Tuesday, March 31, 2009

April Monthly Menu

So I got inspired last month to make a monthly menu but I made it a week into it and lost my master list and although I did make dinner almost every night I still wanted to try again so I didnt' have to plan each week!

1- BBQ Chicken Sandwiches
2- Taco's
3- Honey Dijon Salmon
4- Shrimp Scampi
5- Meat Loaf
6- Cheese Fondu and Apps
7- Meat and Rice Casserole
8- Chicken Devan
9- Wasabiaki Chicken
10- Darien's Parents
11- Traveling
12- Easter!
13- Mom's Bday
14- Brown Sugar Chicken
15- Crock Pot Taco Soup
16- Cream Cheese Chicken
17- Lemon Dill Tillapia
18- Cheeseburger Coup
19- Sweet and Sour Chicken with Mango Lettuce wraps
20- Bama Sandwiches (Philly cheesesteak twist)
21- Steak
22- Spaghetti
23- Enchilada's
24- Hamburgers
25- Chicken and Corn Casserole
26- Country Casserole
27- Sloppy Joes
28- Chicken Lettuce Wraps
29- Beef Stew
30- Taco Pizza

Ill post recipes as I go!

Monday, March 30, 2009

Money Saving Mondays!

I post this on Whattoexpect and I decided to post it all here too!!

Money Saving Tips

So last week I suggested planting a small garden or herbs, and line drying your clothes and I wanted to update you guys that we just got our electric bill for last month and we saved $40 from keeping the air off and not using the dryer as often!! I also just started not using our washing machine which was a great idea from a poster! So I hope to see more of a saving next month!

This week I'd like to help get everyone started on couponing! Depending on where you live coupons can be a great money saving idea! I have talked to a few women that live in rural areas and only get to shop once a week or so and couponing really isnt worth the time and energy for them so they find other ways to cut back. This will be a several week learning process so I will break it up!

FIRST! Start saving the coupon inserts from your Sunday paper. My suggestion is to save the whole insert instead of clipping. Second keep the grocery store sales pages and watch for sales. You will only want to use coupons for items that are on sale to save the most money. You can use a blog like dealseekingmom.com, afullcup.com, and if your in the south southernsavers.com. Keep in mind there are HUNDREDS! of blogs that will give you coupon matchups to the best sale ads for grocery stores to Target and Walmart just find one that works best for where you live. Afullcup.com has grocery stores for every region! This should help you get started! Next week Ill talk about using CVS and Walgreens to your advantage!

Diapers, Formula, Baby food

Rite aid is having a sale on Huggies so if u buy a pack you get $3 back in a rebate check. Huggies Big packs are on sale for 19.99 at Publix till Wednesday in some areas. My boxes are 19.99 all the time so this isn't that great of a deal.Huggies Big packs are 19.99 at Kmart and if you buy $40 worth you'll get a $10 mfg in-store coupon this deal starts Tuesday. Huggies Big packs are 19.99 at Target as well and jumbos are 9.99. Remember with Huggies you can send your reciepts into Caregivers Marketplace for .75 a pack and you will need to send in 5 reciepts at a time.Pampers are 8.99 when you buy 3 this week. This is a good Pampers deal if you have 1.50 coupons. Pampers Megas are 15.99 at Rite aid. Remember to print out your $5 off $25 coupon! Buy 2 packs use $1 off coupons for both and your 5 off $25 for a pretty good deal! Pampers Jumbos are 2 for 18.99 at CVS. Pampers boxes are 19.99 at Kroger. Luvs megas are 9.99 at Kroger and like the Huggies deal buy 3 and get $3 off. This isn't that great of a deal for Luvs since these were just 6.99 at Target a week ago.

CVS brand Megas are $9.99, Walgreens jumbos and wipes are buy one get one 50% off. I have to tell you though the Walgreens brand wipes are rough and not kind to the behind!
Earth's Best Organic is buy on get one free at Publix through Wednesday and Gerber stage 2 are .79! I think the .79 is actually a price change now not just a sale but I could be wrong. If you have Food Lion in your area print off a few of their $1 off Gerber foods coupon and make .21 cents on each one! Gerber 2nd foods are also 10 for $10 at Kmart.

If you need a good formula deal this week and next week are good times to stock up! Next week CVS has similac and Huggies buy $25 worth get $10 back in ECBs!

This week CVS has Similac on sale for $21.99and Enfamil $23.99. Target similac is $20.99, and Walgreens brand formula is $11.99 with the in ad coupon and up until today you can still buy $25 worth or 2 cans and Destin or J and J body wash and get $10 back!

Coupons and more Freebies!

If you have Kroger remember to load your Cellfire.com and Shortcuts.com coupons as well as coupons for Hollywood movies and others!
Check out coupons.com for new coupons! Wednesday they will load more coupons since it the first of the month!
Try a free sample of Old Spice body wash.
Free sample of Emergen-C Blue.
Save $2 off Zyrtec with this coupon.
Get a medium cup of Caribou Blend coffee from Caribou Coffee for just $1 on Mondays at participating locations. This offer is only valid on Mondays and cannot be combined with any other offer.
Redbox Free Rental Code 3/30/09 Dealseekingmom.com will show you how to use this just click the link to find out more info!!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

What a wonderful weekend!!

Ok Im convinced!! Im moving to Murrells Inlet! LOL No not really but we really wanted to after this weekend! I found this small fish market that also serves lunch and it was amazing!! We planned on making fish Friday night and eating out Saturday night but we liked the fresh fish so much that we decided to eat it again Saturday night! The best thing about Darien and I is that we don't really need anything fussy and we could eat the same thing two nights in row especially fish! :) We got a tuna steak, scallops, mussels, and shrimp! And yes Chef Amanda made it all! We only ate out twice and that was dinner when we got there Thursday night and Friday morning! It was a gross weekend but not much rain so that was really nice. I have to say though I loved being away but really glad to be home with my boys! I really missed them! :)

OH and on the subject of budget I have to tell you that our $200 grocery budget is going fantastic!! We still have $40 left and I am fully stocked on everything!

Friday, March 20, 2009

Contemplating moving!

No not our house but this blog! Ive been having alot of issues with blogger lately so I just wanted to let you all know!! :)

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

What to expect, Budget, and Recipe!!

I having been blogging here much lately because I have started 2 regular thread on Whattoexpect.com's Penny Pinchers boards and they are keeping me pretty busy! :) I started Freebie Fridays and Money Saving Mondays which are super fun and I am working on posting them here too! :) So watch out for that!

Hubby and I decided that instead of keeping a budget for groceries that we would just take cash out and when it was gone it was gone no if's and's but's about it! So we took out $200 on March 13th and we have until April 15th. We stocked up on Juicy Juice at Bi-lo last week when it was BOGO and did 2 Publix trips for baby food and bread and a whole chickens that were on sale for .79 a lb! So now we have $120 and its the 18th. Im getting a little nervous BUT and big BUT here we have plenty of food, $30 to spend at Walgreens left over from the diaper deal and a CVS gift card with $10 left.

Now on to food!!

Last night I made Chimichanga's which were super awesome!! Seriously I was a little scared but they really turned out well! I made these from my head just so you know so when I write out the recipe keep that in mind that I just eye things and go from there.

What you will need...

Flour tortillas (Mission tortilla's are awesome and I used the jalapeno one's for a kick) got for .50
Queso (I used some I got from Cosco a while back because its made with jalapeno's) .50
ground beef (got on sale) 1.50
Garlic powder .10
cilantro (free from my garden!)
hot sauce (free from hubbys Christmas gift)
toothpicks
Small onion .20
( sour cream and guacamole if you choose)

Ok lets start by browning your ground beef then draining off the fat. Throw in your chopped onion and cook till translucent. Add 1/4 cup of any kind of hot sauce that you choose, chopped cilantro, 1/4 tsp garlic powder then stir. Set this aside and pull out another deep saute pan that you can fill with oil and place the chimichanga's in. I used corn oil because its cholesterol free and hubster is freaking out about every bit of fat in the house so instead of spending a ton of money on peanut oil I went for corn oil. Fill the pan with your choice of oil to about and inch, you can use less if you would like it just needs to be able to fry the chimichanga. Fill your tortilla with about a cup of your meat(you can use more!) then fold two sides together and then fold the other two sides in and use a toothpick to hold them together. Some I had to use 2 toothpicks with. Then place in hot oil, oil should be heated to a medium temp. if its too hot it will burn instead of frying. Place for 5 minutes on each side then set them on paper towels to drain off some of the excess oil.
When you plate pour over a little bit of warmed up queso and add any other side you would like and serve!! They are super easy and yummy!!

To Potty Train or Not to Potty Train...

Let me just say first off I have never really been a nervous mom or really worried about being a good mom or not BUT when you mention potty training my heart races a little and i start to worry! I mean really in the mommy hand book that NO ONE! gives you when becoming a mommy this should be NUMBER 1!!! on the boy handbook! Seriously who teaches you how to potty train a child and on top of that who in the world knows when they are really ready?? On pretty much everything else you just wait for them to get up the courage and do it. Like walking of course I try to encourage them and crawling the same thing but they wont walk or crawl until they are ready. With food you just start introducing new things and they figure it out but potty training is a whole other realm! You can just say hey here is your potty use it when you are ready. There are pull ups and learning to pull your pants down and sitting down to pee or standing up learning to know when you have to pee and learning to hold it. The list just goes on and on!! Needless to say I am overwhelmed and yes my first step would be to actually go and buy a childs potty but that just makes it even more real!!

Ok courage! We are gonna do it!!! LOL

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Diapers, Diapers and more diapers!!

Ok so when I started doing the whole coupon thing I tried a few of the store brand diapers and they just never really worked. The best we found were the Babies r us brand diapers that were't horrible but werent great on trips at all! So yes I am a diaper snob and I would only buy Pampers because I tried the Huggies Gentle care with Conner when he was little and didn't care for them. Well Huggies has been having great deals and coupons out lately so we started using Huggies and like them alot! Of course I still perfer Pampers but these days Id rather spend less! Sorry for the long intro but I had to say all of that to get to the point! :)

Walgreens has a great deal on Huggies this week and thanks to my family for letting me print coupons on their computer I was able to print a ton of the Huggies $5 and $3 off coupons!!! I have already gone to Walgreens 3 times and Walmart once and total I have paid $40 for 8 packs of diapers and 4 large refill packs of wipes!!! Also included in that $40 is 3 cans of Walgreens formula, 2 Johnson and Johnson baby wash and Desitin!!

If you want to know how I did it just comment and I will put it all in detail!! If you need diapers and dont mind Huggies the Walgreens deal is buy $25 of Huggies diapers or wipes and get $10 back!!

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

TRY MICHAEL ANGELOS FREE!!!

Ok if anyone wants to help me win Michael Angelo's for a year and get free dinner in the process that would be lovely!!! Here's the deal, sign up at the Michael Angelo's site and enter my name as your referral then try a Michael Angelo's and Stouffers entree. Send in your rebate form with reciept and proof of purchase and which entree you liked best and they will either reimburse you or send you 3 free coupons for more Michael Angelo's! So its a win win!! We love these and they have a really great Lasagna and Baked Ziti with meatballs that is more than enough food for 2 people!!

http://familytable.michaelangelos.com/files/TasteTheDifference.pdf

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Dinner for the week plus recipe!!

So I wrote out a dinner plan for the month of March and have been trying to use everything that is in my stockpile so here is the weekly list.

Monday - Chicken Devan
Tuesday - Philly cheesesteak (taken from southernplate.com SOOOO yummy!!! recipe below)
Wednesday - Tilapia
Thursday - Tacos
Friday - Frozen Pizza
Saturday - Turkey Burgers

Ok so Rob ( old friend) came over for dinner tonight so I switched up dinner and made Philly Cheesesteak that I somewhat got from southernplate.com. Here is the recipe....

1 onion
2 tbls butter
1/2 tsp garlic
1 lb roast beef
provolone cheese
1 pkg mushrooms
(optional peppers)
1/4 cup woshersire (or however thats spelled! :))

Saute onions and garlic in 2tbl butter until the onions are tender and translucent. Chop up roast beef and add to pan, add wosch., and mushrooms. Simmer till mushrooms are cooked and tender. I put the oven on broil and then just added the meat mixture to the hoagie or sub roll and placed 2 pieces of cheese on top them stuck them in the oven for a minute and they were done!!

Seriously these were super yummy and will be made again!