Thursday, March 27, 2014

Dinner!

Heeelllllloooooooooo blogger!

Tonight I am making something completely made up by me for me (oh and those people who keep hanging around me calling me "wife" and "mom").

It is cheap, cheerful and tasty. It's also a use up what I have on hand kinda dish. Soo here it goes. Sorry I was going to take a picture but my family inhaled it before I could. I guess that's a ringing endorsement.




Unstuffed cabbage rolls

4-5 big cabbage leaves (Blanched)
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 lb lean ground turkey
1 28 oz jar spaghetti sauce (or homemade of course!)
2 T Italian seasoning
1 T Basil
1 t fennel seed
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic minced
6 oz Italian shredded cheese
 1/2 c Italian bread crumbs
1 or 2 T Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste


Preheat oven to 375
Start a large pot of water boiling to blanch the cabbage once boiling add cabbage leaves and cook until soft and bendy, cut into strips.
Season turkey with Italian seasoning, basil, salt, pepper and fennel.
Cook turkey, onion and garlic in a large skillet
Drain any fat from turkey mixture
Add spaghetti sauce and rice, stir
add Worcestershire sauce and taste to see if extra seasoning is needed
add 3 oz of cheese to mixture and stir to combine
pour mixture into a 8 by 11 baking dish
place cabbage leaves on top of mixture
put remaining cheese and bread crumbs on top
bake until golden brown  about 20 to 25 minutes





Wednesday, March 19, 2014

What's for dinner?

Hello blogiverse! For dinner tonight I am making this. I am making a few changes to the recipe though. I am using frozen corn instead of canned, salsa instead of canned tomatoes and ground turkey instead of ground vegetarian crumbles.  Why you ask? Why would you do this? What's  the matter with you? It's because it's what I have on hand. Learning to cook with what you have will save you a million little trips to the store and hundreds of dollars. As long as the substitution makes senses it should go off without a hitch.
Confession time, after writing this I realize I am actually making this tomorrow. Today I am watching a friends 2 year old along with my own little, then taking the teenager to the orthodontist and then going to work. Ugh, tonight might end up being hot dogs or cereal or some other kind of I give up meal. No going out out to eat though. DH and I are doing a 31 day no spend challenge. For a deal queen like me it's been rough and it's only been a couple days so far!! I will keep you updated. Time to go and enjoy my last couple minutes of quiet today.

Saturday, March 8, 2014

How to save A TON on your groceries





This food pictured above only cost me 54.19.
You can learn how to do this. It's so easy!
Here are the tips and tricks I use to save us the most money at the store to keep our family afloat.

Shop the sales! OK everyone first thing first and the most important thing to save you money. Seriously, don't buy things at full price. If you just go to the grocery store and throw things in your cart without shopping the sales you are paying DOUBLE if not TRIPLE what a person who shopped the sale would pay. 
Look through your local grocery ads every week and plan your meals around what is on sale. It might take a little getting used to but the extra money in your pocket will feel SO much better than buying what ever floated your boat at the store. Trust me on this, it's the biggest thing to save you money.

Price match! Walmart and Target are the two stores that I know price match. I have not price matched at Target but this is their policy.
 I always do my price matching at Walmart. It's easier because you can do it right at the register and their policy is very generous. Walmart's policy is found here
There are two main reasons that price matching rocks. You don't have to run to ten different stores to get the deals, gas is expensive people! You don't have to go by some of the rules in the grocery ads.  You don't have to spend 10.00 to get the price and you can buy more than what the ad might limit you to. Walmart will also take competitor coupons which is an awesome bonus!

Find and use coupons! Can't say enough about glorious coupons. They are free money. How could it get any better?!?  To get coupons get the paper and/ or find a coupon exchange.If you can find a store in your area that doubles coupons, DO IT. You can really, really maximize your savings if you take the time to plan your trip.  Find deal match up sites my favorite places to find coupons are coupon match up sites I love the data bases at the following websites; http://thekrazycouponlady.com/http://hip2save.com/, and if you live in Wisconsin http://wisconsincouponmatchups.com/.  These are some printable coupon sites, http://www.coupons.com/, http://smartsource.comhttp://www.redplum.com/ and
http://www.mambosprouts.com/.
 There are also store coupons. Walgreens and Target both have store coupons which can be combined with sales and stacked with 1 manufacturer coupon per item.


Combine coupons with sales! Whenever possible match your coupons with sales. If you get a great coupon but the product is not on sale, wait. It almost certainly will go on sale. This is how you save 50-75% on your groceries.  Once you can match the coupon and the sale try to get extra of that coupon.

Use shopping apps!
These free apps are a way you can stack, sales, coupons, store coupons and these rebates. These apps give you cash back for buying the products they have offers on. Each one will have a slightly different redemption process.
The ones I use are Saving Star, Ibotta, Checkout 51, and Shopmium. It's usually a limit of one offer per user but the offers change all the time. It's defiantly worth your while.

Start a stockpile! Sales run in cycles usually about 6-8 weeks. When a product your family uses hits a rock bottom price buy enough to last your family until the next sale. This way you can maximize your savings and not have to pay full price for the item when you run out.

Be creative!
Look into every avenue you can to save money. I looked into my Insurance program and found out they will give me 10% back on all "healthy" food at Walmart. What? Yeah, seriously. Create an account and look into rewards programs that your insurance company offers.
Always join any mailing list or loyalty program for food manufacturers. My favorite ones are kellogs family rewards, old orchard, and fresh express. Try checking the websites of your favorite brands.

Another way we keep our out of pocket cost down is by finding extra ways to add money to our budget. We participate in something called screenwise panel. By letting them monitor our internet usage (now I know this isn't for everyone) we get 60.00 a month. We use that to lower our out of pocket expenses on groceries.

You could also use  swagbucks. Swagbucks is a website where you can earn gift cards or cash by doing small activities, Internet searches and surveys. If you shop online link to the website through swagbucks to earn points as well. You probably won't be able to get enough to pay for your whole bill but every little bit helps, right? 

Monday, March 3, 2014

Target and piggly wiggly haul 3/3/14

This cost me 99.71

I have said this before, and I doubt I will ever stop saying it....I love you Target. Seriously head over heals in love with your sales. It's a great time to stock up on paper products and if you happen to have a little monster in diapers like this one
then you need to head out to Target like, um now.  We normally cloth diaper our little monster during the day. We only use disposables at night, on road trips or on days when I strip the diapers so these diapers should last us until he grows out of this size.The other great deal for babies is the up & up wipes these are very nice wipes and the price of  a penny a wipe is just too freakin' good.

So.... I have a confession. I am obsessed with raisin bran. One of my favorite parts of our yearly vacation is that the hotel has Raisin Bran in their breakfast buffet. Since I started really getting into couponing like a year ago I have been complaining that I could never get a good price on raisin bran. I refuse to pay more than .99 for a box of cereal that being said I haven't been able to buy Raisin Bran for a  year :C (epic sad face) I finally got it today! To me this is a huge victory. I will enjoy every bite, pinky promise.

So just to give you a brief overview of what I got for 99.71 :
444 diapers
436 wipes
72 rolls of toilet paper
1 febreeze
2 packs of cookies
2 candy bars
5 boxes of cereal
1 lb of chicken legs
8 cups yogurt
2 bags of salad

Ok on to the breakdown for Target:

2 packs of 222 diapers 34.49 a piece- buy 2 get a 15.00 gift card back- used 5% off cartwheel and 5% redcard discount bringing them down to 23.99 a box which breaks down to .11 a diaper!! That is an incredible price. Saved 20.99

$20 off $50.00 in household purchases deal:
3 packs of 24 rolls of Scott toilet paper on sale for 15.99 from 18.49 used 2- .55 off 1 coupons with the $20.00 discount and 5% redcard  Saved 29.66

1 can febreeze (which I bought to make it up to $50) on sale for 2.74-used a .50 off coupon and with the $20 is count and 5% redcard discount brings down to 1.06 Saved 1.93

2 twin candy bars .79 each - used 15% off cartwheel , 5% redcard discount and a .50 off 2 coupon brings it down to .39 a piece. Saved .80

1 lb gold n plump chicken drumsticks 3.19 regular Target price- used a 1.00 off 1 gold n plump product Target coupon and a 1.50 off 1 printable coupon from signing up for gold n plumps email list and 5% redcard savings brings it down to .66. Saved 2.53

2- 13 oz packages chips a hoy cookie- Regular price 2.99 on sale for 2.39 used a 1.00 off 2 printable coupon from Facebook and 5% redcard discount brings it down to 1.80 each. Saved 2.38

2 packs up & up 216 count wipes- Regular price 4.99 on sale for 4.00 used a 1.00 off 2 printable Target coupon, 5% cartwheel and 5% redcard discount bringing it down to 3.16 piece. That breaks down to .01 a wipe!! Saved 3.66

5 boxes 18.7 oz boxes of Raisin Bran Regular price 2.99 on sale for 2.75 used 1.50 off 1 printable coupons from Kellogs family rewards, 1.00 off 2 printable from Kellogs.com, 1.00 off 2 printable target coupon, checkout 51 app 1.00 rebate when you buy 2 and a buy 5 get a 5.00 gift card promo brings it down to an amazing .55 each. Saved 12.20

Total saved at Target 74.15 
Total spent at Target 96.29

Piggly Wiggly breakdown:

8- 6 oz Yoplait light yogurt regular price .69 a piece on sale for .49 a piece used 1.00 off 4 printable coupon from coupons.com and a .40 off 6 savings star rebate brings it down to .19 a piece
Saved 2.40

2 bags fresh express green and crisp bagged salad regular price 2.99 each on sale for 2.00 each used a 1.00 off 2 printable coupon for participating in their salad swap program brings it down to 1.50 each. Saved 2.98 


Total saved at piggly wiggly 5.38
Total spent at Piggly Wiggly 4.92

So there it is a very successful shopping trip. 







Sunday, March 2, 2014

Walmart haul 3/2/14

Hey bloggernites! So here are the latest deals I got at Walmart this week. There weren't that many deals I wanted to jump on so this list will be short or rather shortish for my couponaholic butt anyways ;)

5 pack of Mac and cheese (Walmart reg price of 4.28 used 1.00 off 1-5pk printable at coupons.com) .66 a box
4 cups yocrunch yogurt (Walmart reg price .60 each used 1.00 off 4 coupon from newspaper) .35 a cup
2 bags of hashbrowns (Walmart reg price 1.84 used .75 off 1 printable at coupons.com) 1.08 each
4 boxes rosemary Triscuits (price match pick n save 2.00 each and used 1.00 off 1 coupon I found this on hip2save website) 1.00 each
16 cups yoplait yogurt (price match .49 each piggly wiggly used .50 off 8 coupon from newspaper) .43 each
Sweet baby rays BBQ sauce 18 oz (price match walgreen for 1.50 and used 2.00 off 2 coupon I found the link for it on krazycouponlady) .50 each
1 pack Strawberries 16 oz (price match Aldi's .99) .99 ea
1 bunch Asparagus (price match piggly wiggly 1.49 a lb) I had a little less than a lb 1.40
1- 3 lb bag gala apples (price match Aldi's 1.99) 1.99 each
8- 64 oz old orchard juice (price match pick n save 1.50 and used 1.00 off 2 coupon from old orchard.com) 1.00 each
2 Jennie-o Lean ground turkey (Walmart 2.98 a lb regular price (used 1.00 off 2 coupon) 2.48 a lb
4 Snickers peanut butter squared candy bar (price match walgreens .49 and used 2 .75 off 2 coupons from coupons.com) .12 each- nice Easter basket stuffer!
1- shelf stable so delicious coconut milk (2.28 Walmart regular price used 1.00 off 1 printable coupon and 1.00 Ibotta rebate) .28 each


So a few stock up items especially the juice and the Triscuits. In my next post I'm going to explain all the tips and tricks to be able to have a week like this shopping wise and not having to eat triscuits dipped in juice and yogurt for every meal. I mean if that is your thing, go for it. I won't judge you.