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.