Shop Like a Miser

I've had a lot of requests for grocery shopping tips, so I figured a blog would be the simplest way to share my miserly-ness.
Keep in mind, this process took me months to perfect and I'm sure different methods help different people, but this is what works for my family.

1. Bye-bye Brand names
Wal-Mart is your friend. Unless Albertsons, Safeway, Publix, or Kroger (etc..) are having humongo sales, Wal-Mart will always be cheaper. Not only should you shop at Wal-Mart, you should buy Wal-Mart brands whenever possible (unless you have coupons). The only real difference between brand names and Wal-Mart brands is that Wal-Mart is cheaper.

2. Plan Ahead
Make a menu list, at the very least for dinners. Even if you don't itemize everything you're going to eat, make out a mental plan of it, including snacks. Really hard-core budgeters plan for a whole month and only make one trip each month. I do it weekly. Planning your food reduces the possibility of unnecessary purchases and wasted food. If you eat everything you buy you don't throw away any food. Throwing out food is throwing out money.

3. Cheap-cheap
Be ok with eating cheap. Home-cooked meals take much more effort than a packaged dinner, but are waaay cheaper. A casserole is not too difficult to make and doubles as the next day's lunch and dinner, plus it stretches out your meat supply. Beans and mushrooms are also great, cheap ways to supplement meat. Instead of couking a whole piece of meat. eat half with a pile of beans or rice and veggies. It's not fancy, but it's fillling and much healthier.

4. Drinks
Not only are juices and sodas expensive, they're calorie-packed. Drink more water and limit yourself to one glass of juice per day. And don't buy bottled water; get a Nalgene. Cutting out drinks makes the grocery bill plummet.

5. Lists
I love lists of any kind; I'm a little obsessed with them. After making your menu plan write a list based on the plan. Look carefully over your menu for each ingredient you will need and add it to your list. Once you get to the store, stick to your list like a Nazi, this will rule out impulse buying.

6. Bulk Up
Buy in bulk whenever possible. Unless there's a great sale on smaller portions, a larger portion is much cheaper. I buy the biggest package of chicken (or whatever) Wal Mart has. When I get home, I open it and portion it (2 breasts a pack for me and Johnny). I refrigerate what I will need in the next couple days and freeze the rest. This way I only buy meat a couple time per month at most. This can also work for milk, cheese, and other various perishables. Obviously, it's easy to store non-perishables for quite a while.

7. Stock up on Sales
Along the same lines, if there's a sale, buy extra. Again, the freezer is your ally.

8. Minimize Snacks
Snacks are bad for you anyway. Not only that, chips and candy are expensive. Limiting your snacks will save you big bucks.

That's all I can come up with at the moment. I hope it helps. And this took me well over an hour to write due to my precious little ones, so you'd better appreciate it. ;)

Montezuma

I don't know if it's food poisoning, gluten (no idea from where, though), or a virus, but Montezuma is having its revenge. Johnny was up all night and I was up for most of it. That makes me believe it can't possibly be gluten, because Johnny wouldn't be reacting. The point is, we're sick, tired, and in possession of two children who don't care. Fortunately, they're both being very well-behaved.

Johnny's apparently supposed to try to drag himself in to work at some point today and I don't know if he'll cancel his lessons tonight or not. Poor guy. I need to fit grocery shopping in somewhere.

I'm laying on the couch right now and Johnny is in the rocking chair, because Zach decided to dump an entire glass of water on our bed. It's gonna be a great day.

Trying to Keep Up

As another day comes to a close I sit, exhausted, on the couch and try to remember where I left my brain. Oh, right, in my room at Ivinson Hospital on August 31, 2007 (Zach's birth; try to keep up ;).
Zachary, the adorable, trouble-making, wonderful child whom I love very much, learns amazing new things every day. The child is so bright. This really is a blessing and I am very thankful to have a smart, energetic, healthy child. However, his enthusiasm and zeal for life leave me, his mother, on the brink of clinical insanity every day.
He has absolutely floored me the last couple days with how much he has learned and how much he understands and remembers. Yesterday he pulled open a door and today he opened a candy cane wrapper with absolutely no help from me (I had let him play with the cane thinking there was no way he could get it open) and when Johnny called from the road I said, "It's Dada!" The poor little guy ran to the front door thinking that I meant Daddy had arrived home. He knows the evening ritual so well.
But what really floored me today was when we were sitting in the front room of the house. It has large windows, so we sit there and play on sunny days to take advantage of the extra heat. We were all playing on the floor and Gabriel had just finished nursing. Gabey let out an impressive amount of spit-up and Zach reacted in a flash. Before I even had time to pick Gabriel up Zach was off like a shot. He returned seconds later with a spit-up rag from the bedroom all the way on the other side of the house. I couldn't believe it. The kid is so smart and so sweet. I adore him, but I sure am relieved for that 7:30 bedtime. :)

It wasn't just Zach that wore me out today. Saturday is supposed to be a teamwork day. I dont have to deal with the two little angels by myself. Johnny is here to help and we usually visit the in-laws. But Johnny is in Montana today and my mother-in-law is in Minnesota. I also picked today to do my grocery shopping. Wal Mart is actually a pretty easy job; I simply park by a cart return and strap Zach in the front and rest Gabriel's seat in the back. No problem. However I go to a small grocer who carries a good supply of gluten free items. They have no shopping carts; it's a very small store. So, I carry Gabriel, all the groceries, my purse and a diaper bag all while trying to make sure Zach stays somewhere near me and doesn't throw items on the floor. It's really very exciting. I don't know why I bother exercising on these special days.

I also, because I am crazy, took them both to the library this afternoon.

Johnny texted me and said the land is the most amazing thing he's ever seen. I'm so excited to hear about it!! He should be home between 11 and midnight and I will try galantly to stay up.

Watching the AFC Championship tomorrow with all the boys (Johnny, Zach, Gabey, and Johnny's dad). I'm sad to think that football will be over in two weeks, but I do love the Super Bowl.

Let the Good Times Roll

Life is truly beautiful. My days are long, but fulfilling. It's a good feeling to drop, very worn out, into bed every night and know you worked hard and served a good purpose all day. God has blessed me tremendously.

Zachary and Gabriel are growing so fast. This past week, especially, has seemed like a flood of development. Zach is a little boy now. There seems so little of a baby left in him, except for the occasional tantrum and the "Bottle Battle." He is going on 17 months and has, until now, refused to hold his own bottle. But, after two days of tantrums, whining and dehydration, I have cracked his iron will. He is holding his bottle willingly and only needs an occasional reminder to tip it upward. Along with this accomplishment he has learned to open doors, lift the toilet lid, and pull the plastic covers off electric outlets. This has made my barrage of "No, Zach," "Don't touch that, Zach!" and "ZACH, NO!!!!" seem to multiply exponentially. God made babies cute for the survival of the human race.
Gabriel might very well be an angel. He rarely cries and when he does it's little more than a mew. He loves everyone and acts like a smile from anyone is his reason for living. He holds up his head like a champ, sucks his fists, and reaches for toys. He's still very much the Mama's Boy.

Montana news is looking pretty good. Johnny and JH go up to the property on Saturday to check things out and the potential (and probable) investor will visit soon after. This is very good, because Johnny's current job is really starting to get to him.

My current endeavors include my French studies and never-ending housework. I'm really into learning French right now. I finished all 4 courses offered on livemocha.com, watch a movie in French every day, and have started a blog in French to practice. I intend to start getting books in French. I'll probably speak to the boys in French here and there, but not too much. They need to learn English first. :) Johnny will kill me if they speak French before English.

Et Comment!

So, I'm watching "Garden State" with French subtitles as my daily movie in French. And when Largeman says "f*** yeah!" the subtitle came up "Et Comment!" which literally means, "and how!"

Nothing life-changing. It just amused me.

That's all.

Flu?

So terribly sick. I was up all night with a headache, sore throat and nausea. I hope it's not the flu, especially because I got vaccinated.

Gators play for the National tonight! That will make everything better.

Blah

That is the perfect word to sum up today. It describes the weather, my tummy and current events.

It's cloudy and snowy with a light wind. It's supposed to snow about an inch tonight, but today it's just been sleeting on and off. Winter should go away now.

I must have eaten a bit of gluten somewhere, because my stomach has been off all week. Yucky. I hate tummy aches.

Not much happening today, tomorrow or yesterday. In fact, aside from regular daily duties, nothing at all will happen until the National Championship on Thursday. This is such a change from my old life of running every which way until I feel like I'm going in circles. Nope, now it's just bottles, diapers and chores.

I ordered my anniversary present to Johnny. It's hard to believe that next month I will have been married for three years. Time goes too fast.

Zach's awake!

Happy New Year!

We close out our little Colorado tour tomorrow morning. Right now I'm sitting cozily in an over-sized beanbag chair as Johnny plays Lego Star Wars in Ryan Rhodes' basement. The babies are deservedly zonked; they've both been fantastic throughout this 5-day trip.
We started on Wednesday morning, driving from Sheridan, WY to Ft. Collins, CO. I had my obligatory BeauJo's gluten free pizza (which was the whole point of the trip for me) and we celebrated a quiet new year with cranberry vodka and CatchPhrase. Of course, my drink was only one half shot of vodka in a whole glass of cranberry juice right after I finished nursing Gabriel for the night. My 21-year-old privileges have yet to kick in. I doubt they ever will seeing that I really don't like to drink...

Zachary's major accomplishment of the week was straw suckage. We bought sippy cups with leak-proof straws for his own, personal use. He seems quite proud of himself.
Gabriel also wowed the masses with his exceptional baby skills. He discovered his hands and has been sucking on them ever since. He also got so excited when I came to pick him up from a nap the he touched his knees to his head and let out a joyous squeal.

Thursday was spent in Ft. Collins with a trip to the mall and much Lego Star Wars playing. On Friday we headed down to Boulder, CO to visit Johnny's friend, Jason, who returned from Australia for the holidays. Jason, Ryan, and Johnny have all been pals since middle school. Johnny stayed in Boulder with Ryan while I carted the tykes back to Ft. Collins for bed.

Tomorrow we'll stop in Laramie to see Mikey on our way back to Sheridan. It's been so nice to return to civilization for a few days, but life is so much easier on me and the boys when we're in a strict routine. Carting around snacks, bottles, spit rags, wipes, diapers, nursing pads, changes of clothes, stroller, diaper bag, etc. really gets exhausting. It's just way too much to keep track of along with coordinating feedings and naptime with various vacational activities. Although the big downside to returning home means that Johnny goes back to work. Major sadface. This two-week vacation has been fantastic. I love having him home.

I hope you all had a fun New Year. 2009 promises to be even better than 2008. If thats possible.