Go Titans!!

I was never one much for football. But maybe by the end of the season I can find my son on the field. LOL!!

Why it is a good idea to have multiple coupons

I know some people think having 10-20 of the same coupon is a waste of money. I thought so too when I started couponing. But here are two examples with receipts to show you why it is such a good idea. Christmas is coming and I have tons of stuff like this to fill baskets for friends and families.

First example is from Walgreens. Nivea lip gloss is on sale this week for $1. There are multiple coupons out there for $1 off 1 or $2 off 2. This makes them all FREE. You just have to pay tax. So for 9 tubes of lip gloss I paid a whopping total of .72 cents. I saved $26.91 total with store sales and coupons.

Next receipt is from Food Lion for the candles. Sometimes you have to break purchases up into smaller purchases to take advantage of the sales promotion. This is how this deal worked. I purchased 4 glade candles for a total of $13.96. The register automatically took off $3.00 (this was their promotion). Then I supplies 2 BOGO free coupons. That took another $6.98 off the total. The first transaction I had to pay $5.06. Once I paid for this transaction the catalina machine spit out 2- $2.00 OYNO coupons. I continued to purchase the same thing in the next 6 transaction, but since I had $4 worth of OYNO coupons it brought my total OOP down to $1.06. (Notice that my total tax was $1.08, so they paid .02 in tax for me!). So after 7 transactions I had 28 candles and had spent in total. $11.42. And I still have $4.00 in OYNO to spend on food.So that makes the cost of the candles to be 26.5 cents each. Not bad for candles huh?

These are just a couple of examples of how to get things for FREE (plus tax)!!

Who needs coupons???

Since becoming a stay at home mom I have been looking for a way to help bring money into our home. Most of the stay at home moms I know try to do this. I have never came across anything that really sounded like anything I was able to do considering I can't work at night or weekends because of family obligations. Well recently a friend of mine has been talking about things she sells on ebay and what kind of money she makes from it. She is actually teaching a class later this month at our church. I plan on attending and have been racking my brain as to what I could sell. She tends to come across a lot of bargains, but I am never that lucky as I rarely have time to shop unless I have multiple kids under foot and that is not fun.



Then last week , through a friend of a friend, I came across not only something I can sell, but I can use myself. COUPONS!! Oh how I love coupons. If you have only read my blog once you know how much I love them, and how much I truly save using them. So now I have access to hundreds of coupon inserts from the Wilmington Star. I plan on listing them all individually on ebay in groups of 10 for $1.00 because that seems to be the going rate. But I thought I have so many and I am sure they will not all sell on ebay, I should offer them to my friends also.



So here I am trying to sell coupons to people I know use them all the time. We all know that a standard paper sells for $2.00 so I thought if I offer them at a cost of $1.00 that is a real bargain!! If you order a set (all of the inserts that come in the paper that week) you would pay $1.00 per set. If you want individual coupons from a paper I will sell you a set of 10 coupons ( of the same kind) for the cost of $1.00 also. This is about the cost all of this is costing on ebay, you just save the shipping cost and the time it takes to have them process and mailed.


I have a listing of all coupons that come in each insert and I can send them to you if you would like to review them before you decide to purchase. Just so I can cover my bases, I am not actually selling the "coupons" as they are free, I am just charging for my time to obtain, assemble, sort, and compile a listing of them. I am sure you understand the need for this statement as it is on all coupon auctions on ebay.



So if you are interested please just email me @ blackburnsales@gmail.com

A Special Offer From Restaurant.com

Restaurant Gift Certificates Item Name Quantity Price EachPrice Total Total Cert. Value
$10.00 Cold Stone Creamery 1 $0.40 $0.40 $10.00
$25.00 Riverboat Landing 1 $1.75 $1.75 $25.00"

I don't know if any of you have ever tried this website. I have used it a few times to get gift certificates for places to try when we go out of town. There is not a lot of choices here in Wilmington. You have 2 restaurants and Cold Stone Creamery.

I purchaed a $25 certificate last month for $3 to the Riverboat Landing and they gave me the $10 gift certificate to Cold Stone Creamery FREE. So $3 for $35 worth of food...not bad huh? The kids enjoyed a ice cream treat and david & I enjoyed a nice date night out. We got a $45 meal for $20 and I thought that was a great deal.

They are having another sale today if you use the code "WOW" at check out it will give you 90% off your order. I got the same two gift certificates ($35 worth) for a whopping total of $2.15. I will hold onto these a while since we just had a treat, and since they don't expire it doesn't matter when we use them.

Just a quick note

Just a quick note from a mom.....

If you leave them alone for over 5 minutes, please be aware that you have to accept that a room can be destroyed in that amount of time. LOL!!

God willing & the creek don't rise

I don't know about you but my grandma has said this to me thousands of times.Me: "Grandma. Are you coming to my house". Grandma: "Well God willing and the creek don't rise I am coming". Seriously I never understood what that meant. That was until I moved to Pender County. The creek rises a lot more than I thought. I guess growing up outside of Raleigh the only creek I ever heard of rising was Crabtree Creek. But if Crabtree Creek did rise it took out most of the first floor of the mall, and the U-Haul dealership on Capital Blvd. always lost a few trailers. LOL!! People just knew to stay away from those places when we got a lot of rain.

However after moving to Pender County I realized some people (from all parts of the world) just do not have common sense. Note the picture above. This is Scott Road. I live on Scott Rd., I took this picture from my driveway. I would not attempt to cross a creek that is flowing even with David's F-250. But this GENIUS tried to go across it in his little car. What are people thinking? If you can see the water flowing with a current over the road then it is not a good idea to try to cross.

Just to reassure all of you. When I saw this I immediate drove as close as I felt was safe and tried to see in the car to see if anyone was in need of help. I couldn't see anyone in the car so I called the Highway Patrol and reported it, and drove up to the fire department to see if they were aware of it because God only knows how long it would take the trooper to get here today. The fireman that came out when I blew the horn said they had already checked it and there was no one in the car when they got there, and they did a search of the area. That made me feel better. But still I got a big case of anxiety because of this persons bad judgement.

Sunday School Social Cruise

Wow! That is all I can say. The yacht was awesome. My whole family had a great time. It was so nice to fellowship with old friends, & new friends. Suprisingly the boat kept everybody attention for a full 4 hours. The kids have fun running from level to level. The watched tv in the master bedroom while looking out of the sky light to the people sitting at the front of the boat. There was also multiple lounge areas that people just rotated through all day.

High School Football

That's my man, #87. I have to admit I have no idea how to play football. Other than get the ball past the line & score a touchdown, I am clueless. I know the people in the stands thought I was a mumbling idiot. I kept asking David what was going on. According to David, Austin had a good game. He did great at blocking, he even caught the ball on 2 different kicks. I have to say for my first HS football experience it was kind of FUN!!

Hayden's 1st Day of Preschool

Today was Hayden's first day of Preschool. He has been so excited since Friday when we found out he could go. We have talked it up all weekend to him about going. We told him he would be going by himself and that he would get to do all of the cool things that his big sister Ashlee got to do. He is very familiar with the preschool because Ashlee has been going there since last year. We looked at a couple of different preschools and decided this one would be the best transition for him because it was somewhere he felt safe.

I dropped him off this morning hoping that things went smoothly. Thank God they did. He went right in, found his chair, found his cubby, and went straight to the play area. I sat down and took a couple of pictures and he basically ignored me. So I thought what the heck? He didn't care if I was there or not. So I told him I was leaving and would see him later. He said Okay & gave me a kiss.

I left school with Ashlee & thought my little baby has grown up. When did I miss that? I guess I under estimated my son and his ability to adapt. When I picked him up his teacher said he did great. He was a little quite, but he seemed to enjoy himself.

Mailbox check

I follow this blog where every once in a while the girl post what she got in the mail that day. I thought it was cute so I thought I would try it. So far this week (other than bills & junk mail) I have gotten:

1. A free bag of cheetos

2. A free 2 pack of Strawberry Pop Tarts (Austin's 1/2 birthday)

3. A coupon for a free bag of the New Kraft Homestyle Mac & cheese, and a $1 off coupon I will be using at HT for Super Doubles tomorrow.

A pretty good haul for free stuff in the mail.

Deal of the week

I didn't get to any real good sales this past week, except for getting the free earphones from CVS. So I waited to do my deals today while I had a baby sitter (I love Austin) and I could jump in and out of the car without having to drag kids with me.

So what I got from Harris Teeter & CVS was:

2 boxes of vanilla wafers

2 Shick Hydo Razors

1 Shick Hydro shaving cream (only had 1 free coupon left- should have gotten 2)

4 packs of Trident layers gum

2 bottles of Gain dish wash

7 philly cream cheese

4 packs of ball park franks

4 bags of kraft shredded cheese

1 jar of peanut butter

1 cookbook (FREE with purchase of 4 philly cream cheese- found @ the college road location)

All of this before coupons should have cost:

$87.66 before coupons & sales, but I only paid $8.70 after tax.

Not bad for $8.70 huh? I LOVE COUPONS!!!

The Football Food Fairies

This is not my first year being a football Mom. However this is my first year being a High School Football mom. Last year before the football games for the middle school, the kids were given a sandwich, a bag of chips, and a drink. End of story.... all feed. Their games were at 4:30 so they were home before too late so they could get in a late dinner.

This year we are in the BIG TIME. Games are at 6:30 so ALL players, coaches, etc., have to be feed a MEAL before each game, and then a snack after each game too. I learned this last week at the parents meeting. I guess I have never gave too much thought to this before. But it dawned on me right then & there .... who are these "Football Food Fairies" that feed these 50+ people every Thursday (JV) & Friday (Varsity) nights. Well DDDUUUHHH!!! The parents of these players do. Are so that is how it is suppose to work.

There are 100+ kids in this football program. Turn out at the meeting was around 10 parents. Yes I know most kids have played before so their parents didn't feel they needed to be there. But this is were they ask for volunteers to feed these kids (along with other assignments). David & I stood there talking to the JV Coach for a while & the whole time I was watching the sign up sheet. It was blank.....completely blank. No one signed up for ANYTHING!! So I prayed for God to show me where I needed to be. I walked over & signed up to feed the JV team one meal, and the Varsity one snack. Shouldn't be too bad right?

We decided to go to Sam's Saturday & price out a meal for the team. After spending an hour in Sam's and coming up with multiple meal plans we decided that the cheapest we could do this for was $200. WOW!! That is 1/3 of my month budget for the entire month. So I started praying again. How was I going to do this? That is a lot of money for us. While riding home & thinking about it hard it dawned on me to ask for help. I called Austin's Dad & he donated $100. GREAT!! Now we are down to $100.

But I can do better than that. I am a COUPONER!! I can find a sale. But I realized I only have 3 weeks before I have to make this meal & sales only come around every so often. I get home & look on my trusty couponing sites for deals on the stuff needed for baked ziti. That is going to be the main dish. Well Food Lion has a good deal on pasta BOGO ...but the coupons needed to make it cheap, I can't get...all printed out. But I said well, let me just go and see what the cost is without the coupons.

I get there this afternoon and walk up. $ .80 per box of pasta. I guess I need about 12 boxes to make the dish. I start pulling boxes off the self & discover ALL of the boxes after the first one have a 50 cents off coupon attached. THANK YOU GOD!! That knocks $6 off my total. I get to the hamburger & it is on sale for $1.88 per pound. Another $21.33 off the bill. Great. I get to the register and pick up a copy of the ad. The BOGO is LIMIT 2. Well Great now I have to break it up into 3 transactions to get them all. The cashier looks at me & says that's a lot of pasta. I explained to her I was going to feed the football team, and that I need to break it up into smaller transactions. She said no problem, I can do a price adjustment and do it all at one time. THANK GOD AGAIN!! After all was said & done I have the pasta, and the hamburger to make the meal all for only $32.80.

So the main point of the story is PRAY HARD. God always clears a way to make things possible.

P.S. Anybody know of a good sale coming up on gatorade, pasta sauce, salad fixings, & bread. Maybe even a cheap dessert?

Deal of the Week

I have been meaning to do this for a while. I like the idea some of my friends have of listing their deal of the week. It just seems much simpler than trying to list ALL of the good deals we have found. So I thought since I am starting so many other things this week, why not add to my list of things to do. LOL!!

My deal of the week was found by accident. (Like a lot of my deals) I was shopping in Harris Teeter getting my cheap milk, eggs, and crystal light. I decided to go around to the freezer section to see if they had any good blinkie to pick up. I noticed the 24 pack of Pepsi products on sale for $4.99 per 24 pack. When I got closer they all had a $1 off coupon attached to them. YAY!! I thought 24 packs of drinks for $3.99 that is like $2 per case. I haven't seen that in a long time. So I grab every case that has a coupon attached to get for David, my dad, and my brother. I like to stock up when I find a good deal because when they are working they go through a LOT of drinks. I get to the register to check out and get to talking to the cashier & did not pay any attention to how the items were ringing up. I paid my bill and then started to walk out. Then it hit me.....that was VERY HIGH. So I pull out my receipt & sure enough they rang up wrong. They rang up for $8.99 per case. So I head on over to customer service & told her my issue. She ask me to show her where they were located so she could verify the price. When we get back to the display the sale sign is GONE!! What? It was just there I swear!! She said no problem...I believe you. They were changing a lot of the signs in the stores right now. So she take me back to CS to refund the difference. We were laughing the whole time about the disappearing sign. She starts to refund my monies and stopped to tell me that since I had to go through all that trouble she will just give me one pack for FREE. What, have I found my new BFF?? I walk out of the store with my refund and go straight to the car to check our math and see what I actually paid for the stupid drinks. Here is my math...

What I paid at register:

53.94 (6 cases @8.99)+ 4.32 (tax)-6.00 in coupons= $52.26 OOP

What she refund me was $34.91 (not sure where that total came from ....but I am rolling with it.)

So total OOP for 6- 24 packs was:

52.26 (register OOP) - 34.91 (refund) = $17.35

That comes out to about $1.45 per 12 pack. Now that was a deal!!

Did you get any good deals this week?

Kelloggs is my new BFF

Some of you know that I had taken a break from couponing & for weeks now have done VERY little shopping. Well have you ever heard the saying that all it takes in one little drink for an addict to go on a binge?? Well that was me this week. I only went to town twice for this sale but was able to score BIG.

My totals for the week were:

14 Boxes of Eggo waffles

65 boxes of pop tarts (yes I am ashamed of this)

18 boxes of cereal

3 boxes of Nutrigrain bars

2 packs of gum ( I was negative & they wouldn't pay me so I had to BUY something)

Total OOP was $22.02 (with a $10 credit left to spend tomorrow for SD)

Total for the products was

$261.59 self cost

-$119.06 coupons

-$120.51 sales

Total OOP 22.02 ( 91.58% savings)

I would say that was one sweet comeback from my break. I can't believe that Super Doubles will start tomorrow. Even though I wish it were triples & I will still participate if only for 1 day.

My name is Angie & I have a couponing problem. LOL!!

Boys will be Boys....and then they are Men.

This is what I have seen all the boys in my house do at one time or another. If you have boys I am sure you too have seen this happen. It reminds me of just how small and innocent they are. I look at this picture of Hayden and then think about Austin. My how time flies. It seems like yesterday he was this small. Now look at him. Shaving !!! I put it off as long as I could, but I finally had to break down and let him do it. Yes he really needed it in SOME places.

Pop Tarts......YAY!!!

My kids LOVE Pop Tarts. So I have to buy them. They eat them for breakfast, snacks, and any other time they can get their little hands on them. We'll I was looking in the box for hidden coupons when I discovered on the back of the box a new promotion. It is called Flavor Rewards. You sign up on line and enter the code in the box of different flavors to collect points. These points can be redeemed for prizes. Well I entered 6 codes and cashed in 5 for a FREE movie ticket. Free things for something I was going to buy anyway. Can you beat that?

VACATION. YAY!!!

Yep you saw right. MORE baseball. We decided since we didn't make it very far in the tournament that we would take a day and ride to Richmond to go to Kings Dominion. David has an Aunt that lives about 10 minutes from there and she was staying down here with his Grandma for a couple of days so we took her up on her offer to crash at her house. Thankfully she had an in ground pool, a yard big enough to play baseball, and 2 granddaughters that came over and kept us company. So we stayed an extra day just to hang out. All the kids had a great time. This was the first time I allowed the older boys to separate from us in the park and it worked out perfect. I can't say enough how perfect Kings Dominion was for us. We had not been there in like 6 years so ,most everything was new. They had a water park that was included in the cost of admission (which we got at discount thru SECU). We spent the first 2 hours just strolling around together and looking the attractions over. Then we went to the water park for 3 hours. This kept us in the water park for the majority of the "HOT" of the day. They had the best section for little kids & it was right next to the fun house section for Matthews age. We were able to watch the 3 little ones with little ease. The older ones of course took off and went for the big rides. After lunch (which we ate at the park OUCH!!) we split up again to let the 4 older boys go for the ride. David & I spent most of the rest of the day in Kiddy Land which was shaded. THANK GOD!! We met up later and picked Matt up because there were a few rides he couldn't ride, but he didn't mind hanging out with us. So all in all it was a GREAT day. The next day we had a picnic in the park, went swimming, and played baseball. What a great way to end a vacation.

BASEBALL IS FINALLY OVER!!!! (For the season)

This year was the first year we had 2 kids in All-Stars. Nicholas made Burgaw Majors All Stars and Kaleb Made South Johnston County All-Stars. July 4th was a week of baseball, traveling, and lots of sunscreen & bug spray.

Nicholas started off the District tourney winning the first game, but lost the next 2 so they were out of the tournment. The kids had a ball an even though they did not win that had a graeat cookout to celebrate all the hard work that went into the season.

Kaleb started playing on Tuesday night. We traveled to Smithfield to watch him pitch his first All-Star game. He did GREAT. However they lost the first two games and were out of the tournment. He didn't seem too upset because that ment that he was free to go on vacation with us on Thursday.

So another season down & under our belt. Next year will be Nicholas last year in Rec ball so I hope it is a good year for him. Then the following year we get to start ALL OVER with Ashlee. Joy Joy. We will never leave the ball park. LOL!!

Wow!! Has it really been 2 months?

Yep it has been 2 months since I have posted anything so I will do a couple of post today to make up for things. Stay tuned.

Girls today

I don't know about you, but growing up my Mom always said I was never to call a boy. It was not proper. If they wanted to talk to me they would call. Well that never worked out. I called them anyway. LOL!!

Now we have cell phones, text messaging, Facebook, Twitter, and who know how many other sites to keep up with our friends. As a mother of one little girl it scares me of what I have to look forward to when she grows up.

Over the last 3 years Austin has been in middle school my eyes have been opened to how bold girls are now a days. Middle school is when we purchased him a phone. I felt like if he was staying after school I wanted a way for him to call me if he needed me. Since the phone has been brought into our home I have found out how much little girls want to talk. ALOT!!! They text him constantly. He can be on facebook talking to 3 different girls and texting a 4th. I just cringe when I think about talking to that many people at once. But he loves it and has some really good friends that I think are great.

I feel like last year girls changed. Yep I know hormones hit and I remember how that felt. But some of the girls got CRAZY!! Some of these girls were posting pretty racy pictures on FB (Yep I look at Austin's FB account, he knows it, so technically it is not spying LOL!!) Some of these girls got pretty close to the definition of obsessed. He even had one follow his bus home (she was riding with her big sister) to see where he lived. Okay so I have never had a 13 year old girl but is this normal???

Well last night I had the biggest shock of all. My husband when outside to get something out of the garage. When he came back in he was laughing and shaking his head. Of course I asked what had happened. He said that a lady had pulled up to our house (we live in the woods yall, its not like she would just stop & ask for directions). She asked my husband if Nicholas Richardson lived here (Yep my 11 year old). David told her yes, but that he was not home right now. Then he looked in the back seat of the woman's car. Crouched down in the back seat floor were 2 little girls Nicholas age. The lady starts to laugh and then explains that her daughter (Nicholas' GF we found out) had been talking about him for weeks and her Mom told her that she was so tired of hearing his name that she was going to come over here to meet him. David said the little girls looked so embarrassed. He said he just laughed and told her that he wished he were home to see this. They talked for a minute and then she left.

Seriously who does that? I do think it is funny. I also think it will most likely shut the little girl up for a few days. But seriously who does that??? This is only 5th grade!!!

I feel old

I can not believe I have a child going to HIGH SCHOOL next year. In his mind he is "so over" middle school. The year might as well be over. He even asked if he could skip school on Friday because the girls were all taking the day off to get "made-up". Last night was their 8th grade field trip, 8th grade prom, or 8th grade semi-formal. Call it whatever you like....I'll just call it an eye opener for me. I stood on the dock of the Cape Fear River last night at 10 pm, with my loving husband beside me, and watched as my son and a whole gaggle of giggly girls (he is always surrounded...its a family joke) walked down the dock of the Heneritta III looking like people I didn't even know.

When did my son get big enough to shop for a suit in the men's department? When did he get bold enough to hold a girls hand in public? Where was I when he made these huge jumps in his life?

I knew 2 years ago when he shot up 6 inches over the summer that he was growing up. It scared me when I had to look slightly up to see into his eyes. But that feeling is nothing compared to the fear I have of him growing up faster (INSIDE) than I can handle now. My son is turning into a young man. I sit here with tears in my eyes and wonder to myself when did all of this happen. If the last 14 years of is life seem like a blur to me now, how fast are the next 4 going to go by? In 4 years my son will (hopefully for him NOT me) be leaving to attend college. How will I handle that? I can't even get past the 8th grade prom with out bawling like a baby.

My husband , being the confronting man he is, just laughs at me and says "It is what you wanted". I thought about that this morning and he was right (this time). I want to raise him to be a good "MAN". I want to see him grow up and accomplish all the goals he sets for himself. I want to someday have a house full of grandchildren. In order for all of this to have I have to let him GROW UP.

But speaking from the woman that gave birth to him. It is just so hard to watch. I just thank God that he gave me my children everyday!!!

Mexico was great!!

Six days of fun in the sun is enough to wear this girl out!! This picture was taken after 6 hours of shopping in Cozumel. Can you tell we were exhausted? Who knew Mexico was so hot in April? We had an absolute ball the entire time. Since this was our first time cruising we had no idea what we were doing, but I think that was the fun of it. After seeing first hand how things go I think we are all ready to do it again. I know I am at least.

Baseball update

School baseball season is over for Austin. They came in second for the season and lost 1st round in the tournament. But never fear Austin did not get enough baseball during the season so he decided to sign up to play the summer Babe Ruth league. Their 1st game will be May 20th at 6:00. So stay tuned for updates on his NEW season.

Nicholas is still in the swing of Spring season. His last season game is Friday night. But even if he has not finished the season we have been have told his team will be the season champs. YAY!! We are waiting for the tournament schedule so I'll update you on that later.

Spring....

I love Spring. The days get longer, it stays warmer longer, and my kids put down the PSP's to go outside. Plus the bonus of not having to cook because my hubby breaks out the grill more often. Last night we did not get home from picking up the boys until 7:15. They still had time to play a game of basketball while the grill was getting ready. While David was cooking Austin & Nic played baseball, Ashlee was taking pictures, and Hayden was running around playing with his new basketball goal. I was playing with my new camera.

Yes, I said new camera. My hubby knew I had been wanting one for a while that had the sports feature so I could take action shots at the ball park. That added to the fact I start my long awaited vacation in 5 DAYS!!! He finally splurged and took me shopping. I was so excited. No I can take better pictures for my blog. LOL!!

Little Farmers

Last weekend I made the mistake of telling my FIL that Ashlee wanted to come play in his garden. He took that statement that we would help him plant his entire garden. Well once I had opened my mouth there was no taking it back. LOL!! So he told my husband to be there bright and early Saturday morning to get started. Well bright & early didn't happen because he lives 45 minutes from us. But we did get there a little before 9 am. He had already started making the rows with the tractor. So as we are pulling in Hayden saw him and started screaming "I wanna ride the tractor". We got him up on the tractor with Papa and he was set for life. That was his first BIG tractor ride. Now it is all he talks about.

Ashlee and Matthew were happy enough playing in the dirt for a while so we sat down and listened to Haywood's plan on where everything was going. We planted the majority of the things with the tractor so we were only there for about 3 hours but it was long enough for all of the kids to play in the dirt, ride the tractor, and plant a couple of rows of veggies. They were more than happy with what they accomplished.

Haywood already had the strawberry's there so the kids could see that they were almost ready to be picked. They were also able to plant 4 different kinds of tomato plants. Everything else was seed and we will have to wait until next visit to be able to see what they look like. I think this gives the kids something to look forward too later. Here is our list of what is in the garden this year. Corn, butter beans, peas, string beans, 3 kinds of watermelon, 2 kinds of cucumbers, field peas, zukes, cantaloupes, squash, & garden peas. I think that will keep Haywood busy for a while.

I don't know how much fun he had trying to work around 3 little ones, but my children have never been more dirty or more happy in their lives.

Who needs toys??

Ashlee & Haydens most favorite game is camp out. There is not much involved other than EVERY pillow in the house & ALL of the blankets out of the basket. I am not kidding when I say they can spend HOURS playing with just these two things. It does get messy, and blankets and pillows have to be washed often, but it is so worth the peace and quite that I get from it.

What games are your kids fascinated by?

Baseball season is in full swing....

I know we ALL complain about baseball season being rough running from field to field and taking up so much of our time. I am right there with you. Baseball is one of the reasons I am so far behind on my to do list. HOWEVER.....I love it. Not the baseball itself, but how it makes my kids feel. My oldest 2 LOVE it, they eat, sleep & breath baseball during baseball season. Are they the best at it? No. But they feel great about themselves when they are playing. Especially after a good tight game has been played. I feel like self confidence in children in our world today is slipping. We should all as parents do our best to build our children up not tear them down.

But there also is a fine line between supporting your child and pushing them over the line. I sit at the ball games and watch 10 year old children be berated by their parents over a mistake they made on the field. Will that child become a great baseball player because of this treatment? Some do and some don't. But either way these children look miserable. Bottom line is baseball is about fun, not winning at all cost. Over my 9 years of being a baseball mom, my children have been on teams that have won every game. But they have also been on teams that have only won 1 or 2 games a season. They have had great coaches, but they have also had coaches that went way over the line. The best thing we have found works with our boys are the talks on the way home after the game. We tell them what their strenghts were in the game, but we also discuss how to prevent the errors they might have made during the game. We also talk about the way other parents treat their children, or how the coaches acted to other children. We let them know how we feel about it & they talk about they feel about it. My children know when they make a mistake & they feel bad about it. The best thing for them is to be told how to TRY to prevent it from happening again , not yelling at them for letting the mistake happen again. I think this most likely applies to all children.

A good friend of mine, who has children a lot older than mine, once told me that the key to keeping kids out of trouble was being involved in their lives. Do not try to be their best friend, just show interest in what they do and support them in what they love. I have also heard if you keep them busy with activities they don't have time to get in trouble. I am not sure if I could handle keep ALL of them busy ALL of the time. But we put our best foot forward.

I hope that when my kids grow up they can look back at their childhood and know that they were LOVED beyond measure. All of the days and nights of sitting at ball fields in rain, freezing cold, or smoldering hot weather were done out of love. All of the hours of traveling in a cramped car for all stars, all of the take out food they had to scarf down (not that they complain), all of the sun burns that were gotten because mama forgot to put more sunscreen on when we went into over time for the 3RD time and the temps are hovering around 100. ALL of this was done out of LOVE!!!!

Feeling behind

I have been feeling a little behind lately. I can't seem to find the time to do all the things on my to do list. When I do find myself with a spare moment of rest I am exhausted. All I want to do is sit down with a good book and read. Do all mothers of multiple kids feel this way?

One of the things on my to do list is to update my blog. I have a couple of post I want to make. So bare with me today I might be posting a couple of random things.

What's for Dinner Tonight?

Well chicken of course!! LOL. I am gearing up for a OAMC project with a couple of my friends(more on that later) so I had to kick my own plans in gear for the month. I had 3 whole chickens that I wanted to get cooked and prepared for use through the month. So last night I placed 3 whole chicken in the crock pot with 1/2 cup of water and let them cook on low until I got home this afternoon. If you have never done this give it a try. It is the most moist chicken I have ever had. I took about 5 minutes to clean the chicken, put them in the crock pot, and salt and pepper them to taste. That was all it took. When I got home this afternoon I took them out and let them cool for about 15 minutes. Then it took all of 10 minutes to de-bone all 3 chickens.....now don't go throwing out the "bones & muck" just yet. Place the "bones & muck" you normally throw away back in the crock pots. Put in just enough water to cover the "bones & muck" and place the cooker back on low over night. This will give you your homemade chicken stock that you normally pay for. Just drain the liquid & toss the "bones & muck". This freezes well when placed flat in the freezer. So what did 20 minutes of my time get me.....

2 bags of 8 cups of de-boned, cooked chicken to freeze- (2 meals worth for us if we want left overs for lunches)

6 cups of cooked chicken to use tonight for chicken Quesadillas (sp??)

8-10 cups of chicken stock to freezer

I think that was worth 15 minutes of my time and $12 dollars of my money!! What do you think?

March Totals

Well since March is now over I felt I needed to go ahead and get my totals together for the month. This month turned out to be a GREAT month due partialy to Harris Teeter Triples week. So here are the totals for March 2010.

Budget as always was $600. Total spent was $440.95. That is $159.05 UNDER budget. YAY!!!! Of course we used it to purchase spring/Summer clothes for the kids. It was an awesome feeling to know exactly what all of my hard work this month went toward.

Total shelf cost for products $1,836.17
Savings with coupons -$ 836.68
Savings with Sales -$ 553.54
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Total OOP was $ 440.95 - 75.99% Savings

This was the first month, since starting to keep track, that I hit my goal of 75% savings. I have tried really hard to accomplish this because I read so many blogs that say it is possible. I guess it comes down to believing I can do it and remembering "All things are possible by God". Thanks for reading. I hope you also had an awesome month of savings.

Guess what Hayden is getting for Easter.....

Now you know what he is getting and why I love Target. Target had a promotion that when you purchased Toy Story 1 & Toy Story 2 the register automatically took $10.00 off of your order. Toys R Us was offering if you purchased both of them together that the price for each would be $16.99. So to combine these great deals you just need to take the Toys R Us Flyer in to your local Target and ask them to price match the Toys R Us add. Once they do this the price drops to $33.98 minus the $10 off the register takes off automatically. Now you are down to $23.98. The you give them the 2 $10 off coupons for both movies that the Disney Movie club was offering and BAM you are now down to $3.98 for both movies before tax. So after tax my total was $5.84 for two movies, which also contain 2 free movie tickets to go see Toy Story 3, and 2 Free Toy Story 2 Games for the Computer. I know what you are thinking.... 1 movie ticket is worth more than what I paid for both movies. At least that is what I was thinking. Now I can actually afford to buy a drink & popcorn while at the movie since they gave me 2 movies (DVD & Blu Ray version combo pack), & 2 movie tickets for $5.84. LOL!!!

Hayden will be one happy little fella come Easter morning.

2nd Day of Triples at Harris Teeter

Well this was today's score minus the 2 packages of Kebbler Cheesecake Middle Cookies that are hidden in Mommy's closet. LOL!! Due to the time restraints of Preschool & the fact that we had to squeeze in a Target run (more on that later) we were only able to hit 2 stores. But I am fine with that. There is always tomorrow. LOL!! I really think I am only going to do one more days worth of trips because I am running low on my coupon stash for this event & since baseball for Nicholas starts this weekend I really won't have time to shop at all. So totals for today were:

$99.71 of Product
$79.51 Saved
$20.20 Paid OOP

This makes for a savings of 79.74%. I am still well within my goal of saving at least 75% for this entire event. I hope you girls are having as good of a time that I am this week.

1st day of Triples at Harris Teeter!!!

Well it was a great day at Harris Teeter. We didn't even get started until after 10:30 and we were still able to snag some great deals. We ran into a few things that were already out of stock, but knowing Harris Teeter they should be stocked back up by tomorrow morning. As you can see we got a lot to pack away today. So here are my totals for today.

Product total $179.67

Total Coupons Used $ 152.09

Total OOP was only .......$ 27.58 that is a savings of $84.65%!!!

The only thing not purchased with a coupon was the 3 packs of Strawberries. They were on sale for Buy 1 Get 2 Free. Since Nicholas asked so nicely for them last night I promised I would buy them. So that accounts for $5.00 of my total right there.

I am already looking forward to tomorrows trip. Check back and see if I can beat today's totals with tomorrows trip.

Packing for a trip

I told Ashlee & Hayden that we had to pack for a trip to my mom's this weekend. I then went to the back to start getting things ready and to look for the suitcase. When I came back in the room this is what he and Ashlee had assembled. Some toys, magazines, books, blankets, pull ups, coats, and about 10 pair of pajamas. I guess this was their idea of what they might need. As you can see he was very pleased with himself. LOL!!!

quick last minute shopping trip

I was sitting here this morning all snug in my jammies thinking I really need to get up and do something today. I have a $5RR that expires tomorrow and I have no idea what is on sale at Walgreens this week. I remember something about cheap gum and more toothpaste I don't need, plus the nose spray that could be a money maker if we had the $4/1, but of course we only got the $2/1. So I'll just do it when I get to my mom's tomorrow.

Of course as days go....nothing went as planned. Austin called and needed his jersey brought to school for pictures (again). So I told him to give me a few and I would be there. So in a rush to make my getting dressed worth while I threw together a quick shopping list.

First stop was the school. I was shocked when I dropped the clothes off with Austin that I got a kiss on my cheek & a "Love ya Mom" from my 14 year old. It's been a while since I have got a PDA from my son. Especially since we were in the hall of the school. That made my day right there.

Second stop was the bank. I deposited another $35.39 worth of rebate checks.

Third stop was Walgreens. I was VERY surprised to find the clearance gum. It was marked as $0.90 each, with the $1/2 coupon in the Walgreens monthly book. That would make them $0.40 each. Not a bad deal for gum. But when they rang up they were only .32 each. So with the coupon it took the entire total of all 6 packs off. WOO HOO!! Free gum. Do you know how quick teenage boys go thru gum? LOL!! Here is what I got.

2 boxes of nasal spray @9.98

1 tube of Colgate @ 3.99

6 packs of Eclipse Gum @ 1.92

Total $15.89-$5RR-$4(2 Nasal Spray $2/1)-$1 (Colgate $1/1)-$1.92(Walgreens $1/2)

Total OOP was $4.24 after tax

Got back $5RR & $4RR

Basically $0.24 for all of the above. Goes to show you that anytime things are Free after RR and you have a coupon to make it a money maker it is worth the trouble of getting it even if you don't need it. The overage from the coupon helped pay for the nasal spray which I did want.

Fourth and final stop was HT. A friend called me yesterday to tell me the local FL had the BOGO coupons for Kraft cheese which was on sale at HT for BOGO this week. This makes for FREE cheese (YMMV). I took my change and headed there. I feel bad going in there and just paying tax for something and purchasing nothing else. So I scanned the flyer when we walked in. Here is a list of what I got.

8 bags of shredded cheese (Free After Coupon & Sale)

3 bags of mission tortillas (FAC & Sale)

3 boxes of Barilla Pasta (FAC & Sale)

2.6 lbs of Shrimp (on sale and I have a rebate for $6 on $10 seafood purchase)

Total $62.92

After sales & coupons $13.28 plus I used $4 OYNO. So OOP I paid $9.28 after tax and I have a $6 rebate to submit. Pretty good $62.92 worth of food for $3.28.

Baseball is boring sometimes.....

Ever wonder what the kids do while their brother is playing ball. Well Nicholas plays with his friends. They all had older brothers playing in the game. But they ALL could care less. How loving are they?

Ashlee takes pictures of random objects. She doesn't are if it is a picture of grass, she just like to take the pictures.

Hayden is either following Nicholas around trying to play games with him, or crying because Ashlee will not let him take pictures with the camera. LOL!!!

I choose a few pictures to explain this all to you. Enjoy!!!

Great day!!

Today started out great with a small Harris Teeter run. I didn't get a pic of the haul but here is what I got.

2- packs of Trident Layers Gum

1- box of Kashi Cereal

4- Bags of No Yolk Egg Noodles

4- Bags of Birdseye Steamfresh Veggies

Total Value $26.70

Total Saved $23.08

OOP was $3.62 after tax Savings of 86%

This afternoon Nicholas brought in the mail and the above picture was what I found. A full bottle of Pantene's newest shampoo, along with three $2/1 coupons. Is that not a cool package it came in? You take the top off and the sides fall away like petals of a flower. I know it's little things that make me happy. I also got both of the Coors Rebates in today($10 & $7.50). No I do not drink Coors, but Pepsico is associated with them & they were offering a rebate for the purchase of 12 packs of Pepsico products back in January. David then came home with his rebates. So total rebates received in the mail today was $35. Pretty good haul. So as of today I have received all of my rebates from January. Total rebates received ........ $183.70. Woo Hoo!!!!

Then we went to Austin's first baseball game of the year. Cape Fear VS Burgaw.....final score was 11-1. That is a great way to start the season. Austin scored 2 runs and had a RBI. He was excited. We celebrated by taking the family out to eat at Wendy's. It was a good night.

Staples

Anyone else a Staples reward member? If you are not, run out and join right now.I joined back in January. I promise you it will be worth your time and effort.

One of the things David & I discovered, when we set down to look at where our monies were going, was that we had a huge spike in the budget at the beginning of the school year. We all dread the back to school shopping and those list the teachers pass out with what they feel is a years worth of supplies. Last year we trudged to Kmart with the back to school sales flyer, list from the school website, and 4 children in tow. When we left we had spent $200 on school supplies. UGH!! Really $200?? Come on!!

On of my goals in couponing is to try to save at least something in every shopping trip. Well I have yet to see a coupon for paper, & pencils. So whats a girl to do? Well I started looking at different blogs to get money saving ideas. I ran across a blog that listed a Staples Dollar Days Sales Flyer. Dollar Days? Well that sounded promising. I went to my sales flyers for the week and pulled out my Staples flyer. Well some of the dollar items were things that were on my children's list EVERY year. I thought great, I can dollar shop during the year and stockpile what I can under my bed until school starts. But something even better on the front page drew my attention. FREE AFTER REBATE. Anyone else know this term? LOL!! Sitting on the front page was FAR binders, and pens. Well that is a good way to start a stock pile, free stuff. So I loaded my cart with dollar items and anything FAR I thought my kids might need. I ended up spending $58.64 OOP. Out of this $58.64 I have since gotten back $33.45 worth of rebates. I thought that was a great deal $70.93 worth of products for $25.19 after rebates. That is a 65% savings.

I thought to myself this could not get any better, I now have a nice stockpile of things for my kids list and I feel I had accomplished a great thing by finding a way to make another thing in my life cheaper. Then I went to my mailbox this week and was blown away by what I found. By using my staples reward card I accumulated a $15.50 gift card on my purchases from January. WHAT?? More free stuff? Are you kidding me. WOO HOO!!

So I loaded up the babies and headed out to Staples. I walked in and went straight to the customer service desk. I explained to the girl that I had sign up for the rewards card back in January just to be able to do the FAR items and didn't realize that I would be getting a gift card for my purchases. I wanted to know what the stipulations were because I had obviously not read the welcome pack that came with the reward card. She laughed and said it happens all the time. She explained that I could use it to purchase ANYTHING except gift cards. I thanked her and went to find the latest sales flyer. When I got it I was happy to find it was dollar days AGAIN. SCORE!!

So I purchased :

2 packs of dry erase makers (teachers always need these)

1 pencil pouch (these are always lost sometime in the year)

1 mini notebook (I wanted this to TRY to start a price book)

1 pack of 24 gel pens

3 packs of 5-tab insertables (Somebody always needs these)

2 mini dry erase boards (For Ashlee & Hayden)

Product price before sales and GC: $30.35

Total OOP was $0.29 after tax (99% savings)

So as you can see this was an even better idea than I first thought. So keep an eye out for dollar day, stock up through out the year on FAR items, and enjoy the bonus rewards. I know I will. And as you can see Ashlee & Hayden are already enjoying their FREE rewards.