This week: Adventure in Coupons

Growing up my mom taught me about saving money while you shop.

This is what I learned from her:
1. Only buy an item if it is on sale. Especially clothes - and 20% to 30% off is NOT a sale. If it is 50% or 60% off retail than that is a SALE.
2. Purchase items that are on clearance. When I go clothes shopping at Kohl's or Target I always look through the clearance racks first.
3. Use coupons. I have always used coupons when I had them. Especially for diapers. But after this week I didn't know how much I could really be saving.
4. When purchasing toiletry items look at see if the packaging has "more free" in it. Example: The other day at Target the Suave body wash was on sale for $1.50. Some were 12 oz. but some had 50% more free in the package making it a total of 18oz. of body wash for the same $1.50. If you are going to buy the product get more for the same price.
5. Buying the store brand instead of the national brand is just as good. And it is cheaper.

This week I decided to go full force using coupons and see what would happen. There are SO MANY websites/blogs out there of people trying to save money and using coupons and they are sharing their information. And there are websites where you can print coupons. I am truly amazed.

Here are some of my favorite websites:
http://thekrazycouponlady.com/
http://couponingtodisney.blogspot.com/
http://www.savingwithshellie.com/
http://www.morethancents.info/
http://hip2save.blogspot.com/
and April Preston (our inspiration!)

So this week I did some research. And printed out a bunch of coupons. I shopped at Walgreens, RiteAid, Target and CVS. I spent $73.55 at the stores. I saved a total of $119.91. Plus I am getting a coupon for a package of free Huggies diapers in the mail.

So what did I buy using my coupons?
Olives (2 cans)
Deodorant (x2)
Tissues (3 boxes)
Bandaids
Huggies diapers. (5 packages)
Toilet Paper
Purex 3-in-1 (2 packages)
Baby Wipes (4 boxes)
Conditioner
Glade Candles and Refills
Chex mix (x2)
Cinnamon Toast Crunch (x2 - Caden's favorite cereal)
4 large bags of Halloween candy

A few things that I learned.
1. You can "stack" coupons. You can use a manufacturer's coupon plus a "store" coupon for one product. Walgreens, Target, CVS and RiteAid all have store only coupons.
2. If you are buying an item that is Buy one, Get one FREE (BOGO) You can use 2 coupons. One for each item.
3. Stores like RiteAid and CVS have coupons for $5 off a purchase of $25 or more. The $25 total is BEFORE you use any coupons.
4. RiteAid has monthly rebates. Look through the rebates along with your coupons and sale items and you could be getting items for free or even making money back after the rebates. RiteAid also has a new program online. It is called Video Values If you watch videos on their website they will give you a store coupon for that product that you can print out.
5. Target will price match. Bring in the local competitors ad and they will match the price.

My friends this week have been my computer, printer and scissors. I had to run to Fry's to buy another ink cartridge for the printer. (Sadly, I didn't have a coupon for Fry's.)

Tim thinks this is crazy and is calling it "working the system." All I know is that I am hooked on coupons. Or should I say "clipped"?

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What else did I do this week?
Tuesday we made homemade Apple Pies for YW. I will post the recipe on Recipe Queens
Wednesday I volunteered at our schools book fair.
I didn't do much laundry, so I am catching up today.

Welcome Fall

I have really been happy that fall is here. A little bit cooler during the day. I've been reading. Drinking hot chocolate and toast (a little guilty pleasure). I made strawberry freezer jam for the first time ever.

And then today I made these:

And, yes, they tasted delicious too. I decided to put a sturdy fork in them instead of a wimpy popsicle stick. I worked great for eating and it didn't fall off! Tim and I were talking and we have decided that Fall is our favorite season.

Golden Gate Bridge

We took our YW and YM on an outing to the Golden Gate Bridge. I brought Miles along. Why do we live so close to these amazing landmarks, but never go to them. I will tell you that I hate going into San Francisco. There are too many (weird) people, too many cars and not enough parking just for starters. Anyway, the Bridge really is amazing and it was clear that morning and could see across the bay. Miles said he was scared of heights and didn't want to walk on it but I made him go. Miles and I ended up cutting our activity short - we had to drive back home because Tim's kidney stones decided to make an appearance that day. The rest of the youth and leaders stayed for a picnic near the beach.
Miles being afraid of walking on the bridge:
Can you tell he was having a great time?
Then, when we started to walk back he was suddenly not afraid anymore. He kept looking over and spitting and watch his spit slowly twirl down towards the water. I guess that is what 9 year old boys like.
This is my favorite picture.

Camping at Big Sur

We took the kids camping at Big Sur on September 12th. (down by Carmel & Monterey). We had reserved the spot for 2 nights but ended up only going one night -- and I am sure glad we did. We had fun; but the girls had a hard time sleeping. (Which means Tim and I got no sleep.) We got up early Saturday morning and drove down to the campsite. It took us about 3 1/2 hours to get there. The drive was pretty and I loved watching the waves crash against the coast. (But we didn't stop and take any pictures). We got to the campsite and set up camp. We ate lunch and tried to get the girls to take naps. (didn't work). I took Miles, Caden and Alexandra exploring and found the small creek. We went over to the "gift shop" and bought a map of the area and some treats.

After Tim set up the tent we tried to keep Avery in it but she was able to crawl out and get dirty quite quickly.

Tim told the boys that they could start a fire by rubbing sticks together or hitting rocks together. Caden picked the biggest stick he could find. Notice that he is also barefoot. He ran around barefoot half the time and his feet were black by the time we got home.
Miles hitting together his rocks.
Miles using a bigger rock to hit. The big rock became our "time-out" rock for the trip.
Alexandra had fun picking up the chairs and moving them around to various places.
On our hike. The boys look like they actually like each other!
The silly pose.
What is camping without smores?

And lastly - the boys thought it was great to burn all of our paper plates. Many times.

Next time we go camping girls will be a few years older.
Or when we have to go camping to sign off something for scouts.

Avery at One

At Avery's one year check up she weighed in at 18 lbs. 7 oz. (11%). I was pretty excited that she had gained so much because she hadn't been gaining much since her last few visits. And she was 28" (18%) long. So she is on the smaller side but that doesn't stop her. She has been working on standing up all be herself. When you clap for her she will do it more, then she will clap for herself. She is also good at giving hugs and kisses. And she loves to EAT, everything you give her. When she is done she will start throwing the left over food off the high chair tray.

Turning one

We celebrated Avery's First birthday last night. Great-Grandma Duncan and Aunt Denise came over to celebrate with us. We were going to have BBQ chicken, potatoes, rice & watermelon for dinner but we ran outr of propane and ended up having Papa Murphy's pizza and watermelon.

Tim was in charge of getting her a present because I couldn't find anything that I liked. He bought her this cute Disney Princess ride-on.
I think she likes it. The problem is big sister likes it too. Tim asked Avery "Do you like your present?" Alexandra turned around and yelled out "YES!" Great-grandma Duncan was laughing so hard.
I made Brownie cupcakes and Cookie-dough cupcakes. I found the recipes online and couldn't decide which one to make so I made both. They are both delicious. She was funny because she wouldn't eat the cupcake sitting on the table. Once I put her in the high-chair she made a huge mess and enjoyed the cupcake.


We can't believe she is already one. The year flew by.

First day of school 2009

Name: Miles
Grade: Fourth
Teacher: Ms. Harrod
I think he secretly like school. He just doesn't want to show it. He is so good about waking up in the mornings and getting himself ready. He will pace the house if he thinks he is going to be late.

Name: Caden
Grade: First
Teacher: Ms. Riley
First year of school all day! Caden will be friends with anyone who plays with him.

7:10 is too early in the morning for Caden to wake up.

This is how I feel!

The boys start school on Monday. Love this commercial!

Church Prom

This happened way back on March 7, 2009; but I never posted the pictures.

Tim's calling is the 2nd Counselor in the Stake YM's presidency. He goes to all the major stake activities. They had a prom for all the LDS kids 16 and up in the area. Most of the Proms at the high schools are not a good environment to be at these days. Tim ended up taking Alexandra as his "date." They had a great time and she was really good, and probably the cutest girl there!

I did her hair before they left. I was thinking to myself that I will (hopefully) be doing her hair when she goes to her own prom in about 14 years.
Daddy & Daughter before they left:
Dancing:
Zani & Daddy
Tim tells everyone that Alexandra is his favorite child. (no secret there.)

Under Construction

We have been working slowly on getting our front yard cleaned up and ready to put sod in the front yard. I have ripped out many rose bushes and have been moving rocks. Tim and I have different ideas of how the yard should look like. We put down some redwood bark on top of the grass/weeds that I killed and we roto-tilled it in. A few weekends later we redid all the sprinklers.
Before picture: We are planning on putting sod in October. Hoping for a nice "after" picture in a few months.
Last September we had a pipe break in our back yard. We had it capped off. The same weekend we did the sprinklers we decided to re-build the pipe that was broken. After Tim fixed it by himself (and only making 5 trips to Home Depot, including sprinkler parts). It was fixed and we had running water again in the back yard. But I could hear running water but couldn't see any coming out anywhere. And dark spots started showing up on our dining room wall. At first I thought the kids had smeared chocolate syrup on the wall but I cleaned it up and the next day there were more spots. So I called a plumber and he came out and found that this piece (picture below) had broken and was leaking water (most likely when Tim was tightening everything for the new pipe.)
The water had been leaking for 4 days. So the plumber fixed the broken pipe and left a hole in the wall.
So I started ripping out the rest of the wall where the water damage was. I am hoping we can get the wall fixed this weekend with new sheetrock. This is what our dining area had looked like for the last week:


AND I forgot to add that our new dishwasher kept filling up with water again. (3rd time it has happened.) And I was tired of not having clean dishes when you opened it up after the cycle was over. So we ended up getting a dishwasher from the McKissicks, who had recently moved and couldn't use theirs anymore. Tim replaced the old one with the new one (with a little help from Ted Ballin.) And it works perfect! We are quickly becoming good DIY's.