tonyandkirsten.org

While the month of October isn’t quite over, our “home preschool month” is pretty much done.  Madeline is spending a couple days this week at Grandma Karen’s house, and then we’ll be busy with Halloween activities the rest of the week – baking and decorating pumpkin and leaf-shaped sugar cookies, going to a “trick or treat with the seniors” event at a nearby retirement home, attending a costume party put on by my MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) group, and probably making some pumpkin-themed crafts.

At the end of last month, we were just starting to dabble in some “learning to read” programs on the computer.  After doing free trials of Headsprout and Reading Eggs, as well as checking out some CD-based reading/phonics programs from the library, we decided to have Madeline continue on with Reading Eggs past the two week free trial.

Headsprout was a great program (at least for the three episodes Madeline got to try), but it was pretty spendy – it would cost about $80 to purchase just the first half of the program.  The CD-based options from the library were pretty junky and not very helpful.  Madeline completed about 10 lessons of Reading Eggs in her two week trial, and seemed to be learning a lot and enjoying the process.  Buying a six month subscription cost $35, and we decided this was worthwhile since she would likely finish the entire program in that length of time.  While in some ways I would have rather spent that $35 on something we could have used over and over again, there is something to be said for paying for something that your child really enjoys in the learning process.

Madeline’s desire to learn to read, and her desire to spend time each day working on her Reading Eggs lessons, threw me for a loop in handling the rest of our preschool lessons.  With her working on reading skills on the computer, it didn’t make sense to focus a lot of time on doing other language-related lessons from our curriculum.  Also, the daily lessons for the math and language sections in our curriculum have moved on to actually being about 50% handwriting lessons.  I knew this was coming and hoped to spend some time working on doing a bit of writing with her…but with a lot of her energy and brain power going toward learning to read, she was even less interested than usual in practicing writing.  That completely made sense to me, so I didn’t want to push it. We did a few other things here and there from the daily curriculum lessons, but each week’s folder (I divided up the lessons into folders before the school year started) contained only a scant few lessons that seemed appropriate given what else was going on.

We finished up our unit on “Fall” at the beginning of the month, and I attempted to start a unit on Nutrition next.  It was only “attempted” because Madeline did not take to this at all.  She got bored of the books I picked out half way through, and wasn’t very interested the other activities I thought up either.  We didn’t even do very many science experiments or character-topic lessons this month, because when I didn’t have a specific day in mind to do them, I found it easy to put it off thinking we would do it a different day…and often that “other day” never came.

We did enjoy a lot of time this month playing educational board and card games — something that I think can be just as valid a method of learning as any for preschoolers.  Madeline really enjoys “go fish”, so we played with playing cards, alphabet cards (matching an upper case to its lowercase equivalent), and cards I made with numbers from 11-20.  We also enjoyed games of Memory, Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders and Cranium Cariboo.

My plan for next month is to ditch the file folder system that I had been using to organize my lessons plans for the week.  Instead, I am going to take a three-hole punch and stick all the pages in a binder.  That way, we can move through the activities in each subject at an appropriate pace and not be constrained to doing a certain number of pages/daily lessons per week.  We might move through several weeks of math activities if many of them are easy, while taking our time on the language lessons if Madeline is still spending time each day doing Reading Eggs.   That organizational method will also allow me to more easily move around the curriculum to pick and chose character areas to study, and to maybe include a few Bible activities that I will match up with what we are reading in our bedtime Bible reading times.

I’m also going to assign our lesson areas other than math and reading/language arts to various days of the week in hopes that this will cause us to be more faithful to doing them.  For example, we might do a character topic lesson every Monday, a science project every Tuesday, etc.  I’m sure these daily plans will end up re-arranged some weeks, and that’s okay.  I think it’s kind of like menu planning – it saves me a lot of time to plan something out for each day of the week ahead of time. But,  I do it in pencil and feel free to re-arrange if I’m not going to have time to make something on a particular day, or if soup sounds better on the coldest day of the week rather than what turns out to be the warmest.

Heading into November, we’ll also try some new unit studies.  Of course, in the latter part of the month we will study Thanksgiving.  In the first part of the month, I had planned we would do a unit study on Fish.  Hopefully Madeline will find that a more enjoyable topic than our attempt to study nutrition!

This morning marked the completion of our first full 24 hour period of only using cloth diapers.  Yea! We started Erik in his first few cloth diapers on Thursday afternoon and evening.  Due to lack of supplies (the rest of everything I purchased didn’t arrive until yesterday afternoon) and plans to be out of town from Friday night through Saturday afternoon, I was only able to do a few cloth diapers each day from Friday through Sunday.  But on Monday I started the day with all six prefolds clean, and by early evening I had washed all my new supplies and could even put Erik in cloth overnight.

When I first got my prefolds, I tried the “easy” way of using them and just folded it in thirds and stuck it in the waterproof cover.  Apparently this works for a lot of people, but somehow it didn’t work for us.  Every time we did it, Erik leaked badly – some of this may have been not changing him soon enough, but I don’t think that was the whole problem.  I instead started using the slightly more complicated method of wrapping the prefold more into a diaper shape around Erik and using a “snappi” to fasten it before putting the diaper cover on him.  I don’t think we’ve had any leaks since I started doing this, and it only takes a bit longer.

However, I think it would be rare that he would last more than a couple hours with the prefold/cover combo, so I knew it wouldn’t work overnight without some kind of insert or doubler to increase absorbancy.  I had read that a lot of people who do prefolds during the day like using a pocket diaper with stuffed with lots of absorbancy for overnight.  We did a “fuzzi buns” diaper with two full inserts overnight last night, and it seemed just about perfect.  However, I know this means I will need a couple more inserts or doublers, since I only have three total right now and I am aiming to have enough to do laundry once every two days or so.  The pocket diapers are so easy to use that if I find a good deal on some, I might get a couple more for babysitters or others to use — since I wouldn’t expect the average person to be able to figure out the prefold/snappi/cover combo without having seen it done before.

I managed to avoid changing my first poopy cloth diaper until Monday afternoon. With only using cloth part time over from Thursday through Sunday, I just lucked out that all Erik’s dirty diapers were disposables during that time.  Even though Tony hasn’t had a chance to install a sprayer yet, dunking the offending diaper in the toilet wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The smell wasn’t much worse than when changing a diaper in general.  Don’t get me wrong — the diaper sprayer will be really nice — but I can survive without it until we get one.

Right now, especially once I can get on the routine of only doing diaper laundry every-other-day, I am not thinking the laundry will be much of an issue.  I did lots of laundry the past several days with prepping my new purchases and trying to get the most out of the few supplies I had while I was waiting for the rest to arrive.  I am finding it’s almost easier to know I have some laundry to do every day.  I think I might try doing a load of laundry every weekday morning and just alternating between loads of diapers and loads of clothes or towels/bedding.

It’s time for another Menu Plan Monday.  As we were eating our goulash for dinner tonight, I was thinking that maybe I should have saved this meal for Halloween and we could have said we were eating “ghoulash”…oooh spooky. Instead, I guess we’ll settle for maybe having our sandwiches shaped like pumpkins if I am feeling motivated. Here’s our menu for this week:

Monday: Salmon and veggie Pad Thai (Madeline will be at Grandma’s house for a couple days this week, and I always try and have Pad Thai when she is gone because it is her least favorite of all the meals I make. Originally this meal was supposed to be Chicken Pad Thai…but the grocery store was already out of the really cheap chicken that was supposed to be on sale starting today. Instead I found some “reduced for quick sale” fresh salmon fillets with a “use by” date of Monday! I’m not sure the salmon would taste good in the Pad Thai, so we’ll have it on the side.)

Tuesday: Cabbage Au Gratin Casserole (see recipe below) and sauteed zucchini

Wednesday: Beef Roast in the crock pot, mashed potatoes and a veggie du jour

Thursday: Egg, Shrimp and Rice bake (see recipe below) and a veggie du jour

Friday — Halloween: Homemade Tomato Soup (Bloody soup in honor of Halloween?) and grilled cheese or possibly another kind of sandwich…maybe shaped like pumpkins if I am really motivated! This will be my first time making tomato soup from anything other than a can.  I have one recipe from a friend, but I am still taking tomato soup recipe suggestions if anyone has a recipe to share!

Saturday: Chicken Tetrazzini (see recipe below) and a veggie du jour.  I’m still hoping to get some of that sale chicken if I stop back at the grocery store later in the week!

Sunday: Dinner with extended family, so we’re not cooking at home

Recipes for this week:

Cabbage Au Gratin Casserole (source unknown – it’s a recipe I got from my mom)

1 lb ground beef or ground turkey
1½ tbsp butter
½ head cabbage, chopped
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
½ cup sour cream
¼ tsp dill
½ cup dry bread crumbs or french fried onions

Brown ground beef or turkey; drain and put in a large bowl. Melt butter in skillet and add cabbage. Cook until crisp and tender (about 5 minutes). Put cabbage in bowl with meat. Add 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, sour cream, dill weed and stir.  Put in casserole pan and sprinkle with bread crumbs or french fried onions and remaining cheese. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes.

Turkey or Chicken Tetrazzini (source unknown – another recipe from mom!)

1 8oz. package spaghetti
6 tbsp butter
1 small onion, chopped
¼ cup flour
2¾  cup milk
1 can mushroom pieces
1 chicken bullion cube
½ tsp salt
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
4 slices white bread
2 cups chopped, cooked turkey (or chicken)

Cook spaghetti. Meanwhile, cook onion in 3 tbsp butter until tender. Stir in flour until blended. Gradually stir in milk, mushrooms (with their liquid), bullion and salt. Cook, stirring, until mixture is slightly thickened. Remove from heat and stir in cheese. Tear bread into small pieces to make 2 cups bread crumbs. In a small sauce pan, melt 3 tbsp butter. Remove from heat and stir in bread crumbs. Preheat oven to 350. Add sauce mixture and turkey to spaghetti. Gently toss to mix well. Pour into greased baking dish and top with bread crumbs. Bake 20 minutes or until heated through

Egg, Shrimp and Rice Bake (from a circa 1973-ish Betty Crocker cookbook)

9 hard-cooked eggs
3 tbsp. Mayonnaise
2 tsp. vinegar
½ tsp. mustard
Dash Worcestershire sauce
Dash pepper
1 can mushroom pieces, drained
1 can (4.5 oz) tiny shrimp, drained (or a small package of frozen salad shrimp)
¾ cup milk
1 can cheddar cheese soup
3-4 cups hot cooked rice

Cut peeled eggs in half length-wise. Slip out yolks and mash with fork.  Mix in mayo, vinegar, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and pepper.  Blend well.  Fill egg whites with mixture, heaping up it up lightly.

Heat oven to 350.  Heat mushrooms, shrimp, milk and soup until just boiling, stirring occasionally.  Spread rice into ungreased baking dish (11.5×7.5 fits perfectly).  Arrange eggs in three rows on rice.  Pour soup mixture over eggs.  Bake uncovered for 15 minutes.

As always…visit Menu Plan Monday at the “I’m an Organizing Junkie” website for more menu ideas!

In a move that almost even surprises myself, I decided to give cloth diapering a try right now with Erik.  I know, I said I wouldn’t try cloth until the new baby comes, if at all…But I managed to let myself be convinced otherwise.

The series of events that led me over this cliff began last weekend.  I went to a church rummage sale in my neighborhood on Friday to look for some clothes for the kids and a winter coat for me to wear when my baby belly causes me to “outgrow” my normal winter coat.  On the infant clothing table I spotted some cloth diapering supplies – mostly older diaper covers in various sizes and a few other items.  The prices were very reasonable (most things marked at 25 or 50 cents), but I just didn’t have time to think about whether it was a good use of money with the kids in tow.  This same rummage sale was having a “bag sale” on Saturday afternoon where any bagful of items would cost a buck.  We were all out and about at that time anyway, so we stopped by as a family.  This time, it was a no brainer to throw the diapering supplies in a bag along with other things I knew we would use.  Some of the diapering items had been purchased, but most were still there.

I brought them home and realized that I would have to continue giving cloth diapering some more serious thought, now that I had some of the supplies in hand.  I next did a bit more research into the laundry cost issue.  I found a website that breaks down the cost of laundry into its various parts — cost of water itself (which is actually paid by our landlord, anyway), heating the water, running the washer, and running the dryer. I was able to figure out that (assuming utility prices don’t change too drastically), cloth diapering would add a little less than $6.50 per month on to our utility bills.

With that information in hand, I was able to do some real calculations.  Knowing about how much we spend on disposable diapers over the “diapering lifetime” of a baby, I figured the amount to break even with one baby (after laundry costs are subtracted) would be spending around $550 in diapering supplies.  I know that sounds like a lot of money, but you might be surprised how much you can spend on cloth diapers if you want to! I asked Tony what he thought about this whole thing, and he said he thought it wouldn’t be worth it if we would only save $100 or so…and it would definitely be worth it if we could save $400…and somewhere in between could either way.

I knew it would be really tough to save $400 if the break-even point was $550.  But, if we added Erik into that calculation, the break-even point rises to somewhere between $750 and $800, making it much easier to save somewhere closer to $400.  (This is making the conservative estimate that both Erik and baby #3 potty train when they each are around 2.5 years old, and that Target generic diapers don’t increase significantly in price over the next couple of years.  If either of those things prove not to be true and they are older when they train or diapers to rise in price quite a bit, we would just save even more money if we are able to stick with it.)

I had already been noticing that my smell-associated nausea was lessening as I am entering my third trimester.  I also got to thinking that I would be better off trying out the cloth-diapering laundry routine now without a tiny baby around.  And, the laundry situation seems to have stabilized around here in general — the people living in the apartments above and below us are mostly only doing laundry during the evenings and weekends and the new girls who live upstairs are much more considerate about their laundry habits than our former upstairs neighbors were. So, I didn’t have a lot of excuses left not to try out cloth right now.

My first purchase of cloth diapering supplies arrived yesterday afternoon:

This is a trial package from Cotton Babies consisting of six unbleached Indian prefolds, two diaper covers and one “snappi” (the thing you can use instead of pins to help hold the diaper around the baby).  I also have on the way another dozen prefolds, two more covers, and three “pocket” style diapers (2 fuzzi bunz and one Happy Heinys for anyone who knows anything about cloth diapering).   This is possibly a minimal amount needed to really keep Erik in cloth diapers and do laundry every other day.  I might end up needing a few more prefolds and/or the covers that go along with them, or a few more pocket diapers if those end up being more useful for us. I decided to try out cloth diapering with a full-size set up so I could get the feel for what the laundry routine would really be like.  We still need the diaper sprayer — I will do without for a few days until Tony has time to make a Home Depot run and buy the supplies needed to make one!

I’m very pleased with the fact I’ve only spend $105 so far on a combination of new and used items. It’s a relatively small investment overall, and if I find that I just can’t make cloth diapering work, I should be able to resell many of these items and make back at least some of what I spent.  If these items do work for us and we are able to continue cloth diapering, baby #3 will be able to use them, and I will only have to buy the smaller sizes of diapers for him to wear when he is smaller.  Most of the items from the rummage sale turned out to be too small for Erik, so if any of those diaper covers turn out to be usable at all, I’ll have those for newborn diaper stash as well.  In general, I’m really hoping we are able to make using mostly prefolds with covers work for us, since this seems to overall be more economical than buying a full set of any of the other varieties of cloth diapers (pocket diapers, fitteds, or all-in-ones).

The journey begins today.  Erik has his first cloth diaper on right now!  I’ll be updating as we actually try this out!

Today was Suzie Pig’s birthday.  And it was as real as any stuffed animal probably ever gets on his or her birthday:

Last week, Madeline really wanted to have a birthday party for her current favorite stuffed animal, a small pink pig.  But, after quite a bit of cleaning and a little bit of decorating, Madeline style, the day ended before we could really have the “party.”

She had asked several times since that day if we could “have Suzie’s birthday”, but I told her “not yet” on those days since it didn’t seem we would really have time to do it justice.  Madeline was a little more insistent today, telling me that it “really was Suzie’s birthday” so we needed to have the party.

So, I decided we should go all out.  My theory was that if we did it right and really had a family party for Suzie, we wouldn’t have to do this again for another year! But, if we just had a half-hearted little pretend birthday party just like all the other pretend birthday parties we have (yes, playing “birthday” is a favorite around here – we even have a play wooden birthday cake!), it might be Suzie’s birthday many times in the coming weeks.  And besides, who doesn’t like an excuse for cake and a clean house?

We were going to Target for a few things today anyway, so I let Madeline pick out the cake mix of her choice — she picked “pink” — big surprise, right?!  We spent quite a bit of time this afternoon cleaning the house. Madeline even demanded (in a somewhat polite way) that I “tidy up” the computer desk.  I think need motivation like that more often! We made the cake in the flower cake pan, and it unfortunately stuck to the pan a bit.   It was crushing for Madeline, but I was just happy it didn’t happen on an occasion when we were having real guests.  The breaks were covered over decently with frosting, which Madeline helped with.

After dinner we got out the cake and sang Happy Birthday to Suzie. We all enjoyed our cake, and then Suzie got to open her “gifts” that Madeline had wrapped up using blankets.  All in all, a fun family event.  We’ll be marking October 22nd on the calendar so we can celebrate with Suzie again next year.

Here’s Menu Plan Monday for this week! I’m finding that this process of writing out my menu this week and posting it here is causing me to think through it a little more and notice things that are or are not working for me.  The past two Saturdays I’ve plan something semi-complicated for dinner, involving doing preparation work earlier in the day.  A week ago Saturday we made plans with our neighbors, but even if we wouldn’t have done that I still would have switched my Saturday and Sunday meal plans. And this week the soup certainly did not get made on Saturday morning.  So, at least while our Saturday schedule continues to be busy, I need to remember to plan easy meals for Saturday night.

Without further ado, here’s my menu for this week:

Monday: Baked Chicken and veggies with rice. (New recipe for me from a random blog…we’ll see how it goes!I’ll be using chicken leg/thigh pieces with bone-in, so hopefully that works out as well!)

Tuesday: Fish Chowder in the crock pot (recipe held over from last week)

Wednesday: Lasagna Roll-ups (except I use spaghetti sauce instead of alfredo sauce as the recipe calls for), garlic bread, and salad or another veggie.

Thursday: Black Bean and Corn Enchiladas (see recipe below) and matching sides (tomato, lettuce, etc)

Friday: We’re eating pizza at a church retreat!

Saturday: Stir Fry (It had to be something extra easy since we will be getting home mid-afternoon from the retreat — so I bought a stir-fry kit at Aldi, and we’ll add our own rice and extra veggies)

Sunday: Goulash, Corn Bread and a veggie du jour (At MOPS this past week we had a meal-mix-in-a-jar “make and take” activity, so this will be made from those jar mixes.  It’s going to be pretty much your basic goulash with noodles, ground beef, tomatoes, etc).

Black Bean and Corn Enchiladas (a recipe I got from a local mom’s group forum)

1 can Blackbeans 15 oz, rinsed, drained
1 can Mexicorn (Green Giant) undrained (or I sometimes just use equiv. amount of frozen corn)
1 can green chilies 4.5oz, chopped, undrained
2 cup colby-monterey jack cheese shredded (8oz)
1 can enchilada sauce 10oz
8 tortillas flour (6-7 inch)

Heat oven to 350. Spray 13×9 inch (3-quart) glass baking dish with cooking spray. In medium bowl, mix black beans, corn, green chilies, 1 cup of the cheese and 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce.  Spread 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce over bottom of baking dish. Spoon 1/2 cup bean mixture down center of each tortilla. Roll up tortillas; place seam sides down in baking dish. Spoon remaining enchilada sauce over enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining 1 cup cheese. Spray sheet of foil with cooking spray. Cover baking dish with foil, sprayed side down.  Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Serve topped with lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, sour cream and salsa.

As always, visit Menu Plan Monday at  “I’m an Organizing Junkie” for more great menu ideas!

A couple of scenes from yesterday:

Thursday morning we went to play in the gym at a nearby park and recreation center.  They have a free weekly “family fun time” for parents and kids to come and play in the gym with balls, ride-on toys, small climbing equipment, and so on.  Usually it’s mostly moms with their toddlers and preschoolers, along with a few elementary-age homeschool kids here and there.  But, since yesterday was a “no school” day for the public schools, and there was also a special program happening in the park building for Latino families, the gym was teeming with kids of all ages.

I saw another mom I know from church, so we stood at the side of the gym and chatted while our kids played.  I looked up from my chatting to see Erik across the gym, standing under a regulation-height basketball hoop with his toddler-size bouncy ball, getting ready to aim for a shot. He must have seen the big kids shooting baskets and decided to try it for himself. Erik tried to make a basket a couple of times (with the ball of course getting nowhere near the basket), then ran off to try something else.  It was really one of those “kodak moments” I wish I could have whipped out my camera quickly enough to catch.  Erik could not have enjoyed himself more for the hour and a half or so that we were at the gym.  It was like little boy heaven for him to have such a big space to run and play with balls and riding toys. Madeline’s highlight, on the other hand, was playing with another little girl her age she knows from church. She was quite disappointed when our friends from church left after we had only been there a short time. Eventually she managed to have a good time just running around and playing, but she would definitely pick pretending and playing with another little girl over running around any day.

After we arrived home, had lunch, and Erik went to take his nap, Madeline declared that it was Suzy Pig’s birthday. Suzy Pig is currently her favorite stuffed animal, and during the past few days Madeline has often been “taking care of” Suzy by making sure she has “food” any time Madeline is eating and giving Suzy pretend baths. So, now Madeline needed my help to throw a great birthday party for Suzy.    I managed to convince Madeline to wait until after Erik’s nap to get ready for the party, so we could use Erik’s nap time for some preschool activities and a few chores that seem to work better while Erik is out of the way.  But it took a lot of convincing.

As soon as Erik woke up, Madeline sprung into action.  She declared that we absolutely must clean the house (“for real!”) if we were going to have a proper party for Suzy.  Madeline insisted that I help her sweep the floor and pick up the toys. And she wanted to wipe off the floor under the table and clean the mirrors and glass too.  Sweet! Finally I had a daughter who was motivated to help out with chores! We really did work on getting the house clean for quite a while.  Once she gets started with it, Madeline always loves cleaning the floor-length mirror and the other glass that’s at her height, like the doors to the foyer and the lower cabinets in the built-in buffet.  This time, Erik also got into the act.  He followed Madeline around for a surprisingly long time, his own dry rag in hand, “cleaning” right behind Madeline.  I actually got a lot done in the kitchen with catching up on dishes and preparing dinner while the kids took fingerprints off the glass.

We never actually got around to having Suzy’s birthday yesterday.  We got a few Madeline-sanctioned decorations put up…like fake flower leis that fit perfectly around lamp shades and play bead neclaces hanging from window locks.  But, soon Tony arrived home from work and the play shifted toward running around the house playing tag with Daddy while I finished the dinner preparations. So, I would guess that an elaborate pretend birthday party for a small stuffed pig is ahead in my near future.

Now, if I can just capitalize on this idea of needing to clean the house for an Important Pretend Party (and we can have those parties a little more often), we might actually have a clean house a lot more frequently!

I’ve always tried to be a bargain hunter and find the best deals in my shopping for groceries and household products, but it’s only been in the past six or eight months that I’ve added using coupons to my repertory of bargain hunting strategies. We signed up a Sunday-only subscription to the newspaper soon after we moved here. My original intention in doing this was not to get coupons — it was to have all the weekly sale ads conveniently delivered each week, as well as having the entertainment value of the Sunday paper to read each week.  But, as I started paying attention to the coupon inserts, I realized I could actually make use of them.  I’m no coupon diva, but I have managed to learn a few things that are helping me save money.

1. There really are coupons for things I use. Before I started actually looking at the coupon inserts in the newspaper, I thought that almost all the coupons would be for convenience foods I rarely use.  I was surprised to find that many coupons are for household products (toilet paper, paper towels, laundry and dishwasher detergents, dish soap, etc) and “personal care” items like body wash, shampoo, deodorant, contact lens solution, and so on.  We like cold breakfast cereals, and there are a fair number of cereal coupons for the non-super-sweet varieties.  There are also a decent number of coupons for fairly basic food items like plain pasta, canned tomatoes, frozen veggies, baking supplies, yogurt and other dairy products.  There’s also the seasonal coupons — I saw coupons for pens and other office supplies at “back to school” time and coupons for ice cream in the summer.  There are now coupons for Halloween candy. Around Thanksgiving and Christmas time there are extra coupons for baking supplies.

2.  Internet coupons are (more often than not) the “real deal”. I also had this idea that internet-printable coupons were a total fraud.  Several years ago, when using a coupon I had gotten in the mail from a manufacturer, a salesclerk really gave the coupon a close look and asked me if this was one of those “fake internet coupons…because all those are a scam, you know.”  I didn’t really know anything about internet coupons, but at that point I was scared into thinking that I should never try and use one anyway. A few years ago internet coupons may have been a scam…and that “too good to be true” coupon your Aunt Ethel forwarded you in an email probably is a fake. But coupons printed today from reputable sources are usually just fine to use.

These days, coupon publishing firms like “smart source” (the same people who bring you some of your Sunday newspaper coupon inserts), the manufacturers themselves, and other coupon websites have found ways to allow consumers to only print a specified number of each coupon (usually one or two) and to make the coupons more difficult to tamper with.  The downside of this is that you have to install little coupon-printing applets from the various websites that allow you to print the coupons, and these applets seem to only work well in Internet Explorer.  But, that small hassle seems well worth it to find coupons that are often even better than the ones you find in your Sunday newspaper inserts.

It is still wise to check on your local stores’ policies before walking in with an armload of internet-printed coupons.  Some places still won’t accept them, even with the safeguards against fraud that are now in place.  Other stores limit the value they will accept (such as only accepting internet printable coupons up to $1 in value).  Some stores may require the coupons be printed in color or limit the number of identical coupons that can be used in one transaction.

3.  Use your coupons when the product is on sale. This seems so obvious now, but until I read this tip on a bargain hunting blog, it had never occurred to me.  When I had considered using coupons in past years, another reason I had thought it might not be worthwhile is that even with a coupon for a name-brand item, it seemed like the generic would still be cheaper.  However, I find that when I use the coupon the same week the product is one sale, many times the name brand product will now be cheaper than its generic equivalent.

Cold breakfast cereals are a good example of this.  I can get a box of generic cereal at Aldi for somewhere in the range of $1.75 – $2.25 depending on the flavor. But, if I wait to stock up on name-brand cereal when it is on sale or a special promotion is in effect, I usually end up paying as little as $1.25 to $1.50 per box, and occasionally as little as $1 per box! Some items rarely go on sale, and sometimes the generic is still cheaper even when I could combine a sale and a coupon, but the “sale + coupon” strategy is usually pretty effective.

4. Combine manufacturer coupons with store coupons for even more deals. This is another strategy that was new to me in the past few months.  If your grocery store puts out store coupons, you can usually combine those with a manufacturer’s coupon and use both on the same item! You do need to read the fine-print on each coupon, because some coupons that are published in a store sales flyer really are manufacturer coupons.  Similar to using your manufacturer’s coupons when an item was on sale, combining your coupon use also makes for some of the best deals.

5. Use blogs and other websites to track coupon deals and other bargains. I’ve discovered there is a whole genre of blogs devoted to hunting for bargains using coupons and other money-saving strategies.  These blogs will alert you to the best deals of the week (often combining sales, coupons and other special promotions) at various grocery stores, drug stores and discount stores like Target and Wal-Mart.  These blogs will also often alert their readers to free product samples various manufacturers are giving away, special give-aways and other deals at various restaurant chains, and general bargain-hunting strategies.  A couple of blogs from this genre that I’ve been enjoying are Money Saving Mom and Northern Cheapskate.

There are also websites solely devoted to pointing out the best deals each week at various grocery stores.  Some of these like “The Grocery Game” are a paid service, while others such as Coupon Mom and My Grocery Deals don’t charge for their service, but also don’t have quite as much information.  I did the free trial of “The Grocery Game” and didn’t find it useful enough to pay for it, at least based on the way I shop.  But many people apparently find it to be a great way to save a ton of money on their grocery bills.

Another great resource for learning more about using coupons and other deals is “Hot Coupon World.”  They have forums devoted to couponing in general, as well as forums for specific kinds of deals, and store-specific forums.  The store forums can be a great resource for learning more about the coupon policies of the stores you shop at, as well as finding out about great deals that other shoppers are finding.  There’s also a coupon database.  If you see a sale on a particular product and are looking for a coupon to pair with the sale, you can search in the database for that product, and if there have been any coupons lately it will tell you where to find them.

Concluding Thoughts: Like I said, I am no coupon diva.  I’m not one of those people you read about who can walk into the store and come out with a whole cart-load of groceries for a couple bucks.  But, I think I have saved a decent amount of money by spending a little bit of time pursuing the use of coupons.  I am also not super organized about, so it doesn’t really need to take a lot of time to make it worth while.  I read through the Sunday paper coupons each week, but I tend to only actually clip coupons once every few weeks. I have a coupon organizer (I think it’s really a check organizer) I got in the dollar section at Target, and sometimes lots of coupons are sitting in it clipped, but not sorted by category.  I try to spend a little bit of time each week looking through sale ads and finding coupons, but some weeks I just go to Aldi and find what I need and I don’t look for all the best deals.  Even if I only have time to pursue using coupons and finding awesome deals one or two weeks out of each month, I’m at least helping make our grocery budget stretch a little further.

It’s time for another Menu Plan Monday! I’m glad I started doing this, since it keeps me thinking about our blog, even when I have a week where I have been too tired or too busy thinking about other things to blog about anything else.

Monday: Spaghetti, lettuce salad and immitation “Cheddar Bay” Biscuits (assuming I have enough biscuit mix left…I haven’t actually gone to check the cupboard to be sure!)

Tuesday: Cheese ‘n Tuna Crescents (well, mine usually end up being squares) and a veggie du jour.  Another comfort food! I remember my mom making something very similar when I was young.  I didn’t make the Taco Pie last week (Tony made regular Tacos for us instead), so this is to use the crescent rolls sitting in the fridge.

Wednesday: Pork Chops, Baked Potatoes, and a veggie du jour. I often make my pork chops with apples, similar to this recipe.  I’m not sure if I’ll do it like that this week or not.  I also sometimes use BBQ sauce, a BBQ rub, or a spicy Thai meat rub (leaving plain ones for the kids), depending on my mood.

Thursday: Mexican Meatloaf (see recipe below), with some “taco-y” toppings and a side…maybe quesadillas or home made “potato ole’s” (i.e. tator tots sprinkled with some taco seasoning).

Friday: Chickpea and Sweet Potato Curry.  I may make Naan if I am feeling especially motivated.

Saturday: Fish Chowder in the crockpot.

Sunday: Dinner with extended family, so we’re not cooking at home

Mexican Meatloaf

(I am not sure where I got this recipe.  There are many similar recipes on the internet but I couldn’t find the exact same one, at least among the first several search results on Google.)

1lb ground beef or ground turkey
½ cup picante sauce (I sometimes just use Salsa if that’s what I have around)
1 pkg, taco seasoning
2 tbs. taco sauce
1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
1 c. crushed tortilla or taco chips
½ cup chopped onion
1 egg

Combine all ingredients and form into a loaf.  Place in crock pot on low for six hours or bake in 350 degree oven for about 45 minutes to an hour.  Serve with lettuce, sour cream, olives, and other taco fixings.

I would call this Menu Plan Monday the “crock pot edition”…except for the fact that this will not be the only week I have lot of slow cooker meals. Four out of the six dinners I have planned this week will be in the crock pot.  I made the realization this summer, as I tried to avoid running the oven, that using the crock pot is a great alternative.  I also discovered this blog with more crock pot recipes than the average person will use in a lifetime, and it inspired me to use the crock pot more often.  There’s a good chance of rain at least four days this week, so it will be a good week to have warm comfort foods simmering in the crock pot all day!

Monday: Creamy Beef and Noodles (in the crock pot) and a veggie du jour

Tuesday: Crock Pot Beans and Rice and a veggie du jour (leftovers of this make a great burrito filling!)

Wednesday: We have a meeting and dinner is provided

Thursday: Tator Tot Casserole, made with ground turkey and green beans. (fall/winter comfort food doesn’t get any better than this!)

Friday: Chicken legs/thighs in the crock pot.  Probably using this recipe with veggie fried rice on the side.

Saturday: Pork Stew, using leftovers from last week’s pork roast — I’ve never made this before, but I think I am going to make a hybrid of these two recipes from allrecipes.com and cook it in the crock pot.

Sunday: Taco Pie with regular taco fixings on the side.

Visit “Menu Plan Monday” at the “I’m an Organizing Junkie” blog to find links to more great menus from other bloggers.