POPPING up a storm

Well not a real storm but a snack storm. Our family is addicted to popcorn and with 3 teenage boys those little bags can cost us a small fortune. Tonight we broke out the ol' air popper. Its a healthy and inexpensive alternative to those microwaveable bags. We picked up a Presto air popper a while back for about $20. A big bag of popcorn kernals runs about 75 to 99 cents for a pound bag. Our popper only uses 1/2 a cup and makes a huge bowl.
We like to add different toppers like butter, ranch, and cheese powders for added flavor. You don't use oil so you cut the ungood stuff out as well as extra expense. The kids get a kick out of watching it pop too.

Here's an interesting article comparing microwave verses loose kernal popcorn. HERE

The Flu has landed

Hello all! Sorry for the absence. The flu has landed at our home...well more like crashed landed in a blaze of glory! Not a very nice couple of weeks around here. I believe I'm on the mend; at least the walls coming in on me makes me feel like I'm on the mend. I haven't been able to get out and do any shopping which really has helped the budget quite a bit. ha! ha! The only thing I've been buying lately is NyQuil and Sprite. But I didn't want to leave you hanging without a tip or two for them. We've gone through a bunch of sprite this past week and I actually sat there and read the "See Details" part of the package. While I was running a bit of fever for most of the week, I did decide to join the Mycokerewards program. I went through the house collecting all the caps I could find. While you can get great coke stuff I also learned that you can donate the rewards to the school of your choice. This is a great idea if you aren't into all the merchandise items or you just want to help out a local school. There are also other great causes you can support with your Coke Rewards as well. During the month of March when you enter a 12-pack you'll earn an additional bonus of 3 points each day for the month of March. It will amaze you how quickly those little cap points will add up. So go grap a Coke/Sprite and a smile for all the good points that will add up to some great things or at least some great opportunity for a worth cause.

Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act could make our lives worse

In our quest to save money, many of us with children shop ebay, yard sales, children's consignment, etc. However, there's a law that was passed called The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act could stop all that. According to The Los Angeles Times, as of February 10th all items for children will have to be tested to be lead free before the can be sold. This could possibly mean it will be illegal for consignment shops, thrift store, yard sales, even ebay sellers to sell children's items since they wouldn't have been tested for Lead making them hazardous. The law was written to protect children from products made with lead products. While it was a well intended law, it could potentially hurt a ton of businesses as well as hit our own pocket books. Several people are trying to get the Consumer Product Safety Commission to amend the law so that it doesn't hurt the resale industries.

Let's all hope that this gets amended before we loose one of the best ways we've found to cloth our children and even recycle our children's outgrown toys and clothes. This could really rock a lot of our worlds.

Wraping a small paper gift the fun way

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is watching my boys open their Christmas presents on Christmas morning. This year I got my oldest son, car insurance and the car my dad gave him registered so he has some wheels when he gets his license next month. (Oye Vey) This was quite a big expense and took up a good part of his portion of my Christmas budget. It made me a little bit sad to think he'd get to open one or two little things and then an envelope with papers in it. Sooooo, I decided to do something different. Something that would let him open presents and have fun.

First thing I did was make this certificate. The picture's a little hard to tell but it says: World's Soon To Be Best Driver...in recognition of getting your car registered and insured. You may now drive your car. I then included it and the registration and insurance card in a box that opened up to show them nicely.

I then made little cards/papers with cute says on them like This isn't your present...keep going...not there yet...etc. Then I got a bunch of different boxes to put those in:

Then I put the actual gift box in the bottom of the box and threw all the other boxes, totalling I believe 12 boxes, in on top of the present box. I used every shape an size I could think of.

Then I wrapped it all up pretty and put a bow on it.

Now he'll have just as many or more presents to open. Hee! Hee! This was my frugal way of giving him a fun and good Christmas. I hope he enjoys it as much I did coming up with it!

Need to learn to plan ahead

Yes. I really need to learn to plan ahead. Last night we had a pretty good ice blanket cover the area. While we only had ice, which was bad enough, north of us got the winter mix with snow and all. The kids were out of school and quite honestly, I was not prepared. We had food in the house but nothing I could really throw together for them to fix quickly while I was at work. So I decided to run into Save a lot after work and pick up a few toss in the microwave items and some chips and cereal and canned spegettio's and the like. $61!!! Had I been planning all this time I could have had a stockpile and not had to worry about finding something quickly. I could have had coupons and been buying a little along the way. So this is a lesson I've experienced and now I have to move on and start preparing now. I wish I could say I've got some clue as to what to be looking for. I really don't. I would like to have an afternoon free where all I had to do was bake and fix goodies for them to snack on but I just haven't gotten there yet. Maybe when we are on Christmas break (I get 2 weeks since we shut down for institutional closing yeah me) I can dive into some baking and snack making as well as some form of multi meal cooking. Time to dig out some coupons and start hitting the sales and clearance isle.

OH and yes they are running in and checking the TV for school closings every 10 minutes!

Today's Spending:
Save A lot $61.98
Dollar General $25.95
Total Spend to date: $87.93