Decorating on a Budget

I feel that decorating on a budget can easily be done if you are patient and willing to wait for a deal. I'm not an expert by any means on decorating, but I thought I'd show you a simple way you can use deals to decorate your home.

My family got our picture(s) taken at church for the church directory for free. The photographer is awesome! He is so patient with families with little kids, and is willing to take as many as possible to catch the perfect photo. When he is finished, he downloads them to a CD and we can take them home. Did I say that he does this for free? What a guy!

So once we got home to look them over, they were hilarious! Only because our kids are stinkers and would not look at the camera at the same time. We found this set of photos to be so funny that we sent them out as Christmas cards, and now we've made a collage out of them. Won't the boys love this when they get older? The photo in the lower right-hand corner is of Pudge sneezing on me and Z-man laughing and my husband looking stunning as ever! So funny!

I had our photo printed through Snapfish and got a 11x14 poster size photo for only $1.99 (including shipping). Sweet, huh?

Then I used a Dollar General 50% off household goods coupon, and snagged this black frame for only $3!

That means that I only spent a total of $5 on this whole project! So, this proves that waiting for the right deal, your project will eventually come together in the end.

Grocery Shopping this Week = $44.90

We have $40/week in our budget for groceries. Lately it's been kind of difficult to stay within our budget, so each week I take out the overage from the next week.

Schnucks = $13.17

I was very excited to take my mom with on this shopping trip to Schnucks. She was impressed with the savings that I showed her. We scored 10 bags of Malt-O-Meal cereal for free! Thanks, mom, for helping watch the boys while we shopped! Also, thanks to Coupon STL for her post on deals at Schnucks.

Dollar General = $3.10

The chips were free with a coupon, and my husband has a new love for Tostitos Restaurant Style Salsa.

County Market = $10.67

Here I am just stocking up on items that we needed in our pantry. I only had coupons for the Bob Evans Sausage.

Big Lots = $16.06

I was excited to find a 10 lb. bag of flour for $3! I also stocked up on bread, each only $1.

This past week I spent $44.90 on groceries. In this total, I've included my overage from last week.

Winter Fun!

Looking for something simple and frugal to do with your kids in this never-ending winter? I found an idea in my Family Fun magazine, where you fill up squirt bottles with water and food coloring, and let them "paint" the snow!

We didn't have any squirt bottles on hand, so we stopped in our local Dollar General and they had some huge bottles for (you guessed it...) only a $1 each! I'm sure if you have some bottles lying around the house, this would be an even more frugal activity for your kids.

There has been snow in Illinois for the past 2 months, so we have had many clean canvas' for our squirt bottles for quite some time! The boys love it, and as long as we have gloves and a hat on, they could spend quite awhile outside.

Try it out and let me know what your kids think of this fun idea! Or better yet, share your winter ideas here!

Grocery Shopping this week = $53.62

If you ever need bread and are in Champaign, make sure you stop at Big Lots (the one located on Springfield) first! I went there on Monday and they had a whole cart full of bagels, buns, tons of bread!! The were only $1 a bag! Granted they do expire within a couple of days, but just throw them in the freezer and they will keep. I promised myself that I will never buy regular bread at the store now that I know Big Lots secret.

Big Lots and Dollar General = $ 10.04

County Market = $38.74

Lots of good in-store coupons that I used. If you bought 5 items of Knorr, then you got $2.50 off of meat. Each Knorr item was $1.

We love Mona's noodles, so I was excited to see that the tortellini and egg noodles were on sale this week.

Walgreens = $4.84

I had a manufacturer coupon for both the eggs and the Jello pudding.

Overall we try to stick with our $40 grocery budget, but this week I think I got a little excited about the bread at Big Lots. I spent a total of $53.62. Yikes! I'll be taking some of next weeks budget to cover this week.

Thanks for looking!

Grocery Shopping this week = $38.70

Each week we have $40 budgeted towards groceries. I like to post what I bought, because it keeps me accountable to our budget and also encourages people to spend less.

This week we just went to Dollar General and Meijer in Urbana.

Dollar General = $10.64

There is supposed to be another jar of Planters nuts, but my husband snagged them to take to work. So just imagine it being there. I had coupons for everything except the cheese.

Meijer = $28.06

I think this was my best run to Meijer in a long time. I had a huge stack of coupons, and my cashier was so nice and didn't question a single one (none of them beeped either!). So I was very happy about that.

The pasta was only $0.59 each after coupons. And the soup was only $0.50 each after coupons.

How did you do this week on grocery shopping? I'm trying to cut back even more now that the holidays are approaching.