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Christmas Gift Ideas...cheap prices, not cheap gifts

Sign up for Land's End emails and they send out the 12 Days of Christmas specials! Yesterday I bought 4 of their famous canvas bags with monograms as gifts for $17.00 ea instead of $26.00 ea. Today's special is a $59.50 sweater for $30...check out the fabulous deals, many times with free shipping!

Not so sleepy mommy this AM

Little Bit has been a through the night sleeper since she was 5 days old...only when I went back to work that luxury stopped. After 4+ weeks of getting up three times a night I think we may have found a remedy...some one recommended Tracy Hogg's book, The Baby Whisperer. I picked it up yesterday and what I have read so far is spot on! Use the EASY method - Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time (mommy time). She is a nurse who believes that we train our children to want to nurse to go to sleep, instead of self soothing. She does not advocate lots of time alone crying but not nursing to sleep either. Last night we fed Little Bit, played with her for about 40 minutes then gave her a bath and put her to bed in her own bed awake. She put her self to sleep in about 10 minutes...no crying at all but lots of jabbering :) When she woke up for her 1AM feeding I simply put her pacifier back in, rubbed her tummy and talked to her for all of 30 seconds and she went back to sleep. She woke up again at 3:15, and 3:30 with the same techniques so at 3:45 I fed her and then put her back in her own bed...and it worked! She never had sleeping issues until I went back to work and I realized last night that we used to put her to bed awake but when I started back to work I was/am so tired she ended up in our bed with a boob way more often than I like...so we are trying this method this week...and since I am not breastfeeding her three times a night Greg got up and soothed her at 3:15 and 3:30 while I stayed in bed :)

Cheryl's Cookies

Go to www.cheryls.com/FREE and get a sample 6 pack of Cheryl's cookies free, pay only shipping and handling. My hubby LOVES Cheryl's cookies but they are sooo expensive we don't buy them often.

Bonus coupon!

I ran through Kroger today to pick up some items for my office and on the back of my receipt was a $2 off coupon for Roosters. Greg and I tend to hit Roosters during Happy Hour - 10 boneless wings, a side salad and an order of nachos for under $13 - throw in a couple of beers and we can have a fun meal out for under $20 including the tip...now with $2 off!

Dinner was wonderful!

Last night's dinner was wonderful, if I do toot my own horn! :)

I placed a venison roast (beef works too) in the crock pot with a can of cream of mushroom soup, baby carrots and a chunked up onion, added about 5 oz of water and cooked on low all day while we were at work. I added one envelope of brown gravy mix when I got home, mixed it up and served it over freezer mashed potatoes - who has time to mash their own most days?...yummy! Tuesday night's dinner (because I forgot to get plan anything else) will be leftover venison roast but I will serve the large chunks of meat on whole wheat buns open faced style and make a side veggie. I HATE peas but love this recipe!

One can of peas, drained
2 tbsp ranch dressing, approx
chopped onion to taste

Heat the peas, add dressing and onion and mix. Serve warm

Deals this week

Meijer has Hillshire Farms lunch meat (in the plastic reusable tubs) on sale for 2/$6 this week and redplum.com has $0.35 off coupons to print so it makes each tub $2.30 each instead of $3. This meat is vacuum sealed so it freezes really well, just defrost in the refrigerator overnight.

Coke Rewards

Are you a fan of Coke beverage products? Create an account at www.mycokerewards.com and enter the codes found in the caps of the 20oz bottles or in the cardboard cartons and use the points to receive free stuff, enter drawings, etc. This is how I 'pay' for my subscriptions to Country Living, Good Housekeeping, etc.

Deals this week

It really does pay to check the grocery ads... for my holiday baking I need stick butter, 16 oz packages

Meijer - 2/$4 for store brand
Kroger - $2.77 each for store brand
Aldi - $2.29 each for Countryside Creamery

The Kroger brand ends up being $5.54 for two and Aldi is $4.58 for two so by shopping at Meijer I am saving $1.54 on every two packages.

Don't forget to take advantage of the barcode scanner app on your smart phone ... great for quick price checks!

Grocery list time!

So today is REALLY slow in my office and I am blessed to have the freedom and flexibility to do a little bit of personal stuff on company time :) I have previously gone through my pantries (yes, I maintain two) and made a list of frequently used items with brands and quantities. While this original list took a bit of time it has been extremely helpful in the long run. I then took the list to my three favorite grocery stores and compared the regular prices. I then sorted the list by store so I know things like Cottonelle Brand Aloe and E toilet paper is cheaper at Meijer's regular price than Kroger's sale price. This way when I write my grocery list for my next shopping trip I can pretty quickly compare the sale prices with what I usually pay and factor in my coupons to see which store is really going to save me money. I also know which stores honor double coupons and have learned (without trying) my main grocery store's sale rotation schedule i.e. toilet paper and chicken go on sale every three - four weeks. Also, don't forget that a $0.75 off coupon at a store that doubles them up to $0.99 is worth more than a $1.00 coupon.

Also, I tend to read grocery store ads side-by-side (Kroger and Meijer usually) and really compare prices. If I know I have coupons for Pillsbury Crescent Rolls I look at both prices and really do the math on sales such as 4/$5, etc to see which unit price is cheapest.

For example: we have replaced one breast milk feeding per day on the days I work with Similac so that should I get stuck in traffic or be running late and our sitter is out of breast milk Little Bit is not miserable. I thought I had found a great deal at Kroger when ready-to-eat Similac Advance was on sale for $3.91 a bottle (regularly about $5.58). By chance I ran into Meijer to grab some items for work and stopped to check out their price on the same item. WOW! $3.84 was the Meijer regular price! I printed $3.00 off coupons from my favorite coupon site http://www.coupons.com/ and therefore paid $0.84 a bottle!

Need more help with this? Comment and I will respond.

The #1 way to be frugal

Clip Coupons! This is the easiest way to save money. Whether you load them on your 'shoppers loyalty' card, cut them out of the newspaper or print them off the Internet, this is FREE money in your pocket. However, you do have to remember to USE them!! I keep mine in an expandable file type thing and leave it in my center console so I always have it. I also keep a separate file for restaurant and other non-grocery coupons. I have the Sunday paper delivered to my house (it is cheaper than buying it each week) and I faithfully go through it even if I don't get to it until Wednesday. If you find a coupon(s) for an item you use a lot of ASK people for theirs. My mom does not need diaper or wipe coupons but she gets them in her paper too and it takes her two seconds to tear them out for me.

In this economy don't be ashamed of being frugal, embrace it! Also subscribe to the email newsletters of products and companies you use frequently. We love Huggies wipes and Cottonelle toilet paper and both email out coupons. If necessary use a separate email address (like a hotmail account) to collect these and sort through periodically.

About me...

I am a 29 year old, first time mom who likes to be frugal (cheap!) in some areas of our lives so that we may be extravagant in others. Our daughter, Little Bit, is now almost 17 weeks old and my husband, Greg, is a heavy equipment operator and part-time farmer. I hate spending money on food because it all comes out the same anyway but I enjoy eating out, vacationing and Land's End clothing. We are cloth diaper family, but only at home. Disposables are so much easier on the road. I am back to work as an office manager for a commercial/industrial electrician after a 14 week maternity leave and am only working three days a week. Two less days a week translate to earning about 65% of my pre-baby salary. You may not agree with my cost saving ideas but they work for us.

Welcome to Blogging...

Well, it is almost 9AM on my third week back to work (post maternity leave) and I have decided to step out of my comfort zone and into the world of blogging! uhuh... hope this goes well. I have decided to share my semi-frugal life style ideas with others in hopes that you have more to share with me. While your ideas may not work for our family (and visa versa) please feel free to share and comment.