Friday, November 15, 2013

Frugal Friday With Marsha 11/15/13



Another part of my frugal life that I have let slide to the back burner is my coupon usage.
I have been working the past few days on getting binder back in order.

First thing was to take out the expired coupons.  They went back to September!
I have weeks and weeks worth of Sunday coupon inserts to cut as well as coupons I have printed, coupons that have come in the mail, and coupons from magazines.

In fact, here is a picture of my pile before I started:




Hubby and I have run into a financial situation where it's been that we've only had a little to spend at the store and had to buy what we could, when we could.
Yesterday is an example.  I had $13 to spend.
I ended up buying 4 apples, garlic bread, Cheerios, 2 bottles of Dr. Pepper, 3 Nissin Noodles, butter, eggs, and toilet paper.   I paid $12.82.
I did have a $1 coupon for the butter, a $1 coupon for the noodles, and a store coupon to get the Cheerios free.
I did have hubby pick up a gallon of milk on his way home from work.

I worked Wednesday cutting and putting coupons into my binder once I got all the expired coupons out.
Yesterday I started just looking through the coupons and cutting mostly just the ones that I think I might use.

I went to the Deal Detecting Diva blog and checked off items from the sale that I hope to buy and printed out my list.  I also printed out some more coupons.
Today I still have to finish looking through a few more inserts.
I do plan on shopping this evening.

With all of this said, I want to note how thankful we have been for my prior coupon shopping and my stocking up when I could.  So many times we've had to just buy a few things to have complete meals for the week using foods from my stockpile.
No, I've never had anything close to a stock of what you see on the Extreme Couponing show.

I do still have 10 cans or Ro-Tel in the cabinet.  This is after what we have used as well as I just donated several cans of it to the food bank.
We used a can of it in this supper:
What's for Supper? Mexican Goulash - News - Bubblews  
It was a hit!

Three things happened that have taken away my couponing motivation:
1.  Our newspaper lost it's contract with Smart Source.  This means we have to buy the Wichita paper to get that insert----and means that I can't go to our newspaper office to buy 5 Sunday papers for $6 and get lots of coupons.   I have done that once in the last 8 or 9 months when there were a few good coupons in the Red Plum that I wanted more of.

2.  My friend that was picking up 30 or 40 Sunday papers free, and sharing the inserts with me and another friend, lost her source.  Not only did I no longer have a stack of coupons, but no longer were the 3 of us meeting to cut coupons and chit chat.

3.  Our store stopped doubling coupons.  This was back in August.  I am still having a hard time with this one.  It really means no more free thanks to a double, and I still look at a .50 coupon and think $1, or a .25 coupon and think .50.


I appreciate any and all frugal/simple living posts that you will link up this week!  If you have posted about shopping trips, please do link those up and keep me motivated.  Thanks!







Thursday, November 14, 2013

Squidoo Hopping 11/14/13


Happy Thursday!

Thanks so much to those of you who linked up last week.  It was fun getting back into the swing of things.

I didn't get as much done in squidoo as I would have liked to have, but I did spend quite a bit of time.  This week will be even better.
I did get to one of the 11 lenses that I hadn't dwindled down the amazon links on yet.  It's hard to pick and choose on some of those on what products you want to stay and which ones you want to get rid of.

I still haven't tried the new formats yet, but I have a plan for using all 3 of them.

Is there any new squidoo news that we need to know?







Wednesday, November 13, 2013

WIP Wednesday 11/13/13

I have been busy in my craft room this week with lots of sewing.  I would bet I've not done as much sewing as I've done in the past 6 days as I've done in the last 6 months total!

First off, as I went through some of the blogs shared in the linky's I ran across a QAL.
It's a Penny Patch quilt a long.  I decided, hey, I can do this!   You can find all the information at:  http://www.stitchedincolor.com/2013/10/penny-patch-beginners-quilt-along.html 

I am not caught up, but happy with my progress.  I have my 12 blocks completed that include my "pop" color of yellow.
I also have all of my 2 inch squares ready to be sewn for the rest of the penny patch blocks.

 At the monthly sit n' sew evening at the quilt shop I have spent the last 4 months sewing together these rectangle pieces into blocks.  I finally finished what was in the box.  I ended up with 130 blocks.  They are all squared up now and ready to be sewn into something.  I am thinking a couple of lap quilts.
 I am still working on the log cabin blocks as well.   I do have 4 done and put together.  Only 12 more to go to finish the top of my wall hanging.

I have still been working on the same quilt tops now at the monthly sewing club at church.  I did finish the first top.  Actually these blocks were to be all one top.  We give these quilts to the Domestic Violence Center and we decided to make these into 2 quilts instead of 1 huge one.
 This is what was to be the center of the quilt and now it's own top:
 These smaller blocks were to go all around the outside, but I am now making them into their own quilt top.  I am going to use the quilt as you go method.
 

 Last but not least for this week is the toothbrush rug that I am working on.

I am linking up with the following blogs:
WIP Wednesday at Freshly PiecedWIPs on Wednesdays

Penny Patch Quilt-Along
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