Archives for October 2007

They keep you humble

October 11, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

So I am was feeling awfully proud of myself today. I mean, I literally saved over $100 in groceries today. I worked, I got the kids to preschool and back. I even made dinner. So I’m standing in the kitchen making the kids’ plates for dinner to carry them into the dining room and in runs Emma from the living room. She gets on her tip toes to see onto the counter, takes one look at her plate, scrunches her face and says, "Ew, yucky."

Glad I worked so many hours for such cheap groceries and made such an effort to plan the menu and then actually cook it all for that. Welcome to motherhood, right?

Thankful Thursday

October 11, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Let’s see what I’m thankful for this week…

Coupons! Lovely coupons! Triple coupons!
CVS Extra Care Bucks
Crystal Paine at moneysavingmom.com for sharing all her knowledge about her grocery savings techniques.
Allison for helping me get my blog monetization up and running.
Our safe travels out of town this weekend.

Yes, finances do seem to be on my priority list right now but hey, God calls us to be good stewards of our money so I don’t think I’m out of line–you just might be tired of hearing about it 😉

One of those people

October 11, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Today I was one of those people. The people stand in front of you in line at the grocery store with stacks of coupons. By the end of the transaction, the receipt literally has reached the floor. The cashier looks at them and says, “Your total is $50. Today, you’ve saved $69. Thank you for shopping with us.” Woo Hoo!!! I saved 55% on my grocery bill today!

For anyone that lives near me, Lowe’s Foods is having triple coupons until tomorrow. Go buy a Sunday paper and combine it with the in store coupons. You have to use the Lowe’s foods coupons in their flyer to get the extra off even if the item is on sale to anyone with a Lowe’s card.

Look at me giving coupon advice…;)

Random Catchup

October 11, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

So a busy few days I guess. Trying to get back into the swing of things since getting back from vacation.

Tuesday afternoon we had band practice. It went well. A youth singer finally came to practice and it was so much better. Last night’s set went really well as well. And one thing I’m really excited about is another youth is completely doing the podcast by herself this week. So yay for one less thing for Amy to do! Also, word on the street is we may have a prospect for a new youth pastor. A musically talented husband/wife youth pastor. Woo Hoo!

Besides that, I’ve been watching all my tv shows in the evening and couponing, menu planning and grocery shopping planning. Yeah, not sure where the real Amy is on that one. Every time I say something like that, Scott is like who is this new person? But today I have plans to go to the store and should be saving around half off.

And since I’ve now referred to myself in third person twice already (I really usually hate that), I may as well say Amy’s gotta go.

CVS Savings week of 10/7

October 10, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

OK, so I went to CVS and bought $18.23 worth of stuff for $13.76. Not bad but then I got $15.56 worth of ECB. So basically CVS paid me $1.80 to take home $18.23 worth of products. Sweet.

What did I get?

Two tubes of Crest Pro-Health Night toothpaste.
One tube of Colgate Total Toothpaste.
One Palmolive Dish Liquid.
Two Beano to-go – which, by the way, Scott says he won’t use. At least I tried.

All except the Beano I needed or will need soon and didn’t buy anything I wouldn’t normally use. You should have seen my grin walking out of CVS.

Technorati Tags: CVS , coupons , ECB , grocery savings

P2P Payoff by PPP

October 9, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Ok, so I do like alliteration.

I have yet to find any kind of plug-in to help me display our van payoff in my sidebar so I just created a good ‘ol spreadsheet and pasted it in the right sidebar as a table. I decided to go ahead and show the actual dollar amount vs. some sort of percentage or hidden amount. Nothing to be embarrassed about and it’s not like I’m showing how much savings we have…just the opposite. I also included our monthly payment minus any interest they take out each month. It’s not exact, but when we’re starting at 10 grand, who’s counting pennies?

I figured it up and I’d have to make an extra $500 a month from PPP in order to pay the van off by end of next year which would be my ultimate goal. However, I’m not sure if that’s doable or not. If no extra funds are given to the van, we won’t pay it off until Spring 2010.

So far this month I’ve made $56, over twice as much as I made all last month. If I continue with the same rate of posts as I have, that is about $200 extra a month and we will be down to around 3K by end of next year. So thank you, thank you for putting up with the few extra posts so far. I know I have a long way to go but at least this gives me a goal to shoot for.

I will update the amounts as I get approved for things and as I have time to update it.

40 Before 40

October 9, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

Well, since I’m not even 30 yet, I’m guessing I should be able to come up with a decent list of things to do in the next 10 years and 9 months. I would do 30 before 30 but then I’m guessing it would be really hard to come up with 30 things to do in the next 9 months. So, the 40 things I would like to accomplish in 10 years and 9 months are:

Successfully potty train both my children. Yes, they will be in middle and high school by the time I’m 40 and I’m really hoping we get that one down.
Learn Flash. Still looking for a copy of the software without paying so much.
Finish the scrapbook I started for me and Scott.
Memorize a whole chapter of Scripture. Maybe more. I knew a girl that memorized Romans in high school.
Get a boob job. If I get one, I should do it before I’m 40.
Get my acne cleared up. It’s gotten a lot better but still more to go.
Learn to send out birthday cards to family members.
Have a quiet time every single day.
Get some or all of my blog printed.
Get really good at couponing.
Menu plan every week.
Remember to pay my bills that require actual checks on time.
Really understand CSS.
Go on another cruise.
Learn how to keep plants alive.
Learn how to make Scott’s grandmother’s chicken and dumplings.
Go to Europe.
Learn to sew a patch on a shirt.
Sing by myself in public.
Possibly play the piano in public again.
Find a ministry I’m really, really passionate about.
See my children come to know Christ.
Pay off our van.
Buy a vehicle for myself other than a van.
Buy Scott a truck.
Write a book of some sort.
Take my vitamins every day.
Floss my teeth every day.
Get my teeth whitened.
Speak another language.
Get another diamond ring.
Get all my digital pictures printed.
Organize all my digital pictures.
Understand Reba’s "The night the lights went out in Georgia" enough to explain it to someone else.
Hire someone else to clean my house weekly.
Learn how to deal with confrontation.
Be smarter about saving for retirement.
Have our savings/retirement accounts well on their way to retirement.
Have regular backups of my computer
Learn to listen and obey to what God tells me to do.

The Bachelor October 9, 2007

October 9, 2007 by Amy Leave a Comment

OK, so this season started out pretty slowly if you ask me. No huge drama girls this year. There’s some tension but nothing like previous seasons. This week was interesting with the twin thing. OMG, there are two of him. Sorry, ladies, the other one is taken though. I can’t believe some of the girls didn’t notice. It was pretty obvious they didn’t look alike.

A few of the girls have pulled out on top so it’s time to start making predictions. Jenni or Sheena seem to be the frontrunners for now. Steffie, DeDe and Kristy all come in close behind them.