Savings update

Only 11 days to go but I am in the hole by $22. But at the same time, I am not unhappy about this because I have basically purchased what a family of six needs for 20 days for about $245. That breaks down to about $2.04 per person per day. The purchases include toilet paper, paper towels, food, and cleaning supplies along with the occasional splurge at the grocery store.

I did not include eating out. The family has eaten out at a fast food joint only twice since March 1. That is so good for us and no one missed it. Needless to say, it became a treat again instead of an expected stop on the way home. Jay and I have eaten lunch together 4 times. Very good for us again! I made an effort to take my lunch to work and not to have an extra dollar in my wallet for that afternoon treat from the freezer in the break room.

We have made a big effort the last 3 weeks and next week we should be able to keep it up by using a gift card from CVS for milk or bread.

Next month should be easier and hopefully cheaper.

Retraction

After talking with T about the Smooth Away, I felt the need to give it another shot. When I used it on my face, in a stress free setting (meaning not just having flew in from a week away & it being past bed time), I will admit that it worked. I tried it on my leg but did not have the same satisfactory results. #1, on the other hand, felt it did work on her leg.

So maybe it will work just fine for you.

Trying to preserve my self with medications...

I write this post as an outlet for my emotions. Not something I do with this blog. But maybe if I put it out there in WWW land, I will motivate myself to change.

I went to the doctor for a prescription refill and walked out with five new prescriptions. I was saddened to think that I had hit a point in my life that my health/life truly relied on medication. Is it horribly serious? No, not like those of who I read about in blog world. Though the severity of mine is practically self induced with a minor role with genes. The knowledge of knowing my bad habits would increase my health problems and then me allowing it to get to that point just saddens me. What do I have?

PCOS for starters.

I have had it since the spring of my freshman year in high school. It has plagued me with problems with my hair falling out on my head and growing in places it shouldn't. It has plagued me with acne. It has plagued me with infertility. It has plagued me with constant weight problems. It has plagued me with the feeling of not being a female because of the extra testosterone following freely.

I do not have cycles unless they are induced by medication. Many, many, many of my female friends tell "Oh, if that could be me! I hate periods! Oh, never to have one again! You are so lucky!". Lucky...(sigh) yes, very lucky. But I don't feel lucky. Simply not having a period is not luck on my part. I am not choosing to not have a period, my body chose for me. Not having a period but still having the hormones needed to have a period is one thing but not to have a period because you have little female hormones and a lot of male hormones is quite different. There is no luck in feeling like your husband is married to hefty lumberjack with a five o'clock shadow. But the ramblings of PCOS is for another post. It is just part of my overall problem that I have allowed to spawn new problems.

Insulin Resistance is next.

This and PCOS are linked. Hmmm, how lucky.

Pre-Diabetes follows close behind.

Again, this and the previous two "syndromes" are linked.

High Cholesterol and my newly found high blood pressure are yet another part of the chain.

Again, related to the pleasantries aforementioned.

There are several other little lucky ailments that go along with PCOS that I will talk about in another post but they aren't really detrimental to my health. They are more superficial daily reminders, that stare back at me in the mirror, of how lucky I am.

Boy, it sounds like I am real downer this evening. But one of my pet peeves is to be told I am lucky for not having a period. The conversations usually go like this:

A well meaning female: "I wish I didn't have to deal with periods."

Me: "I would rather deal with a period and be close to having balanced hormones than what I have going on now."

The well meaning female: "No periods? That is a no brainer for me."

Me: "I can see just not having periods would be great as long as your body still works but for me it is not that simple."

The well meaning female: "I don't think it would bother me. Just the fact of not having periods for what ever reason would be great."

The stickler for me is that these well meaning women are glossing over the fact that no periods for me = a slue of other health problems. And for what ever reason, I want them to acknowledge it. Oh my goodness, I know I could totally get into a "Deddy" conversation about how the real problem lies in that I am allowing others to dictate what I feel.

You hopefully wouldn't say to a person in a wheelchair, "Wow, you are so lucky that you can't walk. You don't have to worry about the hassle of buying nice looking shoes that won't hurt your feet." That would be rude and show a severe lack of empathy and sympathy. Is my plight the same as a person who can't walk? No, not at all. My point in this rambling has become this: just because you can't see medical problem, doesn't mean it is not real problem that may have emotional and physical issues that are not blatant.

Well now that I have sat here and rambled as a negative Nellie, I will close on a positive note. Maybe another woman/girl with PCOS will google and this blog will come up, then offer feeling of "I know how you feel!".

My next post should be positive. Maybe I will discuss what changes I should do.

A Quick Freebie

I just thought I would pass along a link to get a free sample of a new Quaker Granola Bar.

www.quakertruedelights.com

Mid Month Savings

I have been doing good with my quest for savings with groceries. I am getting a little nervous now that I am down to $25 for the rest of the month. I do have my CVS emergency stash card of $25 but I hope I don't have to use it. We do have several dinners worth of soup or chili with grilled cheeses along with at least three meals with chicken breast, one meal with a whole chicken, two meals of pork chops, a pork roast and one last beef roast. That will carry us for about 11 dinners and there are only 16 more days left in the month. So that is good! We have enough canned goods for each dinner. I have several staples to make some goodies. So if I really stay determined, I think we can use our last $25 for milk.

I have to say, saving sure is fun! The whole gang has joined in and help choose our groceries tonight at Smith's based on sales and coupons. We saved a total of 59%! The best I have done so far in saving this month is 69% and the worst has been 39%.

Soapy things

Tonight the girls and I made a batch of homemade lye soap. We made enough "batter" to make seven bars. We used a beginner's recipe from the Millers Soap website. It was easy and I had made it before adding oatmeal and tea tree oil. I had bought a massive loofah from the international market in Nashville in February to put in the soap. It was super cheap for what I got! It cost $3.99 for a loofah the length of a baseball bat! I cut 3 slender pieces from one end and put that in three molds, then poured the soap over it. Our batch will consist of three loofah soaps and four blue soaps, all smelling of almond. I will let you know how it turns out in a few weeks.

Motorcycle Class

This afternoon, Jay and I took two motorcycles to the community college and met up with P, from my work. P and I are trying to get a jump start on the motorcycle class that Jay took a few months back. P and I plan to take the class but wanted to get in some practice time before the class. I want to do this so I don't look like a goofball. So with Jay's "inside information" on the class with what to expect and hints on what we need to practice, I am hoping there will be little or no goofiness going on.

I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture of our "instructor" and a picture of P on Jay's Goldwing.

P and I both laid the Goldwing down as we came to a stop. Better at a stop than while rolling! Jay said that now we had fallen and gotten it over with, we won't have to worry about it any more! Whew, I am glad he pointed that out!

Our instructor said that P and I did really well and we should not have any problems in the class. He felt like we would be at the top of our class. I will feel better about it after a few more practice sessions.

Did you notice my increase?

I was a little worried about how far I could stretch my $25 this month but now I am on easy street. If you notice, I increased my balance of $15 to $40. The reason I was able to this is because of my motivation to scan through the mailers! I don't usually make a trip to CVS but I could not turn down the opportunity advertised in the mailer. If you transfer a prescription to CVS then the pharmacy will give you a $25 CVS gift card. Well guess who had a prescription to be refilled? I did! Because my insurance cost for the medicine is lower than the cash price anywhere in town, it would not matter, money wise, where I had it filled. So I dropped it off last night and picked it up along with my gift card tonight. I figured I would not be purchasing food at CVS but more likely to purchase toiletries and paper products, so I added the $25 to my "Goal #2" total. I am set for this month and will maybe have a little balance to carry over for next month!

Tonight while we were out, #2 wanted me to get hamburger buns and patties so he could grill me hamburgers tonight. Smith's was my stop of choice because they too are advertising a free $25 credit toward groceries if you transfer a prescription to their pharmacy. So guess who had a second prescription to be refilled? I did! I turned it tonight and will pick it up tomorrow. I will not add the $25 to my "Goal #1" total until I officially get the money loaded on my Smith's card.

#2 and I did not leave Smith's without saving 49% on our total bill! I bought milk that was on sale for $1.89 a gallon (not our usual brand but who cares..), hamburger patties that were on sale, buns that were on sale and used two store coupons Smith's had sent me in the mail, one being a big $7 off the total purchase! Our dinner tonight (hamburgers and baked beans) cost us $2.25 per person. For a family of 6, I think that is pretty good.

I will do a post about saving on prescription cost. I will share what I do and the little tidbits I hear about at work. The prescriptions I had transferred are not ongoing therapeutic meds I get on a regular basis, so the minor inconvenience of moving them is really not an inconvenience at all. Plus, I don't mind moving my prescriptions around to get the best price possible! It is easy, the pharmacies do all the work!

March savings in motion

As many of you know, our family has had an economic down turn in conjunction with the country's economy. So needless to say, saving on clothes, food and anything else we can has taken top priority.

During my trip to Nashville, savings and coupons were hot topics which motivated me to Google ways to save. I came across The Grocery Game. I had heard about it from several morning shows over the last few years but again, I was not as motivated as I am now. I thought I did pretty good at shopping. I shopped the sales at the grocery stores. I shopped at Costco. If I happen to have a coupon I would use it. I even would occasionally make a list of what I was going to buy and list the sales from store mailer's next to it and to the "price comparison" thing at the Super Wal-Mart. (Wal-Mart will give you the item at the cheapest price if I could show from the mailer that another store is selling cheaper.) I sometimes would buy store brand or generic and feel like I was doing good. Well not anymore!!! I have taken to the highest level and in two shopping trips I have saved a ton of money!!!

I signed up for The Grocery Game and was a little disappointed that it only had Vons and Smith's grocery stores listed. I had hoped Albertson's and Food-4-Less would be too. But oh well, the The Grocery Game does most of the hard work for me, so picking through two mailers is not a big deal.

I happen to have clipped some coupons prior to my trip to Nashville and I printed some coupons from online. I went to Vons with my list and coupons and list of specials and only spent $63 of my $225 I have allotted for groceries for the month! I saved 39% on that trip!! There were several items that Vons was out of so I asked for a rain check for each item, as The Grocery Game instructs to do. I was so nervous because I have never asked for a rain check (I am shy and lack little self confidence in some areas). Well it went as smooth as silk and I walked out with my rain checks for $.99 Frosted Mini Wheats, $2.99 for 18oz fresh blueberries and $.88/can for 8 cans of Select Harvest Soup from Campbells.

Tonight, I needed to go make a quick stop back at Vons for a few items that were on their last day of being on sale at VERY low prices. I took my rain checks too. Tonight I walked out saving 69%!!! I bought $60 worth of food for $20.

What is so great is that I am buying only things we will for sure eat/use. I know that sounds funny but how many us buy something we don't eat for various reasons and therefore, we could have tossed x amount of dollars out the window?

Have I bought meat? No, not with my March food money. I almost did at Smith's but in looking through my freezer, I had enough meat for 11 dinners. I am holding off on meat until I truly need it or unless there is an exceptionally sale prior to my need. So yes, I am starting March out with meat in the freezer but I am only going to work with one month at a time and see how far my $225 can stretch for this month.

My other goal is to only spend $25/month on TP, paper towels, deodorant, cleaning supplies, shampoo and soap. I spent $10 Sunday for cleaning supplies and now I only have $15 for the month left. But I am good on most for several weeks but TP.

Ok, so far so good, three days into the month.

PS If you sign up for The Grocery Game, please use my email address harptrip@yahoo.com as a referral. Thanks!!

As seen on TV

#1 and I are always on the look out for any type of new neat hair removal product, so when we both saw the Smooth Away, we knew it was for us.

I ordered it and #1 got it while I was in Nashville. She said she used it as directed and it worked great. When I got home, I noticed the area she said she used it on was not the "smooth" and "hairless" as what was promised on the commercial.

I read the directions and tried it on my legs. It didn't work at all. So I tried the area #1 said she did it on and I had to use a lot of pressure to get it to work on her very fine hair. Now that area is sore and we have decided that it is not going to be our hair remover product of choice.

Sponge Bob Party

A family in the Kingdom Hall had a kids' party Sunday. It was a Sponge Bob theme party, which was a lot of fun. As you can see from the pictures, all the kids had a good time.

Money Saved Again!

I saved yet another $35 tonight by cutting all the boys' hair again tonight! Not only was I happy about saving money but my white walls and blending are getting better. The entire hair cutting session has become shorter. I can whip out those white walls in seconds! Talk about confidence....

This time I also had a novelty item that seemed to really work. I have seen this "cape" for years in the Harriet Carter magazine and have wanted to order since the first time I did see. I just knew it would be the next best thing since sliced bread. I was right! Because I have now made an effort to cut their hair for several months in a row, I decided to bite the bullet an order it. So I took the $10 the cape cost me from the amount I actually saved by cutting their hair myself.

Despite #2 giving me a thumbs down, he was quite happy with his hair cut. He was happy with the cape because it kept most of the hair from falling on him and making him itchy and miserable.