November and December 2010 (excluding Thanksgiving and Christmas)

November and December have been very busy months, but hey have been great. We've been able to get outside a lot to play in the great weather and we have stayed home to hang out a lot, too.
Here is Tommy hanging out, watching his movie. He doesn't often just sit and watch a movie, but once in awhile he gets in the mood. I let him just sit back and relax since it gives me some time to relax or get some extra work done. I love this picture because he's eating his snack off his belly like a pregnant lady.
Tommy loves his cars more and more each day. He has recently started lining them up in rows and he gets a big thrill out of it. Sometimes he lines them up bumper-to-bumper (like above) and sometimes he gets more satisfaction when they are lined up side-to-side. He does actually play with the cars sometimes, but most of the time he enjoys lining them up on the TV, on the stairs, on the piano bench, or on the window sill. He's cute. I don't know where he learned to do this or if it's just a developmental thing like stacking. Either way, it's cute and he loves it.
We were privileged to enjoy a visit from Uncle Carson early in November. He was in Phoenix with some friends for a seminar so he stopped by. I only wish he could have stayed longer! We got to spend the afternoon talking and shopping at Walmart. We bought a Reeses' cake at Walmart that was truly delicious, although it wasn't nearly as peanut-buttery as I expected it to be. We love you, Carson, and we hope you come back to see us soon!
This is Tommy feeding Carson some cake. You know they are real buddies now.
Ben, myself, Carson, and Tommy. I don't know why Tommy has his mouth wide open.

We love to play outside in our backyard. On this day Tommy got the giggles because Ben kept throwing the ball on the ground really hard. Baby giggles are so infectious!

This is one of my all-time favorite family photos. It was taken the day after Christmas and I think we all look quite smashing.

Tommy loves to sit on the potty! Hopefully this means he'll be ready to potty-train sooner than later and that it will go easily. He begs me to sit on the potty and he can stay there for 30 minutes at a time. He'll use an entire roll of toilet paper to "wipe his bum," but I don't care. The other day Tommy even potty-trained his big stuffed monkey. He wanted a diaper put on the monkey, so Daddy did that, and then Tommy took the diaper off and promptly carried Monkey to the potty. Hopefully he'll follow in Monkey's footsteps soon!

This is a cute video of Tommy playing outside with Mommy. He also does some cute animal sounds and is generally a showoff.

Last, but not least, my most awesome haul this month. I paid $9.07 for all that. Yeah, baby!

August in Review

Since I don't keep a very good journal anymore (I wish I did better!) I figured that I need to do a lot better documenting the everyday stuff that goes on. Lucky you, you get to read it! I've done a decent job of posting big things like vacations and outings, but I need to do better at posting the more regular stuff. Here it goes!

Tommy got his first haircut right after we got back from Utah. I was so sad to see those cute baby curls go, but it had to happen. He was growing a curly mullet. Here is the "before haircut" picture. I hope to see those blonde curls again soon!
Tommy loves to play outside in our little swimming pool. We play out there at least 3 or 4 mornings per week when the patio is shaded. He can play in the water with a cup and a few balls for at least an hour, and even then he is sad to get out most days. I sit out there with him and read and splash him occasionally. Playing outside in the water has become one of our favorite things to do together. This picture is of Tommy playing with his friend, McKay.
We also love to go the splash park. Sometimes Tommy is more interested in the wood chips at the adjacent playground or the rocks that border the sidewalk, but I can usually keep in the water for at least 30 minutes or so. It's the perfect thing to do on those really unbearable Phoenix summer days.
Here is a video of Tommy using my shoe to smash imaginary bugs. You know you kill way too many bugs when your 0ne-year-old thinks that is what shoes are for. We kill several crickets every evening (hate them!), but luckily we wash off the shoes before Tommy can play with them!

Tommy has learned to help me clean up the floor. He sees me wash the floor underneath his seat after he eats so sometimes he grabs a wipe and helps me do it. He has also been known to grab any washcloth (wet or dry) and clean the floor with it on his own. It just goes to show you how much our kids watch and mimic us even when we don't expect it.
Here is a picture of Daddy and Tommy reading together. Tommy loves his books and he sure loves his Daddy.
Below is a video entitled "Wrinkles on Wheels".

Speaking of Wrinkles, my heart just melts sometimes to watch how much Tommy loves his little dog. Sometimes he brings me Wrinkles and a towel. I swaddle the doggie up and then hand him back to Tommy. It is so cute to see how excited Tommy gets when I wrap Wrinkles up. He gently holds Wrinkles in his arms and gives him some hugs and loves and then we do it again.
Lastly, here is my most successful shopping trip of the month: I spent a total of $1.52 on all of this, which included $1.15 in tax. Awesome. I guess you could call couponing one of my hobbies since I get such a thrill out of it.

Couponing: Where to Start

The most frequent question I receive when people find out I coupon is, "Where do I start?" True, it can be kind of overwhelming. Hopefully I can shed some light on this issue and give you the tools you need to start couponing and saving money.

I am going to say something that most couponers probably don't want to hear: coupons themselves don't actually save you a ton of money. They save you a few bucks here and there and allow you to sometimes get things for free or almost free. Once in awhile you can even make a few cents by using coupons. However, the things that will save you the most money are the good shopping principles that smart shoppers and couponers use. Now don't misunderstand. I LOVE coupons and I am a huge advocate of using them. I just think that they are more of the icing on the savings cake rather than the foundation of it. For those of you who have tried couponing before and feel like it was too overwhelming, this should be welcome news.

If you want to start saving a bunch of money today I would suggest you implement the following habits into your shopping routine:

1. Buy the things that are on sale and stock up on those things so that you never have to pay full price for them. (See my posts on shopping the ads and stocking up.) The biggest portion of my savings every month comes from buying the items that are on sale and stocking up on them.

2. Plan your meals around the things that are on sale and the things you already have in your pantry. Planning your meals will also make it less likely that you waste your money going out to eat so often.

3. Stop buying toiletries at grocery stores and get started on learning how to play the drug store game (Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid each have their own version of the game. If you play it right you should be able to pay pennies on the dollar for most if not all of your toiletries and over-the-counter medication.) Here are a few good links to learn how to make the most out your shopping at Walgreens, CVS, and Rite Aid. At the end of the month I usually end up buying around $100 worth of toiletries and only paying about $10 for all of it.

4. Match the coupons you have to the sales to increase your savings. Most coupons are available in the Sunday paper and online. There are tons of free blogs out there that have grocery store coupons match-ups every week for stores all over the country. Here are a few of my favorites: Surviving the Stores, The Thrifty Mama, Couponing 101, and Saving Cents With Sense. For those of you in Arizona, Arizona Savings is an awesome blog dedicated solely to coupon match-ups with our local grocery stores and drug stores. Coupons are great and save me an additional 25% or so on my grocery bill every month.

5. Don't stress. Couponing is a skill and it has to be learned. There will be times when the learning curve seems pretty steep, but hang on and it will get easier. I remember when I first started couponing I didn't sleep well for a few nights because it was such a paradigm shift for me. It was a completely different way of shopping than what I was accustomed to. But as you practice and learn you will get better at it and it will seem easy in no time.

I hope that helps! Feel free to call or email me if you have any questions.

Hobbies

As many of you have noticed, our world really revolves around our hilarious baby. He makes us laugh and he keeps us busy all of the time. I thought it would be a nice change to post something other than baby pictures this time, though, just to prove that we do have lives and interests outside of our baby. Here are a few of my hobbies that keep me busy when I'm not chasing Tom Star around the house:

Couponing

Many of you already know that I am a pretty avid couponer so I won't spend too long talking about this one. I've been doing it now for about a year and I have to admit that we have saved mountains of money because of it. Last March when I started couponing we were living in a two-bedroom apartment and I was about six months pregnant. This March we have a house, a yard, and a baby who eats a lot and poops a lot. We have a lot more expenses than we did a year ago, but we are spending about 54% less money than we used to. This month alone I have used almost $550 in coupons and rebates. It's so dang fun! I went to Walgreens this morning and bought all of this for $2.23 (pre-tax) and walked away with 19 Register Rewards to use the next time I shop there!

Below is a transaction from CVS last week that was totally free because of coupons (I had to pay about a dollar in tax). I walked away from this one with 7 Extra Care Bucks to use on my next visit. How can you not think that is fun? They practically pay you to shop! And yes, those are size 6 diapers you see in that photo. What can I say, we have a huge baby!

I have started my own money-saving blog. I just launched it last week so there isn't too much going on there quite yet, but hopefully it will pick up soon.

Gardening

Since we now have a house and a beautiful backyard I decided to plant a garden in the corner. This is the first time I have ever tried to grow a garden and it seems to be going pretty well so far! You can see in the left of the picture some zucchini plants that are growing really well (I don't particularly like zucchini, but I figured it would grow even in Arizona, so I planted it!) We also have a few broccoli plants coming up, a couple of peppers that decided to sprout, and one cauliflower plant that came up pretty late. We even have a row of carrots that are growing in a shady spot (I didn't plan that one very well). There are still onions and some more carrots and a strawberry plant that we are waiting to see. This year was mostly an experiment for me to see what works and what doesn't. I can already see a lot of mistakes I made in planting things where I did, but hopefully we'll still have a few veggies that grow before the summer sun comes and fries everything and everybody. I am hoping to buy some tomato plants this week because none of my tomato seeds sprouted. The great thing about living in Arizona is that there are two growing seasons so we can try again in September if nothing works out this spring!

Canning

I went to an Enrichment activity last year about canning and was so impressed that I told Ben last summer that all I wanted for my birthday this March was a canner and some Mason jars. He was kind enough to comply with my wishes! The day after I received the canner I went ahead and canned six quarts of chicken. Last week I canned about six pints of turkey and eight pints of Jennie-O turkey sausage I got on sale for $0.80/lb. I am planning to can some strawberry jam in April. Hopefully we'll have a few veggies from our garden that I can can as well! My real desire is to make spaghetti sauce and salsa from veggies and herbs we grow in our garden. Hopefully that will work out! It feels good to can stuff and it really isn't that hard. It takes some time, but it works out if I start as soon as Tommy goes down for a nap and then when he wakes up I spread some Cheerios on the floor. It keeps him occupied for quite awhile! (I know, Mother of the Year right here!) Our freezer is already so full of frozen veggies, leftover meals, and shredded cheese that canning allows us to store even more meat and veggies when we find them on sale. Plus, canning allows us to build up our food storage so we will be prepared in case of an emergency!

Running

I am currently training for my first marathon. It's coming up on May 1! Last week my long run was 12 miles so I have a long way to go, but hopefully I'll be ready! Tommy loves to run with me (I pack him in our red Schwinn jogging stroller). He's usually pretty calm and he falls asleep half the time. I'll have to get a picture of us running together because we do it a lot!

Anyway, these are just a few of my hobbies that keep me busy. Needless to say, I am exhausted by the time Tommy goes to bed at 7:30! I need to make that my bedtime, too:) Here is a picture of Tommy in our backyard because no post is complete without at least one pictures of our cute baby:)

Walgreens Means More Green

I was so proud of myself this week for my shopping trip to Walgreens that I just had to post it on the blog. As many of you know, I am a couponer. I wouldn't call myself an extreme or advanced couponer, but I usually do okay for myself. This small trip to Walgreens turned out to be pretty productive. I only spent $1.90 and here is what I bought:

4 boxes of Smart Start cereal
2 bottles of Renu contact solution
1 box of Just For Men hair color

Don't worry, nobody is going gray around here just yet, but I ended up MAKING MONEY by purchasing the hair color. Here's how I did it:

I purchased the hair color first for $6.99, but I printed a coupon that brought it down to $4.99. Walgreens has a program called Register Rewards where they print off a coupon good for your next purchase at Walgreens. The hair color printed off a coupon for $7 in Register Rewards that I used for my next transaction. The total for this transaction was $5.61 with tax.

I printed off a coupon for $2 off the Renu here (bringing the price to $7.99) and a coupon for $5 off 4 boxes of Kelloggs cereal here (it's a manufacturer's coupon so you can use it anywhere even though it has the Target logo on it). Walgreens had the cereal on a buy one get one free sale, so it was $4.18 for 4 boxes of cereal. I used the $7 Register Rewards coupon from the hair color and $3 Register Rewards I got last week to bring the total for this transaction to $3.28.

Here's the kicker. There is a rebate for the haircolor that I sent in, so I should be getting a check in the mail for $6.99 PLUS I earned $10 more in Register Rewards for buying the Renu contact solution. In sum, I spent $1.90 for stuff that would normally cost about $39 AND I have $10 in Register Rewards to spend on my next shopping trip to Walgreens. These deals are good until tomorrow (the 12th) so you can do it, too!