4 Sweet Sisters

I've used coupons here and there ever since we've had children. As I mentioned before we do most of our shopping through co-ops and warehouse stores, but there are some things I just can't get there or I have to buy to much of said item. That's were coupons come into play. With coupons, sale prices and BOGOs sometimes its a better deal at my neighborhood grocery store. Last week I had the privilege of attending a free True Couponing seminar. It was wonderful timing with our buying club taking a break for the whole summer! Basically I learned that I need to be getting more papers so that I have more coupons to work with. I don't have the time or inclination to go dumpster hunting for extra coupons, so having extra papers delivered to my door step at 50 cents a piece is a much better option for me. I also learned a super easy way to store these piles of paper. I had all the needed supplies to make my storage unit an immediate success ! That's one of the things ...

Before I show you my beautiful (boring) pictures of my Mini- Pantry I wanted to to share Frugal Failure #2. Yes, two in 1 week.....sigh......... stop by here to read one . Last Thursday night we took School Girl out for a special Dad and Mom dinner and a movie. I was so excited because I had a gift card for the restaurant she wanted to go to and the movie was only $4! Yep, I was pretty pleased with myself. We went to Chili's and ordered the 2 for $20 meal plus a meal for Superman. They proceeded to have a "who could eat the most salsa and not cry" contest while I basked in the glow of my frugal accomplishment. Dinner was yummy ( i walked that day). School Girl received her family ring that night and we enjoyed our desert; brownies, ice cream and chocolate. The waiter asked if we needed anything else and gave Superman the bill. I whipped open my gift card envelope, brought forth the golden card and handed it to my adoring Husband. He looks at the card then turned it ove...

Has anyone else had a Frugal Failure out there? Well, we sure did! Despite all my best efforts and preplanning I still went over budget for the holiday season. Hmmmmmmmm .( Truthfully, I think we do every year, but we take it out of short term savings and pretend it never happened. ) Well not this year! Nope. We are going to buckle down and eat from our Pantry. The one that I, the Chickadees and Superman have created this past year. I've been meaning to post about this project and have even started posts and then things have come up that needed more attention. Well now is the time! Aren't you excited? I'm always up for a challenge. I thrive on them (most of the time). My goal is to eat out of our pantry, freezer and grain storage for at least two weeks. I do have moo la for produce and milk. I think the hardest part will be skipping the BOGO's and seeing things get depleted ... I like this little safety net we've created, but I think we should see it in u...

Yippee! It's time to talk money. In December or a bit earlier of 2007 we decided we wanted to become debt free. So in Jan '08 we started. We ended up getting to take the Dave R. course that Jan. Great timing. What a interesting journey this past year has been. We had to refund our emergency fund 4 times , due to dental problems! We stayed on budget and didn't rack up any more debt than we alredady had. We also were able to pay down about a third of the debt. We put our home up for sale. But even with an ELP on our side it didn't sell. FL's market is flooded with foreclosures. But we did what we felt we were called to do. So for now our plans of more land and country are on hold. This Year: -Make a little over minimum payment to debt each month. -Sock all extra money into EF to get it up to 6 months (not sure about Superman's job this year- if all goes well we will pay off debt and start working on refunding the EF ) -Save all the extras I can towards a new...