Walgreens - how I love thee

So Frugalsuz had listed a great deal last week for Walgreens diapers.  Basically it worked out to 2 packs of diapers and 2 packs of wipes for $3.98.  Well you had to have 2 different coupons and of course I couldn't find them at any of my Walgreens and I was so annoyed.  Frugalsuz had found a couple extra books and graciously sent me one of the coupons I needed.  The best part of that coupon is that its a Walgreens one and it doesn't expire until December!  I decided to try one more Walgreens to look for the other coupon and low and behold I found 9 of them!!!  So I was able to get 9 packs of diapers and 9 packs of wipes for $16.00!  Two of the packs were on clearance for $4.xx a piece, so keep your eyes out for the different packaging.  It seemed to only be the size 5 ones in the dark green packages that were on clearance - and they weren't marked. I know some people reported finding the old white and red Walgreens packaging of diapers on clearance as well but I didn't find any of those.

I think I have enough 3's and 4's for the little one, so I've been gettind 5's and 6's now which I only have a few of.  The bottom of her closet is filled with diapers and on the top rack its all filled with wipes!  I'll post my RA trip from this morning later..

Randomness

So after a busy start to the year we went away for the weekend with my family up north.  It was great.  It was so beautiful up there and it was nice to not worry about anything for a bit.  Work has been busy, but I am glad to have a job! 

We're heading out to California next month, so I'm going to do a pantry challenge.  This will help me with my goal of making meal plans hahah!  We did nachos last night, we had pizza casserole tonight, tomorrow will be cordon bleu casserole in the crockpot, and then Thursday is a stir fry.  That's as far as I've gotten, so it's better then nothing!  Want to join me on the challenge?  I'd love any suggestions for recipes too, I've been trying a lot of new ones lately!  Leave a comment on your favorite!

I've still been working out 4 times a week, which is about the only goal I've been able to keep! 

I haven't been grocery shopping much which is nice on the budget, but I have been loving RA lately!  Although, I'm quite sick of them not having enough stock.  Either there is a serious shelf clearer or they suck at ordering enough stock.  But I hear the J&J baby items will be free next week, so I'm going to suck it up and get my caboose up early on Sunday to get those deals!! 

How have you been doing with your goals?  Join me for a pantry challenge, and let me know what you'll be making.

FAIL!

Okay so I could make up excuses all I want, but I am totally failing at my goals!  Obviously my time management is lacking so I'm hoping to improve on that!  I haven't even worked on my receipts from January and I've tried to keep all of them from February, but we'll see how that goes.  I think our grocery budget is done already for this month, or at least close because of our Superbowl party, but you know what, it was so worth it.  I think everyone had a great time and there was lots of good food!  You can't put a price on being with family and friends. 

With cleaning for the Superbowl party I wasn't able to do my daughters room.  I started putting clothes away that she has already grown out of, which is nuts, and that's as far as I got!  But in other good news, the rest of the house is clean still!  So it wasn't a total loss....

I'm hoping to get some stockpile pictures up here this week or next.  This is another busy week, and to top it all off my laptop isn't working at home so it limits my posting time too.  Hopefully I can get that in the shop this week! 

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has already failed at their new years goals!!

Pictures and some RA shopping!

Here are the before and after pictures of the basement. It doesn't look that much different but there were games and books out of place and all messy that were driving me insane. Plus its another reason for me to use my new Dyson. I LOVE that thing, its amazing.

This area is right when you walk into the basement.  The black shelf and white cupboards are part of my stockpile so I've just been dropping stuff in front of it to be put away.  There is also a box of photos and some scrapbooking stuff. 

The couch cover just laying on the ground (I hate putting this thing on).

This is the corner of my sons craft stuff and his toy box.  He just puts things on the toy box instead of putting them away. 

The cubbyhole you see above the bookshelves is where we put our extra fames, luggage, crafts and sleeping bags.  It doesn't look organized but I just organized it a couple of months ago.  We don't touch this part much so I didn't bother going through it again.  For some reason my son has a hard time putting books back how they were so he just puts them on top of the ones that are standing up, it drives me batty.

This is the game and toy corner.  We had most of his games stacked neatly into these little cubby boxes, but I think it's hard for him to restack them so they fit so he just puts them on the ground.

After photos

I stacked some of his games that won't fit in the cubbys on top of the toy box so he can see which games are which, and that couch cover makes it look so much better down there!

The books are all put back where they belong.

I emptied all of the stockpile bags and put everything where it belongs.  This always takes me the longest and is the most annoying part of stockpiling!  The white laundry basket that is in the picture holds the stockpiled dog treats so that anytime we are out my son or husband can easily find them.

The games are all put back nicely...we'll see how long that lasts!

I went to RA today to get all the freebies, and of course they were out of everything except the Stayfree pads.  It's so annoying, if they are going to have a sale they need to have the stock to back it up.  And its not even like this is the first time it's happened, it happens EVERY week.  And they only get a truck in once a week and the sale stuff isn't guaranteed to be on it.  Uggg, this is what I hate about RA!  Hoping with the snow that is coming today I'll have some time tonight or tomorrow to cut more coupons to be ready for the sale on Thursday in case they actually have some new stock in!!

For this week I am hoping to get my daughters room done.  I am SOOO embarassed to even post these pictures because it should never look like this and it's my fault!  I've just been going through her new and old clothes and she's been growing out of them like leaps and bounds.  Hopefully I can get that straightened up and keep it that way!  How is your room cleaning going???

Rrom 2 Done and some RA shopping!

Well this week it was my goal to get our basement cleaned up and organized.  Our basement is home to my son's toys, my stockpile and some miscellaneous stuff we just needed to put somewhere!  Last week was pretty hectic as everyone here got the flu so in all honesty I wasn't able to finish the basement until today...oops!  But at least its done.  I was going to post pictures but now the baby woke up so I can't, so I'll upload them tomorrow.

This week is a great week at Rite Aid - check out frugalsuzs blog on the right hand side to take a look at all of the great matchups including free dog treats, stayfree pads (great item to donate or if you know someone who is having a baby in the near future they could use these!), free edys ice cream and a bunch of other things!  I knew I should have sucked it up and went to RA early Sunday morning but I just didn't feel like it.  Instead we made a big breakfast and cleaned up the kitchen and then my mom came for dinner.  So of course when I went today all they had left was the Stayfree.  Oh well, I'll just try another store by work on lunch tomorrow - they usually have more stock anyways. I haven't had the chance to really look at the other ads yet but I think from what I remember Meijer has some decent stuff this week and Kroger's mega sale is extended this week as well.  I was able to pick up some cheap Kraft singles and Kens dressing! 

I think my favorite deal today was free batteries at Target!  Unfortunately, I didn't find out about this deal until the weekend and the coupon expired today, but it might be a good thing to know next time this coupon comes out!  At Target, in their dollar bins they sell Every Ready batteries and they are made by Energizer.  Energizer had a $1 off coupon  in one of the inserts and I was able to use that coupon on those batteries without any issues and only paid tax!  I bought 15 packs and paid .90.  Now these aren't the greatest batteries in the world but I'd rather pay next to nothing for them and throw them out quicker then pay big bucks for the better batteries.  They go perfect for my sons hand held games, especially on car rides!

Room 1 - Done!

Well this was an intesting week!  It was the LONGEST 4 day week of my life!  We started our bowling league on Thursday and that was pretty fun!  I had my graduation ceremony (whoo hoo all done) on Saturday and then our whole family went out to eat at a yumm restaurant.  It was a great time.  After we got home, my husband got the stomach flu so I was taking care of him Saturday and Sunday.  Then my son got the flu yesterday and it feels like I have it today...booo. 

Anyhow, I did complete my first room of cleaning/organizing/decluttering.  I got rid of 3 grocery bags of garbage that I didn't even know I had in there!  I also organized all my gift bags and Easter stuff, so now I know what I have!  This week I'm going to work on the basement.  Luckily, it's not too bad but I have stockpile stuff on the floor and just some odds and ends I'd like to tidy up. 

This week looks like a slow shopping week thank goodness.  There are some great deals on the Sinex at Walgreens and one of the drugstores has a money maker on the Maalox.  I'll post the deals on those later tonight.  For now, I'm going back to bed, but wanted to post that I did complete my goal of cleaning one room so far!

Holy clothes Batman!  It seems like ever since Christmas all I've been doing is laundry.  It doesn't help that our house is a quad and the laundry is at the very bottom floor and it needs to be hauled up to the very top floor!

 This is the corner of the laundry room where I have a stockpile of kleenex, toilet paper and laundry detergent on the floor. As you can see, it's gotten pretty messy!

This is behind the door and is just a mixture of party and holiday stuff.  Its been driving me nuts for a while because everytime I open or close the door something falls!

Here are the after pictures:

Everything is restacked nice and neat.  The cardboard box is holding the clothes that my son and daughter are out growing.  I usually put those away once a month.  The cardboard box is sitting on a rubbermaid box that hold items I want to sell at our annual sub sale in September.

Remember all those crazy clothes?  They are all put away now and I can see the floor!  The black bag hanging on the door there is all of our unmatched socks - I usually try to match these up once a month.

This is the back of the door now.  It doesn't look all that much different, but to me it is! 

New Year with New Goals

Happy New Year!  A little late, but none the less!  Last year was a very very busy year.  I finished up my Bachelors degree, and we had our second baby.  December seemed to fly by and January seems to be doing the same.  This year I've got a few goals that I'm going to try and tackle and hoping this blog can keep me somewhat accountable...if I keep up with it!

Goals

1.  Work out 3-4 times a week
2.  Declutter and organize the house - and keep it that way!
3.  Track all grocery/drugstore spending so I can see the totals at the end of the year
4.  Save as much as possible for vacations/Christmas/new stuff for the house/etc
5.  Donate whatever we don't use from the stockpile and our odds and ends
6.  Meal plan

Goal 1 -  So far 3 weeks into the new year I'm still doing good on this goal!  After I had the baby I actually weighed less then I did before I got pregnant, so I wanted to keep my weight the same.  We used to belong to Lifetime gym and we loved it, but when we were looking for a house we decided to cut all unnecessary expenses and that was one of them.  We decided to join again and love it so much.  They have a great childcare room for our kids and it allows us to workout together to keep us both motiviated.  I also do pilates classes at the gym on Saturday's....so far so good!

Goal 2 -  Ehhhh, we're getting there.  After Christmas and all that, our house looked like an absolute disaster zone.  It was filthy, there were toys everywhere, unopened presents, clothes, dishes, boxes, everything everywhere!  We are finally getting it back to clean, but we want to purge the stuff we aren't using and make better use of the space we have.  I'm planning on working on one room a week to get it purged and organized.  I know it sounds like a lot of time for one room, but for me it's what will work since I work and like to spend time with the family when I get home from work.  Needless to say, cleaning and organizing takes a back burner to everything else.

Goal 3 -  2 years ago I had a great spreadsheet that I tracked all my grocery/drugstore purchases but my flash drive got formatted before the end of the year and I lost everything!  So this year I'm going to try it again, but there have been such fabulous deals at Rite Aid that my receipts are ALL over the house, purse and car.  So I'm hoping to get those all organized and put together this week and then enter in all the receipts the same day.  We'll see how it goes. 

Goal 4- At the end of the month whatever money is left over from the month will go right into our savings.  Currently we put away $100 a month for vacation and $80 a month for Christmas gifts.  Last year we slacked BIG time on putting the $80 away a month for Christmas, and I'm bound and determined to not make that mistake again.  So I'm trying to pay all bills as soon as I get paid and make sure we put money away for gifts and only then can we spend on "other stuff". 

Goal 5 - We usually donate between 2-4 times a year to Purple Heart or a women and childrens shelter.  We made a big donation to Purple Heart in November and I have a big Rubbermaid tote of stuff to take to the shelter.  Hopefully we can do that this week or next, but right now the box is just sitting in our kitchen driving us both nutty. 

Goal 6 - I've seen everyone meal planning a lot lately and when I've been able to do it it does wonders.  Meal planning takes the guess work out of wondering what's for dinner when I get home and trying to throw something together.  It helps us from just ordering out because we're too lazy or there isn't any meat thawed out.  I've been doing it on and off, I don't know that I could do a whole week's worth of menus, but even if I do a couple of days it helps me out.  Its all about doing what works for you.  Tonight we are having smoked sausage and macaroni mixed with broccoli.  I know I'd like to make a stuffed cabbage casserole this week so I just need to stop and get the cabbage - might do that for tomorrow night.  I think I'll just make a weeks work of meal ideas I'd like to do and just make sure we have those items on hand for the most part and see where it takes me. 

I'll be keeping you updated on these goals at the end of each month.  I got back into couponing big time since I've been back at work (there are all the stores  I need right by work so I hit them on lunchtime) so I'll be posting my deals and pictures of the goodies I've gotten again!  I get most of my deals from Frugalsuz - she's on the blog roll to the right - she does a fantastic job of outlining the deals and what coupons go with them.  Well the baby is sleeping so I need to catch up on some laundry.  This week I'm tackling the laundry room!