The Great Grocery Challenge - Week 15

Another week with no pictures...

Target: spent $3.27, saved $15.50
(plus, I got 3 pairs of pants and a l/s t-shirt for Drake for $6!)

Walgreens: spent $4.14, saved $58.25

Meijer: spent $3.53, saved $4.48

Weekly Total: $10.94, saved $78.23

I have yet to be able to get the awesome deal on Finish. I missed out a couple weeks ago at Walgreens and CVS and this week I missed it at Meijer. Maybe, just maybe, I'll get another chance before the coupons expire?!

I didn't spend much this week which is probably good since I spent over my budget last week. And, I'm guessing I might be up next week since THE party is on Saturday!

The Great Grocery Challenge - Week 14

This week wasn't nice like last week, but pretty good for the two weeks combined. :-) Plus, we're getting ready for a party (hmmm....it might be someone's birthday) in a couple weeks! :-)

Meijer: spent $45.43, saved $24.94
CVS: spent $17.19, saved $69.58
Walgreens: spent $24.25, saved $25.10

Totals: spent $86.87 , saved $119.62

Go Redbirds!

Being an alumni and working at ISU, I always like to make it to at least one game each year. They were giving faculty and staff free tickets to this afternoon's game so we headed out. Jason was coaching an Upward basketball game so I went with Drake and Aireol which explains the pictures. :-) Drake did pretty good between the music and watching all the people including a 10.5 month old girl behind us! It tough to get good pictures with him. I really wanted to get a picture of him with Reggie, but it wasn't going to work out....maybe next time.

(He looks scare, but I promise he isn't.)

I bought this onesie in size 12 months thinking it might even be a little big. When I put it on him this morning, I was shocked! It almost didn't get over his head!

And, the Redbirds WON!

Organizing

One of the goals of couponing is to create a stockpile. I started just piling everything in our pantry and under the bathroom sink, but my stockpile quickly grew so I had to figure something out. I had an extra shelving unit with doors to use for my food items, but the toiletry items ended up overflowing a box on the floor of our closet. So, I spent this morning sorting the items and moving them to shelves in our hall bathroom.
I love it! It's so organized and now I feel like things are in their correct place.

This closet had a bunch of blankets, extra pillows, and extra towels in it. To move these, we cleaned out one of our spare bedrooms. The bedroom had workout equipment but also served as an additional guestroom when we have out of town visitors so it was a mess. We moved all the equipment to the basement so there is actually room for people to sleep in there now and all the blankets/pillows are in that closet. Yes, it's just an air mattress, but we have another guestroom that has a real bed in it. :-) We always leave the pack & play set up in here, too, for any guests. I don't want to invest in other furniture since tThis will probably be baby #2's room if the Lord allows.

My house is definitely not immaculate and organized all the time, but I do get motivated to purge, clean, and organize every once in a while. :-)

The Great Grocery Challenge - Week 13

This week, I was able to start collecting a few food items for Drake's upcoming birthday party (yikes!)...like a great deal on soda and chips at CVS.CVS: spent $3.56, saved $43.79
Walgreens: spent $5.81, saved $60.16! (91% savings!!!)

My subtotal on one transaction was actually -$.04! I've never seen that before! (There are 2 boxes of Special K missing from the picture, too.)

Meijer: spent $10.21, saved $13.02

Target: spent $11.58, saved $19.50

Weekly Total: $31.16, saved $136.47! (81% savings)

This is my best week ever! I might also note that if you've been watching these posts, you haven't seen me purchase meat (aside from frozen chicken breasts quite a while back). In July, we purchased a 1/4 beef which has turned out to be one of the best things. Not only do you pay a lot less (about $1/pound), but the meat tastes a lot better and it's readily available. If you are wondering how much meat that really was, we got 47 pounds of ground, about 12 roasts (they were cut pretty small since it's just the two of us...well, and Drake), quite a few steaks and some other random meat.

I'm sitting here right now...6pm on a Saturday night... watching Drake play with his toys, attempt to play with Kahlua and walk around the living room. It's amazing to watch his mind and body at work. He is doing GREAT - sleeping 11.5-12 hours each night, taking 2 naps, saying Mama & Dada along with lots of other babbling, eating 3 meals of regular table food and 1-2 snacks each day, drinking from a sippy cup, and playing by himself.

He likes to challenge us already. We have a lamp on the end table that is at a perfect height for him. He is definitely aware that he isn't supposed to touch it. In fact, he'll walk close to it, reaching his hand out. Then, when we look at him, he pulls his hand away. It's almost like a game now. He also likes to crawl to the room where we have Kahlua's water and food bowls. When he hears us coming for him, he tries to walk (usually too quickly which ends up in falling) out of the room. I'm just shocked that this is happening at just over 11 months?! Makes me really wonder what we're in for. :-) The good news is that I think we're doing pretty good being consistent with him. I'll admit that it's sometimes tough not to smile/giggle at that cute little face, but I still know that we need to give him boundaries.

We haven't been up to much lately. I'm busy getting ready for his party which is three weeks from today {yikes}...this came WAY too fast! I'm hoping it will be a great celebration. Since his birthday will always fall around the Super Bowl, I didn't want to start with a football theme so we're having a monkey theme! It's adorable if you ask me. I ordered invites off of Etsy and they arrived last week. I'm waiting on the door sign and for her to get back to me on the Thank Yous. Drake's birthday t-shirt ready and the cake is ordered. I still need to work on decorations, order cupcakes, and figure out what we are doing for food. Instead of a regular baby book, I've been doing a scrapbook for him. Thanks to some awesome time off at Christmas and Jason's help, I got quite a bit done then, but I'm still way behind. I'm off work on Monday and Drake is going to daycare so I'm hoping to get a lot accomplished.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

The Great Grocery Challenge - Week 12

It was a pretty good week...a little over the budget, but that will hopefully get better now that I've purchased Drake's FINAL can of formula!

CVS - spent $1.77, saved $37.67!
(Of course...my free Excedrin coupon showed up after I went to CVS this week!)Walgreens - spent $2.38, saved $18.38!
Target - spent $3.46, saved $21.14!Meijer - spent $35.89, saved $42.14 (Dog food not pictured)!

Sams Club - spent $20.18!

Totals - spent $63.68, saved $119.33!

11 Months!!

Dear Drake,

You are 11 months old! The time with you is going by so quickly and you have changed so much - from that tiny newborn baby that would just snuggle on our chests or in our arms to such a big boy that is learning to walk and talk. It makes me so happy to see you learn new things. Like the past months, this one was full of change.

You had THREE teeth (a top central incisor and both top lateral incisors) come through! This makes for a total of 6 teeth - 4 on top and 2 on bottom!

You have transitioned to all table foods (except cereal in the morning) and we ordered your very first kid's meal at a restaurant - a grilled cheese with fruit at IHOP. You feed yourself almost everything except fruits that are hard to pick up. We got you your own spoon and fork for Christmas so we'll start practicing with those soon. You are still working on the sippy cup, but getting so good with it! We also transitioned you to three bottles per day...7am, 1pm, and 7pm which is going great.

On December 23rd, you had your first haircut! We took you to a little barber shop in Uptown Normal called Shorty's. Afterwards, we took you to Moe's for your own quesadilla, and you ate almost the whole thing!You learned to wave "bye-bye" and do it anytime you hear someone say it! You've also been talking a lot more including "dada" and "mama" on a regular basis.

At Christmas, you started getting very interested in taking steps - trying multiple times each day. You've taken up to 12 steps by yourself and stand for longer periods of time now!!
You LOVE playing with doors...opening and closing them all the time! You get so upset when I open a door and close it before you can get to it. You also love Kahlua...you'll walk or crawl up to her and lay your head on her. Lots of times she will move, but you don't mind, you just follow her. :-)

We are pretty sure you are experiencing night terrors. Once in a while, you'll wake up a few hours after going to bed crying, and we aren't able to console you. After a few minutes you calm down and go right back to sleep, but we don't like it one bit.

You celebrated your first Christmas. You were blessed with some clothes and new toys, but weren't too spoiled which we think is perfect.
You wear size 9 month clothes. You are wearing size 3 diapers during the day, but we had to move you to size 4 diapers at night.Happy 11 month birthday, Drake!

Love,
Momma

The Great Grocery Challenge - Week 11

CVS - spent $20.01, saved $33.45
Walgreens - spent $5.47, saved $25.00
Target - spent $7.84, saved $18.42Meijer - spent $25.47, saved $26.28

Totals - spent $58.79, saved $103.15

Not too bad, but I know I could have done better. I picked up a few things at Meijer that I didn't need, but, you know, all those coupons expired on Friday night. :-)