Uses for White Vinegar in the Kitchen & Bathroom

One of the cheapest cleaners available is simple white vinegar. Here are some great frugal ideas for you to use in your kitchen and bathroom.

Use white vinegar to wash no-wax floors. Just add ½ cup of white distilled vinegar to a half-gallon of warm water. And you don’t need to rinse!

Mix 1 tsp of white vinegar, 1 teaspoon of liquid detergent, and 1 pint of lukewarm water to remove stains from carpets. Apply the mixture to the stain with a soft brush or clean cotton rag and gently rub. Rinse with a towel moistened with clean water and blot dry. Repeat this procedure until the stain is gone. Then dry quickly, using a fan or hair dryer. This really only works if the stain is not oil based and if the stain isn‘t old.

Wash your windows with a mixture of equal parts of white distilled vinegar and warm water. Dry with a soft cloth. This solution will not leave the usual film or streaks on the glass.

Did you know that you can use a vinegar mixture to clean your woodwork? Well you can! Simply mix 1 cup ammonia, ½ cup white distilled vinegar and ¼ cup baking soda with 1 gallon of warm water. Wipe this solution over woodwork with a clean sponge or cloth and rinse with clear water. Dirt and grime comes off easily and the solution will not dull the painted finish or leave streaks. (You can also use this solution to clean walls and blinds.)

Remove the rings resulting from wet glasses on wood furniture by rubbing with a mixture of equal parts of white distilled vinegar and olive oil. Rub with the grain and polish for the best results.

Freeze vinegar in ice cube trays and run through your garbage disposal with cold water to keep your disposal clean and odor free!

Run white vinegar through your coffee maker to clean it of any mineral deposits that build-up from hard water. Just fill the reservoir with the vinegar and run a complete cycle. Make sure you run a couple cycles of plain water after the vinegar cycle to rinse the reservoir and automatic dripper completely.

Boil a solution of 1/4 cup of white distilled vinegar and 1 cup of water in the microwave. Will loosen splattered on food and deodorize. (Boiling plain water may work if the microwave debris isn’t real bad.)

Wash appliances with a solution of equal parts water and white distilled vinegar.

Looking for a natural way to get rid of ants or fruit flies? Place a bowl filled with ½ quart water, 2 Tbsp. sugar, 2 Tbsp. cider vinegar and a couple of drops of dish soap to attract the fruit flies. To get rid of ants (or keep them away) simply wipe down your cupboards, counters, etc with full strength vinegar. Of course it’s always best if you can eliminate whatever is attracting them, (ripened produce, etc).

To keep your stainless steel appliances clean all you need to do is wipe them down with vinegar and a soft cloth. This will keep them streak-free. (Try in an inconspicuous place first to make sure it will work good on your appliances.)

Use 1 ½ cup to 2 cups white distilled vinegar in the bottom of dishwasher, along with regular dishwasher soap and wash full cycle to keep your glassware streak free.

Bathtub film can be removed by wiping away with full strength white distilled vinegar and then with baking soda paste (mix baking soda with water till it forms paste). Rinse clean with water.
Rub down shower doors with a sponge soaked in full strength white distilled vinegar to remove any soap residue.

Stubborn toilet stains can be removed from the toilet by spraying them with white distilled vinegar and brushing vigorously. You can also deodorize the bathroom by pouring a cup of white vinegar into the toilet and letting it sit for half an hour.

Soak your showerheads in white distilled vinegar overnight or for several hours to loosen debris and hard water build-up.

Check back later this week for more uses for white vinegar!

Affordable summer outings

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what activities we can do this summer. Like most people we are trying to be careful of our expenses, so I have been trying to come up with ideas that are free or have very little cost associated with them.

One great way to get an idea of the things going on in your area is to request a “Visitors Guide” for either a nearby city or for the entire state. You’ll probably be amazed by all the free/cheap events taking place in your area! I the city where we live there is “Movie in the Park” every Saturday night through the summer. The movie is always a family movie. You bring your own lawn chairs, snacks, etc. It’s a great outing and it’s free!

A great way to save money on meals and entry fees to various places is to buy an “Entertainment Guide”. A good portion of the coupons are for stores that have locations nationwide.

Camping is another activity that we love. Although honestly someone ends up sick every time. Either April gets bit by a bug and has to be taken to the doctor (she has very bad reactions to gnat, spider, & mosquito bites). Or I end up with a migraine & the trots. But we really do love the thought of camping and we do give it our best!

What does your family like to go during the summer that is budget friendly???

March's food budget and weight update

This month is not going to be good on the budget. Last week I spent $45 of my monthly $120 allotment. This weekend I ordered the regular Angel Food box and the produce box, which was $52. So I now have $23 remaining (eek!!). Hopefully I won't have to buy much, other than milk to get us through the remainder of this month. We still have 2 weeks left of the month. I know we won't have to buy meat, eggs, or cereal.

So far I have lost 7 pounds!! That is definitely very motivational for me. I'm starting to feel a difference in the way some of my clothes fit and how I feel overall. I have a little more energy and am able to stay up a little later at night. I've been working on limiting the diet coke as well and have been drinking mostly water, which I am actually starting to prefer.

Here's a tip: To get myself to drink more water I actually prefer it to be room temperature. I notice that I tend to drink it more quickly than I do if it's cold.

Expensive Grocery Shopping & Short Fuses

So. I made my first shopping spree since the doc put me on this "diet". I thought I'd hit the store after 8pm since that is when they mark down all the deli meat by 50%. Unfortunately for some reason when I got there (around 8:10) they hadn't marked down any of it. They will also usually announce the markdown over the loud speaker, that didn't happen the entire time I was there. So I ended up spending $45 on groceries. I did get quite a bit, but the disappointment of no markdowns is hampering the experience.

I don't know how this change in "diet" will effect the menu overall. I fully expected to spend quite a bit this time and do feel pretty confident in the choices I will have to eat. I know that I was already needing a little variety in the foods I was eating. I'm hoping to check out some websites tomorrow for some recipes to try out.

When I got home from shopping I was carrying the bags into the house. I try to use reusable bags and I had 2 of those & 2 plastic bags. Of course they packed the reusable bags so heavy that I could barely carry them. But I was determined to get them in one trip and not have to go back out to the car. When I got to the door I lightly kicked it so Layne or April would open the door and help me. Layne did come and open the door. Then he WATCHED me waddle with the bags like some kind of pack mule into the kitchen and set them on the floor. Then I started to put the stuff from the bags away......while he WATCHED. I was getting really angry. I mumbled something about "that's fine just stand there and I'll do everything". He asked what and I told him nothing. I need to remember that men aren't always as smart as women and that unlike women they don't always offer to help when a person looks like they may need it. : )

Okay, that's my little childish dig. I feel so much better already!

Spring Cleaning Recipes

This time of year everyone starts to get spring fever. We've been cooped up in the house for a few months while the snow and temperatures continued to drop. Now that we've actually had a few days with the temps above 32 we start to get antsy and want it to get warmer. I personally have spring fever (although I don't look forward to the heat & humidity of the midwest summers). I want to be able to open the windows and let some fresh air in.

Still, while it's not warm enough to do that now there are things I can do to start getting ready for the cleaning rituals of spring. I can get my cleaners made and have them on standby. For each of these cleaners make sure you have a clean spray bottle. I also suggest marking on the bottle what the ingredients are so you don't accidentally add something that could cause a chemical reaction.

These cleaning solutions are incredibly easy to make and are very budget-friendly. The best part is that you know what is in them and there aren't a bunch of crazy chemicals!

Floor/Woodwork Cleaner
1/2 c. ammonia
1/3 c. vinegar
2 Tbsp baking soda
1 gallon water

Multipurpose Cleaning Solution
2 c. rubbing alcohol
1 Tbsp ammonia
1 Tbsp dish soap
2 qt water

Furniture Polish
Combine 1 part lemon juice with 2 parts vegetable oil (How easy is that?!?!)

February Budget

Boy am I close to my budget. I had $5.58 remaining for our February budget. We did have to buy milk and luckily the price of milk has gone down considerably. I picked up 2 gallons of milk to get us through this week for $2.29 each. Our new remaining balance is $1 even. As of right now we do not need to buy anything and shouldn't have to through the weekend. On Saturday I will have to go pick up the Angel Food we ordered for this month. I will pay for my March order and deduct that from my March budget. Right now I'm not sure what I will get for my order.

One great deal that I came across this month and somehow forgot to blog about was a fantastic deal on whole chickens. On Friday the 13th our local Hy-vee had whole chickens for $0.59 a pound!!! I haven't seen it that cheap in over a year. I picked up 5 of them before I even went to work. When I got off work I brought them home to put in the freezer. I was truly hoping to have more room in the freezer so I could go buy more (there was no limit) but I could only fit 4 of them into the freezer. So we left one out and smoked it for supper that Sunday. It's not very often that a deal that great comes along it seems.

Update on budget

Unfortunately I haven't kept that great of track of my grocery budget this month. Tonight I decided to pull together my receipts to see where I stand.

My starting budget is $120. I purchased some boxes of Angel Food for a total of $52. Then I spent $27.72 for our sushi meal (I did also buy $15 worth of bagels but I used our entertainment budget for that. I also have spent $45.02 on various groceries through the month. So my total is $139.74 ($9.74 over budget) and the month isn't over yet. I did end January with $15.32 still in the grocery account. So that does help to offset the deficit from this month. But only leaves me $5.58 between the 2 months for the remainder of February. Yikes! that means if I buy 2 gallons of milk my budget is completely gone.....

Grocery Shopping Trip

Tonight I had to go to the grocery store to pick up some chicken broth and half & half for potato soup that I am taking to work tomorrow. I tried taking a picture but my camera was dead and the cell phone picture was completely worthless. So I am sorry....

Here is what I got:

1 quart of half & half
2 Bistro Linguine Meals (coupon buy 1, get 1 free)
2 boxes of Cinnamon toast crunch (coupon for $1 off 2)
1 Helper meal
1 box Hy-vee honey oatmeal crunch
2 cans chicken broth
4 pkgs. ramen noodles
Western French salad dressing (coupon for $0.75 off)
1 red bull (I always wanted to try it to see if it really gives me energy...)
2 - 1 lb rolls of Farmland Sausage (2 - $0.75 off coupons)
Cascade Crystal Clear (FREE w/ coupon!!)
Hy-vee softener sheets
Joy lemon-lime dish soap (coupon for $0.30 off)

My total was $31.46 before coupons.

After coupons my total was $22.88!! Yay for me!!

Weekly Menu

The last couple weeks I have had no creativity when it comes to menu planning. I am planning on going through some cookbooks this week to get my creative juices flowing. Here is my weekly menu for now, most of which came from Hillbilly Housewife. (But it is definitely subject to change!)

Monday - Steak (leftover) & eggs

Tuesday - Hillbilly Goulash

Wednesday - Chicken breasts, rice, & corn

Thursday - Lentil pottage

Friday - leftovers

Saturday - Alfredo Lasagna - maybe.....

Getting the most out of your freezer

I'm sure you all know there are many things you can store in your freezer. Having a well stocked freezer is a wonderful tool to help you stay in your budget.

A freezer is not only good for storing extra meat and pizzas. You can make your own 'T.V. dinners'. Start off with a few freezer safe containers (that have individual compartments if you want) and anytime you have at least one serving left over from a meal you can make a t.v. dinner out of it. Not only will it be healthier for you than the premade ones you buy at the store, but you'll save even more money because 1. you won't be throwing away leftovers and 2. you won't be tempted to buy those frozen boxed dinners just because of the convenience.

If you have a garden your freezer will become your best friend. You can freeze most veggies, although a lot of them need to be blanched before you freeze them. Some veggies can't be frozen, or rather, they shouldn't be. This would include veggies such as cucumbers and avocados. Fruits freeze wonderfully also.

There are also foods that you can freeze that a some people don't know about or think about. Such as milk, just pour a little liquid out of the container to allow for expansion before you freeze.

Cheese is another food that freezes rather well. Particularly if it is grated. If you need a handful just pull it out of the freezer. If it clumps up just knock the bag on the counter to break the cheese apart.

Another food is eggs. Seriously! You can freeze these - just NOT in the shell. Crack each egg into a compartment of an ice cube tray. Pop out of the tray when frozen and into a freezer safe bag. Just take out and thaw to use, however you do need to make sure you use them right after they are thawed because they will go bad very quickly.

Coupons

I caught a segment on NBC last week about people going shopping and leaving with a whole cart of stuff and only paying like $1.50. I want to know where these people live...... Seriously, I do. I can tell you where they don't live........... : ) Really I do wonder though. I admit I am very jealous about this and would love the chance to go shopping somewhere that doubles coupons weekly, where I could go buy a cart of stuff for $1.50. Someone please give me that chance!!

My husband thinks coupons are usually pretty stupid - well sometimes. He laughs and jokes when he sees me pouring over the ads and my coupons. I usually do okay, but rarely save more than $10 per trip. Sometimes I get really lucky and do save more than that, but that is very rare.

One thing about coupons is that they do you no good if you don't have them with you. I try to remember to take them with me anytime I walk out the door cause you never know when you'll end up stopping by a store. I used to just take them when I knew for sure I'd be going to the store, I've come to learn that if you don't have them you will typically end up stopping by some store where you have this great coupon for....sitting at home. So now I take them almost everywhere - yes there are times I still forget, I just put off my purchase if possible till I have the coupon with.

Another thing about coupons, it's crazy to use one just because you have one. I used to do that a lot. On occasion I still do - if it's a great coupon for a product I've always wanted to try. I do clip most all of the coupons out of the paper and save them - just in the hopes that the local Kmart will decide to have another Double Coupon week.

To really save use coupons on items that are already on sale. For example, if you have coupons for $0.35 off of pizza rolls wait to use them till the item is on sale for $1 before you use them. Then you can get the pizza rolls for $0.65 and really save. Most items come on sale at some point, and grocery stores tend to have the same products on sale every so-many weeks.

A great way to get coupons is by writing or emailing a company that has a product you really like and/or use frequently. I've emailed several companies and have had them send me coupons just for me providing them feedback. I emailed Campbells about how much my daughter loves their soups (she really does!) and they sent me several coupons for free product. I also emailed Farmland and told them how much our family likes their lower sodium bacon, they sent me a bunch of $1 off coupons. I saved those coupons till our local Hy-vee had Farmland bacon on sale for $2 and stocked up using my coupons. I bought 6 packages of bacon for $1 each!

If you contact a company about a complaint on a product it's important that you have the packaging from the product still available. About 6 years ago (when my daughter was in diapers) I bought a package of Huggies. A couple of the diapers were defective. I called the company and was able to provide them the information stamped on the package (that gave them info about where they were manufactured, the date, and the time). They sent me coupons for $11 off a package of diapers! They also sent several coupons for $1 off any Kimberly-Clark product. Which I believe I used to get some paper towels for free. : )

Do you have any good couponing strategies that you'd like to share?

Where to buy books when your on a budget

Last week when we went out of town we stopped at a Borders. It's one of my favorite stores and we don't have one where I live, so it is a real treat to get out of town to where they do have one. I was looking through the shelves of books and even looked on their computer to see what books I may want to purchase. I actually ended up buying a book for my husband and one for my daughter. I did find several book that I was interested in, but either they didn't have them in stock or they were more money than I wanted to pay. I made note of several of the books that I was particularly interested in and decided to see if I could find them online cheaper.

I don't know how many of you know about www.half.com. It's a great site to buy books (even textbooks), cd's, and even movies. I looked for the books that I had come across at Borders and found EVERY one of them for a fraction of the price. I haven't actually bought any of them yet, but I have started looking into the reviews on them to see which ones I want the most.

I know there are other sites that sell used books, but this is the only one I have used so I feel that it is currently the only one I can recommend. I have always found every book I'm trying to find on that site. It's also a great place to sell your used books! I've probably about $200 in the last year selling books that I had laying around the house.

Easy ways to save money in the kitchen

When setting budget for groceries it needs to be realistic. It's amazing what convenience items a you can do without when they are really trying to save money. Trying to live frugally and within a budget will test your creativity. But you can do it!

One of the things I used to do was to stretch our milk by mixing 1/2 a gallon of reconstituted powdered milk with 1/2 a gallon of 2% or whole milk. Some people say that the straight powdered milk & water mixture doesn't taste different, I don't buy that - to me it DOES taste different but is barely noticable (if at all) when you stretch it by mixing the powder/water mixture with an equal part of milk. I say used to because right now, at least for me, it doesn't save me enough money that it's worth the bother. A large box of powdered milk at Sam's Club is about $14. If you reconstituted the entire box you should get about 5.5 gallons (or 22 quarts). The total for me per gallon works out to about $2.55. I can buy a gallon of milk for $2.79 a gallon. Personally I can justify spending the extra $0.24 for that bit of convenience.

Some great place to save money in the kitchen is by making your own spice mixtures. You would be surprised by how much you could save and how many different mixtures you can come up with. I save my old spice containers to reuse with my mixtures. Here are a few recipes to get you started, you can mess around with the measurements to personalize them to your taste.

Taco Seasoning
6 tsp chili powder
4 1/2 tsp cumin
5 tsp paprika
3 tsp onion powder
2 1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

Seasoning Salt
8 Tbsp salt
3 Tbsp pepper
2 Tbsp paprika
1/2 Tbsp onion powder
1/2 Tbsp garlic powder

Italian Herb Mix
2 Tbsp dried basil
2 Tbsp dried oregano
1 Tbsp dried thyme

Most of these mixes can be made with spices you already have around the house. If I need to replenish my supply to be able and make more mixes or I need more of single ingredient spices I usually will hit our local Walgreens. They are often on sale for 2/$1 and sometimes even 3/$1 (with a coupon)!

Do you have a great tip to save money in the kitchen you'd like to share? If so leave a comment for me so that I may post it.

This weeks menu plan

I have only been planning my menus for a few weeks, and only posting them for a couple weeks but honestly I can already see the benefits.

1. We always know what we are having so we no longer have the "What sounds good to you?" "I don't know, what sounds good to you?" conversation.

2. Since we know what we are having we can have meat defrosted or whatever preps done prior to cooking that are necessary.

3. Less waste. Since we know what we are having and know which meals typically yield leftovers we can plan accordingly.

4. Huge money savings. We can make fewer trips to the stores. Which means less chances of being tempted to buy things we don't need.

With that said here is the plan for this week.

Sunday: chili & homemade cinnamon rolls (Which didn't turn out that great. What did I do with the awesome recipe I made 2 months ago?!?!?

Monday: French Toast & fruit

Tuesday: Leftover chili

Wednesday: Not sure. Depends on when we get home from my appt at UNMC.

Thursday: Chicken fajitas (from last weeks menu - ended up eating leftovers the night we were to eat these)

Friday: ribeye steaks, pan fried potatoes & onion, corn or peas

Saturday: Sushi night!!! My brothers & their spouses are coming over & we are going to make sushi & play guitar hero. How fun is that going to be?!?!

Tip for today: I've been seeing a lot of information about Tea Tree Oil lately and what a great product it is. Here is a link I came across when googling Tea Tree Oil. It says it is great for acne. I mixed several drops in with my witch hazel astringent. I will keep you posted on how well it works. I've only used it a couple days now and don't really want to recommend it for acne till I've used it for a lot longer. : )

Weekly Menu

This weeks menu was worked out last night while I was actually cooking Monday's supper. This weeks menu is very easy and I threw it together in about 5 minutes - after looking in the freezer. Pretty much everything on the menu - except for the lettuce and the buns were items we already had on hand - most of it taking up room in our freezer. : )

Monday - chicken chunks & homemade sweet potato chips
Tuesday - chicken patty on a bun, peas, lettuce salad
Wednesday - hamburgers on a bun, corn, lettuce salad
Thursday - cod nuggets, green beans, lettuce salad
Friday - chicken fajitas, tortilla chips & salsa
Saturday - Asian chicken salads

I did have to dip into the remainder of our budget to pick up the buns ($0.88 on sale) and lettuce ($0.59 on sale and with a coupon). I also splurged on my favorite dressing to make the Asian chicken salads - it's on the shelf and is made by Marzetti's, it's called Oriental Sesame and it is AWESOME! The dressing was $2.19. So my remaining balance for this month is $15.32. Woohoo! I've still got many left and only 3-4 days together.

Sticking to the menu

Yesterday at work we received our bonus checks for the 2008 fiscal year. It wasn't a huge sum, but it was enough for me to at least make a dent in my medical bills. Of course one of the first things I thought about though was that we should go out for supper. By the time I got home I had talked myself out of that. When I started fixing our spaghetti supper I actually started to feel pretty good about sticking to the planned menu for the week.

We have become very accustomed to eating at home. We do sometimes go out for a meal. Every conversation afterwards goes something like this:

Layne: I really didn't need all that food.

Liz: Think of the groceries we could have bought with that $25 dollars. We could have ate for about a week.

Layne: Why do we go out?

Liz: I know, every time ends in us having this conversation. And the food usually isn't even great.

These meals out usually left us disatisfied, yet we continue to go out to eat. We used to eat out quite a bit, a couple times a week anyway. We have cut back tremendously. Now we may go out about twice a month. Usually it involves a buy 1, get 1 free meal or another great coupon.

The main reason people eat out is because of convenience. It's not always easy to work all day then come home and cook a meal. It does help though if some of the prep work is done ahead of time. Maybe cut up veggies for stir-fry ahead of time or brown some hamburger for tacos. These little steps can cut significant time off the amount of time you need to spend in the kitchen preparing a meal. If you know some of the leg-work is done ahead of time it won't seem like such a daunting task. Also, if your like me, you'll want to use these things up so they don't go bad.

Today's tip: When you are cooking one of your families favorite meals make a double batch. Throw one batch in the freezer to reheat on one of the nights that you are feeling tempted to eat out for the sake of convenience! You and your pocket book will be very glad you had this meal stashed in the freezer for such an occasion!

Weekend Meals & this weeks menu plan

This past weekend we decided to cook a turkey my husband received from work right before Thanksgiving. Friday I put the turkey in a bath of water to defrost. Then Saturday I put it in the roaster. Saturday night we had roast turkey, mashed potatoes & gravy, stuffing, corn, & cranberry sauce. Just like Thanksgiving - only a lot smaller. The only thing we had a large amount of was the turkey. It was so good! Sometimes I think that during the holidays everything is such a rush that you don't really get to enjoy any of it - including the meals. Yes, you may eat a lot because it's good - but it's not really enjoyed. Everyone is in a hurry because so-and-so has to leave, so we can get cleaned up, so we can open presents. The list of reasons is neverending.

After supper I picked as much meat as I could off to use for turkey sandwiches, turkey and rice, and whatever else came to mind. I thought I really did a great job - until I boiled the bones Sunday after church and saw all the meat that had fallen off into the stock!

After I made the stock on Sunday I used some of it to make turkey and rice for supper. (Similar to the chicken and rice casserole.) Instead of using Cream of Whatever soup I used the left over gravy to give it creaminess. Also, I used all the meat from that came off in the stock for the casserole - then I didn't have to add much from what I picked off the bone the night before.

Since I was on a roll in kitchen I decided it would be a great time to cook up some hamburger that I had hanging out in a 10-lb roll on the front porch for the last few weeks. (Wow does that make me sound like a hillbilly! Please, let me explain. We have a screened in porch off to the side of the house that really doesn't get used unless it's summer. Since the weather cold enough to keep items frozen and I didn't have adequate space for a 10-lb roll of burger in it I put it on the porch. I did wrap it in a couple layers of plastic too though.) Anyway, yesterday it was really nice out, so the ends of the roll were starting to defrost. My husband cut the entire roll up for me. I browned the ends and broke them up to use in meals this week. The rest was wrapped up and put into the freezer. These sections were still froze so it worked out well.

I also cooked up a pound of bacon from the freezer and a dozen eggs that my mom gave to us. When those items cooled I wrapped them in tortillas for my husband to take along and eat for either breakfast or lunch during the week. I left one out for Monday and froze about a dozen of them.

Here is our dinner menu for this week. This is mostly just the main dish - we are kind of spontaneous with the sides! (This is probably the only spontaneous area of my life. Seriously.)

Monday - turkey and rice
Tuesday - spaghetti
Wednesday - steaks, peas, & bread
Thursday - lentil pottage* & biscuits
Friday - cod nuggets & fried potatoes

So what do we have for breakfast and lunch?? For breakfast April & I will usually eat cold cereal, oatmeal, or pancakes. Layne - well, Layne is on his own kind of. I did feel a bit guilty about that - thus the breakfast burritos which are now in our freezer. : )

For lunch we are all in separate places - so it's separate lunches as well. Layne occasionally takes leftovers. April usually eats the school lunch, sometimes she takes lunch. Where I work we are lucky enough to have a hot plate, a grill, a set of pans, etc. So the gal I work with & I usually make some type of lunch. There are 4 of us in the office (2 guys and 2 gals) and the guys a lot of times will buy the food, since us gals make the food. Works out very nice. I usually keep bagels in the fridge and peanut butter in the cupboard in the off chance that our cooking system doesn't work out for some reason.

Budget Update

Going into this weekend we had $42.90 remaining on our budget. I knew I was going to have to dip into that remaining amount because we needed milk - badly. I looked through Hy-vee's flyer to see if they had anything else I needed or just couldn't pass up. They did have some good cereal sales - which we didn't really need but I could load up cheaply.

I ended up getting:

2 gallons of milk @ $2.88 each
3 boxes of Multigrain Cheerios (my favorite!) for $1.00 each (after coupons)
1 box of Special K (vanilla almond) for $1.00 (after coupon)
1 box of Quaker Oats Simple Harvest for $1.50 (after coupon)

Our balance remaining for the month is $32.14.

Tip of the day: This is probably common sense but when using coupons use them only on things you would buy anyway. And when going to a store, if possible, look through the flyer(s) to plan your strategy. Match up the coupons with the sales to get the most out of your coupons and to maximize your savings.

Monthly Budget update

This weekend my husband did make a trip to the store. He bought 2 gallons of milk @ $2.65 each, a package of deli sliced ham for $3.96, and 2 6-paks of 24oz soda bottles for $2.50 each (also had to pay $0.60 for deposit).

$120.00 monthly budget - $61.90 spent so far (this includes the $51 for the Angel Food)
= $58.10 remaining.

The good news is that we have a well-stocked freezer and decently stocked cupboards. We also have Angel Food on the way. We do have 20 days remaining but I am feeling very inspired right now!

Todays tip: When you use the items you've canned up don't toss the lids! You can use the jars and lids to hold the contents of bags of rice, pasta, and assorted dried beans. It's easy to see what you have left and they jars are easier to stack and store than those bags! This is also a good use for the jars that have a chip out of the top and won't seal up properly anymore.

80's Flashback

Guess what I did tonight?? I got my groove on skating in circles around the local skating rink. I have to admit I didn't do too badly. Especially considering that I was holding hands with a 6-year old who has only been skating 2 other times and is still a bit clumsy. We did fall once - and I kind of landed with my hand down and jammed my wrist. It didn't hurt, but I was excited thinking I had perhaps been lucky enough to cause my ganglion cyst to burst. But all that excitement was short live when I felt that bulging bump on the top of my wrist. (Ryan - once it gets a little bigger I think I will take you up on your offer to slam something hard down on my wrist to pop and avoid surgery some time later if it keeps growing.) We did have a good time though - I was kind of hoping to go around a couple times by myself just to see how good I really was, but I didn't get the chance. The funniest part was that I swear they still were playing the same music that they played when I was younger and went skating. Maybe I'd skate really good if I wore my golfing outfit. (Ryan - hope you don't mind!)

Tonight was a quick supper. We had cod nuggets and french fries, both were in our freezer so still no need to buy anything. : ) We still have enough milk to get us through breakfast tomorrow so we are in good shape. I did write a check for Angel Food later in the month. The total was $51 for the regular box and the produce box. So we still have $69 left in our monthly account - which actually doesn't seem like much considering it is only the 8th of January. Yikes! But I know we can do it since we have a good stock of food right now to work with.

Today's tip: Getting tired of a piece of furniture or do you have some clothes in your closet that just don't fit right but are practically new? Do your kids have some toys that are in great shape that they don't play with any longer? Try to sell the items. Many times local papers will allow you to sell items under a certain dollar amount for free. Or you can post it online if your city has a BUY_SELL_TRADE group through Yahoo. These are great ways to sell your items and get a few bucks for them. We recently sold a few pieces of furniture and now have money to buy some nice decorations for our home (which we desperately need). All you have to do is sign up through Yahoo. You only buy, sell when you want to. No need to worry about having an account that goes "inactive". Try it out!!