Super Savings in the Bathroom

Working on the finances and saving money is a pretty common January goal. I got a couple of nice little boosts on that in the past week. First, I finally received the Disney bath products package I won through 5MinutesForMom (I also won the Disney cold and flu pack giveaway over there, so maybe that's why it took two and a half months to ship stuff, hmm?)

This worked out well, because we had been running low on kid bath soap. We do like to use "kid stuff" separate from the adult stuff (it just makes it nicer and more fun for everyone in our family if we have separate bath products) -- but I seem to have a heck of a time finding it my regular shopping stops. Now, we're set for quite a while on both soap and shampoo, and we used the Disney Princess strawberry-scented bubble bath right away for a weekend bathtime. (I don't think there were any branding conflicts with the Barbie Puppy Swim School Pool being in the same tub ...)

We've also tried out the Mickey Mouse apple juice as the send-along beverage for an ice skating excursion. The taste got good reviews, but it seems harder to open for a young kid than it first looked.

I also had one of those "once in a while" great deals days at CVS: My favorite brand of toothpaste and DH's favorite brand of soap were both on sale, as was liquid hand soap. The toothpaste came with an Extra Care Bucks deal, and so did three Hallmark cards -- such as the 99¢ ones. Plus, I had coupons for the toothpaste and the hand soap, and I had previous Extra Care Bucks on hand.

So, I purchased:

1 tube of Colgate at $2.77
1 package of Irish Spring at 99¢
1 container of Softsoap at 99¢
3 kids' birthday cards* at 99¢ apiece
- $1,00 coupon for Colgate
- 40¢ coupon for Softsoap
- $4.00 ECBs
Total Out of Pocket: $2.88
plus, gained $1.00 ECB on Colgate and $3.00 ECBs on cards
With the ECBs, I came out $1.12 ahead on the deal

(By the way, regarding the title of this post: thank you so much, Magic School Bus DVD, for avoiding the explanation of the normal final stops in the human digestive system, so that I then have to tackle the topic during bathtime for my little tactless scientist. That was sarcasm. We shall see if similar thanks are in order to The Read-Aloud Handbook's science recommendation
on the topic.)


*(A category in my "cards on hand" that was running dangerously low. The other category that needs replenishing is, sadly, sympathy cards.)

Menu Plan Week of January 16

So, you know how I said I thought we'd probably eat something last weekend? We did.

And I'm still doing pretty well on the eating from the pantry thing -- although I'm not being as strict about this as I have been in previous years (in part, because our January weather has been decent enough -- until now -- that going to the grocery store hasn't been as much of an ordeal as in other winters. I hate fighting the weather and the frozen fingers that have trouble manipulating the lists and the coupons).

What we ate on Saturday was "Mini Pot Pies," a recipe found on the Gooseberry Patch blog.
Ours were created with some cooked turkey from the freezer, the last can of cream soup from the pantry (I sometimes make my own, as it's basically used as an ingredient, but sometimes buy it if there's a really good sale), shredded cheese and refrigerated biscuits. We served them with applesauce. It wasn't a meal that took a lot of effort, but it was good.

We had our pizza meal last Sunday instead of Friday, because our family ended up needing to go to a memorial service for a former coworker of my husband's - who had been married to a woman I'd come to know through a church small group -- on Friday evening. We changed up our usual Sunday family meal out to Friday night, afterward.

This week, there are a lot of other things on the schedule, so the plans have seemed to come down mostly to "kid-friendly and fast" meals (sometimes I wonder if my own tastes have ever outgrown "kid meals"...).

Monday: Grilled Cheese Sandwiches and Tomato Soup (from the pantry).
Tuesday: Parmesan Chicken (chicken from the freezer) and Mashed Potatoes (from the pantry; a free bag of one of those bag mixes).
Wednesday: Sloppy Janes in the crockpot (hot dogs and buns from the freezer from summertime sales, mixed with canned beans from the pantry) and Cornbread (made with pantry ingredients).
Thursday: some sort of Pasta
Friday: Pizza.

I also needed to use up the acorn squash that had been sitting on the counter since last fall -- and were starting to turn more orange instead of green. I scrubbed them off and put them in the crockpot for a few hours with some water, which created easily sliced squashes with pureed insides. I froze some of the puree and used about a cup of eat to make Squash Muffins. The recipe called for raisins, which would indeed have been healthier, but my kiddo is currently on an anti-raisin strike, so I substituted chocolate chips in the hopes of persuading her to eat them. (It didn't work.) She also helped me make them -- we're working on her cooking skills this year. I've been finding a couple of them to be a nicely hearty winter breakfast, particularly when consumed with a cuppa tea.

Speaking of the tea, I've changed my ways on that as well. Since I take morning medication that prevents me from eating until an hour after I've swallowed it, plus have to get people up and going and to places in the mornings, on the days that I work outside the house, I end up eating breakfast at my desk. I had fallen into the habit of buying chais from the vending machine (I don't drink coffee). This month, I've finally begun brewing my own tea at work, using tea bags and an electric teakettle (a wedding present from 13 years ago). It did take me a few days to remember, first, a mug, then something to set the used teabag upon (I do reuse it a few times), then a container to actually pour the water into the kettle, but -- by the second week of January -- I've managed to shift the habit away from the vending machine and toward the kettle. I have bought one vending machine chai, and also treated myself to one from a coffee shop -- yay for gifts cards so I didn't actually spend anything out of pocket! -- but, overall, I've definitely reduced my daily and weekly spending in this area, plus it's probably healthier, too.

Visit orgjunkie.com for more menu plans (many of them posted in a more timely manner). 

Menu Plan Week of January 9 (Eatin' From the Freezer)

Among the "new year" organizing projects completed this past week was a new, and complete, inventory of what's actually in the freezer and the pantry. (There is a lot in the chest freezer. And moving it all out to count it was an exercise in itself.)

Now that I know what we have, we can work on eating it down -- partly because that is what we generally do in January (normally, it is bitterly freezing during a Minnesota January and any excuses not to freeze my fingers off getting into the grocery store are most welcome -- unlike this year's bizarre balminess); partly because there is a lot in there; and partly because, in looking over my financial records of tracking spending for last year, I noticed significant upward creep in the grocery spending category in the last months of the year.

I think that's due to a variety of factors: rising grocery prices overall, seasonal celebrations, figuring out what to feed a kid who's started school for snacks and lunches, and the fact that the end of the year got so busy that I basically said "what they hey..." (or some less flattering language) and gave up on many of the extra efforts to keep grocery spending in line.

Anyhoo, I actually find it fun to try to incorporate frugal and/or old-fashioned tactics like meal planning, planned leftovers, eating food that's been somehow preserved from the bounty of the harvest, etc.

This coming week, I'm thinking we shouldn't really need to buy groceries --- except possibly for milk (we seem to be going through a lot of milk lately) and toilet paper (does not, I hope, need explanation).

This past week, a couple of our meals used up some pantry/freezer food: a dinner of Pot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots, plus Blueberry Muffins (the potatoes were some of the last from last summer's CSA; the carrots were in the fridge from some time in December; and the beef broth -- I did this in the crockpot -- was from the pantry. I did buy the actual meat at the store, but it came with a free bag of onions, which will get used in other meals, too. The blueberry muffins used the last half of a container of blueberries in the fridge freezer, rather than the chest, because I had used the top half for -- something. The fact that I cannot for the life of me remember what is worrisome, because I'm pretty sure it was some time this year -- the one that started eight days ago).

Some of the beef from the pot roast got a second life -- beyond straight leftovers -- shredded up as the meat for a Black Bean Taco Bake (a recipe that orgjunkie linked to on a previous Menu Plan Monday). That also used a can of black beans from the cupboard, some tortillas from the fridge (cut up into bite-size pieces); and one of the containers of salsa I made from last summer's CSA produce from the freezer).


Here's my eatin' it up plan for the coming week:


Monday: Corn Chowder in the crockpot; Crescent Rolls. Uses up the last of the CSA potatoes, plus an onion from the free bag, the remaining carrots from the fridge, and a container of homemade turkey broth and some corn, both from the freezer. The crescent rolls were in the fridge. (I was going to make something more homemade-y for bread, but decided to have a more restful Sunday instead.)

Tuesday: Shrimp Pilau (a recipe from my dad's homemade cookbook). Will use shrimp from the freezer, tomatoes from either the freezer or cupboard (canned), rice on hand, and we'll substitute spinach (I did go to the store this past week -- just hoping not to need to again this month) for the okra, since my husband despises okra. Also uses an onion and some bacon, from the freezer. I'll be using other spinach previously for a salad, with orange slices, for my lunch.

Wednesday: Spaghetti. Pasta and jarred sauce from the cupboard.

Thursday: Bacon and Pancakes/Waffles. Thawing the bacon for the shrimp pilau means we'll need to use it up somehow (I've had it go bad on me unfortunately quickly before.) We may break out some of the waffles from our last batch that are in the freezer; if made fresh, they might incorporate something like blueberries, or pumpkin, or maybe that last apple that's getting slightly squishy and might not make the best straight eating....

Friday: Pizza. A family tradition, plus I'm lazy at the end of the week.

I'm pretty sure we'll eat something on the weekend, too.


For more menu plans, visit Menu Plan Monday at www.orgjunkie.com.

January 2: Christmas Trails Off; Beginning of a New Year

Happy new year!

We're finished with our three (one on each side of the family, plus our own little nuclear family) Christmas celebrations; the calendars have been transferred, and "real life" starts up again (sort of) tomorrow. (There's still no school.)

No white Christmas this year; we did get a white New Year, but it's unlikely it will last to the end of the week -- which is when I'll be putting away Christmas (I time it for Epiphany).

I do plan to put some more thought into New Year's goals/resolutions/whatever you'd like to call them; they're kind of broken into themes this year, with sub-goals in each theme. Right now, let's just say that January's themes are "finances" and "organization" -- because, well, it's January.

So far, in our downtime, in keeping with those themes, I have gone through and entered receipts into spendingdiary.com; balanced the checkbook (including inputting more money into the school lunch account before it starts up again); purged and filed coupons; created a sort-of grocery list for the week and a meal plan; did a purge and clean-out of the refrigerator and its attached freezer (which included cleaning up the popsicle juice stains from last summer -- both flavors! no I didn't taste); started on a new inventory of what exactly is in our freezers and pantry; did a kid artwork reboot and magnet reorganization on the refrigerator; and cleared off some of the papers, junk, etc. from the kitchen island (a major hotspot in our household).

I also finished a reread of The Metcalfe Family Album by the lights of the Christmas tree (along, um, with significant portions of Christmas/birthday candy...); and played numerous card games of "Blink." I was able to win over the five-year-old once. I quit handicapping her. The whole family also enjoyed the Rose Parade on TV today, and a higher-end restaurant Sunday buffet yesterday.

And the five-year-old took an hour-and-a-half long bath today. This

(seen here on the day of its arrival from Santa Claus when we celebrated our family Christmas) could have had something to do with it.

Week in Review: Lazy Sunday, Writing Skills (Sept. 16-22, 2011)

This past weekend saw some cozy, lazy, quiet time after Sunday church and dinner -- much needed after what seems like a long summer of go-go-go. We spent part of Sunday afternoon with our games set (a box with several boards, cards, playing pieces, etc. all in one) and played a round of dominoes -- matching the numbers on the tiles -- and tried to play mancala. (Unfortunately, the "all-in-one"-ness of this set means it's not great for mancala -- the holes on the side of one of the playing boards are way too small for all the pebbles that need to fit in there to actually do so.) We also opened the deck of cards that came with this set and, after I got out my grandparents' copy of Hoyle (an edition probably from the 1940s) to refresh my memory, taught Nora how to play the card game "War."

She and I had spent Friday evening at the Unbirthday Party I coordinated for my women's service group, where we met other members and kids at a local pizza restaurant and packed bags with donations of birthday party supplies for the local food shelf. Packing over 50 bags (and loading them into two cars -- mine and the co-chair's), supervising rambunctious kids while simultaneously teaching them about charity, and then delivering the bags the next day was a tiring but satisfying part of the weekend.

This week, we also had a Parent Information Night at school, which proved very valuable in providing a lot of general information, curriculum overview, and an opportunity to meet other parents. The kids, meanwhile, identified their learning goals for kindergarten. According to Nora, one of her classmates wants to "learn how to be a paleontologist," while another wants to "learn how to ride a motorcyle." She identified her own goal as "learn how to read."

Her after-school activities this week included creating a version of hopscotch with blankets spread out indoors for "stepping stones." She also offered commentary, after reading a bedtime story of Jesus's healing of the 10 lepers from the Spark Story Bible, regarding one of the lepers in the illustration: "that guy looks like a potato."

What's the Weather: The week was cool and gray, with occasional rain. We needed to retrieve from the car a jacket with a pocket for hands that got cold on the metal monkey bars at a park. (After monkey bar mastery this summer, we've been trying them out at a variety of different parks.)


From the Kitchen: Some of the blueberries that came home with us from a family Michigan vacation this summer came out of the freezer this week got turned into Blueberry Muffins; the Beef and Cabbage on the menu plan went over better than I had expected (possibly because it was served with blueberry muffins...); and a bag of carrots that needed to get used up from the fridge were shredded in the food processor and turned into Carrot Cake, which proved to be a hit. (And if soome of us had it for breakfast for a few days -- well, carrot cake has veggies in it, right?)

Lifelong Learning: Nora seems to have been assigning herself homework; she spent much of the week working on early reading and (math skills with a sticker book she received for her birthday. (My Pretty Pink Sticker and Doodling Purse book) She's also been  practicing writing letters and numbers, and appears to have demonstrated her grasp of the value of writing by creating a sign filled with printed letters (not actual words) that she taped onto the door of her room and interpreted as stating,  "No Coming in My Room. Just Knock." She's also been helping with dishes, and with making blueberry muffins -- and, coincidentally, our card and board games work on number skills.

Something Seasonal: The fall decoration I won last week and the apple placemats are on the table, and that's pretty much it.

Feelin' Frugal:
Freebies received: 
Cerra Act, Think, Reflect kit
Nivea Touch of Cashmere body wash
Scholastic Parent and Child magazine

Whatcha Readin’?: Born To Rule by Julia P. Gelardi








This post contains affiliate links. Any purchases you make by clicking through will help support this blog, at no additional cost to you.

Wordless Wednesday: Harvest Time

Menu Plan for Week of Sept. 19

Good grief, this is an incredibly lame menu. At least the banner from orgjunkie, the host of Menu Plan Monday, is pretty.

Monday: Leftovers or Hot Dogs

Clean out the fridge time! Don't we all love that? (Hint: if not, you can make yourself a sandwich, and not make a big deal out of protesting the Eggplant Parmesan from the weekend.)

Tuesday: Fish Sticks and Green Beans

Slightly cool factor: the green beans are of a variety that is purple until they're cooked -- they're from the CSA produce box we're doing this summer/fall. (The CSA also explains the eggplant.)

Wednesday: Church Supper

Thursday: Crockpot Beef and Cabbage

Guess what else was in the latest CSA box? If you guessed a head of cabbage, you'd be right. DH actually likes cabbage, and we've had and liked this dish before -- it's kind of like stuffed cabbage, without the work of stuffing. It will use the last of my previously browned ground beef from the freezer and some tomato sauce along with the cabbage -- planned to be shredded via food processor.

Friday: possibly sandwiches

I also shredded up a bunch of carrots this past weekend that I needed to use up; they became Carrot Cake, which lasts for a few days (of breakfasts, perhaps) in a family of three.