Challenge Check-in and HOLY CRAPOLI

Well, I figured I'd better check in with the challenge, seeing as it's nearly over and I haven't checked in for almost two weeks. Week 2 went fine. I spent $20 and change on groceries and I was feeling pretty good. However, week 3 did not go so well. I didn't plan well, fell into some old habits, and apparently was craving fruit while shopping and ended up spending $40 on groceries!! This last week, I got back in the groove and spent $23. I didn't feel too bad going $3 over since I bought a cake mix and frosting to make my hubby birthday cupcakes! Happy Birthday to my sweet hubby!

My total spent for the month of January was $103. This was quite a bit more than my original $65. However, I am definitely feeling pretty darned good, considering I normally set myself a $75 per week goal. That means doing the pantry challenge saved me nearly $200 in groceries for the month, so I'm not even CLOSE to feeling sad that I went $43 dollars over my original goal. I knew I'd probably hit $80 anyway, considering my required calcium increase.

Plus, I still have many, MANY meals I can make out of my freezer. I think I'll continue eating from the pantry for at least another week. Here's where I'm at on my list of freezer meals.

Broccoli & Ham Quiche (mix is already in the freezer), salad
Homemade Veggie Pizza & Salad
Chicken Pot Pie & Cut veggies
Chalupa (pork and pinto beans already in freezer) served over shredded lettuce with tomatoes, avocado and Spanish Rice
Turkey Sausage & Eggs Florentine scramble
Spaghetti & Turkey Meatballs, Salad
Italian Wedding Soup, Homemade Bread
Turkey Tacos, corn
Crockpot Beef Roast and Veggies
Shepherd's Pie, salad
North Carolina BBQ Pork, Homemade Coleslaw, served on Buns
Spicy Pork, Vegetable Gumbo Soup served with Rice
Turkey Burgers, Oven Fries, Green Beans
Philly Cheesesteaks, Sweet Potato Fries
Hoisin Pork Stirfry (includes veggies), Rice
Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole, Peas
Turkey Chili, Green Beans

And now, for the HOLY CRAPOLI part of this post...

I'm going to be a Grandmother in October. At the ripe old age of 35. Yep. I'm still completely in denial. My stepson and his wife are pregnant and will be welcoming a baby approximately one month after we welcome the newest member of our family. So, little Peanut will become an Aunt or Uncle at the ripe old age of one month. I've already decided, thanks to Brandy of Not Your Average Soccer Mom, that I will be Mimi, at least until I'm 40. That way, I won't be required to stock up on Poligrip, Depends, and nylons large enough to give me elephant ankles.

Challenge Check-in and My Amazing Hubby

Well, week one of the Eat From the Pantry Challenge is over and I'm pretty proud of the progress I made. I took a trip to the grocery store and spent $20 and a few cents. I completely underestimated just how much dairy I'm going to need to eat while pregnant--the equivalent of one whole QUART of milk per day! I'm going to keep my budget at $65 right now, but I will mostly likely go over on dairy.

This week, I will have to purchase at least one staple--flour. I used the last of my flour last night making bread, and the flour is much cheaper than buying the bread itself. I can buy one loaf of bread or an entire bag of flour, which will make 12 loaves of bread using my recipe. Hmmmm, that's not a difficult choice.

Here's where I'm at on my meal list. I added two meals from my backup list because my husband asked for them.
Broccoli & Ham Quiche (mix is already in the freezer), salad
Homemade Veggie Pizza & Salad
Chicken Pot Pie & Cut veggies
Chalupa (pork and pinto beans already in freezer) served over shredded lettuce with tomatoes, avocado and Spanish Rice
Turkey Sausage & Eggs Florentine scramble
Spaghetti & Turkey Meatballs, Salad
Italian Wedding Soup, Homemade Bread
Turkey Tacos, corn
Crockpot Beef Roast and Veggies
Shepherd's Pie, salad
North Carolina BBQ Pork, Homemade Coleslaw, served on Buns
Spicy Pork, Vegetable Gumbo Soup served with Rice
Turkey Burgers, Oven Fries, Green Beans
Philly Cheesesteaks, Sweet Potato Fries
Hoisin Pork Stirfry (includes veggies), Rice
Chicken Cordon Bleu Casserole, Peas
Turkey Chili, Green Beans

Speaking of my awesome husband, look at what he made for Midget!

It's a learning tower! She can use it to wash dishes, help Mama cook, make cookies--all kinds of fun stuff that I used to put her on a chair to do! These sell for nearly $200 and he was able to make it for about $60 in materials. It could be done even cheaper, but he wanted to use oak to match our cabinets. Midget loves it so much and put it right to work washing dishes!






Speaking of Midget, I've barely put any Midget pictures on here lately. Here's an adorable picture of her while she was washing dishes.

Eat From the Pantry Challenge

After finding no room in my freezer last month to put Christmas leftovers, I realized I needed to clean out my freezer. When I read about Money Saving Mom's Eat from the Pantry Challenge, I immediately decided I NEEDED to take on this challenge.

I am a bit embarrassed that I could probably eat from my pantry/freezers for at least three months without really challenging myself, but I'm committing to the challenge for the month. I took a complete inventory of my pantry and freezers and wrote up a list of meals.
I started out with one dinner per day, but already the 2nd day of doing the challenge, I realized I don't need a dinner for every day. My husband will be traveling for work for much of this month, so I will be able to take advantage of eating lots of leftovers.

I'm watching a friend's 20-month old son this month, so I'll be feeding him as well, but he doesn't quite make up for what my husband consumes!

Here are my rules for the challenge.
1. One grocery trip per week with the purchase only of dairy, produce (mostly fruit and lettuce), and as little bread as possible.
2. I will need to break one time from the challenge for an Indian potluck I'm hosting. I will spend no more than $15 on my dish for the potluck (hopefully less if I can find a recipe using mostly ingredients I have on hand).
3. Grocery budget for the month of January is $65 (includes $15 for Indian dish).


I'm looking forward to this challenge and seeing how well I can stick to it! Especially with my current pregnancy and making sure I don't always give into temptation. Like today, when I just HAD to have a milkshake, so I loaded both kids into the car and drove to Steak 'N Shake and arrived two minutes after Happy Hour. I begged the guy to give me the Happy Hour deal (because otherwise I would have left) and thankfully, he did. Then I was bummed because my shake didn't taste nearly as great as I thought it would in my head.

As I mentioned above, 15 dishes should cover the full month for me and if it doesn't I do have a backup list of meals. The first meal I made, quiche, fed us for dinner, lunch, and will be tomorrow's breakfast as well!

Breakfasts will be cereal, eggs, pancakes, etc. I have plenty of all of these items to last at least a month.

Lunches will be mostly leftovers or if necessary, quick meals that I already have in the freezer or pantry.

Here's my list of 15 dinners, in no particular order, because determining the day I'm going to eat a meal?? Well, let's just say Hell hasn't frozen over yet. We eat fruit with every meal, so that isn't listed.


Broccoli & Ham Quiche (mix is already in the freezer), salad
Homemade Veggie Pizza & Salad
Chicken Pot Pie & Cut veggies
Chalupa (pork and pinto beans already in freezer) served over shredded lettuce with tomatoes, avocado and Spanish Rice
Turkey Sausage & Eggs Florentine scramble
Spaghetti & Turkey Meatballs, Salad
Italian Wedding Soup, Homemade Bread
Turkey Tacos, corn
Crockpot Beef Roast and Veggies
Shepherd's Pie, salad
North Carolina BBQ Pork, Homemade Coleslaw, served on Buns
Spicy Pork, Vegetable Gumbo Soup served with Rice
Turkey Burgers, Oven Fries, Green Beans
Philly Cheesesteaks, Sweet Potato Fries
Hoisin Pork Stirfry (includes veggies), Rice

I'll let you know how I'm doing with the challenge. Unless I eat my arms from hunger...

Swaggity, Baby!!

Are you using Swagbucks? If not--you should be!! I signed up for swagbucks a little over six months ago and have earned enough Swagbucks for a bunch of Amazon.com gift cards!! I bought Midget's adorable Raggedy Ann costume and a Christmas present for her with my gift cards.


You can use your Swagbucks for TONS of different items, from gift cards to an iPhone--all for just using Swagbucks as your search engine! It's an easy way to get stuff for doing something you probably already do several times a day.

Best of all, you can refer your friends and family and earn Swagbucks for doing it. So, if you decide to sign up, send me an email and I'll send you a link to sign up.

Witches' Tea Party

When I saw these invitations on Living Locurto, I was dying for an excuse to do a Witches' Tea Party. Thank goodness one of my friends was looking for someone to watch her kids!! I thought it would be a fun way to have a little bitty Halloween party, something I've loved to host since I was a little girl. I printed out the invitations, rolled them up, tied them with a little string, and delivered them to their mailboxes.

When the kids arrived, we read a short Halloween book from the library and quickly got to decorating the kids' witch hats. I found the hats, the foam stickers, and the cookies at the dollar store. Since it was a kid party, I made Russian Tea, which is Tang and Instant Tea simmered with whole cloves and cinnamon sticks. I spent about $15 in total on all the supplies. Not bad for a whole lot of fun! Even Lucy Wiener Witch enjoyed herself!

This post is linked up to Amy's Finer Things Friday

GIVEAWAY!!!

I had planned to have this up earlier, but my kid is so stinking cute, I had to whip out the camera to capture this...


Now that you are sufficiently midget-fixed, here is what I'm giving away!!

Nearly $150 in clipped and organized coupons, including an accordian-fold organizer, and a $5.00 Target Gift Card!!!


The Target Gift Card can be used on any item at Target (though I'm not sure about tobacco or alcohol--I don't buy booze at Target and I don't smoke) and has NO expiration date or fees!!

All coupons have expiration dates of 9/15 or later and these are not just junk coupons folks! Many are exclusive coupons not found in newspaper inserts. I'm willing to bet even non-coupon-ers will be able to find at least $15 worth of stuff they buy on a regular basis! The handy-dandy accordian fold organizer is great for beginning or occasional(lazy) coupon-ers like myself!

Here are some more details on the coupons:

--10 Baby coupons worth over $15, including a $5 off $25 at Toys R Us
--13 Pet coupons worth over $15, including a free cat treats coupon (no purchase necessary)
--34 Grocery coupons worth over $25, including a B1G1 free Special K product
--14 Miscellaneous coupons worth over $15, including a free Airwick warmer with purchase of fragrance
--16 Cleaning coupons worth over $15, including a $5 off Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner Starter Kit
--33 Health coupons worth over $40, including a $4 off Zyrtec coupon
--15 Beauty coupons worth over $15, including several $2 off coupons

To enter, simply leave a comment by 11:59 p.m. on 8/28 (one entry per person)! Random.org will choose a winner on 8/29!! Want to increase your chances?? Simply link to this giveaway on your blog and enter a second comment telling me you linked!!

I sure hope you'll leave me lots of comment crack because the wieners aren't talking to me anymore. They're mad I'm giving away all of the awesome doggie treat coupons...

Lucky Me!!

You know those people who always win things?? Well, I am not one of them. My Dad won every raffle he ever entered, hit the jackpot numerous times at casinos, and was lucky enough to win the best prize of all--ME! haha

BUT my luck may have changed! I was chosen to host a Fisher-Price Playdate Party!! I will receive four large toys from FP that are mine to keep! They aren't even available in stores yet! You can see them here. They also send ten smaller FP toys for me to give my guests! All I have to do is take pictures and review their products! The only expense I'll have is for providing snacks & bevvies--not bad for at least $300 worth of toys!

I wish I could invite y'all, but my house isn't big enough for the entire blogosphere!

How did I get so lucky?? I got an email from Fisher-Price that took me to houseparty.com to apply to host a party. My application was chosen and I was one of the first 1000 moms across the U.S. to get my invites online! House Party does sell your information, so that's a bit of a turnoff, but I don't answer my home phone (skype) for unknown numbers and I don't have an issue with getting more mail. In my opinion, that's the only turnoff about House Party. Feel free to visit them to see upcoming Houseparty events. Maybe your luck will change too!!

Diapers Galore!

I'm having a friend over for lunch, so I ran to Kroger this morning to pick up some deli meat for southwest grilled ham & cheese sandwiches. I was thrilled when I found a table full of diapers marked 50% off! Now, I am not a diaper snob. I'll use pretty much anything--store brand, luvs, dishtowels... " ) But I LOOOOOVE Pampers! The absorbency is phenominal, the material is soft, I would probably marry them. Yep, I think they're the best thing since sliced bread, but they are EXPENSIVE! Even on sale, it's a bit high to pay $.17 per diaper.

We've been using the store brand from Babies R Us (which aren't bad once you get used to them feeling hard instead of squishy when they are wet) for the last five months (I stocked up when they were 2/$30 and I had a 15% off entire purchase coupon). I squealed loudly when I saw three HUGE boxes of cruisers!! By the way, I blamed the noise on the midget--"Honey, you shouldn't scream inside the store. tsk tsk."

With my coupons, I paid $13.50 per box of 116! That's less than TWELVE CENTS per diaper!! Yippeee!!

Funny the things that excite me these days...