Lancaster Photo Book Shutterfly

Our favorite site to do a photobook gotta be shutterfly.

Here's our latest project. We did so many!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Freezer Cooking Day/s May 2010

My freezer at the end of the day. I think if I rearrange things well enough, I might still have space for another 2 or more casserole meals.

So we began. My first official "freezer cooking day". I've done bits and pieces of freezer cooking before, but this time it's alittle more intentional. Still I found that I might have done it quite differently than many others. I "stole" time to cook instead of allocating a whole chunk of time. That's in view of our circumstances. It worked this time! I still had quite some food frozen (not as much as most people) and I didn't have a massively dirty kitchen.

Here's how my two days of "freezer cooking day" went.

FRIDAY

Noon.
While preping for lunch and all, I cooked oatmeal cereal. (Rolled oats cooked in milk and water)


That's 6 meals for my 2 older kiddos (4yr and 2 yrs). We usually add steamed sweet potato or pumpkin or raisins to the oatmeal and they love them as lunches.

Afternoon.
I made the oat chocolate chip walnut cookie dough with the kids, as part of our day.
As per the reviews, some changes made to the recipe and here's my modified version.

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt (should cut this)
3 cups quick-cooking oats
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips (I possibly added a little more)

Evening/night.
While my hubby played with the kids after dinner, I baked the chocolate chip cookies and made the banana bread.

After the kids slept and I cleaned the kitchen, I made the pizza dough. Wanted to double the recipe, but i realized that hubby (who was grocery shopping) will bring back A LOT of meat, so my freezer might be too full. So made one batch (that's for 2 pizzas, enough for 2 meals)

Here's how I make doughs. I used the plastic bags (you get from grocery stores to put in veg...which is not necessary)...cut it open and knead the dough IN IT. (put flour on it, and then the water etc). THEN I "closed" the bag up and put in the freezer. NO MESS on the table or my fingers!! This is the best tip my mom taught me.

SATURDAY
In the morning, halfway between breakfast and cleanup, I...

...cut up the HUMONGOUS sparerib that hubby got yesterday into pieces and froze them

...prep the ingredients for pasta sauce (cut up and remove sausage from casing, froze the rest)

...and I made my hubby's favorite black bean and rice burrito. (except I don't have pepper but I have corn!) I do everything the same, except it's not as an enchilada but burrito. (did 10 burritos)

Evening.

Hubby cooked up his famous pasta sauce. Me, the souz chef, has cut up the ingredients for him.

Ingredients for pasta sauce

*diced peppers

*mushroom

*onions

*sausage (remove from casing)

*diced tomatoes (can)

*tomato paste

*brown sugar

*spices (like basil, oregano, parsley, rosemary)
Simmer for an hour.

Freezing/Baking Day May 2010

This weekend I'll be attempting some kind/form of freezing/baking day. Moneysavingmom and Life as Mom are hosting a Freezing Day event.

However, I realized I do freeze cooking better in "batches"; that is, in different days...maybe not as daunting at first.

For eg, we cooked Japanese curry last week and I made more so that I can freeze some. We also made our own dumplings and I froze half of them and we ate the other half. These are the food already in the freezer.

This Sat (till next week), I'm intending to progressing cook/bake the following for freezing:

* Oatmeal Cereal (Rolled oats cooked in milk)
-These are lunches for my older kids. We add steamed sweet potatoes, or pumpkins or raisins to it.
* Pizza dough
- We like MSM's recipe
* Banana nut bread
* Pasta sauce
-Diced Tomatoes, tomato paste, sausage, diced green peppers, onions, mushroooms, brown sugar and spices. Simmer for at least an hour for the best taste. We LOVE our own recipe of pasta sauce!
* If I have time: maybe another batch of black beans and rice burritos
-this recipe is AMAZING. I use the filling and eat them as burritos instead of enchilada. We love it alot and we use brown rice for it

Doesn't seem like a lot at all, because I'm very new to this and also my freezer doesn't seem to be able to take in so much food

Stop and Shop Great Deals Week 4/30

Gotta love the deals this week at Stop and Shop!!



Ball Park Franks, Buy 1 Get 1 free, Use 2 $0.75 MQ (no longer available), Final Price: $1.60 for 2!

Keebler Sandies, Buy 1 Get 1 free, Use 2 $1 MQ here (If you use it as a dollar double, you get both free!)

Yoplait Greek Yogurt, $1, Use $0.45 MQ here
Final Price: $0.10 each!

Stop and Shop Big Daisy Bread, $1

Kraft Barbeque Sauce, $1 (stock up if you like the BBQ sauce!)

Bananas, $0.49/lb

If you haven't signed up for their Small Victories newsletter, make sure you do, cos they send you coupons (and often with FREE stuff!) This week I can get free Ben and Jerry ice-cream and baby carrots!


Also, it's Double Dollar (doubling $1 MQ up to 4 of them when you spend $15) Week.
I'm intending to use my precious 4 coupons on

Lysol Disinfectant wipes, $1 MQ (SS), Final Price: FREE
Keebler Sandies, Final Price: FREE
Possibly 2 cans of Campbells Cream of Chicken/Mushroom, Final Price: $0.67 for two

Giveaways Week Apr 9

Dealectible Mommies has a giveaway that's sweet. Britax umbrella stroller! Have you heard of them? I haven't but it looks great!

A great Stop and Shop trip!

A great trip!

All these for $31.69. That's including a big pack of chicken thighs and a whole chicken.

The best buys with coupons:
8 bottles of Wishbone for free (earned $4 out of them) - use them for salad or stir frys!!
8 packets of Wise potato chips ($0.50 each after deducting the $4 earned from Wishbone) these are going to last my hubby for a VERY LONG time
Philadelphia Cream Cheese, $0.50 per pack
Daisy Sour Cream, $0.30
Betty Crocker Mashed Potatoes, $0.20
Sargento Cheese, $1

Deal ideas here

Buy Wishbone free Wise

Things don't always make sense in the coupon/frugal world. This is one of them.

At Stop and Shop week starting Friday Apr 1, you buy...

2 wishbone dressings, $1 each, use 2 MQ $0.75 here

you earn $1

which you can also buy 1 pack of Wise potato chips at $2, $0.50 MQ here

for free.

(the coupons double)

While you're there, pick up

Daisy sour cream, $1.50, use $0.60 coupon from last week's Smartsource coupon.

Final Price: $0.30.

Also, Sargento cheese at $2.50, if the reduced sodium ones are on sale too, you can use a $0.75 coupon here to get them for $1 each.

Chi chi's tortilla at $1.67 (usual price $2).

Looks like a Mexican week for us.

$2.50 children's clothes, $0.50 Frosted Wheat Cereal

So, I did a night run tonight to Target, cos the deals are too good to miss and our cereal is running low (er like 6 boxes left. that's serious trouble for us. haha)

Check this out:

4 boxes of cereal (Kellogg's Frosted Mini Wheats) $10
$5 Target giftcard (when buy 4)
Use $1.50/2 coupon here or here
Final Price: $0.50 each!

TEN pieces of clothing for Ian and Colleen's summer (as well as one outfit for her NEXT year's summer): $30 ($2.50 each!)
Use $5/30 target coupon here
Final Price: $2.50 each!

Dish Liquid for $0.50 cos I have a free coupon (we're stocking up SO many of these 7th generation ones!)

Happy.

Kashless/Recycle Bank Great freebies

We found a new AMAZING freebie.

1. Sign up Kashless.org here.

2. Put in 28 saved searches on the side (that'll be 280 points). It can be ANYTHING!

3. Invite a friend on the side (20 points)

4. Redeem your points. (You should have 300 points) You'll be directed to RecycleBank.

5. At RecycleBank (your points will show in a day or two), you can redeem points for coupons for free products.

For eg, 100 for Seventh Generation All Purpose Cleaner.

50 for Seventh Generation Dish Liquid

75 for Seventh Generation Baby Wipes

And there are also babyfood or Greenworks free products or coupons for Huggies etc etc...

You get to redeem each product once a month.

We got our coupons for all purpose cleaner and dish liquid pretty fast and went to Target and got the items free!!

You can do this in 15 mins!

The good part is, you can get 300 points from Kashless EVERY WEEK!!! Imagine that! I think we'll have endless supply of dish liquid...

$3.50 per pack Earth's Best diapers

Babies R Us or Toys R Us is having 3 day sale of Earth's Best diapers. (Jan 1-3) $5 per pack.

Use $1.50 coupon here to make it $3.50 per pack! you can only print 1 per computr and the limit for buying is 3 per customer.

People complained how stiff they are. I don't think so. I haven't tried their absorbency though.

Talking about Toys R Us, you should join the birthday club (your kids). they give you $3 card to use for anything $3 or more

Free Videos: Amazon

We just watched Julie & Julia for free on the PC yesterday night.

Go to this post from Moneysavingmom to see how you can watch free videos too!

Walgreens cheap diapers

From tomorrow for a week

1 pack of jumbo huggies diapers, $8.99

$2 Pullups coupon here

Get back $2 RR

Send in for Caregivers' Rebate, $0.75 each

Total price: $4.24

You can do this many times in different transactions, but take note of your RRs that you'll have to use up!

Swagbucks

Are you using Swagbucks? If you're not, you REALLY should.

Here's why:

*You get to redeem the points for free giftcards. (My favorite is the $5 Amazon.com card for 45 points) I have already redeemed many of them and imagine the money I saved while I buy stuff. Amazon has LOTS of things to sell!

* You don't have to spend a lot of time on it. I spend at most 3 mins a day

* There is no fee to sign up at all!

Here's how:

*sign up here

*Everyday go to the site (or you can download the toolbar) and search SOMETHING. Well, there must be something you were about to google. If not, trying searching your name, your town, your favorite star, product etc etc...

*Click on links, page forward, page back, new search etc...After a few tries, usually I get at least 1 buck. (You can get more!)

*Do this once or most twice a day, cos that's how much you'll get anyway. If you try too many tries and no buck comes in, try another time.

*Get your friends to sign up through you and you can earn through them too! (Thanks for signing through me, cos that way I earn too!)

Go now!

Alice.com Deal

This came to my house today. And it shocked my dad. "You have kitchen towels sent to you??!!"

Yup. This is the deal.

Search with Swagbucks. Read more here.

Once you get 20 points (if you already have them, it might be worth it for you to exchange for a $5 Alice.com giftcard). You can only redeem once per account.

At Alice.com, they sell lots of household stuff, at a good price. (Most of the things I won't buy cos I would buy them at a MUCH cheaper price elsewhere) But I got this pack of kitchen towels at $2.57 (after $5 giftcard).

Hubby had another account, and they have a coupon for the same pack of kitchen towel, ended up paying $1.

Grab the cards before they are gone!

Free photostuff!!!

Go here for details

Black Friday 2009 CVS

I'm not going crazy this year. My objective: use 2 transactions of $5 each for the Chase card, so that we get $10 cash back.

So, we got
Complete Contact Solution
Bic Soleil
Colgate toothpaste
Vaseline Sheer Infusion
Lightbulbs

and paid $2.67 (after the cash back)

Essentially, that's the price of 4 energy-saving bulbs. WOH!

Black Friday Drugstore Deals

Thinking of doing Black Friday drugstore deals?

Last year we did and earned $18.21 at CVS and Rite Aid. This year we might not be as crazy. But we do need to "blink" our Chase card 2 more times at CVS to earn $10 (that'll give us a net $10 earning actually) So we might buy a couple things.

I'm not crazy about Wags' deals as usual cos they give RR which I utterly don't like.

So, take a look and see if it's worth for you to make some runs! =)

Great diaper deals Rite Aid & CVS

Here's our loot yesterday.

CVS
2 packs Jumbo Huggies, $18.99, 2 $2 MQ
Wipes, $6.99, $0.75 MQ
Complete Contact solution, $8.99

$5/30 coupon
ECBs earned: $5 + $8.99
Rebate (Caregivers' Market Place): $1.50

Total: $10.35 (including tax)

Rite Aid
1 big pack Huggies, $19.99 (I had a $2 coupon which the cashier didn't scan!! She took it...$2 lost...)
1 pack Always Infinity pads, $5.29 (I had a free coupon for this from one of the samples I requested)

$5/25 coupon
Rebate: $5 (Gift of savings)

Total: $10.02

So...if I buy the wipes at $0.01 each (which is a GREAT deal already), the diapers (144 pieces of them) would have cost me $18.21.

That's $0.12 per dipe (Size 4). Pretty good deal!! (normal cost that would have been $0.25 to $0.30 or something?)

Rite Aid should have a even better deal, but the rest of the SCR (FAR) items were not around...as usual...

Grocery/Drugstore Plan Week Nov 19, 22

Here're the deals I may think about this week

CVS:
2 packs Huggies Jumbo, $18.99 MQ $2 here (try and see if it works for you) or $3 Pure and Natural here
1 pack dipe $6.99, MQ $0.75 (mailer)
Complete Multi purpose solution, 8.99

Coupons: $5/30 here (after you completed the quiz)
ECB: 5 + 8.99
Caregivers' Marketplace rebate: $1.50
Total Coupons: $4.75 (or if you use Pure and Natural, $6.75)

FOR ME (I don't have coupons anymore for Huggies) so...it'll be $13.73 for everything.
That's around $4.30 per pack of dipe I guess (considering $5 for wipe). Not bad. If you have coupons, it'll be a MUCH better deal!

Rite Aid

Benevia Nutrition Drinks, $7.99, $5 MQ here (sign up for free) but it's for "BALANCED Drink" I have no idea if they are the same or not, SCR $7.99
Huggies Big Pack diapers, $19.99, $2 coupon (I printed somewhere for a box)
MQ $5/25 here
Super Day/Night Colon Cleanse, 17.99, SCR 17.99
Gift of savings (YES it's HERE AGAIN!! From Nov 22-Dec 24): $10

You need to top up some amount to $51 for the gift of savings to be $10 (I have free Luvs coupon to use) and I can use up my $20 GOS from last time, yeh!

Final price: -$0.50 for all of the above. That's REAL good. Now, let's HOPE we have stock!!

Stop and Shop
Buy $20 worth of Pepperidge Farm product or Campbell's and get $5 off next order
Find different coupons here to match what you'll like to buy

Other than that it's an ok week for SnS

Of course, look out for Black Friday Deals. I'm OK with them this year and I might skip them.

Frugal Living: 10 ways we saved hundreds

So, the foundational post was said. And now onto how WE (again, there are TONS of other ways) saved hundreds of dollars every month.

I know there are TONS of blogs out there that talk about this. I read some of them and mostly I won't have the time to and I feel most of them are MUCH MUCH more in depth and comprehensive than what I can offer.

Here is just a post on what WE did as a family and also in the context of the expensive NYC living.

1. Budgetting
I think this is the most important way how we save. We make sure we have a budget and we track them. Ok, we have a budget. We need more work on tracking. Still, we are able to do a financial report when we need to.

Right now, we use about $60 (our budget is a little higher) on the average per week for grocery and maybe less than $50 for household?

2. Planning ahead/Stocking up
We use the stocking up mentality. Buy when the value is good so that we don't need to pay for them at usual price when needed. We have ample stock of toothbrushes, toothpastes, shampoo, soap, razors, personal items, cereal, diapers and wipes. Most of these (except diapers, wipes and sometimes cereal) we get them for free/earn.

We also plan ahead for gifts. We buy them when good deals come. So it's good to have a gift list on hand to think about gifts. For eg, I bought my Christmas gifts for friends in the beginning of this year!

3. Limit/delay purchases
One BIG way we learnt to save was to limit or delay purchases. We often wait to see if there are deals. or coupons. or sales. Or to see if we REALLY do need what we wanted to buy. This is a great way to make sure the things that come into our home have their uses.

4. Coupons/coupon codes

Manufacturers' coupons
You can clip them from newspapers (Sun), the circulars that come on Wed/Thu (in some NYC areas) and also get them from samples you ordered online. Sometimes you see them along the aisles in supermarkets.

Some supermarkets (like Stop and Shop here) double coupons. Which means as long as I use a coupon under a dollar in SnS (e.g. $0.75) they take off $1.50. They often have dollar double days which is real yummy.

Sign up at the websites of products you use (like Huggies, Pampers, etc) and you get sent coupons too.

Internet Manufacturers' coupons
My favorite site: coupons.com
or smartsource
or you just get the links from the kind souls who link them in their frugal blogs.

Usually you can print 2 per computer. DO NOT photocopy cos they have unique codes.

Not every store takes IP. So, ask first.

Store coupons
Many stores have their own coupons. E.g. target, or CVS (printed on the receipts) and Walgreens (on their ads or booklets) Usually you can stack them with manufacturers' coupons. The usual practice: Use MQ (Manufacturers' coupons) first, then store.

Coupon codes
You can often search for coupon codes if you're buying things online. These help a lot!

It is wise to always check on coupon policies before using them.

5. Menu planning/grocery lists
To start off, we have to plan menu (plan every meal if possible). For me, I plan dinners (lunch are usually leftovers). This will turn into grocery lists.

This prevents impulse buying.

What I do every week is, on Wed the circulars come, I browse them (esp Stop and Shop and the drugstores) and the coupons that come with them. Then I plan my meals according to the sale items, the things left in my fridge and other things (like what my hubby is craving for). The I write the grocery list to-buy. On Friday when the sale week begins darling hubby takes my list and coupons and makes a grocery run.

6. Drugstore Runs
The drugstore runs were what started us off on this journey. Never knew they can be so "lucrative". Here are some intro to how things work in these drugstores and how we do it in NYC.

We are at a point I don't usually buy things (even if they are free) unless they earn. (Or unless we need them of course). Yes we actually get TONS of things FREE.

The frugal community online has given me SO much in this. They often write about the deals so that it's easy for me to look and follow.

My favorite site is moneysavingmom. I love her values and I trust her deals.

I also go to hotcouponworld to preview deals/coupons. This is a great forum!

CVS

This is possibly my favorite store. They are great with coupons and I like the way ECBs are used.

Basic idea: Buy things from CVS that give ECBs (almost like CVS cash). Use the ECBs earned for next purchases. Whenever possible, use a $/$$ coupon (eg $5 off $20). Stack with MQs and get more returns.

Read Moneysavingmom's CVS 101 here. She gives a clear teaching on it.

Rite Aid
I like Rite Aid, cos they use a rebate system. You pay first and they pay you back in a form of check. But our Rite Aid are often poorly stocked.

Basic idea: Buy things from RA that gives SCR (Single Check Rebate) and use MQ whenever possible. RA has been giving out $/$$ coupons which are GREAT.

RA are not exactly supposed to take IP (internet coupons), but I think it depends on cashier/store. Mine does.

Walgreens
This has become my least favorite store because I don't like the Register Reward (RR) system.

Basic idea: Buy things from Walgreens that gives RRs (like Walgreens coupons). Use ONE RR in next transaction, but it counts as ONE MQ.

Read Moneysavingmom's Walgreens 101 here.

7. Swagbucks
On top of saving (reducing expenses), we are earning through very easy means. (easy not meaning we earn a lot, but meaning it does not take too much of our time)

Our favorite at the moment is Swagbucks. You search the web through SB every day and most of the time you can get at least 1 buck. Accumulate 45 and you can snag an Amazon $5 giftcard. This is VERY significant if you think of the things you can buy from Amazon. From gifts to books... And often Amazon has free shipping after $25.

I really don't spend over 5 mins everyday on this and I think it's a GREAT way to earn a little money but makes a huge difference when you buy things you usually need to.

Sign up here!

8. Ebates
When you buy things online, always look out for a middle man by which you go through so that you earn some cash backs (maybe like 3% or 5%?). There are lots of them. I stick with eBates cos it's easier to accumulate through one site instead of multiple. You get sign up bonuses. After you accumulate $5 they send you the money (I opt for paypal so it's easier)

9. Free samples, instant wins, giveaways
I sign up for free samples we would need at our household. They often come with coupons so they are great. But always remember, sign up for a "spamable" email account first and use that for all these.

I also do some instant wins (like Huggies) but I don't do it A LOT cos it wastes time.

Last thing we do here are giveaways. In the frugal blogs every week there will be giveaway lists (from baby items to coupons). You can browse through them and sign up for the ones you think your family need. I used to do this quite a lot, but now I only signed up maybe once a month or when I have more time on hand. But I won quite a bit of giveaways!!

10. Eat out deals
There are often eat out deals (restaurant deals, birthday deals) so we still are able to have some eat out! We got a couple of restaurant.com certs (they are often $2 for a $25 cert), which means you spent about $15 for a really good meal for 2 (or more) with the certs.