Sunday, July 12, 2009

This week has been pretty normal. The only difference has been Mike is back to working 7 days and some double shifts between Disney and Universal. Today is the first of the double days. Madi, Mackenzie and I occupy ourselves very well with school, cleaning, cooking, reading, pool, friends, and shopping.

This week, I made my shopping trip a big priority. I have made it 2 weeks without grocery shopping. I used to have a grocery budget of $100/wk, but in recent months, I have been down to $80. This month, I really wanted to challenge myself. So I skipped a few weeks, utilizing my stockpile. The only time I bought stuff was the essentials. Eggs, milk, breads and some fruits and veggies, but a lot of those were even stocked up either in the freezer or cans. Needless to say, to make a long story short, I coupon clipped and found all the stores with items on sale. I also found the things that Kmart was offering that I needed using double coupons. Target did some amazing Kashi sales making their cereals and waffles so cheap! I bought some big items that we needed like a huge box of diapers and the 3 liters of olive oil (more expensive than you think), I got tons of cereal and waffles (less than $1/box, stocked up on ice cream (very cheap), fresh fruits and veggies (which can be frozen if you buy in bulk), and managed to fill my pantry and fridge and deep freezer back up after 3 weeks so I will not need to shop again for 2 more weeks...my average is down to $40/wk!!! I plan to keep it that way...even work my way down further. It can be hard when I have to add larger items. But I plan on keeping my stockpile up and my grocery cart cheap!

Madi is progressing with her butterfly lap book. She is also really enjoying her comparison of farm life. We did a dollar store lesson this week using her earned money from watching Mackenzie (while I shower or go in the garden), and doing extra jobs around the house. She is learning about the coins and their values as well as what it means to save. She could choose to buy slippers that she wanted which would cost most of her money or get 3 items at the dollar store saving some to put back in her piggy bank. She chose option 2!! I was very proud!

Today we are able to finally reorganize Mackenzie's room as we got the guest bed out. We are going to do some baking, paint our nails, make a new London Broil recipe and go in the hot tub! Just us girls tonight!

We are planning our first family vacation. We have to plan carefully as we are a cash family and need to make sure we know every penny we will be spending. So exciting to plan together. Looks like we will be heading to Boston with a great possiblity of seeing a Red Sox game at Fenway!!! A website called skyauction.com has been a huge help for our budget...we'll keep you posted.

I will wrap up with some small moments.

-Madison holding Mackenzie on her lap
-an entire night of fun with Mike as adults!!! right here in our home
-realizing at church, the things that make me feel valid and strong came from God Himself
-dancing again for the church ministry
-some new successful recipes
-a sunset out our sliders that took my breath away










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2 comments:

  1. Love reading your blogs Christina!! See you Monday night. Annette

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  2. Ok, what is a double coupon? And tell me again where you find all of your crazy great grocery coupons!

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