The little rain showers brought tasty fruits and veggies to the garden.
We picked Bibb Lettuce, Broccoli, Snow Peas, and Strawberries today. I finally got all of the Green Beans tied up too.
The kiddos are tired and grumpy from helping, but I am happy to see the garden growing so well.
I know I’ve mentioned it a few times before, but I have decided to get back into the couponing game. My main goal for May was to start my stockpile, and stock up on Summer staples for the kids. I think I did pretty good, and for the few weeks that I was at it, I was surprised by my savings. I stuck to the local stores, but in June I’m taking my coupon binder on the road, and hopefully I’ll come home with even better savings.
I started off at Walgreens, one of my favorite places to shop locally. They are very coupon friendly, and don’t frown when I hand over a big pile of coupons. I came home with a fantastic freebie, a full sized bottle of lotion was free with a coupon. I also got one of the lip-glosses for $.99, thanks to a bogo 50% off, and I used coupons on both too. Once I did the math I saved 43% with coupons and earned $4.00 in register rewards too.
Then it was off to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart seems to be hit and miss when it comes to coupons, but this time I was pretty happy when we got to the check-out. I got the tank top for free thanks to a $5.00 coupon. I also saved 48% on this shopping trip thanks to coupons.
Wood’s had an amazing soda sale going on, and I shopped it twice. We are stocked up for the Summer now. This was also my first time really using my coupons for a big shopping trip at Woods. I got a cool freebie too, I got a free sauce pan ($15.00) for signing up for their store’s membership rewards card ( to use to save on fuel). I also saved 26% on this trip, and started growing my stockpile.
Back to Walgreens one more time for the cereal sale. I was hoping to use my $4.00 in register rewards plus a $1.00 coupon to make this transaction $.97, but it didn’t work. I saved the $4.00 register rewards for the diaper sale for later in the week. I can’t complain about a cereal sale though, my kiddos go through a crazy amount of cereal.
I also visited Gene’s Heartland Foods to once again shop a cereal sale. I also spotted a good deal on chips while we were there. I saved 15% on this shopping trip, and one of the boxes of cereal had $5.00 worth of coupons included. Pretty good deal, and once again all of the purchases went to the stockpile.
My best deal for the month was getting the lip gloss for $.99, I was pretty happy about that one.
I also came up with some cool freebies. I got 2 free tank tops, a free sauce pan, and a free bottle of lotion. Not too bad.
I tracked all of my shopping trips for two weeks, and ended up saving 23% total. It was well worth the time and extra clipping too. I’m going to make this my Summer project and see just how much I can save at the stores.
This is one of my family’s favorite treats, and a small warning, it isn’t healthy, not one little but. They are delicious though, and well worth a try. So let’s make some Sugar Dumplings.
You will need:
Start off by heating the vegetable oil in your sauce pan. You want the oil up to 350-375 F so the dumplings fry to a golden brown.
Open up the biscuits, and separate them.
Then tear the biscuits into quarters. For this batch I’m using flaky biscuit dough (it was the last one left) but any biscuit dough will work. Since they are flaky, I kneaded the dough a bit to break down the layers, and then I rolled each of the biscuit quarters into balls.
Roll away, this will keep you busy while the oil is heating up.
Get your bowls ready. I have one filled with one cup of Sugar to roll the hot dumplings in. The smaller bowl is going on the table once all of the dumplings are finished.
When your oil has reached the perfect temp, it’s time to fry the dumplings. I like to fry mine in small batches of 4-5. Stay right there with them, they brown up fast.
If they stick to the bottom of the pan a bit, you can loosen them with your slotted spoon. Make sure they are golden brown everywhere, and remove them from the oil.
Transfer them to your paper towel lined plate, and lightly toss them around to remove any extra oil.
Then pop them into your sugar bowl, and coat them well. This is where you can get creative with your Sugar… My family likes them just plain with sugar only, but you could always add orange or lemon zest to your sugar and give them a bright citrus flavor. Also cinnamon and sugar would be delicious, or even dust them with powdered sugar and drizzle them with chocolate syrup. Any way you make them, they are tasty. Once you’ve got them sugar coated, transfer them to your serving dish, and dessert is ready.
Hope you enjoy this super sweet treat!
Every year the first weekend in June it rolls around, and I start thinking of reasons why I should just stay at home. My hubby loves to go, and so do the kids. So I go along, and I always get really really really sick, I think I learned my lesson this year…
I’m talking about the Good ‘Ol Days. It’s our local Summer festival where the whole town shuts down for a good 3 days and there is a big festival downtown. It is all good and fun, but unbelievably hot, how I wish they would break tradition and move the festivities to a cooler time of year.
The boys enjoyed some super tasty homemade lemonade, I had one too. It was really delicious.
We walked around a bit and enjoyed the sites, but a good half an hour in to the festival my head was throbbing, and I was ready to call it a day.
Even Miss Agnes was HOT!
We all decided to grab some tasty treats and head back home to the a.c. It was a fun day for the kiddos, and my hubby too, but I was miserable.
So what didn’t make it into this post, a picture of me… Sunburned (even though I put on the 50 spf sunblock), covered in itchy hives (from the sunlight), migraine for 24 hours, and 3 days of nausea. Yeah, the Good ‘Ol Days just aren’t for me.
I am finally starting to feel better, and the nausea has passed. I’ve learned my lesson, I’m just not made for the Summertime.
So I’ve got my binder on the way to being organized, and a pretty good spreadsheet system going, but I’m just not seeing the savings up as high as I would like. I’m learning a lot as I go, and a lot about local couponing etiquette. I’ve even run into two local extreme couponers while we’ve been out shopping.
My savings are hovering around 26%-43%, but I want to do better. This week I bumped up my paper purchases from 2 to 3, and I think 4 might be my magic number. It is really fun to coupon though, and saving a little on the grocery budget just might make me a fan of shopping again.