Tightwad Tuesday: "One Man's Trash" (alternately titled: Oh no she didn't!)

I don't clip coupons.

Let me rephrase that. I didn't clip coupons.

Ok, well, I USED to clip coupons, and then I had a colicy infant, and couponing just didn't hit a high enough priority rating for me to actually take the time to do it.

Also, I save a TON by admatching around town at my local bottom-of-the-barrel grocer. It seems to me that the majority of people who use coupons actually end up spending more than they naturally would, and so I stayed away from them all together. We've maintained the mentality that it's better on our wallet to "do without" something than it is to buy it at a discount. Obviously, something purchased at a discount is more expensive than not buying it in the first place.

So, in December of 2009 I canceled our newspaper subscription. My wonderful neighbor agreed to let me have the grocery circulor's from her paper which made it a pretty good set-up. After all, it had been months by then since I'd even clipped a coupon from our Sunday paper and, although it cost us only $52/year, I wasn't making that back in coupons alone.

aaaaaaaaanyway...

I have two friends in particular that are incredible couponers. I am exhausted when I think of all the work they do rounding up deals. They are both careful to match up ads, with coupons, and only to buy what they ordinarily would - often forgoeing even the greatest of deals if it would mean a dollar wasted on something that isn't necessary to buy. I have a lot to learn from these two - but one tidbit I learned this past week was put into practice immediately.

I can't believe I'm about to admit this...

On monday after playgroup I made a stop on the way home. Not at a store, not for lunch. No, I stopped at my local recycling center. Not to deliver my recyclables, no. Wait for it... To dumpster dive for coupons. No joke.

And it was easier than I ever imagined possible. There were three bins for newspapers, each stuffed to the brim with nothing but clean (some untouched) papers. With ease I rifled through them to find the prized Sunday papers and their coupons therein. Ten short minutes (and a few awkward glances from passers by) later I was back in my car, with a content snack-clutching toddler, and a large stack of Sunday coupon inserts. Multiples of the same one even.

It wasn't until I arrived home that I realized the bounty of my find. Although there was a mass of coupons I'll never use (for items I couldn't imagine leaving a store with unless they were down right FREE), my 10 minutes of diving time yielded me coupons for multiple commodities that we regularly purchase - items I consistently wait on sales for to purchase in bulk. Coffee, mayo, creamer, cheese, sugar, toothpaste... and the list goes on.

Now, here's the tricky part. They all have expiration dates. Duh. And because I'm NOT ABOUT to use a coupon on an item whose generic alternative I could purchase for less, I must wait until a deal comes around. That's where a few of my favorite blogs come in handy - these blog writers are excellent at scouting out combinations which lead to nearly free products. It boggles my mind. Really.

So if you ever see my red Forester parked out by the recycling center - give me a kind glance and not one that reeks of "Oh no she isn't!". I'll be sure to shoot you the same glance in return when you join me in the bounty of One Man's Trash.

Biting off...

...more than I can chew?

That, we shall see. This week/weekend I have the pleasure of taking care of Levi's best friend (or partner in crime, however you want to look at it). Now, I watch this little dude during the day all the time. His mommy does the same for Levi. We trade date nights weekly. These two boys know eachothers* homes inside and out... except when it comes to sleeping.

*yes, I know, it's not a word. but it fits so well, I had to.

You see, while I find myself perfectly competent shuffling these two-under-two around aaaalllll day long, feeding them, playing fun games, and making sure they don't poke eachothers* eyes out (because trust me, they've tried), I have NO IDEA how to deal with two toddlers during the wee hours of the night.

Oh, I know what you're thinking. "they're nearly two-years-old. The simply MUST sleep through the night, right?" well, the answer to that is yes, mostly. but you see Levi's poor little friend knows something is up. In fact, Levi knows something is up too, and if you're a mother you KNOW that when your kid knows something is different, or about to happen, it eats away at their sleep. Both naps, and night sleep suffer. And can you blame them? Change is hard on little bodies and although it may not be obvious during the day while these two are playing, I'm certain both of their reactions to change will come out of the closet at night, at least to some degree.

So, I'm trying to cover all my bases, and I'd surely appreciate any advice you have.

These two are in cribs in separate rooms. Each room has a sound machine in it. Between the two rooms (in the hallway) I've placed a box fan, on HIGH. Why am I going to all this trouble? Simply put, because I don't plan on running in at the first whimper from either of them, and I don't want them to wake each other up. Our house is petite, and there is no insulation between the walls, so I need to make as much white noise as I can.

Oh, and I have a video monitor on each of their cribs. NOW I'm glad I got that second camera!

Advice please?!

Bragging rights

Ordinarily I have none - Levi takes all our family's aloted bragging rights for his own.

This week, however, thanks to these wonderful blogging ladies who scope out fantastic grocery deals all over the city (matching great deals with coupons and ad-matches), I have a bounty of bragging to do.

The picture below is what I picked up at Hy-Vee this morning.

I spent a total of $14.30

Now I understand that, in itself, isn't very impressive - mostly because $14.30 is a rather high number and it is difficult to assess the value of the items above just by looking at them, so I'll put this into perspective a couple different ways, and then I'll explain how I did it.

• These ten boxes of cereal and four gallons of milk would ordinarily have cost $46.83 at Hy-Vee.
• The four gallons worth of whole milk alone would have come to $14.00 (costing at least $3.50/ea)
• I saved just over 69% on my entire purchase

I can't claim any credit for my outstanding savings today - as I mentioned earlier, these ladies did all the work for me. Essentially, I took advantage of an already great deal on Kellogg's cereal (only certain varieties, and only certain sizes were included) at Hy-Vee, and the ongoing deal they have with Kellog (buy 3 boxes of cereal, get one gallon of milk free!). I also used a few manufacturer's coupons found on the Kellogg website.

There was only one other thing that made this deal sweeter than sweet. By dividing my 10-box purchase up into 3 transactions, I earned three gallons of milk. Hy-vee will allow you to choose any milk (even rice or soy) up to a value of $3.50. So, essentially, I had $10.50 in "free milk" to play with. Lucky me, half gallons of milk were on sale for $1.28 each, so I was allowed to take EIGHT of them home (totaling 4 gallons instead of three) for the alloted $10.50 in "free milk".

Whew. Did you follow that? I'm not even sure I did.

All that said, I could have run off with even a better deal if I hadn't been a wee bit picky about the cereal varieties I wanted. Apparently Kellogg has an ongoing offer for a $10 visa gift card when you buy 10 boxes off a certain list of cereals. I wasn't particularly keen on the list of cereals, and none of them were part of the Hy-Vee sale, so (knowing my own perpensity to FORGET to mail in those mail-in rebates) I ditched that idea.

How about you, any steals worth bragging about?

Breaking the Silence

I have never much liked roller-coasters.

Maybe its that I'm not too thrilled with big thrills - but mostly, I think it's a matter of fact that I totally dislike the feeling of my stomach residing somewhere between my throat and lips.

But this past three wees - what a roller-coaster they've been.

Up until Sunday, the 13th of March I would have plainly told you that I've lived 28 years with few disappointing moments. There have been few (if any) times I've felt the bottom drop out of my life, so to speak. Of course, there have been moments of doubt, of longing, of fear - but few disappointments. I've felt (and been outspoken about feeling) very blessed - blessed almost to the point of wondering when something big and ugly is going to happen. Because God works like that, right? Blessing, blessing, blessing, SMITING! (wrong, but that's how it feels sometimes)

...If you aren't in the mood for things to get ugly, this is the place you need to stop reading. I'm not saying that as some clever ploy so that you'll keep reading, I'm saying that because I don't want to ruin your day. I could just not write about this at all, but something inside of me feels compelled to do so before I am able to move on from it and return to the petty details of things like making yogurt, and jam, and washing diapers.

Last Sunday morning I faced one of my worst fears. Head on. An in a split second my reality - my newly formed identity - was washed away. The tears that followed were only a foreshadowing of the tears that were to come as I came to the quick realization that the baby I had carried for nearly six weeks was no longer mine to carry.

I crumbled to the bathroom floor. I melted. the reality of losing that baby was heavier than I ever could have imagined. And the deep, red, physical reminder of what was happening at that very moment was numbing.

Although I had given lip service, many times, to the notion that so many pregnancies fail prior to the 12th week, (it would take me many sets of hands to count the number of friends I have who've gone through this very horror) nothing could have prepared me or otherwise desensitized me to my new reality. It's one thing to acknowledge that miscarriage "happens", it's quite another to experience it. The physical pain pales in comparison to the emotional heartache - to the soul drenching grief that follows it.

To those of you who are wondering what to say, I'll offer you this:

Yes, if it was going to happen at all, I'm glad it happened this early on

Yes, I'm glad we hadn't yet told very many people about our pregnancy

Yes, I'm so happy I already have a beautiful, thriving, nursing, son

Yes, I know that everything happens for a reason

Yes, I understand time will bring healing

And I know, you probably "don't really know what to say"

Neither do I.

And so I think I will stay quiet on this issue for the time being - until some light bulb goes off in the center of my soul and I am allowed to see WHY things like this happen - or at least until I feel like I have a normal body again.

In the mean time I would appreciate it if you stayed quiet on the issue as well. Your kind words mean a lot, but I don't really want to be reminded about this any more than I have to be. Not that I'm trying to brush it under the carpet (quite the contrary) but more that, in order to maintain some level of sanity, I need to re-focus on the joys of life instead of the awful ugliness and total devastation that I wish never to experience again.

And in that vein - the joy that surrounds me - I think it's high time I begin posting about what we Nebraskans have been up to. simple things, like yogurt, and jam, and diapers - and Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.

Taking a bit of a blogging hiatus. I'll go into the "why" at a later date. It's been a long and trialsome week+ around here and I am in desperate need of space and time to sort out all the details.

Amid the storm I am forever grateful that I serve a God whose sovereignty does not waver despite the most difficult of circumstances.

Cheeseball, ham, and strawberry jam

So lately, this is what I get when I say "Hey Levi, Smile for Mommy"

Cheeseball...

And this is what I got the other day when I told him he could pick out *one* "friend" to take to the grocery store with us. In his hands are "whitie", "bluie", and "Max". And he holds in his mouth a woefully empty packet of applesauce (or other fruit/veggie puree) given to him by his friend Sam's mom.

Ham...

And this is what I made the other day when I discovered we were out of (husband's favorite) whipped cream cheese. I (wait for it) actually whipped some regular old (cheapo-pulled-out-of-my-freezer-from-when-it-went-on-sale-for-.49-per-block) cream cheese. Turns out, all they put in that little tub is regular cream cheese, with air. Go figure.

And then I added some of my strawberry jam.

Presto chango, strawberry cream cheese.

In other news, we did end up purchasing the video baby monitor I was talking about. I NEVER thought I would one one. Wait, let me re-phrase that. I told myself I would NEVER "waste" my money on something so obviously trivial and unnecessary. *blush*. If you can't hear me from wherever you happen to be, I'm singing a new tune now.

We went with this one, and also got a second camera for whenever we end up needing it. The system supports 4 total. In brief, I love the darn thing. It's not that I think Levi needs to be watched every sleeping moment, but it sure is nice (during naptime especially) to hear a bump above me and be able to look at the screen and see him roll over and drift back off. My only complaint is that the system interferes with our wireless router (which is, admittedly, coming up on 10 years old). I've managed to circumvent the issue, but eventually we may just need to upgrade our router.

Meanwhile, I'm drafting a well-earned thank-you note to my grandfather (photos included) without whose Birthday gift none of this would have been possible/prudent.

Confessions of a tightwad

• This week I purchased a 50lb bag of quick oats because they went on sale for $0.56/lb. My husband thinks I'm crazy, who am I to argue?
• Completely contrary to my thrifty purchase, I am also looking into the possibility of purchasing one of these. Go ahead, roll your eyes. You know you want to. But really, you don't know how cool they are until one well meaning friend lets you borrow theirs. And then, presto chango, you're hooked.
• I have spent the past 5 years of my married life purchasing laundry detergent without having a SINGLE CLUE that it was so easy to make. And how cheap! And make it I will. I got a few recipes here (it's the duggar family's website)
• As of my last count (last week, when they went on sale for $0.99/ea) I have 52 one-pound chubs of lean ground turkey in my deep freezer. One of my dear friend's assures me that in the case of nuclear fall-out, she will be headed to my house for shelter and sustenance.
• My son, yes, my delightful almost-two-year-old, is STILL NAPPING. There, now I've likely jinxed myself It has been 3 hours.
• I e-filed our taxes the 3rd of Feb. My refund has not yet arrived. I am grouchy - so grouchy about this that I have in fact changed our witholding status such that we will recieve very little of a refund next year. I am SO SICK of the government holding on to well over $3,000 of our money when we could be earning interest on it throughout the year OURSELVES. Hmph.
• This week I spent $15.00 at the grocery store on fresh produce alone. I can't help myself. Sometimes, fresh cauliflower, brussles sprouts, broccoli, and peppers call to me in my sleep. If we ever decide to religiously follow a local food movement, I'm hosed, because I'm reasonably sure nobody in Nebraska grows mangos.
• If we go through yogurt any faster in this house I am going to write a book titled "How to go through a half gallon of yogurt in less than a week". It's outrageous. It rivals our banana complex. At least it's cheap to make, that's what I keep telling myself.
• Gas prices have doubled here in the last two weeks. Don't I live in the Mid-west? Arent things supposed to be cheaper here? Try 3.59/g. So, I tried to walk to the library with my son a few days ago. Epic fail. please note, you really shouldn't take your toddlers for walks in sub-zero temps. Without gloves. Enough said.

Naturally, my prediction was correct, and my toddler is awake.

Cheerio. (or, if you're me, oatmeal)