School Lunch

This year my child is going to an all day pre-k program so for first the time, I'm having to pack a lunch for him each day. I'm only a few days in to it and I'm already bored with our choices.  Of course, it doesn't help that I have a picky child who desperately needs to eat calories.  Let's just say I'm glad we are not at a nut free school.

Today I came across this great resource called Smart School Time Recipes.  It is a free ebook full of healthy recipes. I'm anxious to try some of them out and see if I can expand our repertoire of food. If anyone else has good ideas, feel free to share them in the comments section.

Back to the Basics: It Is Ok To Take a Break

Once you have been couponing for awhile and working towards your stockpile, you might find yourself burning out or getting overwhelmed.  It is perfectly ok to take a break from time to time.  I take a break 3-4 times a year and when I get back to it, I'm more refreshed and get more excited over the deals.

Back to the Basics: Online Coupons

It is very easy to get caught up in the craziness of online coupons so I recommend only printing those you will actually use.  Here are a few websites I use for online coupons.

Cellfire - Online coupons that link directly to your Kroger card (Dillons for the local readers) - no printing necessary.

Shortcuts - Another online company that links directly to your Kroger card (Dillons for the local readers) - no printing necessary.

Grocery store website - check your local grocery store's website as many have online coupons to print or download to your rewards card. 

Coupons.com - you can always print coupons from this site directly from the sidebar on this blog.

Website of your favorite products - many of your favorite products have coupons directly on their website.

There are plenty more places to find coupons online but remember, I'm trying to show you how to save money on groceries without making it overwhelming.  As you get the hang of this, you can easily add more sites to your list.

Back to the Basics: Stockpiling

T

The way to save money with groceries is to buy ahead when items are on sale instead of waiting until you actually need them and paying full price.  Sales tend to cycle every 12 weeks so the rule of thumb is to buy enough to last you 12 weeks.  It takes trial and error over time to know how much to buy but do not let that stress you out.

When creating your stockpile, do not go overboard.  Simply buy what you need each week and then as your budget allows, pick up a few of the items that are at rock bottom prices.  Over time, you will be buying less and less needed items and more and more for your stockpile as your stockpile will be full of items you use often.

Stay tuned next week for when I discuss where to store your stockpile. 

Remember Your Stockpile During a Heatwave

It has been abnormally hot around here this week (90's with high humidity) and I wanted to remind everyone to think about the temperature of where your stockpile is.  I keep most of mine in my garage and I know many of you do too.  Anything that might melt or cannot withstand heat needs to be moved inside.  

When moving items, it is a great time to take inventory of your stockpile and have an eat from the pantry week.

Ask the Local Readers: Price Cutter

I keep seeing requests for coupon match ups for Price Cutter but I have yet to find a consistent blog that offers them.  Although I'm not really a deal blogger, I've been thinking of offering a top 5 or the best deals matchup for Price Cutter.  While I would love to create an entire list of deals, I know my current time limits would not allow that.  Would anyone be interested in this?  Please leave a comment or email me to let me know your thoughts.

Giveaway: Yoplait Greek Yogurt Gift Pack

Yoplait has recently come out with their version of Greek yogurt.  I've always heard Greek yogurt is delicious but the only brand I have seen at my grocery store is very expensive.  I was excited when I noticed the Yoplait version as it is much more reasonably priced and I've seen several coupons for it lately.  Speaking of which, there is currently a .30 coupon you can print so that you too can enjoy this new yogurt.

To celebrate their new Greek yogurt, Yoplait is giving away a "Nourish Your Inner Goddess" gift pack.  Included in the gift pack are two coupons so you can try the new Greek yogurt too.


To enter, simply leave me a comment stating which flavor you would like to try (Plain, Honey Vanilla, Strawberry, or Blueberry). 

This giveaway is open until Monday, April 26 at 8 pm CST.  The winner will have 48 hours to respond.

For extra entries (please leave a separate comment for each):
* Subscribe via RSS (if already a subscriber, let me know)
* Tweet about the giveaway and leave a copy of your tweet in the comments section

Disclaimer:  Yoplait provided me with free product, gift pack, and information through MyBlogSpark - no other compensation occurred.

Homemade Laundry Detergent

I've always considered myself fairly frugal but I do draw the line on how far I will go to save money.  Making my own laundry detergent used to be on that list of items I would not do but changed my mind some time last year.  After months of hardly any sales on the few laundry detergents my son can use without breaking out in a rash, I decided to give the homemade detergent a try.  

I think one thing that turned me off to it was most of the recipes I had seen were for liquid detergent that made massive amounts.  I'm a liquid fan but I didn't want to have to store that much.  I'm not a huge fan of powdered detergent but ran across and easy recipe and decided to give it a try.  I'm so glad I did because it is easy and is saving our family a bundle.  There are literally hundreds of variations of this recipe on the internet but this is the one I've found that works best for us.

1/2 bar Fels-Naptha Laundry Bar Soap
1/2 cup Arm and Hammer Super Wash Soda
1/2 cup Mule Team Borax 

Grate the Fels-Naptha soap then mix with the Wash Soda and Borax.  Use 1 tablespoon per each load of laundry.

I tend to make a double batch so that I always have plenty on hand.  I've also learned that it is easier to grate the soap if you take it out of the wrapper and allow it to dry out for a few days.

All of these ingredients were found at my local grocery store and with the exception of the soap, they will last a long time.  I've been using this detergent for about six months and I'm still on my original box of borax and washing soda.

Menu Planning With A Recipe Notebook

I constantly hear from others that menu planning takes too much work.  While trying to live on less, I've learned that menu planning makes a huge difference in the budget though as I'm much less tempted to eat out.  I also am able to take advantage of items on sale and use them in a reasonable amount of time instead of items getting lost in my pantry.

I will admit that many times I simply write down a few tried and true meals without giving it much thought.  The times I do work a bit on our menu, I'm much more excited about cooking though. 

For my menu planning I keep a three ring binder full of recipes.  I bought some simple dividers with tabs and labeled with common categories such as breakfast, main dish, dessert, etc.  

When I see a recipe I would like to make, I stick it in the pockets of my binder.  Every so often I take the time to file all of them in the correct category.

When I feel I'm in a cooking rut, I will sit down with my notebook and create a menu.  Usually, by the time I'm done, I have several weeks worth of menus.  


As I cook each recipe, I make notes on it about what we like/dislike.  This helps a ton when I make it again as I tend to forget how I tweak a few recipes.

How do you menu plan? 

Kroger Cart Buster Event & Giveaway

The Kroger family of stores is currently having an incredible Cart Buster sale now through March 14.  I was able to shop this sale earlier in the week at Dillons, my local Kroger affiliate.  By combining this sale with several coupons, I was able to save a bundle.

Here are just a few of the great brands that are participating: Pillsbury, Progresso, Green Giant,  Betty Crocker, Hamburger Helper, and Old El Paso.


To celebrate this great sale, I have one $25 Kroger gift card to give to one of my readers.  I will not be able to get the card to you in time for the sale but Kroger offers many great sales throughout the year that you can use it on.


This contest is a short one and will be open until Sunday, March 14 at 9 pm CST.


To enter, tell me one of your favorite ways to save money at the grocery store.


For extra entries:


Subscribe to this blog - if you are already a subscriber, let me know.


Follow me on Twitter (@LifeWithLess) and send a tweet about this giveaway. 

The winner will have 48 hours to respond.  If there is no response, a  new winner will be chosen.

Disclaimer: The gift card, information, and giveaway have all been provided by the Kroger Family of Stores and General Mills through MyBlogSpark.  I also received a $25 gift card.

Eat from the Pantry Update

I'm happy to say that I'm clearing some things out of my freezer thanks to this challenge, but I'm not happy to say I'm going to have to up the budget a bit - there is no way we are going to make it this month on $100. This is due to three things I didn't account for:

1. One of our dogs has been sick for about 6 months. Her blood work finally came back normal last week but she is still having problems maintaining weight. In order to help her, we are to soften her food with whole milk. Between the kids and the dog, we went through 3 gallons of milk last week (and that doesn't count my soy milk). At $3 a gallon, that adds up quickly.

2. Our baby is having problems gaining weight also and we were told at his 6 month appointment to feed him as much as he would eat - starting with a min. of 3 jars of food a day (he was already eating 2 at this point). My goal the entire time with feeding was to grind up what we eat and let him have that for each meal. Think again. He loves baby food but he only loves it from a jar. I did a mix of jar and homemade food with our first but this one will only eat the jar kind. It adds up quickly but I will do anything to help this one maintain his weight.

3. My husband would decide out of the blue on the coldest day of the year that he suddenly needed to go to the store. He came home with about $10 of junk. That isn't a lot but when you are trying to only spend $100 for the month, that is 10% of the budget.

I'm still working on using up what is in our freezer and finding ways to utilize the random items I find in our pantry so the challenge is helpful. It is also helpful in that I still plan on spending less overall this month than normal so that extra can be moved to next month's budget as some of these expenses will not be going away for awhile.

How are all of you doing? Stay tuned this week as I plan to post some of the recipes I've been using with to help me with cleaning out the freezer and pantry.

Eat from the Freezer Week

Most people have an eat from the pantry week every now and then - I tend to have an eat from the freezer week instead. I've learned you can freeze just about anything and my freezers are busting at the seams because of this. For my long time readers, you might remember that my in laws give us 1/4 of a cow every year for Christmas. Last year, I had problems finding room in my freezer for it. This year, I'm starting now on clearing the space. Therefore, this week is eat from the freezer week at my house. The grocery sales are pretty pathetic so I will only be picking up some fruit, milk, and a few sale items. This should help my budget out since I went over budget two weeks in a row due to great sales. I don't mind going slightly over every now and then because I know I can make up for it when there are slow sales weeks.

I'm also using this week to get back on track from shopping. The past two months, we've been horrible about running to Walmart or Target for an item or two and coming home will kinds of junk. I'm blaming it on having a baby a month early and not being ready but within a few weeks of him coming home, I was stocked up. I just let the habit crawl back into my life and now I need to get back on track. When my husband had his hours cut, one of the first things I did was cut Target out of my life. I used to take my youngest once a week just to get out of the house. Some weeks I could get out without spending anything but most weeks I came home with at least a bag of junk. In the first year we cut expenses, I think I only went to Target 3 times! Another positive thing (besides saving money) by not shopping, is less clutter in the house. So, last night was my last Target trip for awhile and I think I have everything now from my Walmart list so I'm staying away from there too.

Do you have a leak in your budget? I challenge you this week to see where you can tighten the reigns that may have loosened over time.

Bisquick & Cooking for Two Newsletters

Newsletters are a great way to get quick and easy recipes and many times they include coupons. Bisquick is a great time saver in the kitchen and I've found some good recipes through their newsletter. Pillsbury offers a Cooking for 2 newsletter that is perfect for smaller households or those nights when your spouse will not be home for dinner. Sign up today for these great newsletters.

Tightwad Tuesday: Reinventing Leftovers

My husband does not like leftovers but they are a great way to save money in the grocery budget. I love leftovers so this isn't an issue for me but there are only so many times I can eat the same meal over and over again. Instead of being bored with my food, I either freeze individual portions, cook smaller portions, or reinvent the leftovers. Today I'm going to focus on the reinventing aspect by showing you a few recipes I've used lately.

Bananas: My family loves bananas but it is hard to judge how many we will use each week. If I find them starting to go bad, I put them in the freezer to use at another time. A reader informed me you don't even have to peel them, you just pop them in the microwave for 30-45 seconds and they peel easily. I use these to make smoothies for my son (fruit, milk, ice or ice cream, etc - get creative). I also use the bananas in Chocolate Chip Banana Bars and banana bread (my go to recipe comes from the Better Homes & Gardens cookbook). I sometimes make the banana bread into muffins and then I have a quick breakfast or snack that I can take out one at a time.

Ham: Last fall, we had ham at my inlaws. They always send us home with an ice chest full of food (usually items they have bought to spoil our child) and asked us if we wanted the ham hock to take home too. I figured I could find something to use it for so I said yes. My husband isn't a huge ham fan but I love it. Unfortunately, I forgot I stuck it in my freezer until last week. When I found it I immediately started craving ham and beans. I found this wonderful and easy recipe for the crockpot and it made a delicious and cheap meal. A few hours in the crockpot and the ham literally fell off the bone.

Restaurant leftovers: My parents took us out to dinner last week and my husband brought home leftover sausage. I had a feeling he wouldn't eat it and he didn't so I turned it into a new meal. I found a great recipe on the back of a box of scalloped potatoes that uses sausage. It was easy and didn't cost me anything since I had all of the ingredients on hand.

Soup: I keep a bag or bowl in my freezer for random leftover bits and pieces. Veggies or meat usually go in there. Once it gets full, I turn the leftovers in to soup. Just add broth and seasoning as needed and you have a wonderful and unique soup. I love doing this because no two soups are alike.

What are some ways that you reinvent leftovers? Feel free to share as I'm always looking for new ideas and I'm sure my readers would love to hear them too.

Savin' O The Green eBook Sale

Get your grocery spending under control with the Savin' O The Green grocery savings e-book special, a set of 17 e-books to help you save at the grocery store and make your life easier! Along with six easy audio lessons, these e-books show you how to save money in the kitchen, save with or without using coupons, put together delicious and easy dinners and much more!

Here are a list of the ebooks offered:

Supermarket Savings 101 eCourse with audio downloads

Grocery Shopping On A Budget eCourse

Money Saving Meats e-book

Saving On Cleaning Supplies e-book

Eating Healthy On A Budget e-booklet

Is Eating Out Eating You Up? e-book

224 Meals In A Hurry e-book

Grocery Savings e-book

Menus That Make Cents e-book

Plan Ahead Leftovers e-book

Quick Dinners e-book

Menu Planning Made Easy

Simply Centsible Breakfasts

Simply Centsible Suppers

Kids Recipes

Menus On A Dime

470 Crockpot Recipes

This offer includes a special deeply discounted price only good until midnight March 23, so go get it now! Learn more by clicking on this link.

Money Saving Book Sale

Tomorrow, Money Saving Mom and Living on a Dime are hosting an incredible e-book sale. They will be offering 17 ebooks, mostly related to saving money through groceries and cost effective meals, for $17. Check back here Tuesday morning for more details on how to get these great books at an incredible savings.

Coupons: Are They Really Worth It?

I hear this question asked all of the time and I'm here to say, yes, they are very much worth it. The trick is learning how to use them in conjunction with sales. I used to think I was decent with coupons but I learned a ton when I joined The Grocery Game. Through this website and reading several blogs, I've learned how to play the "game" of couponing. In a few days, I will show you my coupon system but today I want to focus on where to find the coupons.

Newspaper: This is the most obvious place to start. Most cities have the coupons in the Sunday paper. My advice is to buy the paper for the largest city in your state. They tend to have more coupons and sometimes even higher value ones than the smaller cities. I live in the 3rd largest city in my state yet I still buy a paper most weeks for on of the other cities.

Friends & Family: Ask your friends, family, and co-workers for their coupons. At one point in time, I was receiving 3 copies of the local paper every week. This helps when there is a great stock up sale because then you can buy more than one item.

Coupon Train: I've been in a train for years now and it always amazes me how the value and variety of coupons varies across the nation. I found my train through a website I've frequented for years. There are several coupon related websites that offer trains but if you frequent a message board, try setting up your own site. We simply use Yahoo Groups to set up the train and it has worked great for years. If you have a local message board, this is a great way to get a train going too.

Websites: Most major manufacturers offer coupons on their websites. The best way to know about them is to sign up for their newsletters. I also check out several blogs that alert when a new coupon is out.

Downloadable sites: Shortcuts.com (available for Kroger affiliated stores), Kroger.com, and Upromise are the ones I frequent. The first two you can download to your shopping card and they will automatically show up when you checkout. It takes about an hour to get them to your card so keep this in mind when shopping. Upromise is not an actual coupon but the amount you save is added to your Upromise account. This is a simple way to save for college with very little effort.

If you are interested in joining The Grocery Game, please use me as a referral - light52b at yahoo dot com (take out the spaces).

Getting Started

Jenn commented that she would like to know more about how to survive when just starting out on the road to Living on Less. They follow Dave Ramsey and had just got their emergency fund going when her husband was in an accident. Now they are back to square one. Here are a few tips I learned in the beginning:

Take a deep breath. Sounds simple but it can be tough when you are overwhelmed with debt, a job loss, or just simply a lifestyle change. Take a moment to breath and then create a game plan. Also, remember that "this too shall pass". Times won't always be so tough and a few years from now you will look back and see the amazing things God has allowed you to accomplish.

Look for small things to cut in your budget. Are you a coffee drinker? - make it at home. Is your weakness stopping somewhere for sodas or snacks? - pack them before you leave the house. I know I cannot walk into a convenience store without coming out with a soda and a snack. They tend to have the latest and greatest and I like to try new things. Therefore, I always pay for gas with a credit card at the pump and never walk in the store. This little habit can save a lot over time. Don't worry at this point about cutting everything from your budget but look for a few small items you can do without and start there.

Get a handle on groceries. Figure out a reasonable amount you want to spend on groceries weekly or monthly and then stick to it. My greatest help in this was joining The Grocery Game. This wonderful program matches coupons with sales to help you make the most of your grocery budget (if you decide to join, please use me as a referral - light52b at yahoo dot com). I have two pieces of advice for those who join or are simply looking to start a stockpile. 1) Stick to it for awhile - it will get easier. For the Grocery Game, give it the full 12 weeks - you are just getting started at 4 weeks and have not discovered the full potential of the game. 2)Start slow with your stockpile and it will build over time. Purchase your regular groceries each week and add a few stockpile items - without going over budget. Before you know it, you will have a nice stockpile and may even be able to reduce your budget more. Our current budget for a family of 3 (with #4 on the way) is $50 per week. Some weeks the sales are incredible and I go over but I almost always am under the next week so it evens out.

Sell your junk. Go through your house and identify items you no longer need or use. Sell them through a garage sale, Craigslist, or eBay. The quick cash you get can go towards bills or the emergency fund. I find the quick cash gives me enough of a boost to push me towards accomplishing my goals.

These are just a few tips to help you get on track. I'm sure many others out there have great tips too and I would love to hear them. Feel free to leave a comment or a blog link telling how you survived the beginning stages of Living on Less.

I'm Baaacccckkkk!

Sorry for the long break but it was great to spend a few weeks with my family and really enjoy the holidays. With the exception of our child having the stomach flu on Christmas Eve, we had a great few weeks.

I'm not one to set New Year's resolutions but I am using the new year as a start to get back on track with Living on Less. Due to morning sickness, I could hardly cook in late Nov. and most of Dec. Needless to say, we ate out way more than usual. Since we have barely eaten out in over a year, it was kind of nice to try some of our favorites again. Now that I'm feeling better (not completely over it but I can now stand the sight of my kitchen) I'm back to meal planning and serious couponing. I'm realizing we have quite the stash in our pantry and freezer so I'm planning on only stocking up on the excellent deals I find this month and working through our stash instead to help get us back on track.

As far as this blog, I plan on posting atleast 3-4 times a week. For now, I'm going to suspend my Waste Less Wednesday entry each week but I'm hoping to bring it back sometime throughout the year. It is a great series but I haven't taken time to plan for it for awhile and I need something fresh to focus on instead. If there are any topics you would like to see me write about, feel free to leave a comment or email me. I'm always looking for new ideas and love when they come from readers. Speaking of which, a reader asked me this summer to write about how we survived 9 days without power during an ice storm. I wrote a super long blog about it but never posted it due to the length and then my computer crashed. I have now recovered it and I plan on breaking it into several smaller entries and posting sometime in the new few weeks so be looking for that small series.

Very Full Freezer

Our Christmas present of 1/4 of a beef arrived this weekend. Above is a picture of our very full freezer. The middle shelf is beef only and there are various steaks and roasts tucked in on all of the other shelves. It took some work, but we were able to fit it all in. It was kind of fun eating out of my freezer for a few months trying to make room for the meat. I plan on taking at least one week each month and only eating things in our pantry or freezer. I used to do this but stopped for some unknown reason. It really helps the budget by only buying fruit/veggies and milk one week a month.

By the way, don't forget to enter my coupon giveaway below. I'm giving away two sets!