Amazing Week

OK…so the title is a bit sarcastic because it really hasn’t been that amazing!  It’s been eventful at times and boring the other times.  Though incredibly busy.  And school hasn’t even started yet!

I had all kinds of posts being prepared for this week and of course that means that life took over making me lucky to get anything done.

Tuesday, I was spending practically 1/2 the day trying to fill out an application for a new checking account with an online bank I already do business with.  I gave up after calling three times, but I may need to call them again today because they still haven’t fixed the problem!  I messed up the application because of information they gave me and was unable to correct it so I’m trying to get them to delete the application so I can start it over.

On Wednesday, my 8-year-old had a horrible nose bleed (both nostrils) for no reason we can figure out.  He’s had it before, but it’s been about 2-3 years.  That took a good 30 minutes to stop, then I had all the clean-up to do, while he sat watching cartoons like it never happened.  Kids are so resilient!

Thursday was another busy day.  We did a quick grocery shopping in the morning for buy one, get one free items.  In the afternoon we had to go to my 11-year-old’s new school to pick up his 7th grade schedule and get him the required 7th grade shot.  I dragged him around a bit looking for his classes and timing how long it will take for him to get to his Gifted Social Studies class from his Algebra I Honors class on the other side of the school.  Lucky for him all his other classes are in the same two hallways next to each other!  His classes are: Gifted Language Arts, Band (he’ll be playing the baritone), Technology (1st semester–he chose Art for the 2nd semester, but we haven’t received that schedule yet), Algebra I Honors (HS credit), Gifted Social Studies, and Gifted Science.  I’m hoping it will be a good year for him!

That evening I was getting ready to prepare dinner and my 8-year-old comes running out of his brother’s room screaming and crying.  I immediately thought his nose started bleeding again, but it turned out that he clipped his finger in a folding chair and tore a chunk off the pad of a finger.  More blood and cleaning up, though this one wasn’t as messy.  It did push dinner back some though.

Yesterday I also found out I won a prize from Stacks and Stacks blog giveaway!  So that is one good thing that happened this week!

Hopefully the rest of the week will contain less blood and more good!  *Crossing Fingers*

Random Updates

I wanted to update some of my summer plans now that I only have 2 1/2 weeks left before school starts back up.

In June, I said I wanted to complete some tasks during my time off….you can see the post here.  Well, I haven’t done a whole lot of them, but here are the results so far:

• Finish entry floor –  Completed
  
• Finish painting the entry walls  –  I’ll be completing this in the next couple of days
  
• Finish making hanging coat rack for entry  –  Hoping to get this done this weekend
  
• Finish the main area of the kitchen floor  –  Feels like a hopeless case!  Still waiting for hubby to fill in cracked and uneven areas with liquid concrete…I may give up and do it myself!
  
• Finish painting the kitchen walls  –  This is what I’ll be working on after the entry walls…hopefully in the next week
  
• Finish painting the hallway walls –  Completed
  
• Finish spray painting the outlet covers –  Completed the ones I’ve removed
  
• Write out at least one book outline  –  Put this off…still thinking about it
  
• Work on book already outlined  –  Put this off…not sure I want to continue with the book or change it up
  
• RELAX…take breaks with the boys, take mini vacations with the family –  I’ve done a whole lot of this!  And we took a mini-vacation to Ft. Walton Beach/Destin!  You can see some pictures here.

In addition to this I also said in June that I was going to try to not do a big grocery shopping and use up everything.  This did not include quick trips to the grocery store to buy produce, milk, or very good deals we stock up on.  While I still have some of that food left, there is too much I need now to keep on considering my next shopping trip a “quick trip”.  I’ll be spending significantly more so it’s a regular big grocery shopping trip.  You can find my original post here.

Other than all that there’s not much more going on.  I got my school volunteer badge renewed.  The first one was for three years and the new one is for five years.  So I won’t have to renew again until my boys are finished with the 11th and 7th grades.  That really puts things into perspective!  Their only going into the 7th and 3rd grades now!  Yikes!

What has everyone else been up to this summer?

Good Money Day!

And I didn’t even make any!  But I’ve been moving money all over the place today, and did so good at the grocery store that I’ll have to go back and buy some more!

Grocery shopping went so well that I bought 71 items and was $43.58 below my $200 budget!  I also saved $52.85 in store savings and $6.58 in coupons.  So I’m ready to go back to the store this weekend to pick up some additional food for the pantry and freezer.  I already bought some of these today, but we go through them a lot.  Tomorrow I’ll pick up:

• 4 bags of shredded cheese on sale 2/$4.00 — I bought 4 of them today and put 3 in the freezer.  These 4 will also go in the freezer.
• 2 bags of frozen tenderloins on sale for $5.99 — I bought 4 bags today and I already had 2 bags left from the last shopping trip.  These extra 2 bags will be a nice addition to the freezer!
• 1 bag of 80 frozen meatballs $6.99 — I bought 1 today and another will give me 2.
• 2 jars salsa $1.99 each — I bought 2 jars today.  Great for spicing up a meal!
• 1 bag of rice — I bought a 5 lb. bag today on sale for $2.59…another 5 lb. bag would be terrific!  We go through a lot of rice!
• 1 canister of stuffing — I bought 1 today and will add another.
• 4 bags frozen veggies $1.29-$1.69 each –  I bought 7 bags of frozen veggies today.  Some are used for cooking in meals and others are used for sides…good to have some extras.

After this trip I’d like to see how long everything I bought and have on hand will last.  I’m going to make up as many menu plans as I can and stretch the food we have other than quick trips for milk, bread, fresh veggies, etc.

In addition to the shopping trip, I also transferred some money around.  I paid $400 extra towards our credit card debt and I transferred $400 extra into our emergency fund.  In 4-5 months we should have our emergency fund up to the $10,000 goal and our credit card paid in full.  We’ll still be using our credit card (I’m not opposed to them, but the balance was too high at this time), though the need for it other than “use, then pay off” will be lessening now that I’m almost done with school (only 2 more terms!).  In regards to the emergency fund, we should be over $7,000 before the next pay period!

Grocery Shopping Deals!

I went grocery shopping today to pick up a few items from Publix that we use often and were a great price!  They were so good that I’m considering going again, but to a different Publix, to pick up some more!

My total was $67.30 and I saved $37.58!

My total would have been less, but I did buy a couple of extra items that were not on sale like bananas, sour cream, salad, milk, 4 cans of Publix cream of mushroom soup, and 2 cans of diced tomatoes.

Yoplait yogurt was 20/$9.00 or $0.45 each.

Stouffer’s family style meals were $3.99 each!  This is a huge deal worth stocking up on!  Normally they are $6.99 each.  There was a limit of four so I got 2 of the meatloaf and 2 of the chicken enchiladas.  I would love to get two more of each for that price!  Total savings on these was $11.44!

I bought 2 cantaloupes for $1.97 each.

Mueller’s pasta was buy one, get one free.  I bought 1 angel hair, 1 corkscrews, 2 bowties, 1 ziti, and 1 penne.  We go through A LOT of pasta so this would also be good to stock up on, though Publix does have pasta on sale frequently.  This came out to about $0.64 each.

Prego pasta sauce was also buy one, get one free.  It’s one of our favorites along with the Publix brand sauce (which I wouldn’t be surprised is the same as the Prego brand).  I bought 6 jars that cost us about $1.29 a jar.  Again we go through it a lot so it would be a good stock-up selection.  Publix does have pasta sauce on sale frequently, too, but it’s not always a brand we like.

V8 Fusion was buy one, get one free.  It’s the only time I’ll buy it because otherwise it’s too expensive.  $3.89 for a small bottle of juice…seriously!?!  I have two growing boys so it would never last.  But when one is free, it brings the price down to about $1.94 each and that is a much better price!

Sara Lee bread was $1.99 so I picked up two of them.  It’ll be gone in a week!

And finally, Lender’s bagels were buy one, get one free.  Got two bags for about $1.04 each.

For under $30.00 I could go to another store and buy the same quantities of the Stouffer’s family style meals, pasta, and pasta sauce.  Good thing I have room in my garage freezer, but I would need to find space in my pantry!

What good deals have you found lately?

I Saved So Much Money!

I went to the grocery store today and saved a bundle!  I spent a bundle, too, but I saved the most I’ve ever saved at the grocery store!

$105.23!

I can barely believe that I saved that much!

Out of that I actually got $67.04 worth of free food due to buy one, get one free deals.  I really love Publix’s BOGO Free deals!  Sometimes they don’t always have items I use, but this week there was a ton!

In addition, Kellogg’s cereal was 50% off just for this weekend!  I bought 5 boxes and in addition had 2 coupons: one for $1.00 and one for $0.70.  The total cost for the 5 boxes was $8.65 or 1.73 per box!

I saved $12.10 on the cereal!

Overall I spent $268.80, but saved $3.25 in coupons with the other $101.98 saved in free food and other sales.

What was your best shopping savings?