Salsa - Batch #2

I had enough ripe tomatoes and peppers today to make another batch of salsa.
(And John's mom supplied the onions, thanks again!)

Today I canned:
1 Quart
6 Pints

and stuck a half pint of it in the fridge.
That brings the total on the shelf to 3 quarts & 6 pints. That's not to shabby for our little $8 garden.

Walgreens - $9.61

I did two transactions at Walgreens today:

4 Listerine Total Care 2/$8 sale used $2q
1 Garnier shampoo $3.34 sale used $1q
1 Wags napkins $1.79 sale

$21.13 + 1.48 tax = $22.61 Total
- $9 coupons - 4.00RR = $9.61 paid
and got $3RR ,$3RR, & $2RR makes for a net of $5.61 = 25%

HyVee - $33.16

Ran out to Hy-Vee today after work because they were having some good sales this week and some were only good today. Every single thing I bought was on sale.

C & H Sugar $1.77
HV Tasteeos 1.67
Malt O Meal cereal 2.79
7 Schilling taco seasoning .50ea
3 HV ice cream 1.18 ea
6 HV Shredded cheese .99 ea
HV 5lb potatoes .88
Chicken drumsticks 2.99
6 85% ground beef 1.68 ea

Total $33.16

Walgreens - $9.50

A quick stop at Walgreens today:
Rice Krispies $2.50 used Free q
Frosted Flakes $2.50 used 1.00q
4 Cheez-Its $2.50 ea used 1.00/2q

$15.00 Total
minus $5.50 coupons
$9.50 paid = 63%

plus got $2 & $5 RR = $2.50 net is 16%

Salsa - Batch #1

This weekend some of our tomatoes finally ripened! So I picked them and enough jalapeno peppers to go with them and pulled some onions and made a small batch of salsa. As you can see in the picture I ended up with two quarts and two half pints. I put one small jar in our fridge and the other one is going to John's parents because they wanted "just a little to try". The two quarts went on the shelf in the basement for John to take with him this winter.

So even tho we have just started to harvest from our garden, I have already gotten enough to cover the $8 that I spent on it! I wish I had more room to have a bigger garden but I guess we will enjoy what we do have.

Garage Sale Clothes $5.00

Can you believe I got all of these for $5.00, all of which was in really good shape and all but the two pair of jeans are "wear to school quality". Yippee!

For my oldest daughter:
2 jeans
2 shorts
1 skirt
3 shirts

For my baby girl:
3 winter outfit (pants & shirt)

Hy-Vee - $31.53

My trip to Hy-vee today:
4 Hamb & Chicken Helpers .99 ea sale used .75/3q
9 Canned peaches, pears, oranges
Penne pasta .69 sale
White bread
2 Old Orchard Juice .99 ea sale used 1.00/2q
Similac formula 11.99 used $4 formula check
Pepperoni
OM cotto salami
Bananas
2 Cantaloupe 1.48 ea sale
5 lb potatoes

$37.28 Total
-4.00 formula check
-1.75 coupons
$31.53 Paid = 85%

Walgreens - $9.62

Three transactions at Walgreens:

2 Angel Soft 4.99 sale
3 Softsoap body wash 3.99 sale
2 Huggies wipes 2.99
1 Garnier Hairspray 3.99
1 W Diapers 2.79 clearance
1 Hair clip .20 clearance
25 pictures .25 sale

$35.16 + 2.46 tax = $37.62 Total
-4.00 Huggies Walgreens Coupon
-1.00 Garnier coupon
-4.00 RR
-4.00 RR
-4.00 RR
-5.00 RR
-6.00 RR
$9.62 PAID = 26%

and got new RR's for $2, $4, $4, $4 = $14

School Started Today

Here are my two oldest right before they left the house this morning. They both came home in good moods and said their first day went really well. Of course they were most thrilled to see all their friends again. They both sat down and did their homework right away when they got home and then had a snack because they were starving. It is nice to have them back in a routine again after their lax summer.

Our first Tomatoes!

Last night I was able to pick our first two ripe tomatoes!
I bet we have about 100 green ones but these two were ripe. I hope that a bunch of them will be ripe by this weekend so I can start making salsa. The plan is to can enough salsa to get John through a whole year. He really likes hot salsa and eats it alot. So I planted tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, habanero peppers, and onions this year. The total costs for plants and two bags of potting soil was $8.06 and I already had jars for canning so we will see how much I can get made for that.

Fareway $33.99

2 Chips
Cheese curls
2 Dole salad
Bean w/Bacon soup
2 Cottage Cheese
2 Ground chuck
Enchiladas
2 Shredded cheese
2 Bacon 1.68 sale
3 Coke 2ltr .99 sale
Margarine
Shredded hashbrowns

$33.99 Total

Garage Sale Clothes $7.75

Yesterday we were on our way out of town to go to John's company picnic about an hour away. Just as we were leaving town we saw a Garage Sale sign that said boy's clothes on it, so we stopped. Cole still needs clothes for school and play clothes too as he grows so fast.

We got all this for $7.75
Polo Jeans
Nike windbreaker pants
Starter windbreaker pants
4 Character T-shirts
All but the Nike pants were in great shape and can be worn to school. Wow, was I glad we stopped.

My Two Girls

I was snapping pictures the other day of everyone throughout the day. Now I am editing and uploading some of them to get them printed. And I just couldn't resist sharing this one with everyone.

Fareway $52.88

OMG another grocery trip with John (the man that doesn't get the saving money mentality) so we end up spending more than if he would just let me go by myself.

I know everthing is crunched in the photo and it is difficult to see so I will list it with some of the details.

4 Coke 2ltr .99 sale
2 Milk 2.29
2 chips
1 jar Dole fruit
4 cans fruit
1 rice
grapes .99/lb sale
2 cantalopes 2/$4
1 Dole premixed sale .99 sale
2 dressings 1.25 sale
2 taco sauce
2 mac & cheese
1 wonderbread
1 ketchup
2 cottage cheese
2 dips
3 baby food .69 ea used .75/3q
2 ragu sauce 1.48 ea sale used 1.00/2q
2 pasta
1 buns
1 farmland sausage links .99sale used 1.00q
1 little debbies

$55.63 - 2.75q = $52.88

Walgreens - Spent $2.63

Ok, I haven't been to Walgreens for awhile, but I had two RR's that would expire tomorrow so I stopped by today for some deals. I found a tri-fold "Back 2 School Coupon Book" beside the ads at the store with 28 different coupons in it. The one that I was excited about was $2 off Huggies wipes. So today's trip was:

3 Listerine 3/$9 sale
5 Huggies Wipes 2.99 regular price - $2 store coupon

$23.95 + 1.68 tax = $25.63 TOTAL
minus $10 Huggies coupon, $10RR, $3RR = $2.63 paid = 10%
and rec'd a new $6 RR

I was very happy to get wipes for .99 today, however, there are .50 Huggies wipe coupons coming up in this weekends inserts. I plan on trading for some of those and going back to get wipes for .49 each!

Family Movie Night

One of the things we do for entertainment is to have a Family Movie Night in. It is affordable for us and easy to do with a baby. We pick a movie that the whole family can enjoy and rent it from Redbox or watch one we already have.

If you aren't familar with Redbox, you need to check it out at Redbox.com. You can rent movies for $1 a night. And they periodically put out free codes. You get the movie out of a vending machine which my kids think is really cool and fun. So after we decided on a movie yesterday, I reserved it online and John picked it up when he was out.

Then we made pizzas. We all love pizza and the kids really like to help make them. So instead of ordering two pizzas and have them delivered for $30, we can make two exactly the way we like them for $10.50!

I also like to let the kids pick a snack for the second half of the movie. They usually pick ice cream, popsicles, popcorn, cheesy popcorn or cookies. This time they picked ice cream, which for all of us cost less than $1.50

So, for our family movie night in:
Pizza 10.50
Ice Cream 1.50
Movie 1.00
$13.00

I would say that's a pretty cheap meal & movie! And let me tell you, the kids look forward to this all week.

HyVee & Staples

Today I quickly ran out to Hy-Vee to restock on a few things after our Family Movie Night last night that I will post about later, and to get a few of the deals at Staples.

Spaghetti
4 cans fruit (little cans for John's lunchbox)
rice
4 pizza crust
pizza sauce
2 cans mushrooms
can olives
Kraft buttermilk ranch 1.50 sale
3 1.75qt Ice cream 1.38 sale
Cheddar cheese
Mozzarella cheese
Coke 2ltr
2 lbs 85% ground beef 1.99 sale

Total $29.40





Staples
2 500 sh paper 4.99 ea
6 one subject notebooks .01 ea sale

$10.04 + .70 tax = $10.74
will get $7.98 rebate back
net Total $2.76 is 26%

Fareway $73.89

Well I planned to go to Fareway to get John a steak and some deals. However, he wanted to go along and then we always spend quite a bit more money because he doesn't care if things are on sale or not, if he wants it he buys it. Ugh, so here is our over budget trip.

2 potato chips .99 ea
3 fruit snacks 3/$5 used .50q
1 cheesy popcorn 1.39
1 milk 2.29
2 farmland links .99 ea sale used 1.00qs
1 hashbrowns 2.19
4 whole chicken breasts $7.82
2 T-bone steaks 10.58
dried beef 4.07
4 cans fruit 5.66
ranch .99
2 HF smoked sausage ropes 2.50ea sale
OM Salami 1.89
4 Bar S Jumbo hot dogs .88ea sale
3 pudding cups .69 ea sale
Wonderbread 1.48sale
sugar 4lb. 1.68 sale
macaroni 1.99
snacks 1.69
snacks 2.99
3 gerber baby food .69 ea used .75q
8 Coke 2ltr .89 ea sale

$77.14 Total
used 3.25 coupons = $73.89 paid.

Saving on Band Instrument Accessories

My oldest daughter brought home a paper about band night for fourth graders back in May. So we went and she decided she wanted to play the clarinet. So I signed her up and we talked to the music store rep and picked out a nice instrument and signed up for the lease to own program.

So lessons started two weeks ago. And everything is going great, she is learning and practicing every day and she is very excited about it all. So the other day she cracked her reed. No problem I understand all about that I played saxophone for eight years in school. And the clarinet came with three reeds so she still was in business.

Yesterday the teacher sends home a note with all the students that they will need to buy a $20 punch card when school starts to cover reed costs and other misc. expenses. So I told my daughter to ask how much reeds costs so I can kind of plan for that expense. She told me they are $2.50 each. I was surprised that a little piece of wood would be that much. So I thought I would check around on prices. So I called the music store. Their reeds are $2.50 each also but if you buy 4, you get the fifth free. So that basically puts the price at $2.00 each as long as you buy in multiples of five. So, I told my daughter next time I went to Dollar Tree or Hobby Lobby (which are right beside the music store) I would stop in and get her five or ten. I thought that was the end of that.

Well just a little bit ago I decided to search online for this specific reed and see if this was pretty much the going rate? Well, guess what I found. I can get the exact same Rico reeds that the school and music store have, but for a much better price. I purchased a ten pack from Amazon for $12.25 with free shipping!!!! $1.23 per reed. I am tickled pink.

Obviously the moral of this kind of long story is, just because it's only $2.50 per piece and it's what everyone else is doing, doesn't mean you should do it. I just saved $12.75 on ten reeds which she will easily go through this year and I didn't even leave the comfort of my easy chair. And all of those little savings add up!

Unilever Printable Coupons

http://print.coupons.com/Couponweb/Offers.aspx?pid=14696&nid=20&zid=nh28

They currently are offering coupons for Ragu, Lipton, Hellmann's, and ICBINB.

Walgreens has extended their $5/25 coupon

If you didn't get to Walgreens to use the $5 off $25 coupon yesterday or today or if you did get there but would like to go again, fear not. Walgreens has exteneded the coupon through Saturday August 8th. Just go to Walgreens.com and print off a new coupon with the new dates.

Walgreens $5/25 Coupon

If you plan on shopping at Walgreens today or tomorrow make sure you go to Walgreens.com and print off the $5 off $25 purchase coupon. Also, make sure you read the fine print and follow all the rules. I guess you know where I will be going. LOL

Honda Sweepstakes

The Honda Clearance is a great time to get a terrific offer on a new Honda. Plus, you can enter for a chance to win the $5,000 sweepstakes grand prize!

After you register, play for a chance to instantly win a $50 pre-paid debit card awarded four times a day. Register now for up to 5 chances to win throughout the promotion!

http://automobiles.honda.com/honda-clearance/

Hallmark Back to School Sweepstakes

Enter the Hallmark Channel Back to School sweepstakes for a chance to win a fun prize pack including a laptop, shopping spree and more! One entry per day.

http://site4test.hallmarkchannel.com/Programm/Default_CustomPage.aspx?Simscode=CustomCode_74BB1C81E&ID=31

*HOT* NEW* printable coupon

Go here to print off a $2 coupon off Healthy Choice frozen meals or Fresh Mixers.

http://www.healthychoice.com/news-offers/olb_coupon.jsp?WT.mc_id=HC_0709_SM_1&WT.mc_ev=click

Don't forget after your first coupon prints, use your browser's back button to print another one.
This should make it really cheap or even free at alot of stores.

Aldi - $ 37.42

I go to Aldi's usually about once a month and get canned soup, milk, sometimes fruit, and anything else I can find cheaper than my other stores.

2 Milk $2.04
Cantaloupe .99
2 Ground beef 85% 2.49
Sour cream .89
12 cream soups .59
vinegar .79
3 beef sticks 2.69
cooking spray 1.29
baking soda .49
crushed red peppers 1.09
granola bars 1.79
fruit snacks 32pk 3.99
cookie cereal 1.89

$37.42

HyVee - $23.44

2 Wonderbread $1.48 ea
Oreos 2.50 sale
4 PB & Fudge cookies 1.00 sale
5 Baby food .72 ea
1 Baby food .50
Choc. drink mix 2.94
Similac formula 11.99

$28.49
minus $5 formula check .05 sack refund = $23.44

Menards - cheap school supplies

My school supply list was almost complete except for backpacks and erasers. So with this stop at Menards this morning my list is now complete.

6 Backpacks $5.99 - get $5 back on each
2 3 Subject notebooks $1.49 - get $1 back on each
2 2pk Erasers .89 - get .70 back on each
4 30 pk pencil top erasers .89 - get .70 back on each

$44.26 + 3.10 tax = $47.36
used previous $20rebate = 27.36 paid
and will get $36.20 rebate
so this all cost me $11.16 24%