$2.59 are you otta your mind?

The other night, I went to Safeway and bought 6 lunchables for the kiddos. Some people ask, do you really use all the stuff you buy, my answer.....of course. I would not normally buy lunchables and in a sense I didn't the other night either. Confused yet? I went to the checkstand with 6 lunchables. I handed over 6 coupons. I left with 6 lunchables. I did not pay one penny. I did not have a member of the 50 chasin me down. Absolutely free! The cashier finished scanning the coupons and said, " your total will be.....nothing."

Is this legit? Absoluetly! There are ways to get cheap-free items. The average person does not take the time to figure out these scenarios. I was asked last week how much time to I spend couponing. I said a couple hours a week. After thinking about that more I think I spend more. It is fun, one might even say a hobby for me now. I am still in what I call the "honeymooning" phase of couponing. I go to multiple stores to get many deals each week. Admittedly, I am kept awake some nights thinking that I may not get everything I want from a sale because others might beat me to it. Silly, I know. I spend probably closer to 5-7 hours a week pouring over ads and scheming up ways to save money. It is not a chore but a challenge. I think that once I get crazy stocked up on everything I will be out of the honeymooning phase, but until then, Coupon On!

BOOM!

My favorite stores to frequent are Walgreens (mainly for non food items), Albertsons (grocery), Yokes (doubler action and fresh meat and produce). I included a pic of a recent trip to Walgreens while my friend Jen was in town. I was teachin her the ropes of couponing and spent $2.59 for everything in the photo.

3- dawn dish soaps

4- Starbucks Frapps

4- cans of Lindsey Olives

3- Crest Pro Health toothpastes

3- toothbrushes

1- pack of Rolaids

2- of the best candy in the world! York Peppermint Patties!

Quaker Sale

Ok peeps, Quaker sale starts today. Not supertastic prices, but $1/box is still great. Especially for granola bars that we seem to fly through. This sale is at Albertsons. You can obtain the manufacturer coupon necessary to make this work from the Wednesday Tri City Herald or pick up one of the Yokes monthly ad books. Free at customer service. You will need one coupon for every 5 items you buy. Check out fistfulofcoupons.com to get the low down.

Another great sale is at Safeway. They are running a sale for pop tarts, cereal and my personal fav. nut clusters. Those are so tasty in yogurt! Here are a couple scenarios:

Buy 5 Kellogs pop tarts= $1/each
use $1.25/3 (3/28 RP)

Total oop is $3.75 not bad if you like pop tarts

another scenario
Buy 5 Nature Valley Nut Clusters= $1.50/ each
use $1/1 (2/21 SS)
or $.40/1 (3/7 SS)

Totally oop is $2.50-5.50 depending on coupons you couple this with.

Ok, well now you know my plans for the day.....pillage the local stores. Have a good one!

Victorious!

Just got home from Safeway. Damage done!

Total out of pocket: $9.94

10 boxes of cereal

15 boxes of fruit snacks

4 bottles of salad dressing

1 bagged salad

1 ice cream

Couponing Maddness

Loving couponing this month. As a matter of fact it has been keeping me up at night. Pathetic, I know. If I get woke up in the night, I will lay there thinking about the deals at different stores and not able to go back to sleep. It is a sickness, really. Well, I got up just before 3 this morning and changed a bed a kid peed in. Love doing that! Not! I layed in bed for the next hour and then got up to plan out my assault. I created the $10 challenge for myself, to see how much I could get for this amount of money. Here is the scenario I came up with:
11 boxes of cereal
15 boxes of fruit snacks
5 salad dressings
__________
$8.50 out of pocket

That is killer! I love doing this. I am really excited to have Karrie the coupon queen coming to do a class for all my friends and I. I love saving money. Last month the total saved was $114.30. Not crazy amazing, but amazing none the less. I would tell you that I have been saving the money for fun things, but that is not the case. Our water heater went out last month and we had a couple medical bills that pretty much devoured that and a lot more. Oh well, God is so good to provide for my family. And I dont just mean scrape by provide, He really does it with some flair!

Ok, well I am gonna go, Safeway just opened. I hope you all have a grand day
Jaimie

February stuffs

It has been a fun month. The beginning of the month we had the company banquet for C's work and he got the opportunity to MC it. The man runs his humor past me and looks for my input (b/c I am hilarious) so we had a lot of fun for a couple days thinking about what others might think is humerous. That man truly has a gift for public speaking. He doesnt just get thru it he truly thrives in those situations.

We took the girls to a school dance. We were very anti-elementary school dance. Our problem is introducing this type of emotional situation to kids who are so young. Middle school is even a stretch in my mind. Anyways, they had a great time and only ended up with one casuality, Lou took a hula hoop to the eye.

Valentines day was a fun evening. We met with our care group, ate dinner, and played a fun game called spouseology. Lots of laughs and good memories.....of course inappropriateness too. It wouldnt be small group without that. I added a pic of some of our friends with a Mark Gungor shout out. All you peeps who have done his series know what I am talking about. I also put a pic of C and I. This is the best we could do for a model pose. We are hilarious.

Our hot water heater broke this weekend. That was a bummer b/c we replaced one at our old house and it was close to $800. So, I was not looking forward to this. Luckily we have a neighbor who just replaced his hot water heater (our homes were built at the same time, so I guess everything is going to die at the same time) so he helped C and had it done in an hour. Praise God, b/c C had just worked a bunch of overtime and so he provided for us to buy the water heater. End cost was only about $400. Awesome!

Ok, off to the hour of power now will update more later!~~~J-dizzle

Here We Go!

Here are the update in the Littrell world. We adopted a dog. I know what you are thinking....what are they thinking? Well, Chris and I knew the girls would eventually wear us down in this area. Part of the problem for us was deciding whether or not we are going to stay in our home and refi in a few months or start looking for a bigger and better house. Love the bigger and better idea, but the reality of it is that we dont need that. We dont use 400 square feet in the front room very often and that would mean more for me to not keep clean. So we decided to be content with this house that God provided. So, after deciding on this home, we just had to be content with the yard sometimes having poop in it. The dog will probably go in it too. LOL! ( I am hilarious) Anyways, a friend of mine (who is also known as the dog whisperer) had a stray come to her house. She was already trained and no one was claiming her. Her name is Mud Pie and she is amazing. This weekend we will be attempting to let her sleep in the kitchen outside ofher carrier. She is about 7 mos old and we think a shepherd/lab mix. We love her.

Secondly, Chris and I have been seriously couponing for about 4 months. We did not start to see savings for a month or two, but since then it has been amazing. Before couponing we consistently busted the grocery budget. Now we are consistently under (unless we splurge and buy a new printer, oh well different budget I suppose) the monthly budget and truly have enough of some foods for months. It is like a game for us now. Looking for the best deals, pillaging the best coupons, and photgraphing our loot. My friends are getting the couponing bug too. I need to have the fistfulofcoupons.com lady come and give us all a class. That would be wonderful! I am sure some of you are wondering, why so much ceral and granola bars? Stock piling is part of the couponing idea. You stock up on the stuff you want when it is on sale. I got all the stuff in the photo above for $14, killer deal.

Crossview Church has done some reorganization of the pastoral staff. Chris is now over the family ministries section and we are really excited about this. This is where we have felt God calling us for years but it has never been a reality, well here it is. Very excited about this. Check out the website at crossviewcommunity.com to see all that is going on. We just added an Administrative pastor to our church. We have had the opportunity to work alongside this man with the youth and think that he is an amazing fit.

The first photo is of my family at the OG. My brother had never eaten there, so that was an experience. For those of you who dont know my bro, he is somewhat loud and not afraid to say whatever he wants. He asked me to walk him to the bathroom (as he had never been there and he said he didnt know where it was). So I walked him there and when he got to the door he looked back at me and said, " You commin'? It aint gonna shake itself!" For the love!!! It was a really crowded day and tons of people were looking at me. Horrified I replied to concerned onlookers, "He is just my brother. " In hindsight this statement is even creepier than his, oh well. So we were on a hiatius for a few months, but I think we are back on track now. Good times, good times.

White New Years

I got up this morning and worked out at 5:15am. I did this so that I would not have to get the kids moving too quickly this morning. I have really been trying these last couple of months to enjoy the season of life that I am in. Everybody tells me that it will fly by or be gone in the blink of an eye. The more I thought about this, the more God convicted me to "stop and smell the roses." I have been incredibly blessed with three healthy girls. Up until a couple months ago I took that for granted. God said very clearly to me that they were only mine for a little while and that He had entrusted them to me. So, I am proud to report that I am enjoying them. Making a point to do special things with them, making time for games, barbies, letting them help me cook, earning money, being "in charge", and just being kids. Each day is a decision to be a little more patient, kind, and willing to clean up a larger mess than if I would have just completed the task. Mothers, enjoy you babies! We only have them for a little while. My mom always made mothering feel effortless and fun. I can only hope and pray that my little ones will see His love through me and feel as special as my mom made me feel.