Disgusting

I got a new vacuum cleaner last week. It was overdue.

We'd shopped around and I had surprisingly (for me) sold myself on an Oreck. Gosh, they're nice, aren't they? Crazy power and light enough to lift one-handed without breaking a sweat. That little old wrinkly man sure does know what he's doing, I'll tell you that.

Downside? The pricetag. Ouch. And then our garage door spring broke. And our air conditioning went out. And some part on the TV blew a fuse and had to be replaced. All in the same week. Double, triple, and quadruple ouch.

Bye-bye, Oreck money. Hello, Target vacuum aisle.

I checked out the reviews, and finally decided on a Bissell that everyone seemed to have awesome things to say about. It was in the price range I was planning to spend, and let's face it -- the only other choices out there are the Hummers of the vacuum world and the $30 joke that you're afraid will break after two uses.

So, hooray for making a decision! I was actually pretty excited to test it out. I've never had a bagless vacuum before, and I will say that this is the #1 quality I hate about it, but there really aren't many bagged upright vacuums on the market these days that don't cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney.


THIS is what I found after vacuuming one room. Seriously?!? What disgustingness we've been walking and playing on without even realizing it!

Even my husband, who shall thus forth be acknowledged as "Mr. Incredible" (per his new toy -- uh, phone), noted that the carpet seemed softer... "fluffy" almost. I won't say it's turned my beige carpet three shades whiter or made it look brand new again... but for eighty bucks? I'm happy.

Grocery store bargains

A few months ago, I was introduced to Five Dollar Dinners. I'd like to say I'm good at saving money at the grocery store, but wow! I'm always so impressed at what Erin comes up with for only five dollars!

Each week, she posts about her grocery shopping trip and takes a picture of everything she bought and explains how much she spent. I'm always so intrigued by this, especially because she uses the same grocery store chain that I do. While we don't live in the same area, a lot of the sale prices are the same, so I like to get tips from her when I can! :)

I thought I would post about some of the great deals I found during our shopping trip today. I was quite excited about a few of them! Hey, everybody needs a hobby! This is mine.

Stop laughing.


Bought today at Kroger:

• Two loaves Healthy Life bread, on sale for $1.39/loaf, plus $0.35 off coupons, which doubles to $0.70 off (two coupons means I bought two loaves of bread) = $0.69/loaf of bread
• Bisquick pancake mix, regular price of $3.59, with $0.60 off Shortcuts e-coupon, plus $0.50 off coupon, which doubles to $1 off = $1.99 for the box (40 oz.)
  
• Dole salad mix, on sale for $1 {with what I assumed was a $0.75 off e-coupon, but apparently was for a different flavor... maybe? Going to have to look into this...} = $1/bag of salad... FAIL. Thought it was $0.25!
• Yoplait Greek yogurt cups, on sale for $1, plus $0.45 off coupon, which doubles to $0.90 off = $0.10/yogurt cup!!
• Two packages of hummus, on sale for $1 each (regular price is 3.99!)
• Dawn dish soap, marked down to $1.39?!?, plus $0.50 off coupon, which doubles to $1 off = $0.39 dish soap!
• No Sugar Added Del Monte fruit cups, marked down to $1.39, plus $0.75 off coupon = $0.64 (This is the kind of thing I won't usually buy because individual packages are almost always more expensive... but for sixty-four cents, it'll be handy to grab and go!)

The last item pictured is this trail mix from the produce section. I never EVER buy these unless I have a coupon, but I love me some trail mix! It ended up being on sale for $3.99 (regular price is $4.49) and I had a store coupon for $0.75 off, making this good and healthy snack $3.24. Not too shabby, considering how spendy these "specialty" mixes typically are!


Last but not least of my good deals today -- two whole chickens for $0.98/pound. Every once in a while, I like to make a roast chicken in the crock pot. It's so moist and delicious, but I absolutely DETEST the clean-up! However, when I wanted to make a roast chicken a few weeks ago (and use up some of my produce drawer for flavorings), I bit the bullet. I threw some things together and was very pleased with the honey citrus chicken that resulted. I was not pleased, however, when I got home from the store and realized the bag was leaking chicken juices all over my kitchen. Yuck! So, it went straight into the crock pot for dinner the following night. Because it wasn't done cooking until it was time for me to go to bed, I just stuck it in the fridge overnight and sliced it up the following day. I could not believe how much easier it was slicing the bird COLD rather than freshly cooked! I feel like I always waste so much meat when I'm trimming it off while still warm... like it's hard to tell what's good meat and what's yucky parts. By letting it sit in the fridge overnight, I could get entire chicken breasts and tenderloins off whole, and just sliced them up from there. So easy! I also felt like I got a TON more meat off of it than usual. It was enough for dinner for three PLUS a small Pyrex dish full of leftovers that were frozen (which are going to be chicken enchiladas tonight... yum!). So I'm going to try that method again and just freeze the meat in bags this time. I'll just pull a bag out as I need it.

TWO CORRECTIONS:

1. The price for the whole chickens was $0.88/lb., not $0.98. Even better!
2. After posting, I filled out a dispute form at Shortcuts about the coupon that wasn't applied to my bill today, and I already received a response. They've credited my account with $0.80 (five cents higher than the value of the unused coupon), which will be applied to my next grocery bill. Woo!
   

Another great coupon resource

Can you tell I love my coupons? :)

I keep meaning to share that I found another site similar to Shortcuts, which I posted about a few weeks ago. Cellfire works much the same way (see my post on Shortcuts for a more detailed explanation), and what is even more awesome... I've discovered that coupons that overlap are BOTH credited to your account! Combine this with a coupon from the paper, and you can find some items for very cheap or even free! Love it!

I've found so far that Shortcuts is laid out a little better for me... it seems to be a little more organized, and I like that the expiration date is easy for me to find. Cellfire isn't quite as great in this way, but I really can't complain when I'm saving money. :)

Shortcuts

I came across a really neat coupon site a few weeks ago and thought I would share! While there are many online coupon sites from which you can print coupons, this is the only site I have found yet that offers electronic coupons. No printing, no clipping, and no forgetting them at home! :)

Sign up for an account (it's free) and search for your grocery store. If they don't happen to be in your area yet, I did notice that you can request notification when they are.

If you DO see your store listed, you can put in your store card information, and it will link your savings directly to your card. Browse their coupons, add the ones you want to use (or even just any you think you MIGHT use!), and when you purchase that item at your store and use your store card, the value of the coupon is automatically deducted from your total. Easy as pie!

While there are not tons of coupons available through Shortcuts, I've noticed that they do list new ones fairly regularly, so it's important to check every couple of weeks. I've saved $5.25 so far in the two shopping trips I've made since registering my account. Coupons are not doubled as some printed coupons are, but you can use the electronic coupon in combination with a printed or newspaper coupon to save even more money and end up with some really good deals!

Just as regular cut-out coupons do, Shortcuts coupons do have an expiration date. You also cannot reuse them. Just as you hand in your paper coupons to the cashier, Shortcuts coupons are marked on your account as being used. However, it appears that they re-post some coupons, so just keep checking to see what's available.

Hope it works as well for others as it has been for me! :)

Complete

Complete.

I enjoyed the Eat From the Pantry Challenge, and successfully completed three out of my four goals. It's that pesky budget that I didn't do so well with. However, it's better to buy things when they're on sale and stock up, rather than to wait to buy them when they aren't on sale and spend more money in the long run... so, whatever. Overall, I'm happy. I did like the challenge of using things already on hand to base my meal-planning on, and I'll have to continue that trend in the future... even though I probably won't be spending under $150 a month for groceries!

A brief follow-up...

...to the previous post about price matching. I thought of a couple other things I did not mention. :)

While shopping, I try to keep all my price match items separate, if possible. It's much easier come check-out time to put all those items either first or last, and helps the cashier if I have all those items grouped together and can run through those prices (written on my list) at once. It's also easier on me to do it all at one time, rather than watching each item as it is scanned.

I'm not sure how this works on store brand items... never tried. :) I did, however, use this with produce last week. A store I am NEVER at was having a sale on mushrooms -- eight ounces for one dollar. I honestly hate mushrooms, but I bought four cartons and made cream of mushroom soup in my crock pot one day. I realized that, with the sale price, the homemade stuff was significantly cheaper than the canned! I froze it in Ziploc baggies, and have already used it in one recipe. I don't really expect to stop keeping at least one of those red-and-white cans in my pantry, but it's sure nice to know you can save a few dollars by making a homemade version with not a lot of effort.

Jenni asked how long the whole organization process takes. It's a good question, and to be honest, I'm not sure if I have an exact answer! :) I usually organize in stages. I'll start by cutting out all my coupons for that week and looking through the ads, usually on Sunday afternoon. Then on Sunday night, I'll plan out my meals (generally based on what's on sale that week, what I have coupons for, and what we just haven't had in a while). I try to organize coupons and make out my shopping list that evening also, but it doesn't always happen. Sometimes that falls to Monday night, meaning I go shopping on Tuesday morning. It just depends. :) I would guess it takes around an hour from start to finish.

It's hard to fit everything in during the course of a day, week, or month! There are definitely areas that are lacking around here. I've spent the past three days trying to finish dusting my living room because I have a clingy little one who is apparently quite offended by a clean house. My vacuum cleaner is about as handy as as the toy vacuum that hides next to it in the closet (banished because it has too many little pieces that drive me batty). I fell off the exercise wagon months ago, but I'm too out of shape to run and catch it. But, this is at least one small area that seems to be working for me at the moment. :)

And with that, it's time to go clean the bathroom sinks.

Price matching

I've recently been introduced to the world of price matching. How did I not know about this sooner? :)

I honestly never got the whole concept of why you'd want to spend the time looking through ads of other stores, when you can just go to the stores you normally shop at and buy what you normally buy. I also thought that if a particular store was running a great deal one week, why not just stop by that store for only that deal? Why mess with the whole "price matching" thing?

Here's what I've discovered in the past few weeks: price matching is not nearly as difficult or as time-consuming as it seems like it might be. Who has the time (or gas money) to drive around to a bunch of different stores, particularly if they aren't even in the same town or otherwise near each other, if you can get the same sale price at your one-stop-shop for the week? In other words, if I'm already going to make a Walmart trip once a week, why drive around to the other places if Walmart will give me the same price on the same item?

It does take organization, though. I'm still working to figure out the best system for myself, and I will also add that it DOES take more effort to be paying attention to which coupons I have, what sale prices are at which store, the items we need today vs. the items we don't need just yet, and keeping my two-year-old occupied in the cart and not knocking a fire extinguisher to the ground, sending every employee within a six-aisle radius running in our direction (true story).

Here's what I traditionally do to keep organized throughout the store:

• Plan the week's meals out ahead of time, so I know exactly what ingredients I still need to purchase for that week.
• Do a quick scan through the pantry, fridge, and freezer to see what commonly-used items we are running low on. I try to keep at least one ahead of most things we do use frequently (except items with a short shelf-life, of course) to minimize the last minute trips to the store.
• Pull various store ads from the weekly paper and take a quick look through each of them. Circle or mark down in some way the items that would be good to price match.
  
• Clip new coupons, and throw out expired ones. Pull all coupons I expect to use for that week, and put them in the order in which I'll be coming to that item in the store.
• Write my list out in the order of the store. This keeps me from having to make several trips back and forth across the store, because I don't forget things I've already passed (usually).
• Put a star next to any items I have coupons for, so that I don't forget to use them.
• Include price match items in my list. I make a note of which store has the best price by writing only the first initial of the store, and circling it on my list. (M = Meijer, C = CVS, W = Walgreens, etc.) I write that store's price next to the item on my list, and I also make note of any special consideration (how many ounces that price is good for, if there is a limit on how many you can buy at that price, etc.).
• If an advertised sale price is something like "2 for $6," I've found it's easiest to break it down into how much each ONE item is. It seems to be less confusing if I just tell the cashier the item is on sale for $3 each, instead of saying "I have three of these, and they are on sale 2 for $6."
• Know which stores will honor competitor's prices, and which ones don't. Walmart does price matching, but not against other Walmarts. (Strange, I know. We discovered this two years ago when Sassy's formula was nearly $7 more expensive at the Walmart two minutes away from us than the one in the town to the south of us. In that case, it was worth the ten-minute drive once a month or so to stock up.) Our regular grocery store does NOT price match, but they do double coupons up to fifty cents.
  

As I'm walking through the store, I make sure to check the store's regular price with the other sale ads (which are all written on my list, so I'm not flipping through eighteen thousand papers while shopping to look for that one item). Sometimes, I've found that the store's regular price is actually cheaper than another store's sale price.

I do make sure to take all my ads with me to the store, but so far, the cashier generally does not ask to see the ads. I guess I either look like an honest person, or they take pity on a mom with a toddler! Besides, who's going to lie about baby carrots being on sale for $1, instead of the normal $1.88? :) I still take them anyway, just in case I'm ever asked. I can refer to my list to help me remember which ad a specific price was in.

Price matching is apparently more common than I realized. I've had a few cashiers tell me they see people bringing in a stack of ads frequently! I guess when I realized how "easy" it is, I don't mind putting forth a little extra time and effort to save some money on our regular shopping bills. It's amazing how fast the normal items really can add up, so this has been one little way I can stretch my husband's paycheck just a bit farther, and I'm always proud of myself when I accomplish that!

A pumpkin convert

I'll admit -- I don't love the flavor of pumpkin. I love the look of them. I love the smell of them. I love the "seasonal" factor about them. But not so much the taste.

When Sassy was on baby food, I made almost the entirety of what she ate. She very seldom had the store-bought stuff, not because I'm against it, but because I had been hearing for months about how easy it was to make your own babyfood. And it was -- and cheap, too! I figured out that I spent HALF what I would have had I bought the regular stuff on the shelves at Walmart.

Pumpkin was one of the foods I was really excited for Sassy to try, and although she didn't love it at first, it did grow to become a favorite. It's a fairly versatile food, actually, and we tried all different combinations. For a while, pumpkin and blueberry was a hit, though it doesn't sound appetizing to me!

Now that she's almost two, she's significantly more picky with what she will and will not eat. I was really curious to see if she'd groove on pumpkin again this year or not. And since I really cannot STAND the smell of canned pumpkin, and since I remembered the ease of making my own pumpkin puree, I tried it again this week. Seriously, the hardest part is cutting through the pumpkin. Once you accomplish that, you're golden!

If you've never tried it before, all you need to do is cut the pumpkin in order to scrape out the seeds (which I saved for later and roasted, if you like that kind of thing). Put the pumpkin face down (though I've heard face up works just as well) on a lined baking sheet. (The natural sugars caramelize in the oven, so unless you want to be standing at the sink scrubbing pumpkin juice off your baking sheet, break out that aluminum foil!) It's not a terrible idea to prick the skin with a fork or a sharp knife a few times, just to let some of the steam escape if you're roasting skin-side up. Roast at 350 degrees for about an hour, or until you see that the skin is puckered. The "meat" of the pumpkin literally will fall away from the skin when it's done. Throw it in a food processor, add a little water for consistency if needed, and voila! Homemade pumpkin puree that is ready to go into any number of fall recipes!

Coincidentally, I made pumpkin spice muffins with some of my puree.

One pie pumpkin yielded approximately 35 ounces of puree... definitely cheaper than buying it canned!

And as an aside... letting your toddler play with a pumpkin awaiting its roasting fate? Good idea.

Letting your toddler get so attached to said pumpkin that she runs screaming in the other direction when she sees THIS come out of the oven?


Bad idea. Please note this accordingly.


Anyway. Ice cube trays are a great way to store the fallen comrade -- uh, pumpkin puree.


I found these nifty trays last year that came with lids. They're made by Oxo. When your food cubes are frozen, just pop 'em out...


...and store them in a freezer bag.


And here's a helpful hint: it's easier to write a label on the bag before you add the contents. Next time I'll follow my own advice. See? You're smarter already just from reading this blog post. I should write a book.


I pulled out a couple of cubes to defrost in the fridge overnight to add to Sassy's oatmeal for breakfast the next morning.


And the best part about the trays? Dishwasher safe!


I wanted to use some of the fruits of my labor (is it still considered "labor" if it's really no effort at all?) by trying it out in pumpkin spice muffins. Now, I told you -- I'm not big on pumpkin flavor. But stick with me. Oh, and for super easy measuring, each cube is one ounce. I needed a cup of pumpkin puree, so eight cubes went into this cup to defrost in the microwave.


Dry ingredients included flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar (that was kind of an accident), baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger.


By that time, the puree was defrosted.


Add the pumpkin, along with some milk.


Two eggs.


I beat them in the measuring cup I used for the pumpkin. Because I'm a fan of not dirtying more dishes than are absolutely necessary.


Crisco and vanilla go in also.


The batter was a little runny...


...so I added a little more brown sugar. It just seemed like the right thing to do. I love experimental baking.


Muffin cups. Because, again, the dirtying dishes thing. This way, all my muffin pan needs is a quick wipe-down. By the way, does anyone else's muffin pan (or baking sheet, or casserole dish) look like this? Oh, for the days when everything was nice and new and perfectly clean. So anyway... fill the muffin cups with the batter.


And then some of the batter goes and does this. So much for the clean pan, right?


It's a really good thing I used those muffin cups so my pan didn't get messy, huh? Sprinkle some cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg (or whatever combination of seasonal spices you like) on top, and bake at 400 degrees for about 25 minutes.


And they come out beautiful, golden brown, and smelling YUMMY! My oven smelled like a giant Yankee candle.


And then there's this one. How interesting. But he was delicious!


Pumpkin spice muffins... even if you don't love pumpkin flavor, try them out! I've had three.