Saving Money: Menu Planning

I'll be the first to admit that I'm not an overly organized person.  I do go through my pantry every 6 weeks or so and look for things that will expire in the next 2 months and move them upstairs so I can plan meals around them. Otherwise I'm not real great anymore at knowing exactly what I have in my pantry and how many of them I have.

In an effort to save money on groceries, I decided it was time to get to work on meal planning.  This ensures that I use the things that are close to expiration, and also helps me to know exactly what I need for the next two weeks, instead of just winging it every day, and possibly sending my husband to the commissary for the one ingredient I'm missing.  An added bonus is that if I know what I'm supposed to be cooking, it makes me less likely to say "I'm not in the mood to decide on dinner and cook, so let's get something from the cafe," or "Why don't you stop at the food court on the way home and pick something up?"

A Night Out: Spy Kids 4:All the Time in the World

My family rarely goes to a movie theater to see a movie, because it's just too expensive.  In June I bought a Living Social deal that included 2 movie tickets, though, and had planned on using them to see Cars 2.  Stuff came up and we didn't end up seeing it after all.  The promo code was set to expire on September 9, so we decided we better choose a movie and see it this weekend.

Unfortunately there weren't very many choices for movies playing this weekend that my family wanted to see.  My five year old is easily scared, so that ruled out pretty much all of them except The Help and Spy Kids 4.  So of course, he chose Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World.  It was only playing in 3D at a time that would work for us, so we bought the tickets on fandango (using the promo code and a giftcard I had won last summer), and off we went.

Good Deal on Appliances at Menards

So as I mentioned in my last post, I got a new cooking range for my birthday.  My last one started acting crazy and pulling massive amounts of power.  Last week when I made zucchini bread, it ended up costing me approximately $100 for a double batch of bread/muffins.

So on Saturday we headed to Menards to find a new one.  Luckily Menards is having a big bath and kitchen sale now through September 5.  Major kitchen appliances are all on sale.  Energy Star ones are at least 15% off, and regular ones are 10% off.  Plus if you spend at least $299 on qualifying purchases and put it on your Menards big card, it's interest free as long as you pay in full within 6 months.

A New Stove For My Birthday

So my birthday is Monday, and I'm dreaming of shopping.  I was planning on going shopping for myself, all by myself, in an actual store today or yesterday.  Unfortunately my cooking range went all crazy sometime recently and started pulling insane amounts of power for everything.  My last electric bill was about double what it normally is, and considering Elliott and I were gone for 2.5 weeks of that time, I knew something was up.  I noticed it when I looked at it online to get some other piece of information, and it was only 3 days past when it had been read.  Normally I don't even look at it until I get ready to pay it 10 days or so after it was read, so we really lucked out there!  Anyway, so on the 4th day after it was read, my husband went outside to look at the meter, and make sure they read it right.  It turns out that in those 4 days we had already used more electricity than we normally do in a full month!  But the meter was barely moving, so we were fairly certain it wasn't just the meter going crazy.   So down I went into the basement, while my husband stood outside staring at the meter.  I flipped each of the circuit breakers off one at a time to see if there was any change.  And when I got to the range one, I had a sudden realization that it was almost certainly it going bad.  For the last few weeks it has been randomly heating up the oven when I have one of the burners on, but a quick hit to the oven knob usually turns it off.  My husband decided it was probably a switch and has one ordered, but apparently we don't need it now after all.

First Full Day of School

Today was Elliott's first full day of school.  Yesterday the kindergarteners got out of school early, to help ease them into the year.  Yesterday was also full of a bunch of other stuff for me, so even though I didn't have Elliott with me, I was busy most of the day.

Today I had planned on running errands and getting some stuff done, but I had a headache, and the idea of driving the extra 70 or so miles just didn't appeal to me, especially after all the driving I did yesterday.  I drive 75-80 miles a day anyway, just to get Elliott to and from school (bussing is an option, but he would only be home and awake for 1.5 hours a day then-less when the roads are bad, and I don't think either of us could handle that).

Good Deal Alert on Bambi 2 DVD/Blu Ray

Bambi 2 comes out on DVD/Blu-ray tomorrow.  We actually had this one on DVD, but it disappeared in our move into our current house in 2007.  I've given up on finding it now, so I think we might be buying it this week.

If you are interested in buying both Bambi II (Two-Disc Special Edition Blu-ray / DVD Combo) and Bambi (Two-Disc Diamond Edition Blu-ray/DVD Combo), there is a good deal on Amazon right now. Bambi 2 is on sale  for $24.99, and when you buy it you can save $8 off the price of the Bambi Blu-ray/DVD combo pack.  It's priced at $20.99 right now, so you get both of them for $37.98 total, which of course has free shipping as well.

Bambi 2 is priced at $14.99 on Amazon for just the DVD.

If you are only interested in buying Bambi 2 and want the Blu-ray, I would suggest printing out the coupon available here.  It's for $5 off the blu ray/DVD combo pack, and combined with the $24.99 price at Target this week, it becomes a good deal.  The DVD by itself is on sale for $17.99.

For the current great deal on The Fox and the Hound and Mars Needs Moms check out my post here.

Great Deals on Disney Movies at Amazon- The Fox and the Hound and Mars Needs Moms

My son has a wishlist a mile long on Amazon.  A lot of the things he chooses are movies, because we do a lot of long road trips, and DVD's are sanity savers when you are in the car for 20 hours in two days.  We also enjoy watching a Blu Ray together as a family 1-2 times every week.  We watch the same movies over and over again a lot of times, so to us, it makes more sense to buy instead of rent, especially when we find good deals.  We love Disney movies, so we always look for good deals on them to add to our collection. 

Right now The Fox and the Hound / The Fox and the Hound Two (Three-Disc 30th Anniversary Edition Blu-ray / DVD Combo) is on sale for $24.99.  Plus if you buy Mars Needs Moms (Two-Disc Blu-ray / DVD Combo) for $22.99, you save $8 on The Fox and the Hound, so you can get both of them for $39.98, with free shipping through Amazon.  Plus, though the end of the month you earn 50 bonus points on Disneymovierewards.com when you enter the magic code for either DVD/Blu Ray!  This deal isn't quite as good as the deal that was available two weeks ago at Target, but if you missed it (like I did, because of my trip), it's still a good deal!

Semi-Annual Case Lot Sale at the Commissary

This weekend is the case lot sale at my local commissary.  We almost always try to make it to the case lot sale at least one day each time it happens, and since today we had to be on base anyway to get Elliott shots, we headed over to check it out.

Our base is pretty small, so it never has tons of stuff or anything, but usually I can find a good deal on at least a few things that my family uses.  I'm definitely a coupon user, but right now my coupons aren't sorted, and I have no idea what I have, because  I did NOT keep track of coupons very well for the three plus weeks I was in Missouri.  Today I didn't even remember to take my coupons with me shopping!  So I went in with a list that included bread, milk, eggs, fresh produce, and a few easy to eat, shelf stable fruit items for Elliott's snack bag for school.  Otherwise I figured we'd just buy what we found in the warehouse that was a good deal.

Time for School to Start

My son starts kindergarten next week.  It's hard for me to believe it.  He's slightly nervous about me leaving him somewhere else all day, but otherwise he's ready.  He doesn't have a school uniform, so buying clothes was easy and relatively cheap.  He also has a really short list of school supplies that he needs, so those were bought cheap, too.

I'm not looking forward to the start of school.  I can count on one hand the number of times he's been left with a babysitter since we moved to our current house, in July 2007.  He's done fine with sitters since he turned 4, but it's been short stints both times.  At least his first day of kindergarten is just a half day.

Back at Home

Elliott and I arrived back home  in North Dakota on Friday night.  We ended up staying in Missouri two more days than we had originally planned, due to weather and then a sick family member.   The drive home was fairly quick, and we didn't run into much bad weather, other than the intense storms that were going on in the Nebraska city that we stayed in overnight on Thursday.  We literally arrived at our hotel just in time.  It started pouring down rain as we were opening the door with our last load of stuff we wanted to keep in our room overnight.  There were tornadoes in the area, but none hit the town we stayed in, so I felt pretty lucky.   We had driven through Joplin, MO earlier and were on our way back to Minot, ND, so Elliott was pretty nervous about the bad weather, but finally calmed down enough for us both to get some sleep.   He's certainly glad to be back home and in his own bed at night now, and I am, too!

Clearance Shopping at KMart

Last week my mom was off two nights in a row (she works nights in a nursing home, so this isn't an every week thing), so we decided to go shopping one afternoon.  We called one of my older sisters to see if she wanted to go with us, and she decided to come along.  My mom needed new shoes, so we headed to Famous Footwear first.  I was in search of shoes for both myself and Elliott, but sadly couldn't find anything that I liked for me.  We only found one pair that Elliott liked (I wanted to get him two, one for school, and one for gym), and we had to move up a size in that brand.  He's now in a size 2!  Anyway, my mom and sister both found shoes they liked, too, so it was a decent stop.  My sister bought Elliott's shoes with hers, since they are running a bogo50 sale right now, and then I paid her about 75% of the full value of his shoes, so we both got a good deal that way. :)

Halfway Prepared

Apparently the lack of sleep over the two nights prior to leaving North Dakota caused me to be less prepared than I wanted to be for this trip.  When I'm in Missouri I always do a bunch of shopping and can usually find some great deals.  I brought my camera so I could get some pictures, but I walked off and forgot my camera cord, so I haven't shared any of the deals I've got.  I think I'm going to go ahead and share a few deals anyway, though, and then just add the pictures when I get back to North Dakota.

Detours Along the Way....

Last time I posted, I had plans to leave for my parents house last Wednesday.   It didn't end up working out that way, though.  Tuesday was a REALLY hot day, and the AC went out in our room.  So since it was literally over 90 degrees, even late at night, I decided to take the dogs and sleep in Elliott's room.  Well, I made the mistake of turning off the light (Elliott was already asleep) when I came in.   Minutes later, Elliott was awake and freaking about being in the dark.  So he jumped out of bed, and landed on Snoopie, who then proceeded to attack Trixie, thinking it was her fault.  Of course this is after 1 am, my husband was asleep, and I was across the room, in the dark, so I couldn't get to the light switch.  I got Elliott back up on the bed, so he didn't get hurt in the midst of the chaos, and called for my husband, who came in and turned on the light, effectively breaking up the dog fight.

Great Amazon Deal on the Movie Rango

If you know of anyone that has the new animated movie "Rango" on their wishlist, or you think it would be an appropriate fit for someone else on your shopping list, now is the time to buy it! Think Christmas!  Use the code RANGO5GO to save $5 on it at Amazon.  The Rango (Two-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo + Digital Copy) is only $14.99 after the coupon code.  And the RangoDVD is only $10.99 after the coupon code!  The prices are current as of today, July 18th.  The code expires July 23.

Rango is an animated Western that has a chameleon as the hero.  It's rated PG, and stars Johnny Depp.

Vacation Time!

Since we are currently stationed 1100 miles from "home" for both us, our vacations usually consist of driving to Missouri and spending two or three (or six) weeks with my parents.  I'm child number 5 of 6 in my family, and while I'm not particularly close to any of my older siblings, I'm super close with my baby sister (who is only 2 years younger than me) and my mom.  My husband thinks we're fighting if I don't talk to my sister more than 2 days in a row, and we've been known to spend hours on the phone 2-3 different times in the same day. So being so far away is hard!  We've been pretty lucky, and have been able to travel home at least once a year every year except one I believe.  I don't think we went home at all in 2009, so my little sister came up here.

More Good Photo Deals at Walgreens

I really wish we had a Walgreens here.  Even though we don't have one in Minot, I still get the majority of my photos from there.  My sister picks a lot of them up for me, but occasionally I have them shipped to me here instead.  Next week Elliott and I are most likely going to be going to my parents' house for a little vacation before school starts.  My little sister and I plan on doing quite a few crafting projects, including some scrapping.  I'm thinking of doing a quick and easy (and small) scrapping project for my mom and my mother in law for Christmas, so I am ordering some more pictures.

4x6 prints are only 10 cents each with an order of 50 or more, by using the code PRINTFUN.  Collages and enlargements are 50% by using the code HANGIT.  That makes the 4x6 collages only 15 cents each.  I do these a lot of times for my son, so he can use them in his own scrapbook that he's working on, and we also frame them in his room. They are super quick and easy.  Here's one that he just ordered.  You can put as many as 20 pictures on one collage (although that makes them really small, of course).  We usually stick to 3-4 on a 4x6, though.


The codes I mentioned are both only good through tomorrow, so hurry if you want to get these deals!

Clearance Scrapbook Shopping at Hobby Lobby

One of my favorite hobbies is scrapbooking. I've always loved the idea, but have only really started working on layouts regularly during the last few weeks.  As most of you probably know, scrapbooking isn't a cheap hobby.  Because of that, I don't go to Hobby Lobby very often.  But because Elliott and I have been doing more scrapping lately, we decided to go last week and check what they had on clearance. When my basement flooded last summer, the scrapbook I was working on was easily found, but my stickers, scissors, etc, all magically disappeared.  I've been looking and looking for them, but still haven't found them.

We printed out a 40% off on any one item coupon to use on the Disney scrapping paper Elliott's been asking for, since he's really looking forward to scrapping our Florida vacation from March.  We found several clearance buys on stickers that we liked, as well. We're still behind on scrapping other stuff, but most of what we bought was for the Disney scrapbook that we are starting today.  Elliott's really excited about actually being able to journal some of his own thoughts and feelings in this one.  Since it wasn't JUST a Disney vacation, we bought plenty of other beachy stickers as well.  And the dog and cat ones he needed for his regular scrapbook since we routinely scrap pictures of him and his dogs and cat, as well. :)

KMart Clearance Shopping

After trying all week to make it into Minot, I was finally able to get there yesterday.  Minot doesn't have a whole lot of choices for shopping, so we have to make due with what they have.  They don't have a single children's clothing store, and since my son is tall and skinny, I hate shopping online for him.  We buy most of his clothing from Old Navy and KMart as a result.  Last week with the 40% off clearance clothing sale, along with 50% off clearance toys, I knew we had to go.

We shop for Christmas and birthdays year round.  We usually end up "adopting" 2-3 kids to buy Christmas presents for, plus we buy other toys to donate as well.  And then of course, there's the stuff for my son, nieces, friends' kids, etc, and it looks like a toy factory exploded in my basement by the end of November. :)  We couldn't afford nearly as much as we donate if we didn't shop clearance all year round, so Kmart's 50% sale is one of our favorites.

Get a FREE 8x10 Photo Book ($19.99 value)

I was browsing today, and came across a coupon code for a free 8.5x11 Classic Photo book from Walgreens.  They have a bunch of different designs and a lot of different layouts as well.  The coupon code is CREATEBOOK.  If you live in the Las Vegas or New Orleans area, you can pick it up in store for even more savings.  Otherwise, shipping is $6.99.

I don't have any personal experience with this particular photo book, but the smaller, cheaper ones, I've ordered in the past have been nice, and they always do a good job on pictures as well, so I imagine these books would be high quality as well!

But hurry!  The code is only good through midnight tonight, July 9th!

Halfway Through the Year, How's the Debt?

I know I didn't go over a total amount of debt at the beginning of the year, but I have all the numbers saved on my computer.  At the beginning of the year, we had $75,769.96 in debt, including our house, our 2008 Uplander, student loans, and  credit card debt.  Now that the year is half over, we've actually added a little bit to our debt, and now stand at $77,942.00. The reason for that is that we built up our savings account a little bit to give us an emergency fund, and then we bought a second car (2005 Impala) since we're going to be needing it when Elliott starts school in the fall, since I plan on driving him every day.  We had planned on saving for a second car, and buying one that we could pay cash for, but we ultimately decided that since winter is COLD here, and I will be driving 17 miles each way twice a day, and my husband drives 20 miles each way to work, we should get one a little more reliable.  So we just put $2000 down on the Impala and financed the rest.