Don't forget! Baskin Robbin's Tonight!

Don't forget (if you haven't heard yet) Baskin' Robbin's is having their $0.31 scoop sale/fundraiser tonight. There is a limit of 3 scoops, so load them up! Last year we only got 1 scoop the first time and then went in line again and they said there was a limit of only one time in line. Boo. Anyway, the event takes place tonight, Wednesday, from 5-10pm.

Here's some pictures of us last year at the same event. Look how little our boys are!

Garage Sale Findings

It's taken me awhile to post these photos from this past weekend. The garage sales were kinda a flop (at least the ones I went to). So not much to post, but here's what I found:

These are a conglomeration of items from a FCA Sale and a Book Sale at our library. The plates and cups were a combined total of $1. The books were $1.50.

I'm on the lookout for 4T winter clothing for my eldest son, Z-man,

so I found a couple of items for him.

This very heavy sweatshirt (from Children's Place) cost me $1.

Another shirt from Osh Kosh, cost $0.50.

Now this interesting piece cost me $0.50. It's a dress that is a size 2, and knowing that I probably won't ever fit into it, I picked it up for other reasons. I have a plan for it, but I don't want to spoil it, until I finish it. Any thoughts?

My favorite deal of last week!

I wanted to share with you my favorite deal of last week. I had heard about that hot $10 off $10 coupon from Aeropostale, and printed it off in case I was in the neighborhood. Luckily, my husband came with us on a family outing and I got to sneak away for 3o minutes to shop. Here's what I came out with:

I've been on the lookout for a purse/bag that I can use in place of our diaper bag. Our boys are getting too old to be carrying around a diaper bag for, so this is what I've found. It was originally $29.50, but it was on sale for $8.50.

I've been also looking for a larger wallet for all my money! Haha, yeah right! So this cute little wallet was originally $14.50, and it was on clearance for $3.50!

So with my $10 off $10 purchase, my total came up to $1.60! Can you believe that!! I was so excited!! Just curious, did you print off that coupon? If so, what did you get?

Garden Update

Well, our garden is officially underway! Yea! I can't tell you how much of a burden is lifted off of my shoulders knowing that our plants will make it! I want to give a great big shout out to my husband who finished pulling up the rocks this past week. He had some great techniques in getting all those rocks out from under the dirt.

Here are some photos to see what we've been up to in our garden.

As you can see, our boys LOVED the fact that they had a new place to play in. They promptly brought over every digger, excavator, train, and truck that they could find to bury them in the dirt! What fun! Meanwhile, mom and dad are hard at work getting those rocks out of the garden.

This picture was taken a couple weeks ago. As you can see, the boys are still playing!

Here my husband is trying to figure out if we have enough dirt to fill in the garden. We thought we could scrounge up some free dirt somewhere, but we eventually caved in and bought some dirt. Last week, Meijer had a great deal on a 40 lb. bag of topsoil for only $1.16! So we got 10 bags!!

Freshly laid topsoil! Doesn't it look good enough to eat??

While my husband was working on the garden, the boys and I worked on transplanting our seedlings to bigger pots for the time being. Lots of Cherry Tomato plants and Green Peppers!

And a couple of Green Bean plants! Check out this one we started from seed! It's already got a couple beans on it!! Yea!!

Pictured below is a section of our yard that we decided to plant Peas in. I think they will grow great right there by the fence where they can climb all they want! Our boys LOVE peas, so they will be so excited when they start to sprout.

Here is Z-man and I taking time out for a quick photo:

See if you can find the Pumpkin plant among all my perennials?

Here are some more Cherry Tomatoes in our actual garden! And you probably can't see the green onions at the top right, but they're there! I've never grown them before, so we'll see how they grow.

Also, we have some zuchinni and another pumpkin plant growing.
So, here it is folks! Feel free to stop by whenever in the summer time for some cherry tomatoes! We're sure to have alot!

$10 off $10 Coupon: Aeropostale

Just found out from Money Saving Mom that there is a new $10 off a $10 purchase at Aeropostale. The coupon is valid from 4/23 - 4/25, so hurry out and pick up some free items!

Click here to print out the email with the coupon attached.

I just thought I'd share some personal videos of my little man, who is getting smarter, braver, and more fun everyday!

And here he is as a little daredevil who is being egged on by his father. Boys will be boys, I guess!

Grocery shopping this week

I've been feeling a little bit under the weather this week, so Pudge and I just ventured to County Market and Aldi this week. Since we were under budget last week, we had $9.10 wiggle room for this week.

We got a ton of fruit, which is great with this weather, when you just want to have a little bowl of fruit salad.

The picture above is from Aldi's where we got a ton of food for a great price. Total spent here was $34.07.

Pictured below is our trip to County Market where the deals were few and far between. I was excited to pick up some grill seasonings for $0.25/packet, thanks to some coupons. The cans of beans were 2/$1! I also picked up a packet of spinach seeds for our garden.

Total spent for this week: $45.28. Did you get any great deals at your grocery store this week?

Grocery shopping this week

Let me begin by saying that we have some great neighbors! The above picture of food was all given to us for free by our neighbor who works for Kraft. I guess that they have certain times of the month where they can get new items on the market for super cheap. So in exchange for these free items, I gave them some of our banana bread. Aren't I sneaky that way?

The items pictured above are from Walgreens. I paid $5 for these items. Not too bad! I grabbed some sunflower seeds to put in our homemade granola bars that I hope we can make later this week. By the way, those chips are SO good! Pudge and Z-man and I almost polished off one bag tonight on our walk!

The items pictured above are from Target. I spent $2 for all those cans of corn! What a deal! Thanks to Totally Target for the heads up on that one! We were running low on vitamins and the Shout packets were for a rebate moneymaker!

The items pictured above are from County Market. All those 3M sponges were free! They were on sale this week for $1 and combined with this coupon, they were free. (It looks like the company has changed this coupon to $1 off 2 now, so it's still a pretty good deal if your store doubles coupons.) Total spent for the above items = $9.41.

The items pictured above are from Meijer. I usually don't go to Meijer because it's all the way on the other side of town, but they were having a $1 sale on their pasta. I had been stocking up on these coupons from Smart Taste. Alot of the coupons were $0.75 off, making each box $0.25! (And we needed pasta bad!) Strawberries were $1/lb. Total spent here = $7.47.

These items above were also from Target. They aren't really grocery items, but I wanted to show you how you can get stuff for really cheap when you have lots of coupons. And I'm also sending in for a rebate on these items, which will make them a money-maker! Thanks to Common Sense With Money for the deal. Total spent here = $0.98 for all!

Total spent this week on groceries was = $30.90. (Stayed within our $40/week grocery budget again!)

New Books at our Library

Have you heard of these new books by The Berenstain Bears?

I thought it would be fun to post on some great books that I found at our library this week. They were in the *new* section of our library, so that should give you a place to start if you want to search for them at your own library.

I've been trying to find a little bit more lengthy books to read for our 3 and 2 year old boys. They seem to be much more interested in longer stories now-a-days. Which is great!! I'm actually kind of tired of all the short board books with one word on each page.

So off I ventured to find some of these types of books. I found that The Berenstain Bears have a new series out now with a religious theme to them! I didn't even know it until I started reading one to Pudge. I was a little shocked to read the name Jesus in the book! After reading these a couple time to our boys, I was hooked. If you notice at the top of the book, these books are in a series called Living Lights. (Just in case you needed more information when looking them up at your library).

Grocery Shopping This Week

Pudge and I just finished up the grocery shopping for the week. Our total spent was (drum roll please!) = $39.66! Woo-hoo!

First up is Walgreens. I heard about a buy one, get one free Tropicana coupon through Money Saving Mom, so I hooked those up! Total spent for all 4 was $2.18. I used some Register Rewards to sweeten the deal. If you haven't signed up for Tropicana's Juicy Rewards system, click here.


Next up is Schnucks. They have a great deal going on now with Planter's Trail Mix. They are priced at $1 and next to the kiosk is a pull of coupon for Buy 2 get $1 off, making each package $0.50. Total spent here was $11.69.

County Market had a good deal on ground beef, $1.88/lb. So we snagged a family pack of that. Looks like we'll be having taco's tonight!

Last, but not least, is our stop at IGA. There weren't too many deals to be had here, so we just picked up some fruit and some cheap ice cream ($2.29).


So, all in all, it was a good week because I stayed under budget. Other than that, not too many screaming deals to be had. How did your shopping go this week?

Fun Learning Game

The weather has been so nice outside lately, that I'm trying to find more activities to play with my kids outside. I read recently in a Family Fun magazine that a mom made up this game to play with her kids. It sounded like a fun game to me! And also a learning game as well.

All you need is some chalk and a smooth surface outside! The point of the game is to have the kids step off the letters to begin, and then call out a letter, and the kids have to run to find the letter, and then stand on it. This helps the kids learn their alphabet! Sweet and simple!

Since I have two boys who seem to always want their "own" thing, I figured that I would draw a Capitol and Lowercase of each letter. This way when I call out a letter, there is one for each of them. Smart, I know! And since my kids are still little, this game will be perfect for them. I can't wait to try it out when they wake up from their nap!

Grocery shopping this week = $41.93

Another great week of grocery shopping! I can't believe that I'm staying within my budget for groceries. It's taken awhile to get a hang of it, but it's been reassuring that I've been able to stay within our budget.

Here's where we went this week and how much each grocery picture cost.

Below's the picture from Target, paid with gift card, total = $1.

Below is from County Market. They had another pamphlet of in-store coupons, which I matched with Manufacturer coupons. Total spent = $16.81.

Pictured below is a couple different trips to Schnucks, (because I had the wrong sale ad I was basing by coupons off, so I went back later on). Total spent = $10.92.

The Snuggle Fabric sheets were free because of a $3 off coupon in 3/28 Sunday's coupon insert.

Pictured below is my trip to IGA. Total spent = $14.20.

Total spent on all pictured above: $41.93.

Thanks for looking, I'd love to hear about all your deals this week. Happy shopping!