Yard Sale Finds

This weekend was the City Wide Yard sale, and my hubby really wanted to go and check out the sales. We loaded up the kiddos on a cold Saturday morning, and drove all around town looking for some good deals.

I found a few cute finds for the nursery.

James spotted the Sugar and Flour canisters for $2.00 each. I think they are going to look great in the kitchen.

I couldn’t pass up the Bowling Bag, Ball, and Shoes for just $1.oo! I love bowling bags, and this one came with a story too. The combo has never been involved in a perfect game, that made me laugh.

I found the big blue crock for just $1.00, and a soup mug for a quarter. You can never have too many mugs for Fall soups.

The kiddos also came home with some new toys, and I also picked up a bag of baby clothes for under $2.00 at a friend’s sale. I also found a wreath for $2.00 that will be perfect for the front door when Christmas arrives.

The morning was a blast, and the kiddos did really well at all of the sales. I think we’ve got a couple of savvy bargain hunters on our hands.

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Time To Stock Up

The pantry is running low, and it looks like it is time to make a gigantic Aldi run. The closest Aldi is 30 minutes away, but it is a great place to save.  Shopping and stockpiling for a few months also helps me plan my monthly dinner menus.  Having a stocked pantry also keeps me in the kitchen cooking, instead of grabbing take-out.

Here are a few of my favorite Aldi items that I like to keep stocked:

• Cake Mix, Icing, and Brownie Mix: all are delicious, and make tasty treats for the boys
• Oatmeal and Chocolate Chips: I make a lot of cookies, so these have to be stocked at all times
• Canned Goods: green beans, corn, and black olives too
• Pasta and Tomato Sauce: Spaghetti night is a simple dinner, and I also use the Tomato Sauce for pizza too
• Rice: Aldi has great and inexpensive Rice in a 3 pound bag. One bag will make sides for months
• Canned soups: you can’t beat Aldi’s prices on Cream and Condensed Soup. I use them for fast lunches, or casseroles too.
• Bread, Bagels, Waffles, and Cream Cheese: from breakfast to lunches, these are great time savers
• Chili Supplies: I can buy them for about 1/2 price at Aldi. I usually buy for at least 3 batches of Chili
• Chips and Lunch-box treats: With Thade in school, and taking lunch everyday, these are necessities in the kitchen
• Peanut Butter and Jelly: Thade loves Peanut Butter sandwiches, so I really go through the Peanut Butter in our house
• Potatoes, and fresh fruits and veggies: You can usually pick up a 10 pound bag of Russets for a great price. I like to a little bit of time to mash them and freeze them for future dinners

So what do you like to keep in your pantry stockpile?

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The Toilet Paper Math

Yesterday I needed to restock paper goods around the house. Well we really needed about a case of Kleenex (allergies) and we were running low on Toilet Paper too. I like to shop Dollar General for paper products, they seem to have the best price, and great customer service too, so win win. We headed to Dollar General first, and then we would go to Wal-Mart for the rest of the groceries.

At Dollar General I picked up 5 boxes of Kleenexes at just $1.00 each, and I’m already running low again. Yesterday wasn’t a good day for our household’s noses. I also spotted Angel Soft 24 pack Toilet Paper for just $6.50, I thought that sounded like a pretty good deal to me. I could easily stock both bathrooms with this purchase. I happily checked out, and then we were off to Wal-Mart.

I decided to stroll down the paper goods aisle at Wal-Mart and see if I made the best purchase, and that was when I noticed that their Angel Soft 4 packs were on sale for $1.00 each. After doing the toilet paper math,  I should have grabbed 6 of the 4 packs on sale and saved an itty bit, oh well.

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Not Going Out In March: The Finale

Thank goodness March is over, and I can happily say that we made it through the entire month without picking up any fast food. I’m shocked that we actually made it through the month, I really had my doubts that it could be done. We are going to celebrate on April 1st with a few meals of take-out, so there goes last month’s savings, oh well.

So here is how the month went. Week #1 brought the complaints, and me obsessively stocking the kitchen with all of the needed staple items for meals. Week #2 went smooth, but the dishes were starting to pile up a bit, and the kids really wanted those Spiderman toys at McDonald’s. Week #3 was so tough, I really didn’t think that we were going to make it. I was really tired of cooking non-stop, and James had a few words to say too. Week #4 seemed to go better, and we were all happy just to count down the last few days before April.

The dishes really, truly took over the kitchen. I think I literally only had 2 days where I got them all caught up, and the kitchen wasn’t a total wreck. Also baking all of those homemade goodies from scratch not only used a ton of dishes, but I used 20 pounds of Flour in the month of March, crazy.

Now for the Savings: Well this was interesting, I really thought that not going out vs. purchasing more groceries would even out, and then I decided to factor in gas money. It is one of those things that you wouldn’t really think about, but all of those extra trips out to idle in the drive thru waste a lot of gas. I started noticing just how much gas money we were saving by Week #3, I needed to stop for gas, but my hubby hadn’t had to stop for gas at all. Each of us were stopping for gas at least twice a month for about $20.00 a trip.

So let’s break down the numbers:

• Gas Money, it is usually $80.00 for two cars, and this month I had to stop and fill up once for $30.00, and James $0.00! So far that gives us a savings of $50.00!
• Grocery Money: I decided to average out the last 3 months, and put the average against March’s grocery totals. Seeing the totals kinds scared me… Well I was definitely over for the Month of March by about $91.15, so there goes the great gas savings. Now I’m down $41.15 in savings.
• Now for the fast food totals. I averaged the last seven months of fast food expenses, and it gave me a total of $199, yeah I know it sounds like a lot… Well for the entire month of March we spent $0.00!!!
• Here is the Grand Total: Gas Savings $50.00, Grocery Overage -$91.15, but Not Going Out In March for fast food saved $199.00, so that gives us $157.85 in savings!

$157.85 isn’t too bad, but I have to admit I really don’t want to see the kitchen again for quite awhile. Thanks for following along on our Not Going Out In March Challenge!

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