CVS to the Rescue!

One cure for the urge to shop is well, to shop! Crystal posted yesterday that these cotton swabs were on clearance for $2.99 and that they were still generating 2 ECB's each. Well this morning I noticed we were down to our last four q-tips so that the perfect excuse to make a CVS run. Well when I got to the check out with three of them I asked how much they were ringing up at, $2.49 so I ran back a grabbed a fourth one. The toothpaste was on sale for $1.99 and generating 1 ECB. So I got 4 twin packs of q-tips (that's 4000 q-tips) and one toothpaste for:

.26 cents OOP (out of pocket) yippee!

I used one $2/$10 CVS coupon and one .75 coupon off the toothpaste and 9 ECB. And I left there with another 9 ECB for next time. I'm loving this CVS thing my two transactions before this were .85 and .47 cents. Gotta love it.

I'm having a "I just want to go spend a bunch of money" monent! Human nature, you always want what you can not have.

Hubby was having the moment yesterday and he stood strong so I too will endeavor to stay on the straight and narrow, aka budget. Don't get me wrong if you have money and you want to, by all means spend it, preferably on a concrete patio or something else concrete. We need people to spur on the struggling ecomony but it just isn't wise for that somebody to be us. When the reality of another paycut hangs in the balances we need to be wise and content. We need to practice self denial.

Self denial not something I'm into. I'm all about five or ten extra minutes in bed. Another piece of chocolate. And having a deaf ear to the total in the checkbook while I wander Target aimlessly.

Dear Lord please be merciful and patient as I learn to be content with whatsoever lot I am in.

Knock Knock!

That is me knocking on wood. I don't know if I should say it out loud or not but we are finally disease free. After 4 weeks of somebody being sick with the flu or some type of ailment we are all healthy. After a two day laundry hiatus we are back in the groove of normal life today. We made it to the bank and to the store and the laundry it almost caught up. There is something so comforting about routine.

The new budget is going well. Now I am really going to try to stick to an all cash system. The other day a credit card offer came in the mail Lula asked if she could play shopping with the fake card they mail with it. Ouch! They are way to observant. I tried to tell her that we use debit cards not credit card but it flew right over her head. So no better way to teach than by example so we'll try.

I'm trying to become more "crunchy". I bought a three piece set of cast iron frying pans from JCPenney ($11.99) to replace my non stick pans that they are now saying are cancer causing. But what isn't cancer causing these days. I definitely is a process to rid the house of that stuff. The baby is in cloth diapers about 90% of the time. I was very glad last month to have a package of disposables in the closet when the flu hit though, let me tell ya there is only so much time for laundry in a day. Next I hope to switch our soaps and such to the crunch side. The kids already use the crunchy soap and toothpaste. I have one bottle of Mr. Clean in the house and when that is gone it is gone. During the diseases I read the back of the bottle and you have to let that stuff sit for 10 minutes for it to kill anything besides your ability to breathe so it is out of here. I will just use rubbing alcohol on the door knobs and such when we need too. Vinegar, baking soda, borax and lemon juice will take a full time roll. I try to never use bleach but I did on the insane amount of bedding I had to wash during the flu epidemic over here. Now if I could just ban all plastic toys from our house life would be bliss.

Hope you have a wonderful day!!!!

Fun Fact!

Did you know that over a life time the average male will consume over 50 TONS of food! That is an insane amount of food!

I wonder if that includes the food that doesn't seem to stay down and comes spewing out every time I get the sheets back on the bed. Gotta love the flu!

Ramdom Rambling

I try not be a huge hoarder that has twelve backups of everything just in case. As I wash at least 8 but more like 10 loads of bedding today- three kids with the flu- enough said. I really don't think more would help. Yes I have changed my minded about getting rid of the two spare comforters, they are staying! But I don't think having extra mattresses pad covers and ten sets of sheets would help. I still have to wash what was dirtied so why not wash and put it right back on the bed. Don't get me wrong we have an extra set of sheets for almost all the beds but we don't have extra mattress pads and pillows packed in the closets. We make due in these rare events where EVERY bed in the house gets vomited on in a four hour time span. At least I don't have to go to the well to get the water, boil it, stir and line dry a house full of bedding. Thanks be for waterproof mattress pads they are sooooooooo worth the investment!

Finished, well kind of!

The girls room is complete, for now. I want to paint the furniture but that is going to have to wait until it is warm enough to cart it outside and paint it in the front yard. The color looks much better with the little accents to tone it down. And Lula is happy so all is good.

My favorite "home show", as we call them, is Decorating Cents were they redo a room for under five hundred dollars. The hubby constantly mocks it, "what let me guess they found that awesome piece of furniture on the side of the road". These types of comments always comes up when it is on. So I thought I'd give the break down on the cost.

Furniture- headboard, dresser with mirror, tall dresser and night stand $150.00

Paint- 2 gallon, 1 gallon of primer and extras $75.00

Flower Wallies- $10.00

Curtains- $2.00 each so $4.00

Curtain rods- $4.00

Lamp- $3.00

Bedding- $60.00

Little white jewelry holder- free for great grandma

Art- free (we've had it for over 8 years)

Pink cowboy booties- free a gift

Flowers- free (they are from a wedding I was in 7 years ago, they are in a mason jar with some marbles)

Even Lu2 crib was free.

So a total of $306.00 not to bad to furnish a whole room. Throw in another $50 to paint the furniture and I'm still under budget!

The BUDGET!

Don't you just hate that word! It sound so constrictive! Yet I realize that without out a good old budget the money just slips through the fingers like water.

So yesterday I sat down and calculated all of our bills. I found the averages of the electric, gas and satellite, these three all vary. I added up all the insurance totals, (home, auto and life) and divided by 12 to get the monthly average. Also I found the monthly property taxes total. So now its all written out on paper and its really not as bad as I thought. Beside the electric, so I will be buying one of these bad boys to hunt down the electricity sucker.

We have no payments besides the house, for which I am very thankful for especially in this economy. Our biggest expense is our health. Food and supplements for this family is crazy!!!!! Oh well, what are you with out your health? I hope these kids appreciate what we sacrificed so they can eat real food rotated on a schedule and not be hopped up on six prescription meds each. (On a side note the other day after swimming they kids got a sucker and of course it was full of crap and plenty of food coloring but we threw all caution into the wind and said they could go ahead and eat it. Racky wouldn't eat it "because it had food coloring" and the other two didn't finish theirs because it didn't taste very good. Poor things are so warped!)

So the hubby and I sat down last night and discussed the budget. We both can see were the money is spent and it is not just one person spending it.

Food is a killer but I am going to try to stick to 20 a day, $140-150 a week. You might think that should be easy but when they polish off a whole box of O's at $4.00 a box and that before 8:00am you can see how it gets interesting. So this too I started the pain staking task of figuring prices. I slice of rice bread .27 cents. So over a dollar for a slice of bread with dinner. You can buy a whole loaf of bread for that at Aldi's. Over 2 bucks in rice noodle for the kids on spaghetti night. Plus the free range ground turkey, the sauce the noodles for the hubby and me-YIKES I thought spaghetti was supposed to be a cheap meal. Brown rice is the cheapest thing for them to eat but it also is the most boring. So I have to bake more instead of watching them devour a $3.00 bag of spelt pretzels in one sitting. Make dairy free, egg free, wheat free pancakes instead of the boxed cereal. Our cheapest meals are fish and potatoes, white or sweet. It's going to have to be more chicken soup and less fried chicken. Well I'm up for the challenge I think. Any ideas are welcomed!

Here's to saving for our children's children in 2008! (Proverbs 13:22)