The best way to Curb your spending.

Clean out your wallet and review your receipts. Today Quicken and I are becoming reacquainted.

Starting From Scratch.

One thing that I love about Flylady is her premise that you're never behind.

I need to keep reminding myself that as it becomes more apparent how many things I have let slide the last couple of weeks.

Our family calendar fell down two weeks ago and I still haven't gotten around to nailing it back up. Constantly reminding yourself of dentist appointments and early school pick ups is not the way to stay organized. Something is bound to fall in the cracks.

I have gotten the dirty dishes in the sink under control again but now it's time to bleach and scrub it so it get shiny and motivates me.

The grocery circulars and coupon piles are calling me and I'm trying to ignore them. Is it worth my time to get one or two cheap/free things from a few stores when I don't really need the items right now? I know I could donate them but they will be in my way until I get around to going to the pantry drop off in a month or two.

What do I tackle first?

Garage Sale Deals This Morning.

I chose garage sale shopping time over any store bought thing for Mother's Day this year. Big Girl and I headed out with whatever bills I could scrape from mine and Hubby's wallets. I ended up with about 9 dollars.

Here's what we got:

One complete Disney's Magic Kingdom set- very neat for $1
Stride Rite sandals for Big Girl- .50 cents
Long sleeved thermal t for Little Guy this winter- $1
Shorts for Little Guy- $1
Polly Flinders sweater for Big Girl- $1
Snowman ornament- .25 cents
Stuffed Simba cub animal- .50 cents ( we so did not need another stuffed animal-this is where shopping alone is a good idea)
Pink Gap summer dress for Big Girl- .25 cents
Long Sleeved shirt for Big Girl- .25 cents
Velour sweat pant sets for Big Girl- .50 cents
Pink Kobe Kids sweater for Big Girl- .25 cents
Two figurines for Little Guy- .25 cents
One free monster truck from free box complete with a full set of teeth in the tires
Lemonade from kid run stand- .50 cents
Alarm clock for Big Girl- $1

I still have about a dollar left. I've definitely done better but Big Girl and I got in some quality time together learning about the value of a dollar. And I won't be scrambling as much come fall to assemble back to school clothes. I'm doing my back to school shopping now one quarter at a time. Of course, she's growing so fast I only hope what I'm buying now will fit next winter. If not I'll pack it up and take it to the kid's consignment store and see if I can recoup something.d

As someone who normally purchases our clothes at thrift stores it seems amazing to me how quickly those $2 and $3 items can seem really pricey. Garage saling can be a lot of work but if you need to stretch your dollars on kids clothes and toys I don't think they can be beat.

What I didn't buy- any more paperbacks. My shelves are aching.
Decorator items- I need no more stuff until I use what I have
Garden plants or items- tempting but I need to take care of what I own first
Adult clothing- we don't need anything
Dishes, cookware etc.- don't need it.
Power tools- Not my department
Furniture- although we are thinking of getting a desk for Big Girl's room since she'll be doing homework soon- I'm just not ready for one yet and we have to re-arrange. When we are ready I feel confident that the right one will come along for the right price. Until then she'll have to make do at the kitchen table.

The Parenting Files: Free Joy for the taking.

Despite a crumby start to my day (my full coupon box tipped over, I forgot Little Guys lunch at home, etc) I have to admit that the one thing that always puts a smile on my face is the silliness of my boy.

We spied the baby geese who live in our neighborhood on our way home from school. We sat in our car for a minute watching their little yellow selves waddle around in the water puddles on this rainy day. Never straying too far from their parents, they moseyed from puddle to grass shoot inspecting their new world. Little Guy of course wanted to take one home and voiced this loudly when we pulled away from them. Yeah, I know how he feels.




This is him five minutes ago. He heard the recycling truck coming and jumped up on his computer table to get a better look. He'll let me know when it gets to our house.

Thanks Little Guy for keeping me grounded and always managing to put a smile on your tired mama's face. I love you to the moon.
The truck is here and you're calling me to join you. Must go.

Tired and Lazy isn't a way to go through life

I don't like to write about the truly personal details of my life on this blog and mostly see it as a vehicle to share ideas with other frugal minded people.

The truth is that I've been in a major rut lately. I'm tired all of the time and my bp is high even on medication. There are many days where I don't cook except to heat something up in the microwave and I have many baskets of folded laundry left from the last two weeks that are begging to be put away.

I'm being fitted for a C-pap machine on Monday for my sleep apnea which my Dr. thinks is causing my exhaustion and my high bp. I am in no way looking forward to having to sleep with a Darth Vader mask on every night. And I'm sure Hubby will think it's sexy too. Well, maybe he'll get better sleep anyway. It's probably quieter than my snoring.

So, with that confession I apologize to all my readers about my lack of interesting blog content and photos. I especially need to apologize to Ruthie who's produce picture I stupidly uploaded for a post.

This is what I'm doing today:













Here's my ambitious plans for date night with Hubby:















I get the Oatmeal and Hubby gets the Monkey.

Hopefully I'll be back up on the horse again soon with some new and my own original content to share. Until then I'll be reading all of your blogs for inspiration.

Dierbergs Today:

Had to do a bit of shopping today although my big trip will be tomorrow. I also brought my own reusable bags for the first time even though they didn't offer me a discount.

2- 4 packs of Cottonelle t.p.- 3. 17 each after coupon
2 packs of vegetarian ethic meal kits- on markdown shelf for .99 each
Purina kitten chow- free after MFR coupon (for donation)
Ronzoni Smart Taste noodles- .50 a box after MFR coupon
Sara Lee Honey Wheat bread- free after sale and coupon
Snuggle Fabric softener- 2.49 after MFR coupon
Box of Apple Whirls cereal- $1 in dollar section (I let Little Guy pick)
3 packs of fresh blackberries- .99 a box on special

Total OOP:
18.96

The cereal, fabric softener, cat food, tp, and meal kits were not planned purchases but I feel good about the deals I got.

Couponing with a plan

I am weeks behind in clipping and sorting my coupons. I also have several high dollar and free coupons for things we need. This is also a week where one of my local groceries stores is doing "Coupon Thursday" where they deduct ten dollars off any purchase over fifty.

A lot of my free time has been spent outside in my yard planting veggies and flowers and weeding a love vine here and there. Big Girl found a little black toad and we had hours of entertainment with him. She named him Harold the Wild and bravely set him free again after her Daddy got a chance to meet him. I even mowed (poorly according to Hubby) the front lawn last week. My house is showing signs of neglect as my veggie patch is starting to blossom.
Today it's rainy outside and I've got nowhere to be so Little Guy and I are happy to be at home doing simple chores like putting away the mountain of clean laundry and planning a trip to the grocery store tomorrow.

I no longer have the great drive to find every bargain but if I plan accordingly today then I can get in and out of a store with things we're running low on for less money. That pleases me more than bargain hunting for the sake of bargain hunting.

**Squirrels in my lettuce container! I doubt I'll have enough for one small salad. GRRRR**