My Top Most Annoying Things About Coupons

So there I am, all week long, every chance I get, finding, printing, clipping and sorting coupons. The kids have been helping do it, which is awesome. Then there's finding the coupon matchups and making your lists, pretending your Santa and checking them twice. Pulling the coupons you intend to use. Then ya get to the store and it doesn't matter what store, they don't have what you're after, or the right size or the price is different then whatever coupon site you used to match with, so who knows if it's still a good deal or not. And when you find deals you weren't aware of, ya still don't know if it's a good deal, at least for those who haven't been doing this half of our lives! Some of our local stores aren't even followed by the gurus that dish out their free advice, so you're blind there too.

Then there's buying something one week cause it's cheap cheap cheap, just to find during the next week that it's even cheaper if you had waited, bah!

I have searched and searched for a blog like KCL's, but local, that would list the prices we have here and the stores we have here. But I've yet to find one. I've toyed with the idea of creating my own, but I'm a noob, I don't think I want to be giving advice on what's a good price and what isn't. Not to mention, with everthing my family has going on, I'm not sure I'd have the time to do it and no one really reads my blogs anyway lol. I'm not a social person and never have been.

Regardless, we found some good deals this week. Free Head & Shoulders 2 in 1 Shampoo and Conditioner at Dollar General. It retailed at $4.50 a bottle, we got 8 bottles for $3.20, as well ya still have to pay tax. Chef Boyardee for $0.63 a can at Kroger, yay coupons inside of Banquet TV Dinners awhile back. Snickers 6ct Ice Cream Bars, $1 at Kroger. There were others, but they don't come to mind at the moment.

Our grocery bill was still high this month, but couponing takes awhile before it really starts paying off. Ya have to have the right coupons when the right sales hit and we just got back into doing it a few weeks ago. Next month should be even better!

Well, it's about time to start dinner for the herd. Pizza Pasta tonight. I'm going to be using mac & cheese that I got for $2 for 5 boxes. Pizza sauce, tomato paste and tomato sauce. Pepperoni we got 2 for $1. Some ground turkey, bacon bits that got lost in the cabinet from last week's shopping trip and motz cheese. Yum! Or here's hoping anyway lol.

Coupons Didn't Quite Go As Planned, But..

We were not able to purchase everything on the list, mostly due to Dollar Tree not having most of the items we were after, however, this is what we did manage to snag and add to our stock, with coupons.

Dollar Tree

4 Suddenly Salad $0.75ea
4 Hefty Sandwich Zipper Bags $0.50ea
4 Hormel Pepperoni $0.50ea
1 Secret Deoderant Free

Retail: $13.00 without tax
Paid: $7.00 without tax

Wal-Mart

4 Kraft BBQ Sauce $0.50ec
4 Barilla Whole Grain Spaghetti $0.68ea
4 Kool-Aid Canisters $1.25ea
2 Star Olive Oil $4.12ea
2 Breakfast Burritos $0.12 Money Maker
2 Reymolds Baking Cups $0.37ea
2 Raid Fly Ribbon 4pk $0.12ea
4 Hershey's Snack Size 6pk $0.50ea
2 Valasik Pickle Relish $0.02 Money Maker
Cheeseheads String Cheese $5.08
2 Angel Soft Double Roll 4ct $1.89ea
7 Almay Intense Eyeliner $0.97ea
2 Ducan Hines Frosting Creations Flavor Packets $0.12 Money Maker
4 Oscar Meyer Weiners $1.00ea
4 Steamfresh Broccoli $0.83ea
Starbucks Iced Coffee 11oz $0.43
2 Dole Fruit Smoothie Shakers $0.77ea

Retail: $104.46 before tax
Paid: $47.11 before tax
Ibotta: $1.75

jingle bell rawk!

So we're half way though November, today being Electro and Boy's birthday, not even Thanksgiving yet, and I'm nearing the finish line on my holiday shopping!! I still lack a few stuffers for a couple of the kids, a couple of pressies for Muppet and my Hubby Brat, however that's it, everything else has been taken care of! My goal was to be done by Thanksgiving and I think I'm going to manage it! This may not sound like a huge deal to some, but considering I'm shopping for six kids and a hubby, my parents and so on.. It's difficult to figure out what items to even put on my list, much less having it done well in advance. Of course I question how budget queen I'm being, most trying to save money would probably wait for the big sales to go into full swing... However in the past I've noticed that you're not going to acquire even half of what you seek come black friday and cyber monday AND after those sales are over, prices go up AND stock runs out quickly.

I've had this happen many times. Spend a month or more window shopping, having everything planned out, placing your order just to find that half of what you thoughtfully picked out is no longer available or has doubled in price. Not to mention hitting the check out online, placing your order and getting the email of death a few hours later announcing that whatever you wanted isn't available any longer. Then you have to go shopping frenzy style grabbing whatever might please those on your list, MIGHT! Because all the good stuff has left the shelves at your local shops..

So yes, I'm patting myself on the back for beating the rush and all the crap! And now that I won't have to spend every waking moment shopping around, I might actually get a start on wrapping it all, so I can avoid the wrapping marathon come xmas eve lol.

Monday Madness

I managed to get everyone up and out on time again this morning, so a big yay there! Once I had the house cleared out, except for Hubby Brat, I did the chores that my dear sweet children neglected to do yesterday.. Cleaned the bathroom, started some laundry, swept and mopped the floors and straightened up the mess of my kitchen table a bit.

All the madness gave way to a pretty relaxing morning however.. With everyone else gone except Muppet whom passed back out after breakfast, the house was unusually quiet, so I got some much needed peace. Unfortunately the toll of getting up at 5:30 this morning is setting in, so now I don't really much want to do anything else on my To Do list lol. I don't think this is going to matter much however.. Tonight is going to be more madness..

Lily has cheer and band practice, BOY! has football practice and Car Man possibly has a scrimage tonight, we're still unsure if it's tonight or tomorrow night.. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if kids listened when their teachers or coaches speak? All of this on top of the typical Monday evening crazies of homework and folders full of papers to look at.. I'm going to be flying by the seat of my pants I think..

At least I've decided to have an easy dinner, Tyson's Any'tizer Honey BBQ Wings, Mac & Cheese, Peas and I might perhaps throw in some jalapeno poppers. Here's to making it through the day and hopefully semi sticking to our schedule!

In Full Swing

School's back in session now and though it still means keeping a crazy schedule, things are actually semi-starting to settle down a bit. I think it's just a matter of everyone getting use to everything that's going on so we can get adjusted to the initial routine. Luckily, as far as I know at this exact moment in time, today is going to be calm, at least in comparison to the other days of the week! No after school band practice, no football scrimages, games or practices. The kid portion of church hasn't started yet. We rushed around doing the shopping yesterday, not our typical day, but had to make changes due to work scheduling, so I don't have to spend today planning out the menu, list and couponing.. Honestly I just want to go back to bed and relax! However, there is some housework type stuff I need to get done, so I suppose I'll be trying to force myself to do that. On the plus side, if I manage to get the main jobs done today, tomorrow will virtually be a free day, so yay! Well, until evening hits anyway, as there are two football practices and cheerleading meeting and at some point I need to do some minor shopping because we didn't have quite enough time during yesterday's marathon. Well, I suppose I should stop putting the cleaning off and get to it!

Kaotic World

Yes, I know it's chaotic, but I had to misspell it for my hubby lol. Anyway..

I'm still kicking around the idea of posting my own extreme couponing info here, however the world inside our home has been a bit crazier than usual here lately. Lily is in the marching band this year, and though school hasn't quite started yet, has had band practice almost on a daily basis for a couple of weeks now. BOY! is playing tackle and having practice and scrimages several times a week. Car Man is also playing football, flag football, and has practices as well..

All this combined with my husband recently switching jobs, school starting this coming Monday, our own attempts with extreme couponing and now I've branched out into thinking about trying to following flylady.net's way of doing things.. It's a bit nuts lol!

By the way, if you, like myself, have issues keeping a presentable house, you might want to check out flylady.net.. I haven't starting trying out her process yet, but I've been reading up on it here and there the last couple of days and it looks promising. It's all about routines, which though works well for me, I've always found difficult to sticking to, so we'll see.

Anyhow, I should run as there is a scrimage tonight for BOY!, a practice for Car Man, some sort of band thing for Lily and meet the teachers night all going on at one time..

Lessons Learned

My husband and I learned the hard way that when it comes to extreme coupon shopping at local drugstores, such as CVS and Walgreens, that unless you hit the sale when it first starts, you're more than likely going to be leaving empty handed, or close to.. So a couple of weeks ago I sent him to take care of the drugstore shopping Sunday morning when the sale first started, and still, half of what we were after had already been wiped from the shelves. The next theory was, we can go shopping right after midnight Sunday morning! This was our plan this past weekend, however other things came up..Come to find out, it didn't matter! I was under the impression that CVS and Walgreens were open 24/7, wrong!

I spent yesterday evening revamping the drugstore list and jotting down the grocery list as well. The plan was to hit CVS, Walgreens, Kroger and Wal-Mart, all in one trip. There would still be small trips to Dollar General, Family Dollar and Brookshires, but we could deal with that later, as they are not 24/7 stores.. So, I plan it all out and we leave a bit after 2am.. We get over there just to find that neither of the drugstores are open! A bit annoying.. But it worked out in the end because at least we didn't make the run just to hit the drugstores..

We ended up just hitting Wal-Mart though and will have to make another trip tonight or tomorrow night.. This is just a prime example as to why planning is everything when it comes to the world of extreme couponing. Check and double check everything, especially when you're first starting out!

As for the Wal-Mart haul, nothing to really brag about. I shop Wal-Mart for all of the weekly purchases we make that there are not awesome deals on currently, as over all, they have the best day to day prices.

Extreme Couponing?

Have you been considering joining in on the craziness? Well, I have! No, I don't have a wall of toothpaste, nor do I care for one.. I think that's a bit far out there even for me.. And no, I haven't bought $200 worth of groceries and only paid a few pennies. I have however started a small stockpile of health of beauty products and a few food items. I'm just starting out, I've been clipping coupons like mad for almost a month now and learning as I go. I have to admit it's a bit of a pain and requires a bit more attention then what I'd like to give to it. However, I'm starting to see it pay off, which is motivating me to keep going. If you haven't tried you're hand at it yet, you really should. You would be amazed what you can get for very little, if anything at all!

I'm actually considering posting my progress here, not only to help out any passerbyers, but also to track my own progress, to see what I can accomplish in the long haul. Also, there doesn't seem to be any crazy coupon chicks located in Texas that I've seen, so the information I've found doesn't always apply to my area of the world, which I've found to be a bit annoying.. So I think I just might do that, but for now, I think I'm going to call it a night.

Is it magic?

I recently realized that most of my time and energy was being used up by simple tasks such as breaking up wars between my kids, arguing with them over daily tasks such as homework and attempting to convince all of them to act like people instead of wild animals! One evening a few weeks ago Hubby Brat and myself went out, just the two of us. As there isn't a great deal of things to do in this area once the sun goes down, we found ourselves milling around Hastings. I found this book in the family section and thought the title was amusing. I opened it up and began to read it's contents. At first I was thinking "Yea, ok, you haven't met my kids!" I kept reading however and slowly began to think that perhaps the author knew something I didn't. I took a memo in my phone and decided I would look up the book on Amazon, hoping I could find it cheaper, which for the record, I saved $5 by doing this!

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 I ordered the book and eagerly awaited it's arrival. As soon as it came in, I began to read it, not an easy task in this house! I started talking to Hubby Brat about it and we both decided that the system found in this book was worth a shot! We introduced this new way of thinking to our kids just three days ago and let me tell you my house is 100 times more peaceful than it ever has been before! Counting the kids has already began to stop the obnoxious behaviors in their tracks! The arguing, yelling, fighting, whining and talking back has dwindled so much that I have free time so that I can actually spend time with the kids and have time for myself.

If you haven't read this book, I strongly urge you to pick up a copy. I have never been one for "expert advice", most experts leave you wondering if they ever had kids or even have ever met one! But not this book. This book is a must have.

The Crazies

No, I'm not talking about the movie here, I'm talking about my family, my wonderful yet slightly high spirited and very insane family..

Hubby Brat is my oldest crazy and is more like one of the kids a good portion of the time. Of course he drives me nuts quite often, that is part of the job description for both a spouse and a kid after all. He is ever so slightly geeky with a touch of bad boy mixed in. We don't always see eye to eye, but I love him all the same.

Lily, her self proclaimed nickname, is my overly energetic artist. She is very talented and creative to say the least.

Electro earns his name due to the fact that he's just not happy without some sort of electronic to be glued to.. Video games, TV and computers is what this boy lives for.

BOY! is heard often in our house.. If there is trouble brewing you can almost guarantee he will be at the root of it.

Car Man is the biggest vehicle fanatic that I have ever met. It doesn't matter what form of transportation it is, he loves it.

Bug, aka Monster, is always on the run. She is never far behind her siblings wanting to do everything they are doing. Of course this drives them crazy and in turn, they all drive me crazy lol.

Muppet is our newest addition. It is both exciting and a tad depressing seeing her grow up so fast. It doesn't seem possible but she'll be a year old in just a few short months.

I couldn't think of a better fitting name for myself, other than Insanity. After all one way to define insanity is to do something over and over again, and after six kids.. You get the picture. Between keeping up with Hubby Brat and chasing after the six, I definately count myself in the crazy group. Like most moms, it seems like my job is never done and there are never enough hours in the day. Aside from keeping up with everyone else's everything, I balance the books, do the cleaning when I must, I love to cook and enjoy playing with crafty things.

With such a chaotic life this blog will not have one set theme. I might post my tales of the crazies, budgeting tips, recipes, craft ideas, links to my favorite books or my crafty projects that I have up for sale. Who knows what will be found, there's only one way to find out!