1.50 MQ to each = FREE.

Jolly Time Pop Corn. Not on BOGOF this week but still a bargain. $1.39 each less a .50MQ, doubled. Net Price .39 for a box. There are three-four bags in each box. If I were to buy popcorn out of the vending machine at work, they're .85 per bag. I'm getting 3 bags for .39. Yippee!

Duncan Hines cake mix is BOGOF this week. Normally, $1.65 per box, this week it was only .83 each less a .35 MQ (doubled) the net price was .13 each. I picked up 6! Also a good deal was the Duncan Hines brownie mix normally $2.59 BOGOF for $1.30 each less a .35 MQ doubled netting to .60 a box.

Also at a great price and coupons were - Lipton Tea, Land o Lakes Butter, I can't believe it's not Butter, and Chex Mix. Bryers Ice Cream was also a good deal (although it's not our favorite and we really don't like the extra small containers). It's normally $4.99 each, BOGOF for $2.50 less a .75 coupon for a net of $1.75. I also picked up a Sara Lee frozen cheese cake for half price at $2.64 and had a $1 Target Coupon. Wow!

There's still time to take advantage of these deals. Pick up a Sunday Paper tomorrow. There are supposed to be up to 5 inserts in each paper. You might want to get two. Clip those coupons and then take a look at your Publix ad (www.Publix.com) and get shopping!

(Triumphant Laughing as I head off to put away my groceries!)

Food - Now and Later

Progress against menu goals: We just finished mid-week meatless: Potato Soup and BLTs.

Ways to save money (I hope!)

I'm currently sprouting seeds (radishes, green onions, and okra). I let the toddlers help me plant the seeds 10 days ago. We used cardboard egg cartons filled with potting soil. We wet these down after we put the seeds under the soil and placed them inside a Chick-fil-a covered tray. The plastic bottom held the egg cartons securely and the clear top acted like a mini-greenhouse. After 10 days, we have seedlings that are nearly 4 inches tall. This weekend, I'll look into options for transplanting these. (One of the issues with 3 year-olds planting, was that too many seeds were put in each space. If you try this, a packet of seeds goes a long, long way in egg cartons.) I'll post pictures when I transplant.

I'm also going to start working on my gardens this weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice and it seems like a great weekend to get to work.

I will have a container garden on the deck again with tomatoes and jalapenos. I'm looking into another option for cucumbers because they didn't do well in the small container last year. I'm also going to try to have a small in-ground garden in the back yard. We have many trees and very little full sun in the yard so it's iffy.

I've had a compost pile for a month or so now. So far, it looks more like a trash heap. I think I need to add some lime and soil this weekend and turn it. I've been layering kitchen scraps - lots of potato and cucumber peels, vegetable scraps like broccoli stems, and coffee grounds - with brown leaves and some pine straw. I also heard that Starbucks gives coffee grounds away free for gardeners. Since there is a Starbucks in my neighborhood Publix, I may try to get some.

If anyone has good ideas or tips for growing container or small in-ground gardens, please leave me a comment. I can use all the help I can get.