Store Review: Ikea

One of my very favorite stores - and a great place for frugal shoppers - is IKEA. For anyone who is not familiar with this store, IKEA is a Swedish furniture and housewares company which now has stores all over the world. Their tagline is "affordable solutions for better living," and their products live up to their motto.

First of all, IKEA products are cheap. They're really cheap. I would venture to say that they sell everything from couches to cookware for less than any other store, period. Target, Walmart, outlet stores -- they don't even compare. However, this does not mean that the products are "cheap" in quality. On the contrary, they tend to be attractive, well-made, and sturdy. The company manages through innovative strategies - creative design, using raw materials, and their famous "flat packaging": selling the furniture unassembled in a box that is easy to load on your car.

Heading to IKEA is really a day-long event; the store is so huge and there is so much to see. The upper floor has a huge showroom, set up in "rooms," like a giant mansion. Customers can see all the furniture in "action" and try it out to their heart's content. After making their selections, shoppers head downstairs to the warehouse to pick up their furniture. On the way, they pass through the giant "markeplace," which sells home furnishings of every type: dishes, lamps, curtains, rugs, candles, baskets, and more.

Luckily for young families like mine, the store makes it easy to shop with children. There is an entire restaurant in the store, which sells Swedish specialities like their yummy meatballs as well as kid-friendly options like chicken fingers and pbj. They even sell baby food. Besides the kid furniture showrooms, in which kids are welcome to play, there is a supervised playground where parents can leave children while they shop. All the bathrooms are also fully outfitted for baby and child care, including stools for the sinks and a seperate, non-bathroom baby care room.

For many people, Ikea may conjure up images of ultra-modern plastic furniture and college dorm rooms, but that is only a tiny part of what Ikea is today. While they do have many sleek and modern designs, they have a very wide selection of styles, including traditional and even country-looking furniture. We joke that we're collecting the entire "Leksvik," line from IKEA, which is natural wood looking furniture. Friends often admire our furniture and are surprised to hear that it is from IKEA.

Since we've been married, my husband and I have taken a big trip to IKEA once or twice a year. Besides over twelve pieces of furniture, we own towels, bedding, pillows, glasses, toys, and curtains from IKEA, and we couldn't be happier. After all, our furniture matches and is a style we like. It is sturdy enough to stand up to our kids, but we paid such a reasonable price that it is replaceable if necessary. The housewares that we've purchased are bright colors and fun designs, and almost of all have been of high quality. I guess you could say that our house is going to look like an IKEA showroom pretty soon, but that's okay with us!

Overall, I highly recommend IKEA for terrific bargains on home furnishings that look like you spent a lot more than you did.


Frugal Fridays are on Life as Mom.

Coupons, Coupons

Some awesome new Kellogg's coupons are up on coupons.com! There are coupons for $1.00 off each of the following cereals:

- Frosted Flakes
- Corn Pops
- Frosted Mini Wheats
- Rice Krispies
- Froot Loops
- Raisin Bran
- Apple Jacks
- Special K (Use this for this week's Target gift card deal!)

To get the coupons, go to the on the coupons.com widget on my sidebar and click "see all coupons."

(Thanks to Jenny at Southern Savers for the heads up about this.)

Remember that you should be able to print two of each coupon per computer. Also, the coupons should be changed tomorrow, so print what you want now and be on the lookout for new ones!

For my local readers:

Harris Teeter is having triple coupons this whole week (through Tuesday) (check here and here for the bargains) and selected Shoppers stores are having double/triple coupons this weekend! Also, since this weekend is the first of the month, there should be a number of coupon inserts in the paper to use in these promotions.

$25 Restaurant Gift Cards for $2!

Restaurant.com, a website where you can get discounted restaurant gift certificates every day, is offering an 80% off promotion ending today! Click on the link above and use coupon code "LUCKY" to get a $25 gift certificate for $2!

I found many restaurants in my area on restaurant.com, and I've ordered a number of the gift certificates when they've had 80% off promotions in the past. Just be sure to check the fine print for each individual restaurant; there are some restrictions on the gift cards. However, they're usually pretty reasonable, like you have to order two entrees, etc.

Remember, this offer is only good through today!

Target Deals

As promised, I thought I would share my Target deals from the past few days. There are some great deals to be had right now! I also wanted to share a strategy I use for spending very little out of pocket at Target.

Here are my best deals from this week. To see how I got these deals and for others, check this list.

The deal I want to highlight is the Special K deal. Special K products are on sale for $2.39 this week, and if you buy 5, you receive a free $5 Target gift card. Target has these deals periodically, where if you buy a certain number of particular items you receive a $5 gift card. Since I don't do my regular grocery shopping at Target, instead of blowing the gift cards on extras, I've been saving them and rolling them over for subsequent deals.

For instance, a few weeks ago there was a Quaker promotion similar to the Special K one, where if you bought 5 Quaker products, you received a $5 gift card. I purchased the 5 Quaker products for $2.50 each and used a $1.00 coupon on each. That made my total spent $1.50 per box or $7.50 for 5 products, and I received a $5 gift card at checkout.

Now this week I purchased 5 Special K products for $2.39 each and used a $1.00 coupon on each. So my total was $1.39 each or $6.95 for 5 products. But then I used my $5 gift card from the Quaker promotion, making my actual total spent just $1.95 for the 5 products. Plus, I got a $5 gift card for the next promotion! (You can also roll over your gift card more than once on the same promotion, as I did when I took advantage of the Quaker deal 4 times!)

I would estimate that there's a promotion involving a $5 gift card nearly every week, and there's is one that I want to take advantage of every 3 or 4 weeks. I have used this strategy to get very cheap cereal, granola bars, crackers, cookies, and diapers!

Rolling over gift cards from Target deals Works for Me!

Tuesday Tip

A quick, painless money saving tip every Tuesday

Hot weather the past few days has gotten me thinking about making homemade popsicles! This is such a quick and easy way to save money and make a healthy, yummy summer treat for your kids or yourself. All you need is a cheap set of plastic popsicle molds, like this set that I just bought at Ikea for $1.99. You can also use paper cups and disposable popsicle sticks, but I like the plastic ones because everything is reusable.

One of my favorite ingredients for popsicles is the juice from canned fruit. I always by the fruit in 100% fruit juice, so instead of letting it go to waste, I make pineapple juice or apricot nectar popsicles that my daughter loves. You can of course use any other fruit juice as well. Also try making popsicles with Jello, yogurt, pudding, or lemonade. Yum!

Baking Day Results

Well, as you can see below, our baking day was a success! (You can see our progress here, here, and here if you're just joining us.) It feels really good to know that I have some healthy homemade food on hand now!


We made sandwich bread, muffins, corn chips, chicken nuggets, beans, and popsicles (and Jello with the leftovers from popsicle making). I ran out of time and energy before getting to cookies or any additional muffins, but that can be for another day.

Now I've got to clean up the kitchen and run a quick errand before dinner!

Baking Day Update - Homemade Chicken Nuggets!

Yum! (We stopped for a snack!)

Wegmans Deals

My weekly Wegmans deals are up at Frugal in Virginia!

If you're in the Rochester, NY area, check out Wegmans' cooking school for teens (scroll down the page). Sounds like a great summer activity!

Baking Day Update

Well, we just took a lunch/nursing break, and now I'm taking a computer break before I do some dishes. My older daughter and I accomplished a good bit before the baby woke up from her nap, which was good!

Right now the sandwich bread is in the oven. Here's the dough when it came out of the bread machine.

While the bread was rising, we mixed up the muffins. They were very quick and easy.

Since the bread wasn't quite ready to go in when the muffins were done, I baked a batch of the chips while the oven was hot.

This afternoon we'll do the chicken nuggets and cookies and another batch of chips. If I have time, I'd also like to add another batch of muffins. Twelve muffins won't last very long around here! Maybe something lemony, for spring?

Baking Day!

I decided to have a baking today. This is an idea I got from Crystal of Money Saving Mom. Every few weeks, she picks a day to cook or bake a number of meals and snacks to stock her freezer. I think this is such a great idea. It is more efficient to bake a bunch of things at once, and it makes such a difference to have a stock of homemade items to pull out when you're busy.

We definitely need some homemade snacks in our house right now. I haven't baked beyond the basics in a little while, and so we've been quickly eating up my huge stash of cheap granola bars. And yes, I only paid $.25-$.50 per box, but I'd like to save some of them for when we're going out or for really crazy days.

Here's my cooking/baking list for today:

- Sandwich bread
- Super Power Muffins
- Homemade Corn Chips
- Homemade Chicken Nuggets
- Red beans
- Cookies
- Homemade Popsicles

It looks like a lot, but several of these items are very quick and easy to make. And besides some laundry, this is going to be my main activity for the day.

I plan to take pictures as we bake and share throughout the day, so check back later to see how we're doing!

Frugality in the News

Here's an interesting short blurb about shoe repair businesses. In our age of disposable products, we don't think to get our shoes repaired; we just throw them out when they're worn. However, I actually have gotten heels replaced once or twice. It not only was very cheap, but it made my shoes pretty much like new. Definitely worth it for good-quality shoes.

The Austin Daily Herald tells how teenage girls are saving money on their prom shopping by buying used dresses at a consignment shop. It seems to me that the amount of money spent on prom these days is tremendous. Kudos to the smart, mature teenagers who are keeping their spending (and their parents' spending) to a reasonable level!

Finally, this article is part of a series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on how the recession is affecting a variety of people. I'm sure we can all relate to some of the experiences and the ways families are cutting costs.

Photo by Ian Britton.

Best Deals Roundup

The most worthwhile deals from around the blogosphere and elsewhere:

Have I mentioned that I'm loving Target for the grocery deals lately??!! For this week, MoneySavingMom has a great list here. I wasn't sure if I was going to put Target on the agenda for my errand day this afternoon, but after reading this list I decided to go. I want to look for some white sandals for my toddler daughter anyway, and I had seen some advertised in Target for $10. I'll share the deals I got tomorrow!

Today only you can get a free piece of KFC's new grilled chicken at KFC stores! Jenny at Southern Savers has the scoop. Also, there was a coupon in the Parade magazine I get with the Sunday Washington Post for another free piece of this chicken with the coupon, which is good until May 17.

Sign up for the Home Made Simple coupon booklet here. This booklet, which is published periodically, normally has high-value coupons for a bunch of P&G cleaning and detergent products, as well as a coupon for a free product (e.g. dishwasher rinse aid).

And finally, remember that now is the time to be looking for rock-bottom 75% and 90% off clearance prices on Easter items. I just got a few 75% off items at Giant, and I'm anxious to see what they have at CVS this afternoon.

Our Weekend and Plans for the Week

Just an update to let you know that I'll be back to serious blogging this afternoon. I've got lots of post ideas for this week! We had a busy and productive weekend, and I can't wait to share our Ikea trip with you!

This morning I'm taking my baby to the pediatrician to get a lingering cold checked out, and we'll probably do a little shopping while we're out. Last week I spent $74.01 at Wegmans, which leaves just about $19 in the grocery budget for April.

We have plenty of food to get us through the week, but there are some stock-up deals this week that I'd like to take advantage of. If the deals are really great, I might consider starting on May's budget, even though it's not quite May. However, in general I prefer not to do that. It really helps me to be technical about staying on my budget, even if it means passing up on a good deal every so often. I think I spend less money in the long run.

Have a good Monday morning!

Garden Update

See those lovely green sprouts? Those are the basil and parsley that I planted and placed on my kitchen windowsill. According to the seed packets, these herbs do not have to be started inside, but I thought that I would plant some outside and keep some plants inside to just snip and throw in food.

Unfortunately . . . none of the rest of my seeds look like this. None of my other ones have sprouted! I was keeping the rest on top of the refrigerator, since someone had told me that they didn't need direct light in order to germinate. Well, I think this was incorrect advice.

On the advice of a friend, I'm now setting those seeds outside each day to get some sunlight. I also moved whichever ones I could fit to my windowsill, but they won't all fit there. I'm a little disappointed, because I've lost the time advantage I would have gotten by planting these several weeks ago.

Also, at this point I'm a little nervous about our garden for other reasons. First of all, we have dug up part of our lawn to use for this. It's not really a big plot, but we have a town house and a small yard. I don't want to take away too much play space from my daughter and her friends. Also, we have now invested - gulp - about $140 into the garden this year. Most of that went towards gardening tools that we can use year after year; the rest was seeds and soil. Even so, I estimate that I only spend about $40-$50/month on produce. At that rate, we may not recoup too much of our investment this year, although it could pay off in subsequent years.

All this being said . . . there is definitely more worth in a garden than merely saving money. Whatever our success rate is, it should be a fun family summer project and a great learning experience for my daughter. No produce tastes as good as fresh-picked garden produce, and I'm hoping it will actually get us to make up more of our diet from fruits and veggies.

So, I guess this is our frugal experiment for the year. We'll see how it goes!

Small Sucesses

Moms are sharing their little triumphs at Faith and Family Live today.

1) The last two nights, my 7 month old daughter only woke once during the night and slept in her crib the rest of the night. A new regimen of plenty of solid food and extra nursing during the evening seems to be working. I hope I'm not jinxing this by announcing it! If we were to get consistently down to just one night waking, I can hardly imagine the extra energy I would have. :-D

2) I got caught up on the dishes! Until the next time I start baking . . .

3) Hubby and I agreed on a plan for our basement organization. We decided what we want to accomplish this summer, how much we hope to spend, and our plan to accomplish it. First step: Ikea this weekend to buy storage bins and price shelves. (I'll definitely be sharing the results of that trip, since Ikea is one of my favorite frugal stores ever!)

Articles of Interest

How neat is it that a Goodwill store held its own bridal show? I think that is a great idea and shows how the worth of and enjoyment of things (especially your wedding) should not be based on how much you pay. It's great that someone who has to or just chooses to buy her wedding dress at Goodwill can also have a fun, elegant atmosphere in which to choose it.


Arwen had an innovative frugal idea here to make your own vanilla extract. I had heard of doing this, but I assumed that it would be just as expensive as purchasing it, since I know that vanilla beans are not cheap. However, after reading her cost breakdown in this post I definitely plan to try it. Arwen also recently posted a link for making your own Girl Scout cookies. My husband will definitely be my devoted slave if I make him thin mints or samoas!


I thought this article, 10 Ways the New Economy Will Look Different, was very interesting, especially to those of us who have always been pretty frugal. According to the writer, America is catching up with us!

I am neither an economist nor into politics, but in my opinion it is difficult to argue with the positive side to several of these "10 Ways," including "Value as the New Virtue," "Return of the Tightwad," and "Money in the Mattress."

I loved this characterization of ad campaigns from our recently departed era of consumerism:

"You work hard, so you deserve this [auto or watch or necklace or power bar]!" the ads said. "Sure, it costs about the same as the GDP of Senegal. But aren't you worth it?"

According to the article, these kinds of ad campaigns are no longer relevant. Instead,

Consumers realize they have been wasting money on products that weren't actually better, but were pitched as items that could improve their status. Now they find status in being discerning shoppers.

Amen to that.

Wegmans Deals

My Wegmans post went up yesterday at Frugal in Virginia. Also, did you know that you can get a free reusable bag at Wegmans on Saturday?

Green Deals

I thought it might be useful to publish a list of green deals today. If you're planning to buy any green products any time soon, this week is the week to do it!


Earth Day Freebies:

The best one I see is the free reusable tote bag and discount at Walgreens today. Other blogs have already done a great job of listing other great freebies today. Check out these lists on
Money Saving Mom

Frugal in Virginia
Baby Cheapskate


Coupons:

Coupons.com has currently has coupons up for Scott Naturals paper towels and toilet paper, any Simple Green product, and three different coupons for Kashi products. Go to the coupons.com widget on my sidebar and click on "show all coupons" to print these. (There's also a coupon for $1.00 of the current issue of Martha Stewart. I recently got a free subscription and am really enjoying that magazine.)

Reader Caroline was kind enough to yet me know yesterday that our local Super Target has value packs (2 boxes) of Kashi Go Lean crunch for $5.49 and there was a coupon on the front for a free 1/2 gallon of soymilk. A great deal anyway, and if you could couple this deal with one of the Kashi coupons, it could be even better!

Mambo Sprouts is also a great online source for coupons for organic products.

Online Codes:

There's a big discount today on Mrs. Meyer's cleaning products.

If there's any green product that you've been planning to buy online, buy it today and scour the internet for coupon codes and special promotions. There are many out there!

Giveways to Enter:

FishMama is giving away a cool Envirosax Reusable Shopping Bag

Mama's Money Savers also is giving away a reusable bag from EcoBags as well as a Simple Green Products set.

Sprout (TV station) is giving away a walk-in Calacastle (made from recycled materials). A friend had a castle like this at a recent birthday party, and it was so cool and fun for the kids!

Going Green and Saving the "Green"

I am no environmental activist, but I do think it is important to be good stewards of the earth and all the resources that we've been given. After all, being good stewards of our gifts is really what frugality is all about!

Sometimes it seems like "going green" is a trend reserved only for the wealthy. Although organic products are more available than ever, they still tend to be significantly more expensive than convential products.

However, in reality there are many green practices that not only are not expensive, but that can actually save you money! Habits and products that eliminate waste, save energy, or recycle used items are often just as good for your pocketbook as for the environment. Here are some that I thought of:

Turning off lights and unplugging electronics and appliances when not in use

Switching to energy-saving lightbulbs

Using rechargeable batteries

Growing your own organic produce

Composting your food waste

Using reusable grocery bags

Reusing plastic grocery bags - e.g. as trash bags for small trashcans

Buying used items - clothes, baby equipment, furniture, etc.

Buying energy-efficient appliances when you have to replace what you have

Breastfeeding

Using resuable food containers and water bottles instead of disposable wraps and bottles

Avoiding paper plates and napkins and using regular dishes and cloth napkins

Cooking and baking from scratch (saves on packaging and energy to produce prepared products and eliminates additives from your food)

What are other "green" practices that also save money?

Tuesday Tip

An easy, painless money saving tip every Tuesday

In honor of Earth Day this week, an environmentally friendly tip:

Use resusable grocery bags. You've heard the guilt trips to use resusable grocery bags to keep plastic bags out of landfills, buy maybe you don't want to purchase the bags or think that it sounds like a lot of trouble. But did you know that there are a number of grocery stores that offer discounts for using reusable bags?

For instance, Giant offers a $.05 discount for every bag you reuse, even if it's just a reused plastic bag. So if you buy one of the $.99 reusable bags available in any store, it will only take 20 shopping trips to recoup the cost, and after that you're making money! Not a lot of money, maybe, but it's something. I also actually really love those reusable bags that most stores sell. They hold much more than a plastic bag; they're stronger; and the flat bottom keeps them from falling over in the trunk. But you don't even have to buy bags. If you're like me, you may have tons of tote bags in your house already that you could use for groceries. Then any discount you get for using them is money in your pocket.

PS - I was unable to find a comprehensive list online of stores that offer discounts for using reusable bags, so I thought I might try to compile such a list myself. If you know of such a store or find a list of stores, please let me know in the comments section or send me an email. Thanks so much!

Getting Bargains at Double & Triple Coupon Events

If you've been reading my blog for a little while, you've probably noticed that I've been getting a ton of deals from double and triple coupon events at my local grocery stores. These events have become more and more common in the past few months, and they are where I've gotten some of my best deals. (Check out here, here, and here to see some of my shopping trips.)

However, if you're new to couponing, these events might seem confusing and little overwhelming, so I thought I would share the process of how to pick up these great bargains at special coupon events.

1) Find a special coupon event at your local store. In my area (Northern VA/DC metro), the stores that have had recent triple coupon events include Shoppers, Bloom, Harris Teeter, and Giant. Kmart has also had several events lately. If you're in the habit of reading your local store circulars every week, you should be alerted about the event a few days before it starts. Another way to search for a local store would be to google something like "triple coupons Illinois grocery store," and see what you can come up with.

2) Read the terms of the event, including the fine print. This is very important, because each store has different restrictions and limits on their double or triple coupon events. For instance, during their events, Bloom and Harris Teeter triple all coupons up to $.99 in original value, with a limit of 20 coupons per day. However, Ingles (a grocery store near my parents in North Carolina) only triples coupons up to $.50 at their events. Shoppers Food Warehouse seems to change their restrictions each time! Their best event is when they triple coupons up to $.50 and double coupons up to $1.00. You can almost always get something free with a doubled dollar coupon! Kmart currently has an event where they double coupons up to $2.00. Wow! Also note that some stores don't take Internet printed coupons, and some only take them up to a certain value. Check the store's website for their coupon policy.

3) Match up bargains. It's too overwhelming to wander through the store with all your coupons trying to triple the coupons in your head and figure out the best deals. Instead, go through your coupons at home and see what might be a good deal. At triple coupon events I tend to focus on two things: sale and coupon matches and the highest value tripled coupon. For instance, if I were going to triple coupons at Harris Teeter, I would check their sales for the week to see if I had a coupon for any of those items that would be tripled. I would also look for all my $.75 coupons, because that is the highest value coupon that they were tripling. (I rarely see coupons with a value between $.75 and $.99.)

Another invaluable resource for preparing for these events is couponing blogs. If you find a good blog that covers your local store, you won't have to do any work at all! These blogs tend to have a list of the best coupon matchups, including items that are free or almost free. All you have to do is make sure you have the corresponding coupons. The blogs I tend to check that cover my area are Frugal in Virginia and Redemption Unlimited. Southern Savers also had a great list of Bloom triple coupons last weekend. To find a local blog, try Be Centsable's The Grocery Gathering, which features links to blogs for a ton of grocery stores each week.

4) Make a list and organize your coupons. With any of my bargain shopping, I have an envelope for each store in which I put all the coupons I think I'll use at that store before I shop. For a triple coupon event, I include any coupon I think I might use, even if I have more than the limit. Sometimes, especially if I'm shopping at a busy time like Saturday afternoon, the stores are out of some of the best deals, so I might substitute a different coupon toward my limit of 20 coupons.

5) Pay attention when you're checking out. This is really a general bargain shopping tip: pay very close attention as your items or coupons are ringing up. Often there are one or two coupons that either don't triple or don't scan altogether. Nine times out of ten they should have scanned or tripled, and the cashier just needs to enter it manually. Occasionally there is a reason that the coupon didn't work (if it says "do not double or triple), and it that case I might just ask the cashier to take the item off my order.

6) Be flexible with what you buy. At double or triple coupon events I can definitely get great deals on items that were on my shopping list (like my yogurt deal last weekend). But when I get free or almost-free items they are often not something I would have purchased anyway. I don't normally advocate buying something just because it's a good deal, but if it's free or $.12 or $.19, what do you have to lose? I won't buy something that would be wasted just because it's free, but that would be the rare food item! I might not have been planning to buy a graham cracker pie crust, but if I get it for free it just means I'll be making pie next time we need a treat. I also have donated or given away a number of items that I have gotten for free or very inexpensively, and it's great to be able to help others so easily.

If you try a double or triple coupon event for the first time, I'd love to hear about your success!

Great Deals Roundup

The most worthwhile deals from around the blogosphere and elsewhere

I don't know what's so special about tomorrow, April 21, but there are two great treats to take advantage of if you're out and about. First of all, you can get an iced coffee from Dunkin Donuts for $.50 and also support our troops.

Then you can get a free scoop of Ben and Jerry's ice cream! Yum, as fabulously expensive as it usually is, I have a soft spot for Ben and Jerry's. During the two years I worked in DC the girls in my office used to make Ben and Jerry's runs every so often in the summer. Fun times. :-)
(Thanks Money Saving Mom and Coupon Cravings for these.)

And speaking of free food, find out here how to get a free Evol burrito. These are not even in stores yet, but you can get your coupon ahead of time. One of the things I love about being a couponer is that I always get to try the newest products!

Switching gears from food to clothing . . . if, like me, you like Gymboree clothes for your little ones, there are some great coupons out there right now. Gymboree just sent me some of the best coupons I have seen from them: 20% off your entire purchase (including sale), 30% off regular priced items, and $5 off a $20 or more purchase (definitely never seen that one before). Also, there was a 20% off Gymboree coupon in the May issue of Parents magazine that I just received.

Menu Planning Monday

Well, it's another Menu Planning Monday , and I'm rushing to make my menu plan and shopping list before heading out to Wegmans this afternoon!

I'm definitely in the mood for some fresh, spring flavors, so I'm trying to incorporate that into the next two weeks' menus. I'm also trying to increase the fruits and vegetables in our diet, so I'm also trying to plan that in.

Breakfasts:
cereal, oatmeal, toast, bagels, fruit and yogurt smoothies, frozen blueberry waffles (triple coupon bargain!)

Lunches:
cold cuts, salad with hard-boiled egg, pbj, cheese and crackers, beans and rice, leftovers

Dinners
Mon - Leftover ham and blackeyed pea soup, bread
Tues - Pot roast, mashed potatoes, asparagus
Wed - Lebanese pizza, fattoush salad
Thurs - Leftover pot roast, rice, green beans
Fri - Fiesta fritatta casserole, rolls, fruit salad
Sat - Spaghetti with meat sauce, salad, bread
Sun - Party

Mon - Steak fajitas with homemade tortillas
Tues - I'm leaving these three days blank, because I really want to get my hands on some chicken! I can't find it cheap enough this week, but by next week hopefully I can pick some up.
Wed -
Thurs -
Fri - Pasta primavera, salad, bread (I think I'll just make up this recipe :-)
Sat - Party at a friend's
Sun - Homemade pizza

Super Savings Saturday

This post is late this week since I did most of my shopping today. As I mentioned on Tuesday, I skipped regular grocery shopping and just made a quick milk run earlier in the week. Today, however, I couldn't resist heading over to Bloom's triple coupons.

First of all, though, I was out bright and early yard-saleing this morning! It seemed like today was the official opening of yard sale season or something. It was a gorgeous day, and bargain-hunters were out in full force!

A really nice local neighborhood was having their community yard sale, so I figured there would be good stuff and a lot to choose from. Sure enough, I was very pleased. Here's what I purchased:

Rival ice cream maker - $5

Bag of ball pit balls - $3 (We put these in a wading pool at my daughter's birthday last year, and it was a huge hit.)

Melissa and Doug wooden shape sorter - $2

Melissa and Doug set of four wooden puzzles - $.75

Four books - $2 ($.50 each)

Little Tykes plastic baby doll high chair - $1

Plastic lawnmower - $1

Total: $14.75

And here's what I got for $13.13 on my Bloom run:

My favorite deals were on the yogurt:

Breyer's yogurt cups - $.50/each (sale) - 3 x ($.50/4 coupon) = $.50 for 4!

Breyer's character yogurt 6-pack - $2.50 - 2 x ($.75/1 coupon) = $.25 for six-pack!

I also got the Wacky Mac, Yakisoba noodles, Oscar Mayer Deli Creations, sour cream, green chiles, and french fried onions each for free or under $.25 after tripled coupons.

Finally, my husband scored a great deal at Home Depot this evening. He stopped there to get soil for our garden and ended up getting 7 bags for the price of 4! He was looking at the bags of soil, and an employee approached him at asked if he would be interested in some bags that had been torn. He told Michael that if he purchased some regular bags he could get the torn ones for free! So Michael purchased four bags and got three for free.

So we had a good Saturday of bargain shopping, and we did a lot of yard work and got our garden bed mostly dug. I hope you all had a good Saturday as well!

Here's my grocery budget update for this week:

Wegmans: $14.54

Bloom: $13.13

CVS: $3.14

Total for month: $256.50

Total left in budget: $93.50

I Can't Believe It, But . . .

. . . I am now on Twitter!

I never thought I would do this, but I admit, it's kind of fun. And the time it takes to write a Twitter update is about how much time I often have on the computer. ;-)

So, if you enjoy Frugally Blonde, just a reminder that there are several ways you can keep up with it:

Sign up for my email updates.

Follow me on Google or with another reader.

Follow me on Twitter - username FrugallyBlonde. (My posts are updated there too.)

Fave me on Technorati (a blog search engine).

Check my sidebar for links to each of these. And thanks for reading!

Homemade Zwieback

Check out more Frugal Fridays at Life As Mom.

One my favorite convenience foods for babies is Zwieback, a twice baked toast used as a teething biscuit. However, the only brand I have been able find is Gerber, and they only carry it at one store in my area, Giant. Further, Giant has been out of it both times I have checked lately.

I figured that it couldn't be to hard to make my own, and I was sure it would be much more frugal. I used this recipe, since it was the one I found that had the most complete instructions. Turns out that Zwieback is actually just the name of a traditional German roll, which can be optionally cut and toasted for babies.

The recipe was time-consuming, in that it had to rise three times, but not labor-intensive. Most of the time was in the rising.

The dough was easy to work with and smooth. To shape the rolls, you press out little ovals as shown and roll them up. I thought that was interesting. Actually, it is not the traditional German shape for the rolls, but it was perfect for later slicing and toasting them for the baby.

I tried one of the rolls before toasting, and it was delicious - a simple, soft, fresh-tasting yeast roll.

Here they are after toasting in the oven. The recipe definitely made a lot!

I figure that this entire recipe cost me about $.90 to make, compared with about $2.99 for the Gerber box, which probably has less than half the number of toasts!

Finally, I thought this was so beautiful that I had to share it. It was with another Zwieback recipe I looked at:

Old German Breadmaking Blessing

The Lord has given us bread.

Without it there is no life,

As long as bread is in the cupboard,

We need not fast.

Lord, bless our bread,

For then we have no need.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Life Cycle of a Sweet Potato

One of the easiest baby foods to make and freeze is mashed sweet potatoes. I used to make them all the time for my older daughter, and it had the added benefit of getting me to eat a baked sweet potato for lunch every so often. According to http://www.nutritiondata.com/, sweet potatoes are good sources of fiber, magnesium, and Vitamins A, C, and B6.

Sweet potatoes were $.49/lb at Giant for Easter, so I bought a bunch. We had sweet potatoes with Easter dinner, and the rest I am baking for baby food. I just wash them, spray them with a little cooking spray, poke them with a fork, and bake at 375 for an hour to an hour and a half.

After they cool a little, I cut them open and scoop out the inside. Although I'm sure the straight mashed potato would be fine to give my daughter, it is a little stringy, so I decided to try to strain it by pushing it through a mesh colander.

It did make the puree smooth, but it was a little messy and hard to do. Next time I'll either just leave it unstrained or use my baby food mill.

Then I just spooned it into my freezer trays and froze them.

While you could heat the frozen baby food in the microwave, I have read that it is not recommended, since it can cause hot spots. I like to do it on the stove in my stainless steel measuring cups (those are the best). I add just a couple of teaspoonfuls of water to keep it from sticking.

When I used to make this puree for my older daughter, I confess I must have thrown out the skins. But this time I thought, "I normally eat the skins if I eat a baked sweet potato, so why throw them out as if they were waste?" So I saved them and found this recipe to make baked sweet potato skins. I just threw this together right before lunch today and baked them in the toaster oven.

Delicious with a hard-boiled egg sandwich and so nutritious!

Homemade Baby Food Resources

Have I got some great resources to share with you today on making homemade baby food! They really make me embarrassed about my simple attempts - lol! First up,

An article from yesterday's Washington Post about the trend of making your own baby food, highlighting a class on making baby food offered by a local chef!

Next, Christen from Nuture Baby was kind enough to email me to let me know about her website. You have got to check this out if you are at all interested in this topic! The pictures are gorgeous, and it has a wealth of recipes and techniques. "Gobble Me Up Turkey" with sage and cannelinni beans sure sound a lot better than those foul-smelling jars of pureed meats!

A neat site called Once a Month Mom has a baby food section. This blog is all about cooking once a month, which could be a really good way to do baby food. Freeze a month's worth, and you won't have to think about it. Just as easy as jarred!

Finally, I enjoyed this book from the library when I was making food for my older daughter:
Annabel Karmel's First Meals. It has lots of easy recipes and nice photographs of everything.

Happy baby food making!

Wegmans Deals and Consumer Reports Rating

Check out this week's Wegmans deals at Frugal in Virginia. And read about just another reason to shop at Wegmans - their top rating in Consumer Reports' comprehensive supermarket survey.

Saving Money on Baby Food

My younger daughter started eating solid food a few weeks ago, and she's getting pretty enthusiastic about it! Although I love breastfeeding, I always find it really exciting when my babies get to this stage. Maybe it's because I love food myself, so I'm excited to share it with them. Not to mention that being able to serve Baby a handful of Cheerios or a cracker is really convenient sometimes!

If you have a baby near my daughter's age, I'm sure you've noticed that baby food can be really expensive. Depending on the brand and variety (organic vs conventional, etc.), commercial baby food seems to run about $.50-$1.00 per serving. If your baby is eating three times a day, that adds up very quickly! However, paying regular prices for prepared food is not your only option; I've come up with a few ways to save significant money on baby's first foods.

Take advantage of sales and coupons. If you've looked at all for deals on baby food, you may have noticed that there are not often coupons for it in the Sunday paper. However, that does not mean there are no coupons out there! Gerber, for instance, publishes coupons on their website; but you get the most coupons by signing up for their mailing list. They keep track of your baby's age and send you coupons every couple of months for age-appropriate products. Further, once you start using the Gerber Graduates products, you can send away for a coupon booklet once you've collected 10 upc cut-outs.

I like to try to get organic baby food when possible, so I bought a lot of Earth's Best brand for my older daughter. This brand is reasonably priced, and you can find coupons for $1.00 off ten jars in many parenting magazines and other locations. Beech Nut baby food also has a mailing list and has special offers on their website.

Dana at Frugal in Virginia gave me the idea of using baby food coupons at triple coupon events, such as Harris Teeter's. I've done this a few times now, stocking up before the baby was even eating solids, and I've gotten three packages of baby food for less than the regular price of one each time. Even if your store doesn't have triple coupon events, pairing your coupons with a sale can save a decent amount of money. Baby food does seem to go on modest sales fairly regularly.

Make homemade baby food. I did this a lot with my older daughter as well. It's very easy to do; I use this baby food mill and freezer trays. I received these as a gift, but they are inexpensive and a very worthwhile investment. You don't have have to get complicated with homemade baby food. Mashing up some sweet potatoes or making a simple homemade applesauce were two of my favorites. I plan to share some more homemade baby food recipes and techniques later this week.

Substitute table food. One thing I discovered with my older daughter is that the baby food stage really lasts for such a short time. It only takes a couple of months for the baby to move from being spoon-fed rice cereal to eating Cheerios off her tray to really starting to leave baby food behind. While I still do use baby food, I now also use table food whenever possible. My daughter is seven months, and she already eats diced banana and avocado on her own, as well as Cheerios and baby biscuits. Compare the cost of a regular banana with a jar of baby bananas or a box of Cheerios with a jar of Gerber puffs, and you'll definitely want to move to table food as soon as possible! (Of course, be careful of choking hazards.)

Check back later this week for posts (and pictures) of some simple baby food recipes that I've tried!

PS - Check out more Works for Me Wednesday at We Are That Family.

Tuesday Tip

A quick, painless money saving tip every Tuesday

Change your tax withholding so that you are paying the correct tax each month and no more. My husband and I are getting a hefty refund this year, but that is mostly because we bought our house in 2008 and also because we did not change our withholding after our daughter was born. (Last year was a big year for us!)

While it seems really exciting to get a big refund, the excitement is an illusion - it was our money in the first place! As all the financial experts I read say, getting a refund at the end of the year is like giving an interest-free loan to the government. If you put that money in even a low-interest savings account, you would earn some interest on it, however small. Most importantly, you would have control of your own money, instead of having to wait for it until past the end of the year.

It might take a little effort to figure out the correct withholding, but it wasn't too difficult for us using our tax software. Of course, we do err on the side of caution, since we don't want to have to pay tax at the end of the year!

Great Deals Roundup

The most worthwhile deals from around the blogosphere

To cheer you up tomorrow, April 15, check out these freebies for tax day. Might as well get something free, right?

I am loving Target for really cheap and free groceries lately. Check out this post and this post on Money Saving Mom for some good-sounding deals this week. I also plan to head over there tonight to check for Easter candy clearance. Normally I wait until 75% or 90% off sales, but candy won't last that long and can be a really good deal on 50% off, especially if you should have a coupon to match.

And, Money Saving Mom just posted that the $1 off one Muir Glen product coupon is back. This coupon is great because you can use it on small cans of Muir Glen tomato products at pretty much any store that carries them to get them for free or under $.25.

Finally, Baby Cheapskate shares how to get two different samples of Huggies new Pure and Natural diapers (newborn-size 2) (scroll down the page to find the post). My daughter actually usually wears a size 3 now, but I can get away with putting a two on her, since I'm interested to try these. ;-)

Meal Planning: Easter Leftovers Week!

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter this weekend! We had a great time, and feasted on lots and lots of food!

Since we have tons of leftovers, and since I was busy yesterday taking my college-age sister back to school, I decided to skip grocery shopping this week and to just plan meals from what we have. We have so much food that I don't think it will be a problem! I stopped yesterday for milk and apples, but other than that we'll just use what's in the fridge, freezer, and pantry.

Here are the meals I'm tentatively planning:

Breakfasts:

cereal, oatmeal, hard-boiled eggs, Pascha (Easter bread), bagels (I need to bake more bagels. My recipe only makes 9 little ones, and we eat them so fast!)

Lunches:

Leftover samosas, kielbasa, spanakopita (all from Easter); cheese and crackers, pbj

Dinners:

Tues - Leftover Easter dinner (ham, sweet potatoes, asparagus)

Wed - Hungarian Goulash (I never made this last week, and I need to use up some of those roasts I have in the freezer)

Thurs - Black eyed pea and ham soup (using the ham bone!)

Fri - Leftover goulash

Sat - Homemade pizza

Sun - Leftovers or other simple dinner, depending on our schedule

There will still be almost two full weeks of April after this week, so I'll probably get back to my two week shopping/menu planning schedule next Monday.

Time to Shift Focus . . .

I just wanted to let you all know that I'll be taking a break from blogging for the rest of this week in order to celebrate Holy Week and Easter with my family. I'll be back on Monday!

Have a Happy Easter!

. . . And the last enemy to be destroyed is death.
- 1 Cor. 15:26

If You Save Just $5 . . .

I mentioned yesterday that I try to cook beans from scratch rather than buying canned beans, for a savings of maybe $1 per pound of beans. It got me thinking how couponing and many other frugal practices save us really only a few dollars at a time. Sometimes people use this as a reason not to adopt a frugal practice - "I don't want to spend time on that just to save $5."

Of course, the most obvious response to that is that many practices that save $1 or $5 at a time can in the end add to much more. However, I also decided to come up with a list of some of the things you could do with just $5. It's suprising how many my family and I could come up with. I hope they get you motivated to keep on pursuing all those little savings!


So . . . if you used 5 $1.00 coupons and saved $5 off your grocery budget, here's what that extra $5 could buy . . .

Five movie rentals from Redbox

A slice of iced lemon poundcake and a Tazo tea from Starbucks

One or two magazines

A bag of corn chips and a jar of salsa to share with friends

Five jars of baby food

A child's board book or a cheap paperback

Five $.99 greeting cards from Hallmark or ten $.50 greeting cards from the dollar store

A third of your way to a manicure at an inexpensive nail salon

Five song downloads from iTunes

A fast food meal

One or two quarts of motor oil

Half way to a decent bottle of wine

A small bouquet of flowers from the grocery store

A pair of earrings from Claire's

A box of Sushi from the grocery store

A quart of good ice cream

Two lbs. meat/3-4 dozen eggs/5 lbs beans

What else can you come up with?

Tuesday Tip

A quick, painless money-saving tip every Tuesday

When filling a prescription, take advantage of pharmacy gift card deals. In my area, I very often find coupons in local store ads for free gift cards with a new or transferred prescription. It's amazing how good some of these deals are! Twice I got a $25 Giant gift card just for filling a prescription, and I was already a Giant pharmacy customer! I've also seen coupons for free gift cards for new or transferred prescriptions at Target, CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid.

In fact, Money Saving Mom just published a link for a new coupon for a $25 gift card with a new prescription at Rite Aid. For other similar coupons, just keep an eye out in your local store circulars.

Wegmans Deals

My Wegmans deals for this week are up at Frugal in Virginia!

Giveaway Winner!

I am very excited to announce that the winner of my 100th Post Giveaway is:

Comment #35 - EML

The winner was chosen using random.org.

EML, you should have received an email from me about your prize; please contact me if you do not receive it.

Thanks so much to everyone who entered! This was really fun; I'll definitely plan to hold more giveaways in the future.

Beans and Bagels

A commenter last week asked me to post my bagel and black bean recipes. For the bagels, I use a recipe from allrecipes.com. I posted all about making bagels here.

For the black beans, I actually usually don't season them at all, except for some salt at the end. (Apparantly, if you add salt during cooking it makes the beans tough. At least, this is what I've read.) However, I have in the past added some onions and garlic to the beans for a little flavor.

I often hear people comment that they couldn't cook beans from scratch because they would never remember to soak them overnight. Well, neither do I! Instead, I use the quick-soak method. I put the washed and picked-over beans in a pot with plenty of water, bring it to a boil, and let them boil for 2 or 3 minutes. Then I remove the pot from the heat, cover it, and let it sit for an hour. After that, I drain the water, add new water, and cook as usual.

In case you are unfamiliar with using dried beans, "picking over" means to check the washed beans for tiny stones and bits of soil. Sometimes you don't find any, but I often do. You don't have to obsess about it; I usually just rake through them with my hand after I rinse them in the colander.

After the hour of soaking, it usually just takes about two hours to cook the black beans at a simmer on the stove. I also sometimes cook them in the crockpot, which takes an hour or two longer.

Cooking dried beans did used to seem so difficult to me, but now that I've started cooking and freezing them I rarely buy canned. Canned beans are not a super expensive item, but still, I would estimate that dried beans are about half the cost. Every little bit helps!

Easter Menus

I already shared my meatless menus for the week here, but I thought it would be fun to share my Easter menus as well.

I've found that I've not had to spend a ton of extra grocery money on Easter; it seems to be a pretty frugal holiday for us. My biggest expenses were the ham and the Easter candy. The ham was $15 on a good sale at Giant, and I got various awesome deals on candy at CVS.

Since we always have the same menu for Easter brunch, I can plan ahead and get good deals on the items. I got the Kielbasa really cheap over a month ago and froze it. And since my sister and I are collaborating on Easter dinner, that really saves us both money.

Here's what I'm planning for Easter:

Brunch
We do a traditional Polish Easter basket, which includes the following:
Pascha (an egg bread)
Butter
Kielbasa
Colored Eggs
Cheese
Horseradish
Salt
You can read more about the Polish Easter basket and what the foods symbolize here. I'm also going to serve some strawberries, as they're on sale this week at Giant.

Dinner
Ham
Roasted Asparagus and Artichokes with Lemon Butter Sauce
Sweet Potatoes
Corn
Crescent Rolls
Gumdrop Cake

I used to always go over budget when a holiday came up in a month, but now I usually can fit everything in. The key for me is planning ahead. I start buying anything I can early, and I focus on seasonal items that tend to be on good sales.

I'm sharing my menus as part of Menu Planning Monday at OrgJunkie and also the Frugal Easter Eggstravaganza at Keeping the Kingdom First.

Remember, today's your last chance to enter my first giveaway!

Shoppers Double Coupons and Other Shopping

I finally made it to Shopper Double Dollar Coupon promotion today. They were out of some of the free and almost free deals, but I still got some good ones.

I spent $18.93 for everything pictured above. The original total was about $40. It wasn't as dramatic a savings as some of my triple coupon deals, but that's because I purchased a blend of the free and very cheap deals and some items I normally buy that were a better deal with the $1 double coupons.

My favorite deals were the following:

- Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta (2) @ $1.50 each - (2 x $1.00/2 coupon) = $.50 each

- Barilla Whole Wheat Spaghetti (2) @ $1.20 each - (2 x $1.00/2 coupon) = $.20 each

(I love to be able to get the healthier whole wheat pasta like these two brands, but I'll only buy if it's the same price or less than regular pasta.)

- Jolly Time popcorn (2) @ $1.00 each - (2 x $1.00/2 coupon) = FREE

- Quaker mini rice cakes @ $1.89 - (2 x $1.00/1 coupon) = FREE

- Gold Medal Bread Flour (5lb) - $1.89 (sale) (This is a significant saving on something I use often to make bread and bagels, so I bought all they had left, three packages.)

Check out more Shoppers coupon matchups here. Here is my other shopping this week:

Wegmans: $82.38

CVS: $15.64

Target: $1.74

Giant: $31.74 (included our Easter ham)

Total this month: $131.50

I feel like I spent a lot this week, and it's freaking me out a little! However, I think I should be fine, as it will all even out by the end of the month. This week's shopping was a blend of restocking for the month, some special deals (like the Shoppers promotion), and a bunch of Easter treats (like the ham).

Except for a few last minute perishables, I've pretty much purchased everything for Easter now, including items for the girls' Easter baskets, which I was able to fit into the regular grocery budget. I plan to share my Easter menus this week.

Don't forget - my first giveaway ends Monday night!

Starting our Vegetable Garden

One of my big frugal endeavors for this spring and summer is going to be a vegetable garden. I am very excited!

Last spring, we had just moved into our house, but I was so excited to finally have a yard that we managed to put in a few plants anyway. Our most successful crops were bell peppers, basil, and mint, and we enjoyed a pretty good harvest of those for several months. But this year I have visions of a much bigger output -- we'll see how it goes!

Last year we bought most of our plants as already started plants at home depot, plus we had to buy gardening tools, pots, soil, etc. So I don't actually know if we saved any money in the long run. However, this year we bought seeds for everything, and I'm trying to keep costs to a minimum in order to actually save money once we start harvesting some vegetables and herbs.

Here are the seeds we purchased:

We're not actually sure if the area we have to work with technically gets "full sun," which pretty much all vegetables seem to need, so there will definitely be some trial and error. However, I remember my dad raising pretty successful vegetables gardens even with somewhat limited sun at my childhood home.

Yesterday my daughter and I planted the seeds to start indoors: the tomatoes, bell peppers, jalepeno peppers, and canteloupes. I had used egg cartons last year, and they work well. You don't need drainage holes, as the water just soaks through the bottom.

I'll definitely sharing plenty of updates on our garden as the season progresses. I hope this will turn out to be both a money-saver and a great learning experience for our whole family.
Frugal Fridays are hosted by Life as Mom.
By the way, there's only a few more days to enter my first giveaway if you haven't already!

Small Successes

1) I got a good night's sleep . . . by which I mean . . . nearly 12 hours!!! Monday night I went to bed around 9:00 o'clock and didn't get up until 8:30 AM! Of course, I did have to get up with the baby in there, but for me, that was more sleep that I've gotten in a really long time!

2) I cleaned the whole main floor of my house, including dusting, vacuuming, and mopping the kitchen floor. How did I have the energy and will to do this? See 1) above.

3) I had a fairly productive baking day yesterday, so now we're pretty well stocked with baked goods and other snacks for the next week or two.

My baking day results:

PS - Check out more Small Successes here.

PPS - You can still enter my first giveaway here.