Baby Food prep- Sweet Potatoes

I made sweet potatoes this morning for our BIG little potato. Seriously, he is HUGE! It's really easy to do. I peeled (3) sweet potatoes and cut them into 1 inch cubes. I cooked them in the microwave, with 2 tablespoons of water in the bottom, covered with saran wrap, for 9.5 minutes. They are done when you can pierce through them with a fork. From there, I use the Magic Bullet to puree them. Mixing in water (I use my eyes on this), to get them to a puree type of mix. Please note, especially when baby is first eating, you will still need to "water" the mixture down before eating to get it to a texture he can eat. I use breastmilk for this.

So, I got 32 servings first stage size (16 servings second stage side). I bought the sweet potatoes on sale for .79 per pound, so I spent $1.47 for (3) sweet potatoes. That works out to approximately $.05 per serving of first stage and $.09 per serving of second stage!! Regular price at Target for Gerber stage 1 is $.99, which works out to approximately $.50 per serving. That is a big savings!

Magic Bullet makes its' appearance

I made our first son's baby food for the first 3 months that he was eating solids. It saved a tremendous amount of money and really wasn't too much of a pain. The reason I stopped was in December of 2010, I was pregnant and then came down with some horrible cold/flu and literally was not able to do much of anything. My mom was here for two weeks and essentially took care of our son, house, etc... I really couldn't ask her to make homemade food, so she bought food, which our son had difficulty eating at first...anyways, once I was not sick anymore, I was still so exhausted with the pregnancy (I have rough pregnancies to say the least), I decided that I would just continue with the store bought food.

So, in our effort to save money, I will once again be making food.

To clarify, I do not make my own cereal. We have always defaulted to the Earth's Best cereal, so that is what our baby boy has been eating. I have bought a few things to have on hand. Bananas mainly... baby food bananas are sooooo yummy!!! Prunes as well, because you just never know when the little one may get backed up!

So, today I am whipping up some sweet potatoes. Once it is done and sectioned into servings, I will update to let you know how much I spent per serving vs. the store bought food.

I am excited! We spent so much money on baby food, so I would love to see this work out this time.

We're still going strong on BF (no teeth yet, so we shall see). My goal was 6 months, which he will be in 3 days, so I expect we will make it. With our first, we supplemented from about 2 months old with formula, then he went straight formula when I got pregnant. He was 7.5 months old. I hate the thought of having to buy formula again. It is so expensive and from what I have seen, the prices have gone up since we last bought it.

Catch ya'll later with my baby food update!

So far so good...

Things have been going well. There were not too many 'stock up' items on sale this past week, so I was able to stay really low on our budget. We typically spend about $220.00 a week on groceries, diapers, toothpaste, etc... We spent approximately $110.00 this past week, which included a few stock up items. I was pleased.

I then blew it by going to Target. First, we purchased Turbo Tax ($50.00). Then Hubby pointed out we needed bathroom cleaner. So, I whipped out my coupons and decided that based on what they had on sale and what I had coupons for, we should go ahead and get it. So I told Hubby which two Lysol products to pick up...based on the sale... Well, once we got home and I unpacked, it came to light that he had decided on his own which Lysol products to get, so we paid full price (less the $1.00 coupon). A dollar coupon really doesn't do much for a product unless it is on sale though. I was a little mad. And of course, a trip to Target always ends up with additional items in the carriage, so I was a little down after that. Moral of the story, I may need to just always shop by myself.

Quick trip to Farm Fresh

On my way home from work tonight, I needed overnight diapers for our big boy, so I figured I would swing through Farm Fresh and pickup some of their sale items and take advantage of their super double coupons on Wednesday. On Wednesdays, they double coupons up to $1.00 in value. So, if you have a $1.00 coupon, you end up saving $2.00. Here is a summary of my order:

Prego pasta sauces- Regular price $2.39 each and are on sale for 2/$3.00. I had two .50/2 coupons. I bought 4 jars for $1.00 each. ($9.56 regular price for 4 jars and I paid $4.00)

Kikoman sauces- Regular price is $2.99 each and are on sale for $1.89. I had two $1.00 coupons. They doubled those, so I bought 2 bottles of sauce and they PAID ME .11 per bottle to take them out of the store!!! ahhhh....major SCORE. ($5.98 regular price for 2 bottles and I was paid .22 to take them out of the store)

Land O Lakes Margarine- Regular price is $2.39 each and are on sale for $1.25 each. I had a .50 coupon, which was doubled, so I paid only .25!

Tyson Ready steak strips- Regular price is $3.99 and on sale for $2.99. I had a $1.00 coupon, which they doubled, so I got that for .99. Not sure why I didn't buy another package, since I had another $1.00 coupon, but o-well. We have not had this type yet, so I guess I should be sure we even like it.

Unfortunately, the diapers made my trip a little less impressive, since I had to buy them at full price. Overnight Huggies diapers (23 in package) for $11.19. I did have a $1.50 coupon, which made them $9.69 (.42 per diaper--I just vomited when I saw the number on the calculator!). This is why it is so important for me to be buying these things

TOTAL before sales and coupons $33.11
TOTAL after all deductions $14.71 ($9.69 of which were diapers)

So, the diaper situation, kinda sucked the fun out of the awesome deals I got on the other items.

There are not really any big deals this week, so it should be a light shopping week. Really only need produce, milk, and some dairy items.

Hoping to post an update tomorrow on the meal planning document I was making. Let's just say, I have abandoned my efforts and have found one online that I am excited to share!

Highlights from 1/14/2012

Went out shopping for about 2 hours today. Here are the highs (and a couple lows)...

CVS: COMPLETE bust. All the sale items were sold out. To top it off, this is the only CVS in our area that took me nearly 30 minutes to get to. Boo.

Rite Aid: I signed up for my Rewards card. At first, their system was down, so it was looking as though this trip was going to be a bust too, but the system came back up and I was 'good to go'. My only complaint was that their sale signs for this week were already removed. It was only 11:30AM, so I kind of felt like this was premature.

• Pampers Cruisers jumbo packs- Saved a total of $6.00 with sale and coupon. Ultimately paid .30 per unit (diaper), which is WAY more than I was spending on Amazon, before the ended their wicked awesome Amazon Mom deals (previously 30% off and free shipping). And I received a $1.00 UP reward to use on my next purchase.


• Pampers Baby Dry diapers: 84 diapers in the box. The store price was $21.99. I used a $1.50 coupon, then also received a $5.00 UP reward to use on my next purchase. This makes the diapers .18 per unit (diaper).


• I also purchased EASTER candy. That's right my friends, apparently, everyone is ready to move onto Easter. I decided that as a treat, I would buy myself a mini bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs and my hubby a Cadbury Cream Egg. I was expecting each to be .99. Apparently, they were BOGO. BONUS!

Harris Teeter may have been my most exciting trip of the day. My total before sales and coupons was $37.42. I ended up paying $14.35! That is about a 62% savings. Here are the highlights.

• Hormel Bacon: Buy one Get one Free. We use this for BLTs and also in quiches. I will divide each package in half, ending up with 4 servings.


• THE MEAL DEAL: Oh my gosh, let me tell you about the meal deal. (1) 24oz package of Perdue Simply Smart Fully Cooked Chicken (regular price $8.99), (1) Birds Eye Steamfresh Vegetables (regular price $2.35), (1) package of Alexia Frozen rolls (regular price 4.49), and (1) 2 liter Coca-Cola Product (regular price 2.19). THE MEAL DEAL COST $6.99. That's right $6.99 for all of those products. To top it off, I had a $1.00 coupon for the chicken and a $.50 coupon, which they doubled, for the vegetables. So it was like I got the meal deal for $4.99!!!! We had the chicken, veggies, and half of the bread loaf tonight. So yummy. Upon further review of the sale, I have discovered that you can purchase it more than once. We are going back to get it tomorrow. I do not have any coupons left for the veggies, so I will end up paying $5.99 this time, but not bad for a quick meal.

Next, I headed to Target.

• Our oldest son will be easing into potty training, so I figured it would be best to have some Pull-Ups on hand. At Target, you can combine a manufacturer coupon, with a store coupon. I used a $2.00 manufacturer coupon and a $3.50 Target coupon and saved a total of 5.50 on a $19.79 package.


• Coffee Creamer: creamer is about $1.50-$2.00 cheaper at Target, so picked up my creamer there. They did not have any flavors that the hubby would drink. No coupons were available for these products.


• Pantene: Pantene products were on sale for $3.50 each. I had coupons for, save $3.00 on 2 products. This made each one $2.00! I had two coupons, so I got 4 bottles of shampoo/conditioner for $2.00 each.


• Huggies promotion: Huggies Snug and Dry boxes were on sale for $37.99. If you purchased two boxes, you received a $10.00 Target gift card. After my coupons, (manufacturer and store coupons stacked) I paid .19 per unit. If you factor in the $10.00 gift card I received as well, it was like paying $.16 per unit.

Farm Fresh was my last store of the day. This is where I purchased items that we needed, in addition to sale items. Farm Fresh is a little harder for me to track, since the items simply ring up at the sale price, so you cannot see on your receipt how much you saved. At any rate, they do tell you at the end of the receipt the percent you saved with your coupons, and I did save 10% of my order with my coupons. Not too shabby. Spent $66.00, which may be the least amount I have spent on a grocery trip in a loonnggg while.

Ahhhh....the BIG purchase of the day was the little one's convertable carseat. He is huge my friends. I weighed him myself the other day and he was about 21 pounds. Interested to see what the doctor shows his weight to be! Anyways, the car seat we have is good until 22 pounds, so it was time. We asked for BRUS gift cards for Christmas and I also got one for my birthday. We ended up paying out of pocket $53.00 for the car seat. We paid cash, which felt good! I know we did not pay cash for the bigger boy's. We'll probably install that tomorrow. I am hoping that the local consignment shop will purchase the car seat and two bases from me. Not sure if that is something people re-sell though. We'll see. If I am going to the consignment shop to see, I am hoping to sell the bouncy seat and the large swing at the same time, both of which we do not use anymore.

Overall, I was happy with the day. It started out a little frustrating with CVS. I kept thinking, man this is hard, I would much rather be home in my warm house. But it was worth it.

Cannot wait for the morning paper to get here. Rumor has it there is only one booklet of coupons, but rumor also has it there are coupons and sales on a few things we need, like shaving cream/gel!

This weeks ads

I finished going through all the ads for this week, making my lists and pulling all my coupons for each store. This process has been going great. I have all my receipts saved thus far, but off the top of my head a few signifigant trips have been saving 67% at Harris Teeter, 56% at Walgreens, another trip to Walgreens saving 60%, and a trip to Farm Fresh, that was really good, including Huggies wipes for .01 per wipe!

This week I will be going to Rite Aid for the first time ever. I will need to sign up for their card. Can I just say, cards are stupid. Can't we all just get the same price?? Oh wait, it's because it gives them the ability to track our individual purchases, thus why Catalinas are so representative to what you typically purchase.

Also have trips planned for CVS, Farm Fresh, Harris Teeter, and Food Lion (good meat pricing there). Will share those updates this weekend.

I am starting to work on a meal planning template. I have always planned out our dinners, but will now include breakfast and lunch. I will share it as soon as it is completed.

That's all for living debt free today...now onto my life of living with a 20 month old and 5 month old!

Day 12

So, it is January 12, 2012: Hubby was onboard for our new lifestyle and has already fallen off the wagon, having eaten lunch at Subway AND having Starbucks this afternoon.

To make up for the loss, I have decided not to get my haircut this weekend. No big loss I guess, I always just put it in a ponytail anyway.

So, I just paid the remaining bills for the month. I paid $648.00 in CC payments for the month. This is actually only a little bit less than what I project we need to be paying each month, to pay it off by 2014. That means however, NOTHING additional being put on any credit cards. hmmmm.... if life were that easy.