Maintaining it all with a Dignity, Grace, and a Smile

  

                 So, do you ever feel as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders?  Like you’re the only one in your home who is able to clean, feed the children, mend a shirt button, help with homework, and go to the grocery store?!  I often feel this way and at times it is so overwhelming.  I must be honest though it is because of my own need to have things done MY WAY that I feel this way.  I am so truly lucky for the simple fact that my husband is willing and does help with many things around our home and with our children.  Most of the time it’s all without twisting his arm . . . too much J

                 I feel as if our family is CONSTANTLY on the go and as if we never have time to simply enjoy one another.  When we do have a moment, the time is spent maintaining our life style, like cleaning and grocery shopping.  To me it seemed as if we were in a never ending cycle which consisted of going to work/school, coming home doing homework, making dinner, eating dinner, taking baths, reading,  putting the kids to bed, competing some work for our jobs, and going to bed.  When the weekend rolled around we cleaned the house, bought groceries, and took naps because we were so exhausted from the day to day stuff.

                 In an effort to try and break out of this cycle I have been attempting to complete the ‘chores’ before the weekend begins.  I have been home on maternity leave since December.  During this time I have broken up the house maintenance into smaller chunks, rather that cleaning the entire house in one day, which is completely exhausting!  Between Monday and Wednesday I clean the house in the following chunks: The bathrooms and the kitchen one day.  On another day I dust, clean windows, and spray the furniture with Fabric Refresher (I made it myself!  Check out the My Reviews Tab for directions).  Finally, I sweep, mop, and vacuum the floors.  I always do the grocery shopping on Thursday.  Friday is spent washing laundry.  Every other week I change all of the sheets and this is lumped in with the dusting day.

                So far this home maintenance has been very effective for our family.  I am hoping to be able to keep this up when I return to work, but I’m not sure if it will be practical or not.  I’ll post an update to report how it does or does not work out.  I return to work March 5 . . . which I’m dreading L

Coupon Adventures Week #5

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

2/19/12

Weekend #5

After Couponing for 5 weeks now, I am beginning to create a stock pile. A stock pile is a collection of items that have been purchased because they were on sale and/or a coupon was used. These are items that were not necessarily needed currently, so they need to be stored somewhere.

I have chosen to keep my stock pile in our basement. My husband built a shelving unit. I put the extra items in baskets that I have around the house or old diaper box and place the boxes on the shelves.

I have been trying to keep‘like’ items together, such as baking goods, cleaning products, breakfast items, etc., on the shelf.

Keeping the‘like’ items together helps in 2 ways 1) I am able to easily find items when I need to replenish the supply in our pantry and 2) I am able to easily see how many we have of a particular item, so I know if I need to purchase more or not.

Last week I mentioned that I was beginning to get a little discouraged with Couponing because I had set a personal goal of walking out of Meijer without spending $100.00. Up until last week I had not been able to accomplish this goal. Not only did I finally accomplish the goal of spending less than $100.00 last week at Meijer, but I accomplished the goal this week as well! In fact, I spent less at Meijer this week then I spent last week.

This week I’m trying something a little different to display my savings. Rather than listing all of the items I purchased how much I saved on each individual item I have chosen to simply share how much I saved at each individual store. I shopped at 4 different stores. The savings break down from each store can be seen below.

CVS Savings: $4.00

Walgreens Savings: $7.60

Marsh Savings: $12.08

Meijer Savings: $14.39

Total Savings (at all 4 stores): $38.07 Total Spent (at all 4 stores): $89.21

What I learned:

1. When items are listed in sale the CVS sale ad are not always actually in the store.

Family One on One Time

Family One on One Time

My husband and I were beginning to notice that our 3 and 6 year olds were exhibiting some ‘new’ behaviors. They weren’t terribly out of control, but uncharacteristic, nonetheless. The only thing we could attribute their behavior changes to were the change in our family dynamic. Our third child was born in December. While we made every effort possible to maintain life for our boys, the true fact of the matter was that life had changed for all of us . . . there is no way around having a new person in your home.

We were forced to face reality, no matter how hard we tried there wasn’t a way to keep life the way it was prior to baby M’s arrival. After accepting this reality, we came up with a plan. On Friday night my husband would stay home with G and Baby M while I took B to a local Yogurt Shop for a treat. After our dessert we headed to an arcade to play a few games. On Saturday I stayed home with B and Baby M while my husband took G out for a treat and to the arcade. The following weekend we switched kids. My husband took B to watch his friends play basketball and to some batting cages. When they came home I took G to a pottery shop to paint.

Much to everyone’s delight we all enjoyed our One on One Time together. The behavior wasn’t cured over night, but it has improved. We all benefitted from being out of the house for a few hours. It also gave each of our children some much needed individual focus. While at the arcade B wanted to have a photo booth picture taken of the two of us. He then took that picture to Show and Tell in his kindergarten class the following week. When we were practicing what he was going to share with his class about the picture he said “This is a picture of my Mommy and I. It was the greatest day ever because we got to play games together!” If those simple sentences don’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does.

     

Bathroom Organizing

                             My master bathroom is connected to my closet. So naturally, after the closet organization was completed I moved onto organizing the master bathroom. Although I did more 'tidying' and de-cluttering as opposed to actual organization here.

The bathroom has double sinks. My husband claims one side, while I claim the other. This is a picture of his side. I used baskets, I love to use baskets. It's so much easier to keep things 'contained' with them. I also think things look much neater in baskets and miss placing items is avoided. His personal care items were already in a basket. Items he no longer used were thrown away. I wiped the basket out and added a label. 2 new baskets were added for items that were formerly just 'sitting' under the sink. These were baskets for the toilet paper and the dog bath items. I finished his side by adding labels to the baskets. Everything has it's own special spot now!

On my side of the cabinet I took a similar approach. I threw away un-wanted/needed items, wiped down my baskets, and added labels. I added a basket labeled 'Shared items'. I'm sure you'll notice it's the basket that doesn't match :( I love for things to be uniform and matching, but I couldn't find the white baskets for a price I was willing to pay. So I went with second best. The items in this basket just sat under the sink before.

Next, I moved onto the bathroom closet. This closet is a little tricky because it is VERY narrow and it is directly behind the door that leads to the bathroom. I often find myself shutting the bathroom door and locking it (so my kids don't pop in) before attempting to enter the closet. In the closet I began with straightening the towels and sheets. Next, I moved onto TRASHING things! I was so surprised with the amount of 'stuff' we had aquired and just shoved in this closet. It was no wonder that we had trouble finding items we needed. When I got to the basket that we keep the sun screen in I was so thankful that items were in the baskets. A bottle of lotion had opened (I'm still not sure how this happened) and the entire bottom of the basket as COVERED with lotion. It was a bit of a mess to clean up, but it could have been much worse. Can you imagine cleaning up lotion that leaked through those wire shelves? Not to mention trying to clean up the lotion that had leaked onto other items in the closet.

As I took items out of the closet I tried to sort them into piles. I did this so I could put like items into baskets together and determine which size basket to put the items into. I finished by adding labels to the baskets and the wire shelves.

Coupon Adventures Week #4

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

As I began my 4^thweek as a ‘Couponer’ (I guess I could be classified as one now, right?) a few things were running through my head. On the positive end, I felt like I had established a routine regarding finding and storing coupons, looking through sale ads, matching coupons to sale items, and creating my shopping list. On the opposite end of positive, (That means negative, in case you weren’t sure.) since I began this journey I have strived to spend less than $100.00 at Meijer. My husband and I have a running joke that spending at least $100.00 is a requirement at Meijer. So far I have yet to reach this goal. I have tried couponing because I want to save money and it doesn’t seem to me that I am saving money. If I look at my receipts I am able to see the‘savings’, but I’m quite seeing the savings that I’m looking for. I have to be honest I was thinking that this may all be a waste, until I completed my transaction at Meijer and saw my total came to $90.90! ~SUCCESS! ~ I spent less than $100.00 at Meijer!

I ran across a few new things this week that I would like to caution you about. First of all, I found it very helpful to have the store ads with me while shopping. It was also helpful to have the items I intended on purchasing circled (I was able to quickly find items when needed) in the ads. Manufacturers use such similar adjectives (Such as Super pack or Mega pack on toilet paper) on their products that it can be confusing to determine which specific product is on sale. The cashier and managers were very friendly and helpful when mistakes were made. I was appreciative and impressed with the customer service at both Target and Marsh. Second, be sure to watch as the cashier scans your items. Just because items are on sale in the ads does not mean that they have been entered in the computer system. I was thankful to have my ad with me so I could quickly and easily show the cashier the advertised price. This situation was handled appropriately and corrected. Lastly, I found it helpful to estimate how much my total bill should be before going to the stores. Knowing the estimate helped to alert me that items rang up incorrectly.

Meijer:

Sale and Coupon items purchased:

Item:	Original Price:	Sale Price:	Coupon:	Savings:
Cereal	$3.99 (I bought 2 = $7.98)	3 for $10.00 ($3.33 each)	$1.00 on 2	$2.32
Hot Pockets	$2.24 (I bought 6 = $13.44)	5 for $10.00 ($2.00 each)	$1.00 on 6	$2.44
Freezer Bags	$2.59 (I bought 2 = $5.18)	2 for $4.00 ($2.00 each)	.75 on 2	$1.93
Sandwich Bags	$2.50 (I bought 2 = $5.00)	2 for $4.00 ($2.00 each)	.50 on 2 (coupon doubled)	$1.50
Deodorant	$4.09	$3.98	$1.00 on 1	$1.11
Smoked Sausage	$3.69	2 for $5.00 ($2.50 each)	.55 on 1	$1.74
Cookies	$2.49 (I bought 2 = $4.98)	2 for $4.00 ($2.00 each)	$1.00 off 2	$1.98
Fruit	$1.45 (I bought 2 = $2.90)	4 for $5.00 ($1.25 each)	.50 on 2 (coupon doubled)	.90
				Total Sale and Coupon items savings: $13.92

Sale Item Purchases:

Item:	Original Price:	Sale Price:	Savings:
Milk	$2.99 (I bought2 = $5.98)	2 for $5.00	.98
Salad	$2.99 (I bought 3 = $8.97)	3 for $5.00	$3.97
Pastry Treats	$1.79 (I bought 3 = $5.37)	3 for $5.00	.37
Apple Sauce	$1.79 (I bought 3 = $5.37)	3 for $5.00	.37
Fruit Cups	$2.00 (I bought 3 = $6.00)	3 for $5.00	$1.00
			Total Sale items savings: $6.69

Total Meijer Savings: $20.61

Marsh:

Sale and Coupon items purchased:

Item:	Original Price:	Sale Price:	Coupon:	Savings:
Bacon	$4.69	$3.69	.75	$1.75
Toaster Strudel	$2.95 (I bought 3 = $8.85)	2 for $4.00 (I bought 3 = $6.00)	.75 on 3	$3.60
Nature Valley Granola Bars	$4.19 (I bought 2 = $8.38)	4 for $10.00 (I bought 2 = $5.00)	.50 on 2	$3.88
Breakfast on the Go	$3.79 (I bought 3 = $11.37)	2 for $5.00 (I bought 3 = $7.50)	$1.00 on 1 $1.50 on 2	$6.37
				Total Sale and Coupon items savings: $15.60

Sale Item Purchases:

Item:	Original Price:	Sale Price:	Savings:
Bread	$3.19 (I bought 3 = $9.57)	Buy 1 get 2 free	$6.38
Chips	$4.29 (I bought 2 = $8.58)	Buy 1 get 1 free	$4.29
Juice Boxes	$2.59 (I bought 2 = $5.18)	$2.19 (I bought 2 = $4.38)	.80
			Total Sale items savings: $11.47

Total Marsh Savings: $27.07

Total Weekend Savings: $47.68

What I learned:

1. Bring the store ads with you. The sale prices do not always ring up correctly.

2. Read the fine print carefully on what specific item is on sale.

3. Have an estimate in mind of what your total bill should be when all is said and done.