Havin Hope

Yea, I’ve been hoping for a 10 for $10 week! Oh 10 for 10, how happy you make me! Remember, you do NOT have to buy 10 items, every item is a dollar no matter how many you buy!

I use a Central Illinois ad and my coupons double if they are .50 or less (my Kroger will NOT double a .55 coupon).

Here are some deals that I found:

Pillsbury Biscuits or Rolls (5-10 ct refrigerated)
Use $0.50/1 from Cellfire.com (must have already added to your Plus card)
Use $0.50/2 here OR use $0.30/2 in 2/8 GM insert OR I had a $1/1 from a Box Top for Education Mailer (I think)
Final Price = $0.25-0.70/ea when you buy 2

Knorr Sides
Buy 2 and use .60/1 from recent insert
Final Price = .70/ea when you buy 2

Shamrock Farms Milk
Use $1/2
Final Price= .50/ea when you buy 2 (not a great deal, but good for a treat!)

Chi-Chi’s Salsa, 16oz
Use .55/1 from recent insert
Final Price= .45 (this would be free if your Kroger doubled .55 Q’s!)

Healthy One LunchMeat
Use .75/1 from recent insert
Final Price= .25

Kroger Mini Peeled Carrots
use .45/1 from Kroger Mailer (if you got one)
Final Price= .55 (store coupon will not double)

StarKist Chunk Light Tuna (2.6 oz pouch)
Use Buy 2, Get 1 Free in 2/22 Red Plum insert
Final Price = $0.67/ea when you buy 3

Aquafresh Toothpaste (4-6 oz select varieties) - $1/ea
Use $0.75/1 here or in 1/4 Smart Source insert
Final Price = .25

Renuzit Adjustable Air Freshener - $1/ea
Use $0.55/3 in 2/22 Smart Source insert
Final Price = $0.81/ea when you buy 3 (not a fabulous deal)

Kleenex Facial Tissues (110-120 ct) - $1/ea
Use $0.50/3 in 2/8 Smart Source insert
Final Price = $0.67/ea when you buy 3

Although there aren’t any coupons, also on the 10 for 10 that I’ll be picking up:
Kroger Tortilla Chips

Pride of the Farm Ground Seasoned Turkey (these aren’t the lowest in fat, but we have tried and liked: chorizo, original, and taco- I’ll be picked up a couple of each)

Pork Picnic (we made some awesome BBQ the other day with one of these, it made a lot!) (maybe I’ll make it again, anyone want the recipe for “Braggin Rights BBQ” from the Marlboro Ranch Cookbook?)

Dozen Eggs

Other deals:
Grapes- 1.29/1b and Bananas- .39/lb(good time to use the 1 off of $3 purchase of fresh fruit coupon from the Kroger Mailer)

Kroger cheese- 1.67 (use .45 from Kroger Mailer or Best Customer catalina for 1.22 final price)

There you go! I hope you’re able to snag some good deals on groceries this week! I know I will. Don’t forget to check the clearance table for items you can use a coupon on and stag for free!

M Kroger Deals will be posted soon on the Grocery Gathering!

This past Saturday I got to go and try to convert some innocent people over to couponing!  I was a nervous wreck about going to my sister-in-law’s church to speak in front of 40 ladies but it was fun and the women told me my talk was “cute” (I was hoping for helpful or life-changing, but I’ll take cute!).  Sara said that they just meant that I was entertaining.  And I’ll take entertaining over putting them to sleep any day!

Here is the first part of my talk, “Why Coupon?”, I hope you find it both helpful and cute (cute is optional):

Purpose for Couponing

Why coupon? What is the point? Any ideas?

1. Spend less money. I don’t have specifics to share with you, but I can say that there is money left over in my grocery budget each month. I had a goal for myself- to use my grocery budget not only for groceries, toiletries and household items, but for other things as well, things that in the past I would used my debit card or wrote a check for. But now my goal is to take the cash that I take out every 2 weeks and use if for things like lunch money, field trips and school pictures and medicine.
   
2. Stockpile staple items Not only do I have more money in my wallet but I have more things in my cabinets! I had to create a pantry for the overflow! I even store some items under an end table. I will say that sometimes stockpiling requires extra money, but once you have stocked up on say, cereal because you were able to get it for .60 cents a box then next month you won’t have to buy cereal, you can stock up on something else. I used to be the kind of person who only had exactly what I needed and never extra. Having last minute company or needing to take a meal to someone would throw off a whole week’s menu, but now I have plenty of wiggle room and can be more flexible. Also, stockpiling can be really helpful in an emergency situation such as an ice storm when you can’t get to the store or if you lose some of your income and need to carefully watch what you spend.  You should be able to get by with spending very little on pantry and toiletry items.
3. Enables more generosity, giving, and donating I love this part! Sometimes we give our tithe and that’s all we can give, but now I feel like I can give something more. Recently I’ve been able to help two friends, Brooke and Ashley, with projects by donating some of my free stash.  Our freebies helped give area children needed hygiene products and school supplies.
4. Hobbies can often be expensive, but now my favorite hobby is saving money! I got started with couponing when my friend Sarah said to me, her sister Brooke and our friend Ashley that we should start couponing. I honestly thought that I already did pretty well. I’m a frugal girl- I cook mostly from scratch, shop at Aldi’s and have done Walgreens rebates for free shampoo and toothpaste for 5 years. But I thought it might be something fun to do with them, and it has been. We often hit CVS together after church on Sunday, discuss deals during the week and get together to clip and swap coupons. But also, I was facing a long summer. You might know our tragedy last spring, after years of infertility and medical help we had finally gotten pregnant only to lose our little girl when my water broke at 21 weeks. So couponing ended up being much more than just saving money and spending time with my friends, it was a welcome distraction. It doesn’t make everything better, but it is something productive that takes can temporarily take your mind off of something sad or complicated in your life.

Part 2 is coming soon!

Mmmmm….Kroger!  Here are the deals worth checking out this week:

Remember,  I have a Central IL ad (to view your local ad go here) and that my Kroger doubles all coupons that are .50 or less.

Egg Beaters- 2.50

Use $1/1 here

Total price- 1.50

Toaster Strudel- 2.00

Use $1/1 here

Load a $0.50/1 on to your Kroger card on Shortcuts.com OR

Load $0.50/1 on to your Kroger card on Cellfire.com

Total Price- .50 each (if that really is a 1/1 coupon,  my computer was doing the thing where only wants to print it in Explorer…)

Kraft Cheese- 2.00

Use .75 off coupon from the smartsource machine that may be located in your dairy section (only good on 2% milk types)

Total price- 1.25

If you love Simply Orange Juice and don’t supposedly have a food sensitivity to orange, it is priced at 3.00.

Use the .55 off coupon from a recent newspaper insert

Total price- 2.45

I also noticed that:

strawberries- 1.50 each

Kroger brand tortilla chips- .88 (again)

Not much that I’m going to do this week, but I did find some new coupons that you can add to your Kroger Card via Cellfire here. Hurry and add them before the 23rd when they will disappear, but they do not expire until the 9th of March. I’m most excited about these:

- .60 off Chex Mix

- .25 off Cottonelle (because I love the free TP)

- 1.00 off Colgate (since I don’t get enough free toothpaste either- ha)

- .50 of Grands Biscuits

- .50 of Hamburger Helper

I think in conjunction with a manufacturers coupon we get some great deals on the above items in the near future!  There were also a few others as well. And, if you don’t have a Kroger in your area, check out Cellfire anyway because they also have coupons you can add to your cell phone (hence the name CELLfire).

Thanks to Stretching a Buck whose deals from the previous week sometimes work for me!

Not adoptions!

I just spent a few minutes trying to come up with the number of US adoptions that are made through people that you know, a number that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of stats on. Adoption networking it is called, something that we have not really done. We have not made a website or put an ad in the paper but we have tried to be open with people about our plans to adopt.

Hence the dairy queen adoption gone bad. It was one of those crazy situations where someone we know well has a sister who has a complicated relationship with a girl who is pregnant and wants to give us her baby. Jake and I have dubbed this situation the “DQ adoption” because the sister was tracked down at the local DQ to figure out how to contact me.

So it was a week of wondering, a week of disconnected phone numbers and non-returned calls. A week of waiting (I KNOW that I have to wait a lot longer than that, I’m good at waiting, remember?) and not knowing what in world is going on in the potential birthmom’s head.

Our social worker assured us that she probably just freaked out a little and we just needed to give her some time.

But then last night we got the call from our “source” that she had miscarried. She didn’t know much else nor if that was really true or not. I don’t know what the potential B.M. did but my “source” said that she didn’t sound well. I can’t help but worry about her and wonder a little about what could of been.

I also wonder how although my background check still isn’t cleared due to my lack-o-fingerprints that we have already had TWO adoption disappointments (remember the twins?). I wonder what will happen once we actually are official?????

I’m taking a stab at posting some deals again this week, I hope they help!

I apologize that they didn’t get posted last night, but I am at the mercy of the free-shopper-delivery-person, sometimes it comes on Wednesday, sometimes Thursday or Friday and often- not at all. So I then I have to make a quick trip to Kroger to pick up the ad (and maybe do a little shopping, so I’m not complaining).

Please take note that I have a Central IL ad (to view your local ad go here) and that my Kroger doubles all coupons that are .50 or less.

First, I want to say that there is no reason why you shouldn’t be cashing in on the free Cottonelle TP! Print 2 coupons each here and here (must create a pledge that has nothing to do with toilet paper, going to the bathroom, ect.). And if you missed it last week, go here for 2 more coupons for a grand total of 6 FREE packages (24 rolls!).

Sadly, I do not see too many awesome coupon match-ups. They are running the Daytona 500 Deal again where if you purchase 10 participating items you receive $3.00 off your total. But I just don’t see any good deals here. If you love Chef Boyardee you could buy 10 cans or microwavable bowls @ .88 each. After taking $3 off at the register you will pay .58 each. An okay deal if you like the stuff. Go here if you are interested in buying the Kung Fu Panda movie and getting $3 off when you buy 5 Chef Boyardee Products.

Kroger is also running a case sale where you don’t actually have to buy a case, you are just getting the case price per item. I will be picking up 3 of the StarKist Tuna packets priced at .99 each and using the Buy 2 get 1 Free coupon from the Feb. ALL YOU magazine making my total 2 for 1.98. They also have Kroger juice for 1.50, which I thought was a decent deal.

I will be picking up a dozen eggs for .99 (I will buy 2-3 dozen).

Besides scanning the meat mark-downs and the clearance table, I’m not planning on doing much else. I will say that I have picked up 6 packages of Healthy Ones Sliced Turkey over the last 2 weeks that was marked down to .99 each. I used a .75 of coupon from recent newspaper inserts to get each package for .24 each! ALWAYS take your coupons into Kroger and be on the look out for marked down specials that you can combine with a coupon.

If you are in need of chicken, Perdue Boneless breasts are 1.87/lb and if you didn’t get cheese the week before last during the Mega ten then you might want to pick up some Kroger brand bars of shreds for 2/$3.

I almost forgot- I will definitely be picking up a couple of bags of Kroger brand Tortilla chips for .88 per bag. We like them a lot and this is a great price.

Happy Krogering this week!

Today is 100th day for the kindergartners at Jonah’s school and up until today, he has had perfect attendance. But today, on 100th day, I was subbing in the class next door when the secretary came in to say that his fever was 102! I feel like a terrible mom! He really looked a little off this morning but said he was fine. Even when he got home he said he was much better and ready to go back to school.

Poor guy, he knew he was missing the 100th Day Parade and 100th Day Party. I hated to miss school too. I told him the story of when I was in first grade and had to miss the Christmas Party due to the chicken pox’s. But now, I’m kind of glad that I get to avoid “that class” that makes me despise subbing (where I was scheduled for tomorrow)!

I’ve been saying for MONTHS that I’m going to post some local Kroger deals since no one in our area seems to post them. I feel like I’m picking a terrible week to start since the pickings are slim at Kroger this week, but here goes anyway.

Take note that I have a Central IL ad, to view your local ad go here.

Here’s the few good deals that I might pick up:

Ground Chuck- 1.87/lb

10 lb. potatoes- 2.49

Betty Crocker Potatoes- 1.25
-.35 from Shortcuts and
-.25 or .35 from recent inserts, doubled to .50 or .70
=.65 or .55

Honey Nut Cheerios- 1.67 each
-.50 e-coupon from Cellfire and -.55 from here
= .66

DAYTONA 500 Deals
Its hard to get excited about these, when we just had a Mega 10, but you do get $3 off instantly when you buy 10 participating items.

Stretching a Buck has all of the coupon match-ups for this deal here (be sure to see how she gets free Cottonelle toilet paper which is NOT a part of this week’s ad, but its just regular price! I love the free TP at Kroger!), although she is in Ohio and the rest of her ad is different, the Daytona 500 deals appear to be the same. I am noticing however that some of the prices seem to be different by just a few cents (but in our favor).

Also, if you are in need of laundry detergent Purex is included in the deal and only 2.69 each when you buy ten items.

I haven’t decided if I’m going to work one these deals or not, I can’t figure anything really fabulous out at this point. I might just go for the TP, cereal, and potatoes (both kinds)!

So I didn’t work very hard for those deals, but I promised my friend Debbie that I would post them. Maybe they’ll be better next week!

There is something in me that can’t give up. I can’t give up trying to get pregnant and I can’t give up wanting to know why I lost my baby. I’m moving on and healing and grieving and doing all of the things that I am suppose to do, but I think I will always want to know, always wonder.

I guess its that longing to know that led me to send off my saliva and a hair sample to a lady that I have never met, in Australia. But I had heard about her from a reliable source, and was amazed by the stories she was telling me.

So I send it all off and waited as this lady fed my saliva through a machine that reads the electric impulses within my body and then spits out a printout depicting how each of my organs are functioning.

I can hear the snickers and hoots… oh wait, that’s my husband, in the next room who isn’t buying ANY of this. But I have to know, I say, I have to see if she has any answers for me.

And she does have answers. Lots of them. Organs I didn’t know that I had are functioning at only 60% or 70%. But my lungs are doing well, and so are my joints and I’m not really sure about my heart. And then there are my ovaries who are only pulling 40% of their weight, which is no surprise. She concludes that I have a lot of stressors effecting these areas of my body, mostly heavy metal intoxication (I promise I haven’t been sucking on nuts and bolts) and some kind of virus. She also kindly says “that is not a good environment for a baby.” She’s not a medical doctor and can’t say anything for sure and although I will probably never know what happened and may never try to conceive again, she thinks I should “get cleaned up.”

So she concocted electrical charged drops (shhh…I can hear you) and have been taking them each night (under my tongue, for 2 minutes and I keep them wrapped in foil so my cell phone won’t desensitize them)(I know, its sounds crazy).

Recently she tested me again and was pleased with the improvements that she saw. Those stupid ovaries are now working 70%. But she also tested me for food sensitivities and sent me quite the list of foods to avoid. She says that my body has to work hard to stay balanced and healthy against these foods that don’t set well with me, energy it could be used for other things.

Now I’m okay with taking drops every night. I’m okay with my husband making fun of me and I’m okay with the fact that this all sounds just a little crazy. But, she wants me to stop eating cheese and drinking orange juice. Am I okay with that? Do I believe in this THAT much? I mean, I have to have my morning OJ just like most people have to have their coffee. Switch to coffee you say? No can do, its on my list too!

Here is my extensive list, notice that Gatorade and coffee made by Hags are RIGHT OUT (as well as several things that I have never heard of):
• A link between egg yolk to the egg sensitivity
• A link between cenovis, ketchup, fruit vinegar to the condiment sensitivity
• A link between pineapple, apple, strawberry, fig, raspberry, cherry, mandarin, orange, nectarine, grapefruit to the fruit sensitivity
• A link between green peas, chick peas, lentils to the legume sensitivity
• A link between camembert, hard cheese, soft cheese, sheep cheese to the cheese sensitivity
• A link between cereal coffee, espresso coffee, Hag coffee, caffeine, instant coffee to the coffee sensitivity
• A link between bifidus, buttermilk, canned milk, yoghurt, milk, cream to the dairy products sensitivity
• A link between Horn of plenty to the mushroom sensitivity
• A link between isotonic sports drinks, tofu, acidophilus bifidus to other sensitivities

So I’m going to try it. Over a scramble smothered in cheese and milk gravy my friend Rachel says yesterday, “what do you have to lose?” Just give a try, she said, and see if you notice a difference.

So I will. And, I have a sensitivity to condiments! HA!