WFMW: Shopping the Sales

To continue my Saving Money series on Works For Me Wednesday, today I'm focusing on Shopping the Sales. This is where the rubber really hits the road for me when it comes to seriously saving money on our grocery and household expenses. The main goal is to take advantage of special sales that stores have and then combine them with coupons in order to get items really cheap or free. Then stock up on the items that you can get at such a great discount so that you have them ready in your pantry when you need them.

I think living in a small town makes this easier for me, since I don't have a million stores to try to figure out which ones to go to or how to go to them all in one week. We only have four stores here where I buy grocery and household items: Wal-Mart, Woods, Aldi, and Walgreens.

I go to Wal-Mart for most of my shopping. Their everyday prices are lowest, so I do the bulk of my shopping here. Where we live, Wal-Mart doesn't publish a newspaper ad, so I don't know what's going on sale until I get to the store. That just requires keeping a sharp eye for sale tags and knowing what a good price for something would be. I do make sure to check their grocery clearance aisle every time I'm in the store, because they're always putting something new there, and I've gotten great deals before!

It's the other three stores that really take some planning. The advertisements for Woods and Aldi come in the Wednesday paper, so I usually go through them and make my plan of attack while watching LOST on Wednesday nights. So I carefully go through each ad and make a note of what's on sale that I want to buy and for how much. Both of these stores often have awesome markdowns on produce, which can really add up if you're just buying it at the everyday price. So I go to the stores and stock up on whatever is on sale, making sure to use any coupons I may have for those items. If some of the items I'm getting are perishable, but not something I can freeze, I just make sure to use it in my menu plan for the next week.

One other neat resource I use is Hot Coupon World. They have a coupon database that lets me know where I can find any coupon for anything if it's available. So if there's something that I'm going to buy that I don't have a coupon for, I just enter it into the coupon database to see if one came out in a recent insert or if there's a printable coupon I can print to save me even more money!

Walgreens is where it gets really fun. Their ad for the following week comes out in our paper on Fridays, so I have plenty of time to plan and figure out what I want to get. What's awesome about Wags is that it's a nationwide chain, and so other people do the work for me - I don't have to figure out what the awesome deals are because there are people who match the coupons to the sales and then blog it. All I do is go to the blogs and decide which of the awesome deals I want! There are three blogs that I check for Wags deals: Money Saving Mom, The "Cent"sible Sawyer, and Mommy Snacks. There are many that do it, but I've found that these three have everything covered. Each of these blogs have a way that you can sort for just posts about Walgreens, so you'll see their weekly Wags post, but also any special deals they may have learned about later. I tell you what, Wags is AWESOME for FREE stuff! I always get almost everything they're offering free each week... Even if I can't use it, I can donate it.

So I hit Wal-Mart on Mondays, Wags on Tuesdays, Aldi on Thursdays, and Woods on Friday or Saturday. That way, I have a freezer and pantry full to the brim with stuff I got great deals on, PLUS bags of items that I can donate that I got really cheap or free! Works for Me!

Next week: Price Comparison Notebook

WFMW: Menu Planning

Alright, to continue my Saving on Grocery Bills series of Works For Me Wednesday posts, I'm going to talk this week about how I plan menus and make my shopping list. Last week I covered Clipping and Organizing Coupons, which I do on Sunday afternoons, and this week I'm going to continue my Sunday afternoon routine. After I've finished my coupon bonanza, I pull out my lists and cookbooks and plan 7 dinners for that week.

First, I look in my freezer and see what I already have in there that I want to use. I keep a large stock of meats, chopped peppers, cooked beans, and frozen veggies in my freezer, and so I generally try to use those before buying more. (Teaser: I'll talk next week about how and why I stockpile frozen foods!) Then, after getting a good idea of what I want to use, I sit down with a few cookbooks to get ideas on how to use them. Sometimes the answer is obvious... How do I want to use a pound of steak and bunch of sliced peppers? Fajitas, of course! Sometimes I want to try something new or different. So I flip through my cookbooks for ideas, or sometimes I'll just get online and google something like "shrimp and tomatoes recipe" and see what I get. I've found some really yummy recipes that way!

So as I'm flipping through and deciding on meals, I make a list of what meals I'll be making that week. I make sure to note what cookbook the recipe is in and what page it's on, or if I found the recipe online, I print it and put it in my recipe binder. I plan not only the main dish, but any vegetables or sides that will be going with it, and I write it all together.

Also, as I decide on meals, I go through the recipes and make a shopping list of anything I don't already have. Most of the time, this is only a few ingredients because I keep a stockpile of the things we use regularly. I also keep a running list throughout the week of things we need... If I see on Thursday that we're going to need yogurt soon, I go ahead and write it down even though I won't be going to the store until Monday... I don't want to risk forgetting to write it down when I'm making the list on Sunday! Since I stick to my list when shopping, if it's not on the list, I won't think to get it, and then my husband would be yogurtless all week! Tragedy! Or I'd have to make a special trip to get it later or pay more for it at a different store! Even bigger tragedy!!

Then to finish up my shopping list, I check my list to see if I have any coupons for anything I want to buy. I go ahead and pull the coupons out and put them with my list so I make sure to use them, and I note on the list that I have a coupon for that item so I can make sure to pick up the right thing for the coupon.

It REALLY helps me throughout the week to have menus planned and to know that I have all the ingredients to make everything. For us, eating out is really a treat, never a necessity because we didn't have anything to make for dinner. That not only saves us money, but it makes eating out more fun and special too! And it makes my days easier because I already know what I'll be cooking for dinner, and I was able to put the meat in the fridge to thaw the night before because I already had a plan. Saves time and energy on my part.

So this meal-planning system really works for me!

Next week: Shopping the Sales!

WFMW: Clipping Coupons

I thought I'd do a series of Works For Me Wednesday posts about my routine when it comes to couponing, shopping, and saving money on groceries and household items! I thought some of you might be interested in how I do things, and maybe you can find something in the mix that will work for you too! Also feel free to make suggestions if you see a way I can make my routine better!

I'll start the series with how I gather coupons. Although I print online coupons whenever I find them throughout the week, Sunday is generally my coupon day. On Sundays, I gather all the coupons I've printed that week along with the coupon inserts from the newspapers, and I have a clipping bonanza. I cut out the printed ones, and I go through the inserts and cut out the ones I know I'll probably want to use.

Then I pull out my handy-dandy coupon organizer (a gift from my mom - THANKS!). Before filing away my new coupons, I go through each section and pull out the ones that have expired. I also pay attention to see if there are any good ones that are going to expire that week that I want to make sure to use before they do. (Note: You will NOT save money if you feel like you have to use every coupon before it expires! Only do this for ones that are really good deals or for things that you know you will eventually buy anyway!) Then I file all my new coupons into the organizer by category.

After doing that, I label the inserts with that Sunday's date, and I file them into my insert keeper - a seven-pocket binder in which I file them in order by date. (Older inserts just get lumped together in the back, and I just toss them in the recycle bin as their coupons expire.) I do this because sometimes things go on sale that I wouldn't have bought otherwise, but the sale plus the coupon makes them really cheap or free. So I never throw away a coupon before it has expired, even if it's something I don't think I'd ever want!

Note: Sometimes things are really great deals, but they're not anything I would ever use or they're things we already have a large stockpile of. If this is the case, I consider if it might be something that could be donated. If it is, I'll go ahead and get it anyway, and put it in a box that I keep in the pantry just for that purpose. I have a large collection of various toothpastes, shampoos, soaps, medicines, etc. that I was able to get at great deals, and the next time I hear of somebody collecting toiletries for the needy, I'll be able to give SO much more than if I wanted to just go out and buy a bunch right then. We also have several shelters in town that would always accept donations of items like these. This is a great thing to do with food items too!

I carry the small coupon organizer in my purse at all times just in case I spot a deal I hadn't planned on, but at home I have ALL the coupons filed away so I can clip the coupon for a sale I'm planning ahead for!

Next week: Menu Planning!

WFMW: Umbrella Stroller

This week's edition of Works For Me Wednesday may be another no-brainer for most of you, but it sure did make my life easier once I figured it out. The problem is that I have a young child who can't walk yet, but even if he could, I wouldn't want him wandering around stores by himself. However, some places don't have shopping carts that I can put him in, and he's getting too heavy to be able to carry him around. So for the longest time, I just didn't go to the consignment stores and small places like that because carrying him around just made it too unpleasant to actually be able to look around and shop. That's when I had the stroke of brilliance... The umbrella stroller! We have this small, collapsible stroller that we got at a consignment sale for $5 before Elias was born. It's very lightweight and easy to manipulate, and the best part is that it keeps my child safe and contained in stores that don't have carts! I just keep it in my trunk at all times now, so it's available if I ever stop somewhere that I need to be able to put Elias in it.

I also learned another very valuable use for the umbrella stroller when I was traveling alone with the baby last week. Our trip was 5 hours each way, which meant at least one stop for food and restrooms... But what to do with the baby while I'm going to the restroom or trying to place my order at the restaurant? Ahhhhhh, the umbrella stroller again! It's small enough that I could actually wheel him in with me to the handicapped stall in the restroom, so he never had to leave my supervision at all. Once he gets bigger, that may not be necessary, but he's still just a baby and I didn't feel good about leaving him outside the stall alone.

So anyways, using the umbrella stroller has made my life a LOT easier! It Works For Me!

WFMW: Cloth Diapers & Wipes

For this week's edition of Works For Me Wednesday, I just wanted to share about how using cloth diapers and wipes is working for us. They're working awesome! Many of my long-time readers will know that we decided to go cloth before Elias was born, and we have been using the same diapers since he was a month old! (Although the diapers said they fit a 7 lb baby, and Elias was 9.5 lbs at birth, they were just too big for him at first, especially before he lost his umbilical cord.) So we've been using the same diapers for the past 9 months, and they're still going strong!

One note, though: Elias is a very heavy wetter, and so we have had a few problems with leaks. We learned to make sure that he's pointed down, which helps from leaking out the top of the diaper. But we've ended up just using Huggies Overnites disposables at night because we hated our baby boy waking up in a puddle!

We use the bumGenius 3.0 one size diapers which are adjustable to grow with your baby. So theoretically, they are the only diapers you should need to buy ever. However, Elias is already in the largest setting, and I'm doubting he'll be able to wear them for another two years... We'll cross that bridge when we get there. We have about 30 diapers, which is enough for us to go 4-5 days between washings, which is great. My friend Ashlee did a post a few weeks ago about washing cloth diapers, and it's almost exactly how I do it. So I thought I'd just link her post for you to read if you're interested in how washing diapers works!

So instead of posting the same thing Ashlee did, I just thought I'd add to it by saying that once you've gone cloth with diapers, it is a BREEZE to go cloth for your wipes too. I bought all our cloth wipes used on diaperswappers.com (LOVE this site! I also bought diaper bags, pail liners, and mama cloth on this site too.), and I got about 40 for only about $5. To go even cheaper and easier than that, just buy some flannel, fleece, or other soft sturdy cloth, and cut it into 6x6 or 8x8 squares. You can hem them or make them two-sided if you want, but I don't think it's necessary. Then I just fold them in half and put them in a normal wipes tub. We got this tub of wipes as a baby shower gift, and we used them up when Elias was tiny before he graduated to cloth diapers. So I just saved the tub to be used in this way.

Then I make a wipe solution:

2 cups hot water
2 tbsp food grade oil (I use canola just because that's what we have.)
2 tbsp baby shampoo

Put the above in a jar and swirl it together until well-mixed. (Don't shake it or else it will get all foamy! Not that I know from personal experience...) Then just pour over your wipes and press them down so they soak up the solution. Done! I just keep the tub on the changing table with the diapers, and throw the dirty wipes in the pail with the dirty diapers. I wash them all together, and it's easy schmeezy!

I did some figuring, and we broke even on our diapers at about 9 months, meaning that what we paid for our diapers is about what we would've paid for disposables for that length of time. (This is assuming we had paid for all our diapers. My amazing in-laws actually gave us half our stash, so the investment that we ourselves put into it was reached at about 5 months!) We bought one of the most expensive diapers on the market, but we thought of it more as an investment, considering not only price, but also ease of use, practicality, and consumer reviews. And from here on out, any more length of time that we get to use these diapers, that's just more money we're SAVING by not buying disposables! Plus, should we ever have another child, we'll keep these diapers to use on him/her, and that will mean MAJOR savings in the diaper department.

Works For Me!

WFMW: Freezing Fresh Peppers

For this week's edition of Works For Me Wednesday, I'm passing on an idea I first came across at Leaving Excess. (Her post was about onions, though, and mine is about peppers, so maybe that makes it sufficiently original to claim it as my own post?!)

The major issue this solved was that fresh peppers are REALLY expensive these days. For those of you who don't eat peppers, the regular price for ONE red pepper at my Wal-Mart is $1.98. SHEESH! Green peppers are about $0.98 each regular. This made it tough to save money. However, peppers will often go on sale - greens for $0.50 each and reds for about $0.79 each.

So of course you want to stock up while they're on sale, but who can use 15 fresh peppers before they go bad?! Not me. So here's the solution! You buy a bunch of fresh peppers while they're on sale, then go ahead and cut them all up however you like. I generally chop about 3/4 of my peppers in normal dices, and then I slice the rest for use in stir-frys and fajitas. Once cut, you spread them out on a cookie sheet lined with parchment/wax paper. (Depending on how many peppers you're freezing, you may need to use more than one sheet. I can fit about 4 peppers on one cookie sheet. I usually just use the same cookie sheet and freeze them in batches - it only takes them about an hour to freeze. So I bag the frozen ones and then put more fresh ones on the same sheet.)
This is an important step because if you just put them directly in baggies before freezing them, they'll freeze into a solid lump and you won't be able to use just some of what's in the bag. So you spread them out in a single layer and freeze them that way first, and then once frozen you transfer them to your freezer bags.So by buying 6 red peppers on sale and freezing them, I save more than $7 than if I had bought them at full price. Geez!

Note: This will only save you money if you actually cut up and freeze the peppers before they rot! You'll notice that in my pictures above, the green peppers had sat on my counter so long they were starting to change color... But hey, I got 'em cut and frozen! Dodged a bullet there...

Not only do you save money by doing this with your peppers, but it also speeds up the cooking process because your peppers are already cut! Makes me a lot more likely to actually make the omelet for breakfast, since the peppers are already cut to put in it. You don't have to thaw them, just put however many you want directly in the pan. They cook up soft, but taste great. (Note: Once peppers are frozen, they're not very good to just eat raw - they need to be cooked.)

This also works with onions, and I'm sure other things, but peppers is really all I do it with at the moment. It Works For Me!

WFMW: Time Management Sheet

For this week's edition of Works For Me Wednesday, I have something very simple that has completely saved my sanity. As many of my readers know, I am a highly organized person who likes predictability and having everything in its place. However, after Elias was born, I had a hard time keeping up with everything. I expected that after the first few difficult months, things would start to resettle, I'd get back into a routine, and it would all be fine. But month after month went by, and I just felt like I couldn't keep up. I could go all day feeling like I was running myself ragged, but then realizing that I didn't actually do any of the things I needed to do that day. It was terrible and I was seriously on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Then, about a month or two ago, when Elias was about 8 months old, a friend gave me something that changed my life.

It's called a Time Management Sheet. It's just a sheet of paper with a column for each day of the week and row for each hour of the day, and you just use it to plan what you're going to do with your time. It's really simple, and I'm shocked I didn't think of something like this on my own, considering my deep love for organization and spreadsheets. (Can I still claim to have New-Mommy Brain?!) So I made my own version in Excel, and I'm going to be really vulnerable here by posting it for you (Click to enlarge.):This is what my weeks look like! I just made the chart and typed in all the things that are the same every week. I print out a new one every Saturday evening, and then I write in all the things that are specific to that week. Then each evening, I plan what I'm going to do with any blank spots that remain for the next day. So when I wake up in the morning, my day is already planned! I just leave my sheet out on the counter where I can always check it to make sure I'm on track for the day.

I use this in conjunction with a monthly wall calendar that helps me remember appointments - I check the calendar Saturday evening when I'm writing things in for that week to see if I have anything that needs to be added. And I also keep a running to-do list so that if I have a blank space that I don't know what to do with, I just check my list and cross something off. This not only helps me remember everything that needs to be done, but it also helps me prioritize to know what has to be done now and what can wait.

This has not only saved my sanity, but it really does help me get things done ON TIME. Since I've started using this sheet, my husband has not once woken up in the morning and not had anything to wear to work that day. My baby has not once run out of clean diapers or out of baby food. I have not missed any meetings or appointments. (And I have not once forgotten to watch LOST!) Seriously, I even sleep better at night because I have the peace of knowing that everything is either done or planned to be done soon.

So although it's simple, it REALLY works for me. If anybody would like me to email them the Excel file with the template for this Time Management Sheet, I'd be happy to. Just leave me a comment here with your email address (or send me an email if you already know my address).

WFMW: Stick Blender

For this week's edition of Works For Me Wednesday, I'm going to talk about an appliance that changed my life. It may be a no-brainer for some of you, but it was quite a revelation for me. This life-changing appliance is the stick blender I use to make baby food.

A little bit of background: I have a Magic Bullet, which is an AWESOME blender and worked great to make Elias' baby food when he was just getting started. However, he's older now and wants thicker, chunkier food. I think that's great and I want him to move to table food as soon as possible, but I was having a terrible time trying to make it in the Magic Bullet. The problem was that in order to make thicker food, you add less water when pureeing, and that just didn't work with the Magic Bullet (or any blender, for that matter). The food just wouldn't move down to the blades to be mashed. I was seriously at the point of throwing in the towel and just moving to jarred food.

But then, a ray of light came down from heaven and landed upon a stick blender that was on markdown clearance at Aldi for a mere $8.99. I figured I might as well give it a try, and I tell you, it has changed my life. It does a great job in pureeing the foods, and I don't add any water at all.

Above you see some carrots I steamed, and below you see what the stick blender did to them. Awesome!The only drawback I have found to using this stick blender is that Elias is scared of the noise, so I can't run it when he's in the room. It doesn't wake him up, though, so I just do it while he's napping.

So for any of you mamas who are or will be making baby food, consider investing in one of these when your little one is ready for stage 2 foods!

Please note the new host site for the WFMW theme: www.wearethatfamily.com.

WFMW: Vinegar in Smelly Laundry

I've decided to take part in a weekly blog theme called "Works For Me Wednesdays," abbreviated as WFMW. Basically, it’s just any blogger who wants to participate posts a blog on Wednesdays sharing some tip, idea, trick, product, or whatever else “works for them.” Hence the name. Then we post links to them all in one place. (This week that will be rocksinmydryer.net, but the host site will be changing next week… Stay tuned!) But I’ve been discovering a lot of neat tips and tricks that make my life easier, and so I thought it would be fun and maybe helpful to some else for me to share them.

So my first WFMW tip is putting vinegar in my laundry. Let me explain. When I was pregnant with Elias, I did research about laundry detergent and fabric softeners, and we made the decision to start using detergent that was fragrance- and dye-free and to stop using softener altogether. (We use All Free & Clear because it’s the cheapest of the free detergents.) That is better not only for us, but also for the environment and for our budget. However, this means that we don’t have anything perfumed to cover up unwanted odors in our laundry.

I have a son who is a heavy-wetter, which means he OFTEN has clothes that get leaked upon. They obviously don’t smell so great, and just the normal wash wasn’t enough to get the smell completely out. I also have a husband who has to wear a shirt and tie to teach every day, which means that sometimes he sweats and his shirts don’t always smell like daisies either. So I had to find a way to get the odors out of our laundry without just covering them up with perfumes. So I did some online searching and found that adding vinegar to your laundry in place of fabric softener will actually neutralize the odors, not just cover them up.

I figured it couldn’t hurt to try, and unbelievably, it works! Just add about a cup of vinegar (more for super-stinky loads, less for not-so-stinky) to your rinse cycle the way you would with softener. I actually use the machine’s dispenser so I don’t have to go back during the rinse cycle. (I mean, who has time for that?!) But it does leave my washing machine smelling like vinegar, so if you don’t want that, then you may consider a different method of dispensation. It neutralizes the bad smells, but it doesn’t leave your clothes smelling like vinegar – they just smell CLEAN!

So vinegar definitely Works For Me.