I Got to Use a Good Coupon!

I didn't find the sales at Publix this week to be that exciting, but did find out something that was!

Months ago I was told by a cashier that this Publix did accept competitors' coupons from other grocery stores but not from drugstores or places like Target. When I was checking out last week, I overheard another cashier telling a customer that they do take drugstore coupons.

I was prepared when I made my stop on Thursday; I took along my Rite-Aid coupon for $5 off of a $25 purchase and, when I asked my cashier about it before he rang up my purchase, he said they would accept the coupon. Hurray!

My total spent after coupons was $22.44 and my savings were $23.98.

Several of the items I purchased were not on sale, but needed. The chocolate and Reese's chips, for example, were not on sale, but will be used for baking day with my younger daughter. (Remembering one of my tips from the series on healthier eating, we will eat some of the cookies and take the rest to a church fellowship on Sunday night!)

The Kraft shredded cheese was a great deal; it was on sale for $1.67 and I had a coupon for $1 off, bringing the cost down to $.67. The Chex Mix (for school lunch snacks) was also on sale and, with two $.50 off coupons that doubled, they were just $.67 a bag. The Ronzoni pasta was B1G1 free and I had a coupon for $1 off two, costing me only $.40 each. Adding that to all the Muellers pasta I bought last week on sale means I won't need to purchase pasta for quite a long time!

See how others saved this week by visiting Friday Finals, I Heart Publix, Super Savings Saturday, Saving Our Cents Saturday, Shopping Superstars, Publix Super Savers and Grocery Cart Challenge.

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A Treasured Possession

I don't tend to get too sentimental over many possessions. I treasure many of our books and certainly cards and other items that my husband, the girls or other close family members have given me. Outside of that, one of the things I do love most in our home is this picture.

There are three portraits: myself in the middle and one of each of the girls on the sides. My mother had saved the dress I was wearing in this portrait, taken when I was about 18-months-old, so that I was able to have my girls' pictures taken in the same dress around the same age. This is one of those things I would want to grab should we ever have to vacate the house in an emergency!

I am hooked on this special picture; see what others are hooked on at Hooked on Fridays. Also visit Show and Tell Friday to view treasures other people are sharing.

A New Look at a Better Price

For several months we have wanted to do something about the faded shutters on the front of our house. While they were a lovely shade about three years ago when the house was new, they have now weathered many a storm - and looked it.

We only needed two sets, but, after doing a price check at Lowe's, we found it would cost around $100 to replace them. My ever-resourceful husband came up with a different plan. He stopped in at Sherwin Williams and they provided him with everything he needed to paint both sets of shutters for a grand total of......$17.

He spent part of the day Saturday painting and rehanging them and they look super!!

They've already survived their first heavy storm and look none the worse for wear; not to mention, there's 3/4 of a container of the paint left, so we should be set for quite a long time.

The moral of the story? When a project needs to be done around the house, try to think creatively in order to come up with the cheapest solution. It may sometimes require a bit more elbow grease, but the savings make it well worth it!

Find other frugal ideas at Frugal Friday hosted by Life as Mom. For more homemaking tips, visit Homemaker Monday.

Favorite Sack Lunch Tip

Gayle at Grocery Cart Challenge asked us to share our favorite sack lunch recipes and tips for this week's recipe swap.

My personal favorite lunch box tip is to make good use of a thermos.

My older daughter has taken quite a variety of meals in her thermos including chicken noodle soup, pasta salad, chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese and any number of leftovers. Almost any kind of soup or pasta dish can be heated quickly in the microwave while I'm making breakfast in the morning, then put into her thermos. [Tip: While the food is in the microwave, I usually fill the thermos with hot water and let it sit for a few minutes so that the warm food is going into a warm thermos.]

This is the first year my younger daughter will be taking her lunch to school; she tends to be more of a PB&J person, so I'm hoping to find some great tips at Grocery Cart Challenge. I would also love for you to share any of your lunch box tips here in the comment section.

13 Free Internet Resources

There are a number of free websites that I visit on a regular basis. Here are thirteen of my favorite FREE Internet resources. [Disclaimer: This does not mean that I endorse all the content on each of these websites, but that overall I generally find them to be very helpful.]

1. AllRecipes This is my go-to place when I'm looking for a specific type of recipe. I find the user reviews to be very beneficial, especially if I'm looking to adapt a given recipe a bit.


2. Trip Advisor Great for hotel and restaurant reviews and to find interesting local attractions.


3. Mapquest No GPS in our vehicles, so I'm pretty handy at following those printed directions.


4. Amazon When I'm researching which brand of a certain product I may want to buy, I often go here to read user reviews. I have found many of them to be accurate.


5. Money Saving Mom One of the first blogs I started following faithfully, I love the vast array of deals and coupons she posts.


6. Coupons.com I get excited to see which new coupons are available at the first of each month.


7. My county library website which allows me to search the catalog and request books to be sent to my closest library from others within the county.


8. Publix Since I don't receive their sales ads in the mail, I can go online each Wednesday morning and create and print my grocery list from their website.


9. DLTK Crafts for Kids I enjoy their printable worksheets, including their themed BINGO games.


10. Public Domain Pictures You've probably noticed this website at the bottom of many of my blog posts. I think they have some great stock pictures.


11. FiddleDeeDee One of my favorite sites for checking Publix coupon match ups to make sure that I'm not missing any great deals for the week.


12. The Math Worksheet Site Terrific for printing your own custom math worksheets based on your child's current level of learning.


13. Retail Me Not I usually check here before placing any online order to make sure I've found any discounts or coupon codes that are available.

Do you have a free Internet resource that you find useful? Please let us know what it is in the comments section.

This post is linked to Thursday 13.

Homemaker Giveaway Winner

Thanks to all who commented on my homemaker giveaway post!

The winner is earthymama42 at A Year of Pictures of My Life. In response to my request for letting me know one of your best resources for finding great coupons, she said, "I found a great blog, Stretching a Buck, that gives great sales and freebies."

Stay tuned for another terrific giveaway coming up soon!

Sharing Back-To-School Tips

I have been living in denial. I don't want to realize that school starts in less than two weeks. I came out of this mode briefly on Friday, long enough for the girls to try on their school uniforms and shoes. I was so grateful to realize that outside of socks (something we seem to always be lacking), I only need to buy one shirt and a pair of shoes for my younger daughter. What a blessing!

Now that Kristen at We Are THAT Family has asked us to share a back-to-school tip today, I'm going to venture, at least momentarily, into the reality of what is coming.

I'm sure this is a common tip, and much easier said than done, but what saves my sanity the most during the school year is having everything for the next day prepared the night before. For us, this begins with book bags, which we empty and refill as soon as the girls get home from school.

I go ahead and pack as much of their lunch as possible while I'm in the kitchen cleaning up after supper. [A bonus tip here: every Sunday afternoon, I sit down with my daughters and write out a brief menu of what they would like to take to school for lunch each day in the coming week. This saves us from trying to figure it out at the last minute and allows me to plan my grocery shopping accordingly.]

I also have the girls lay their outfit for the next day across the end of their bed as they're cleaning their room at night. This includes shoes and socks, to make sure we're not scrambling for a matching pair the next morning.

I am really looking forward to seeing what others share as I can always use good tips for making the whole school routine run more smoothly! Feel free to share with us your favorite back-to-school tip here in the comments, then visit Works for Me Wednesday along with me!

photo courtesy public domain pictures

Adapting Our Missionary Theme This Week

We ventured to the library yesterday to get books for our missionary theme this week. I should have done more pre-planning to see what was available in case we needed to request books from one of the other county libraries. Since I didn't, we found basically........nothing. I thought surely they would have a David Livingstone or Amy Carmichael biography, but I was sadly mistaken. So, we went a different route. I checked out the following books for them:

Big Truths for Little Kids by Susan Hunt & Richie Hunt
Parables for Kids by Danae Dobson and Dr. James Dobson
God Has a Plan for Little Girls by Kathryn Andrews Fincher

The first two books contain short "parables" if you will, stories that children can easily relate to, yet teach a valuable truth. The third book has brief stories of real women who have been used by God. As to the missionary part, I have a biography of William Carey that is probably a bit above their reading level, so I am reading a chapter of it aloud to them each day.

On another note, while I was searching the shelves for missionary stories, my eight-year-old came over with a book, asking for permission to check it out. Lo and behold, it was a juvenile version of Romeo and Juliet! That did this Shakespeare-loving mom's heart good!! It was one of the first books she read when we got home, then we discussed it while eating lunch. She seemed to have a pretty good grasp of it, but we went back through it together. It's been awhile since I read it and it's fun to have an excuse to revisit the story!

Only one more week of our summer learning program, then it's back to school!

Living Room Rearrange

This week's tackle involved rearranging our living room furniture to fit in my husband's beautiful new rocking chair. Yes, he made this chair; aren't I married to a fabulous carpenter??

I guess this post could also be about his tackle since it took many months for him to complete the chair. Now he's been told by several people that he needs to build another one so that both girls will have a rocking chair to inherit!

I told him how neat it was to think that our grandchildren could be rocked in that chair one day! (Okay, that's way ahead of the game, but still a fun thought!)

Here's how the room looked once we scooted things around.

I did some good dusting and vacuuming in there, too - just need to do the blinds, but that's near the top of my "most disliked" chores list. Maybe I can pay the girls to do it! :)

See what others tackled this week at Tackle It Tuesday.

Book Review: Everyday Greatness: Inspiration for a Meaningful Life

Everyday Greatness: Inspiration for a Meaningful Lifewith Insights and Commentary by Stephen R. Covey is an encouraging and thought-provoking read. It presents stories, anecdotes and quotes that are divided into seven categories, each containing three principles. These include such topics as responsibility, courage, discipline, integrity, humility and gratitude.

This is a great reference book to have in your collection and can be read straight through from beginning to end or in random order by subject matter. Some of the stories would also be great as read-alouds when you are teaching certain principles or character traits to your children. A couple of my favorites were Mike and Me and the Cake by Michael A. Andrews (I cried through it!) and Johnny Lingo's Eight-Cow Wife by Patricia McGerr.

The end of each section contains a "Reflections" page with questions that challenge you to examine your own self in regards to the particular subject that was covered. I enjoyed reading this book and gained some food for thought in certain areas of my own life. Seeing obstacles that others have overcome and realizing how many "ordinary" heroes are all around us can be inspiring to us all.

Red Pepper & Parmesan Tilapia

During my series on taking small steps toward healthier eating, I mentioned adding more fish to your diet. This is a recipe that is so simple yet tasty. My husband and I both enjoy this one. Our girls?? Let's just say we're working on it. ;)

Red Pepper & Parmesan Tilapia

1 egg, lightly beaten
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp Italian seasoning
1/2 to 1 tsp crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp pepper
4 tilapia fillets (about 6 ounces each)

Lightly beat egg in a shallow bowl. In another shallow bowl, combine the cheese, Italian seasoning, pepper flakes and pepper. Dip fillets in egg, then cheese mixture.
Place on a large baking sheet coated with cooking spray. Bake at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes or until fish flakes easily with a fork.

Find lots more recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday and Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap.

Our Girls

Those of you who read here regularly know that I don't post a lot of pictures of my girls - just my own type of "Internet phobia," I guess. However, I did want to share these few that my brother-in-law took several weeks ago when we were visiting family.

Here's my"baby," our sweet six-year-old, who has been wanting to have her long hair cut into a bob, but, as haircut day approaches tomorrow, is changing her tune.

My precious eight-year old who is growing up way too fast! She's moving back into the "growing out my bangs" phase that makes me crazy for months as I try to keep it out of her face!


I thank God for these blessings He has given us!

My brother-in-law takes some great pictures; you can view some of his nature photos here and here. My sister will never have to pay a professional photographer to get great shots of her kids!

35 Simple Steps to Healthier Eating Part 7

After covering 30 steps last week in our series on simple changes we can make to create healthier eating habits, we will finish up with the last five today.

1. Measure portion sizes where appropriate. I started by measuring my cereal the mornings when I have it for breakfast. I like to know how much a serving actually is. I may choose to have more than one serving, but at least I know the designated amount.


2. Eat the real deal - butter, eggs, cheese, etc. Just use them in moderation.


3. At least glance at the ingredient list in the foods you buy. Try to avoid those that have sugar in the top few ingredients or those with a large number of unnatural ingredients.


4. At each meal, eat your first helping then allow your food to settle before you reach for seconds. You may begin feeling full and skip that extra food.


5. Choose foods as close to their natural state as possible. Freshness makes for the best taste and quality.

I hope you've enjoyed this series; it has certainly challenged me and I hope to become more consistent in making healthy choices for my family. If you have some of your own tips to share, please feel free to leave them in the comments section. I hope to continue sharing some suggestions that work for me in future posts.

photo courtesy public domain pictures

35 Simple Steps to Healthier Eating Part 6

We are coming entering the home stretch! Ten more tips to go and we'll all be living right!! Here are the five steps for today.

1. Find ways to get extra sweets out of the house. Wrap some up and deliver them to a neighbor or send some to work with your spouse.


2. Add a serving of fish to your current meal plan. We currently eat fish once every three to four weeks; it would be nice if I could make it every two weeks.


3. Eat what you're craving - but just a small portion of it. If it's ice cream, have one scoop as opposed to a bowlful.


4. When making baked goods, experiment with using a bit less sugar. If a recipe calls for a cup of sugar, I start by dropping it to 3/4 of a cup. I have yet to find that it makes a difference in the taste.


5. Refrain from serving bread with every meal. Bread, rolls, etc. are a weakness of mine, so I try to serve them only a couple of times a week.

Since I don't normally post on Sunday, I will finish up with the last five steps on Monday. See you then!

photo courtesy public domain pictures

Coupon to Share

MyBlogSpark offered me this coupon for $1 off Fiber One Yogurt to share with friends. Enjoy!!