New Year, New Things!

I have been thinking a lot lately of some things I want to get accomplished and/or change this year. Here they are:

1) Be a better wife, mother, family member, friend and all around person. Since having Madison I tend to feel disconnected or even distant from a lot of people in my life. I need to get back to that person I was and I will find her soon! The things exhaustion does to your attitude is amazing. Even though Madison is doing decent at night, I go nonstop during the day and by the time Alan gets home, I am wiped out! This makes me be quiet and then I am ready for bed by 9! With Madison I want to be that mom she loves hanging out with. With everyone else I will try to call, email or text more to keep in touch.

2) I took some pictures of my niece and her fiance Saturday, who are expecting a son in February. I have no idea what I am doing, so I just point and shoot. This was the one of many things that has made me really look into taking classes or at least reading the book on how to use my camera. The local college has Photography classes that start in February. I am really nervous about the possibility of taking classes. I feel like it's my first day of school! This would also involve taking a Photoshop course and getting a new computer and Photoshop.

3) Get our house more organized and decorated. I know some people think I'm already super organized but my goal this year is to get more organized.

I want our pantry to look like this:

via Home Stories A to Z

Our pantry isn't that wide but the main goal is to get all dry ingredients into labeled jars and maybe snacks and/or like items in baskets like the ones shown here. I would also like to redo my spices. I have them all in little jars with what the spice is written on the top, in ABC order but I would like something different.

and my scarves like this(on shower hooks):

via From the Desk

This is an easy one if I can just remember to put shower rings on our grocery list..

Along with this goal comes a cleaning schedule. I hate cleaning the entire house in one day and with me not working, the last thing Alan needs to do is help clean on the weekend. I have made a daily cleaning schedule so its something I can do daily and by the weekend, all cleaning and laundry is done.

Also, the decorating part. I have yet to put up curtains in the bathrooms since we painted last April. We also need new towels and some artwork in there, our bedroom and the kitchen. Our bonus room needs a good cleaning and painting and maybe make the beginning of Madison's play room with this:

via Pinterest

Here's some other things floating on my Pinterest board..

via It's a Crafty Life
love this to hang by door for keys.

via Google
bookshelves flanking a couch.

via Chocolate Moments
such a cute way to remind someone what little things they do make you happy! A dry erase board so you can write different things everyday!

via All Things Homie
A cute way to dress up your thermostat!

via Bryn Alexandra
I really like having hooks in the room next to the door. For purses, coats, etc.

via minimoz
Maps of where you met, married and live. Love this!

If you aren't on Pinterest yet, you should be! Or maybe you shouldn't.. It has made me want to redo my entire house! It has really given me a lot of great ideas for our house(like all of the above!), ideas for things to do with Madison, great blogs to follow and yummy foods to try, which I have already!

4) Start back exercising. We have been talking about getting a treadmill or stair climber in the next couple of months. Since Alan stopped playing tennis regularly and when I got pregnant, neither of us has really done any real exercise. I haven't truly worked out in a gym in roughly 10 years! Before getting pregnant, I would run/walk the neighborhood.

5) Scrapbooking. I haven't scrapbooked in years but it's something I really enjoy doing. The only thing is it takes me a couple of hours to do a page usually and I just don't have that kind of free time anymore, other than when Madison goes to bed and by then I am trying to spend time with Alan, cook supper(this eating at 8pm thing is getting old fast!) and am ready for bed myself! I need to try to do a page a week.

6) Use coupons more. I cancelled my E-mealz suscription a couple of months ago. I talked about it here. It was great up until about 6 months ago. They started putting things like Hot Dogs and frozen pizza on the list. I mean I understand that we all want easy meals but I paid for this site and I can throw in a hot dog meal in the other 2 days it didn't give me recipes for. Plus every week there was a seafood meal and I don't eat seafood. So that was 1 out of 5 meals I wouldn't fix so I was having to come up with another meal to replace the seafood meal. So anyway... I try to cook different things every week. I hardly make the same thing twice and when I do, it's something like tacos or spaghetti or an easy meal. I try to base what I'm cooking on whats on sale which helps but here lately I haven't done a great job with my grocery budget. I would love to keep a stock of things that go on super sale that I have coupons for like shampoo, toothpaste and baby items.

I'm sure I have a ton of other goals spinning around in my head. we'll just leave it at this. Hopefully in the next couple of months I will have all of these marked off my list! We'll keep you updated!

Shopping trip total:

Well I picked the absolute worst week to blog about my saving money because this week we spent more than we had planned. One problem was that Alan went with me. I wasn't feeling 100% today so I'm glad he did, so he could do all the work, but every aisle he was saying "Oh, we're out of this" or "I need this".. I told him before going in that we were strictly sticking to our list and we failed miserably. I also forgot to add breakfast bars, gum, beer and gatorade to our list so that was an extra $18 I didn't have down in my total and I under calculated the price for fruit, since ALDI was closed today for Memorial Day. We stopped by Big Lots on the way and their clearance rack was empty. We did get 2 things of juice and a loaf of bread for $5.20 total. That saved us about $2.

The total for Big Lots and Publix this week was $85.57 but we saved $32.57 with coupons and store sales. That included a bottle of All laundry detergent, a bottle of Mens One A Day vitamins, a bottle each of Suave shampoo and conditioner, 12 rolls of Angel Soft paper, Sunlight dish soap, 4 bananas, container of strawberries and 5 apples, 3 bags of veggies, 5 lbs red potatoes, 2 boxes of Raisin Bran cereal, 1 box of Nature Valley breakfast bars, 1 box of Lance crackers, 6 bottles of Gatorade, 6 pack of Coors Light beer, box of Margaritaville frozen shrimp, 2 bottles of Kraft salad dressing, 2 bottles Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce, 1 bottle Lawry's marinade, 1 container LLoyds BBQ Pork, a 3 pack of 5 React gum, 2 Clif bars, hamburger buns, Luigis Italian Ice 6 pack, gallon of bleach, 2 bottles of Ocean Spray juice, 1 loaf of bread and a gallon of milk.

That's more than I like to spend but we got a ton of stuff too. And most of those items are not weekly items for us and we are still right on target for our monthly grocery budget. This list also sounds like a bunch of junk, but it will give us 4 meals(I didn't like 1 of them) with sides. I will try to post some of my better weeks on here. Even if you use one .50 coupon, you're doing better than a lot of people out there!

Not so Extreme Couponing...

My friend, Holly over at When Two Became Four reminded me that I have never blogged about my money saving experiences while grocery shopping when she blogged about her experiences last week. I am no Extreme Couponer and actually, I rarely watch that show cause it stresses me out. Anybody that knows me knows that hoarding gives me panic attacks! I don't see buying 150 boxes of cereal if you have 460 at home already, unless you are giving it to a charity, which I have only seen a couple of people on that show say they do. I do not go and buy 10 papers like some people do. We suscribe to the paper and I print coupons online. That's what works for me at this time, so that's what I do.

I also use E-mealz to plan my meals. I pay $15 every 3 months and they plan a menu(meat and sides or a soup or an easy/crockpot meal) with grocery list, based on sales. All I do is print it out, put my coupons with it and go! Sometimes I will replace the sides if I have lots of frozen vegetables on hand or if I don't like what they have as a side. I always have frozen veggies or rice or potatoes on hand so it's not that hard for me to find something to replace it with. Sometimes there are meals that I just don't want to fix, so I will use something out of our freezer or I will buy a pizza or we'll go out that night. For $5/month, you can't beat it. I am not a person that likes to have the same menu every week and I love trying new things so this is the best option for me and we have really been pleased with 95% of the things I've fixed, and I've used this plan for probably 2 years.

To make my couponing easier, I have 2 coupon organizers. One for FOOD items and one for NON-FOOD items. I sit down once a week, with my grocery list from E-mealz. I go to I Heart Publix is a blog I follow that matches up the weekly sales ad with all of the coupons that are available to match. Publix is my store of choice because they double coupons, the store is clean, the employees are all so very helpful, they always load my groceries onto the conveyor belt and always ask twice if I want help out with my groceries. Alan went with me one time and we were buying milk that was on sale and the shelf was empty so I asked the guy loading yogurt if they had any and he went to the back and got some. Alan said "They actually stop what they're doing to go to the back for you?" and I said "That's one of the many reasons I shop here!"

So anyway, I retype my grocery list in a spreadsheet so I can add in what coupons I have and what I expect to pay and at the bottom it totals up my whole grocery list. Over-organized? Sure, but at least I know about what I should be paying when I check out. The E-mealz list is already a spreadsheet with room to write but I like having the total and everything being really neat. I will first retype my E-mealz list, taking out any replacements that I have made and adding in everyday things I need. I also have that list broken down into categories like "Frozen, Dairy, Meat, Health Care/Groceries" to help me not wander around the store 20 times. In the middle is a spot for me to type what coupons I have. I will put (2).40, $1, 2/$2 or whatever. However many coupons I have, I will type that exact thing so when I am shopping and pulling coupons out, I make sure I have the right amount. The right column is "Expect to pay". I will take the amount of the item, minus the coupons I have and subtract it. So if it's a $2 item and I have a $1 coupon, I will put $1 in the "Expect to Pay" column. Then at the very bottom, I have the total of the whole list. After I retype my list, I will go to IheartPublix.com and go through their list. If that item is at it's best price, they will put a check mark by the item. So even if I may not need more Cole's Garlic Bread, if I have a coupon for it, I'm going to stock up on it while it's at the best price. I will go through the entire list, adding stockpile items and matching up my coupons with my E-mealz menu and print it out! I put all the coupons I'm going to use in an envelope and I'm off to the store! I also carry another empty envelope with me to transfer coupons over. I also carry my coupon organizers with me in case I see something that wasn't in the ad or something that was on clearance or if I just plain forgot to add it to my list. As I put items in the buggy, I will pull the coupons from my "Publix" envelope and put in my "Using" envelope so I don't keep thumbing through the same coupons. It sounds all complicated but it's actually really easy! I've seen people at Publix with baseball card binders in their buggies flipping through. I don't want to be in the store that long and I don't want to drag a 10 pound binder with me either. Like I said before, this is what works for me. And what may work for me, may not work for anyone else.

Still awake? :) With all that said, Publix is having a great sale this week so I'm going to share some of my grocery list with ya'll. Anything with a * is a stockpile item.

*Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce-BOGO $2.35-coupon for $1/2 = $1.35 for 2 bottles or .68 each.
Kelloggs Raisin Bran- BOGO $4.29-coupon for $1/2 = $3.29 for 2 or $1.65 each
*Lawry's Marinade- BOGO $3.15- coupon for .50 = 1 bottle for .58
Luigi's Italian Ice - BOGO $3.19- coupon for .50 = 1 box for .59
All Laundry Detergent - BOGO $5.99 - coupon for $1 = $1.99 a bottle
Lance Cracker creations - 2/$4 - coupon for $1 = $1 a box
*Sunlight Dishwashing liquid - 10/$10 - coupon for .25 = .50 a bottle

I will post my totals tomorrow evening after shopping. I am expecting to pay under $65 for my menu for the week plus a lot of filler items(toilet paper, makeup, shampoo/conditioner, vitamins, etc). I had to guess on prices for a lot of those items since none are on sale at Publix this week. That's pretty high for a typical week but it seems like we ran out of a lot of our basic things! I usually spend $35-$50. I try to usually stop by Big Lots to see what's on their clearance rack. I racked up for our beach trip, finding 4 pack Gatorade for $1.35 and lots of crackers and snacks for $1 each. I also try to stop by ALDI for our fruits and veggies since they are a lot cheaper most of the time. I will also take in my grocery list and compare prices. If I can get an item at ALDI or Big Lots for cheaper than I can at Publix with a coupon, I will buy it at that place instead and mark it off my list.

Sorry this turned out so long but it was long overdue. Lots of people ask me how I spend so less on groceries and some people even giggle when I say I coupon or say that I'm cheap... I say, why pay full price for something if you can save money? The most important thing for me is not taking Alan shopping. He tends to impulse shop and that's the worse. When I go, I stick to my list. It also sounds like I spend hours getting my list together and 3 hours shopping. It usually takes me about 30 minutes to get my list and coupons together. I typically spend 30 minutes or so in Publix. About 15 minutes in Big Lots and 15 minutes in ALDI so I'm back home within the hour. I hope this helps someone who is looking to coupon or motivates you to coupon sometimes. I am no where near as good as some people but I do what I can without spending 2 hours putting my coupons together and going to 3 different grocery stores. If you have any advice, please share! I'm always open to suggestions!