Organic Valley - new printables

Organic Valley just released a new set of printables - Go here to print two of each.

Thanks Money Saving Mom!

Walgreens' $5/$25 for 5/20 and 5/21

Walgreens has finally released another $/$$ coupon.

Go here to print your $5 off of a $25 purchase coupon. It's good 5/20 and 5/21 only. Remember your $25 total is AFTER all store and manufacturer coupons - so you are looking at a minimum oop (out of pocket) cost of $20. I usually try to combine Free after RR deals with things I need, when these are available.

Mercedes at Common Sense with Money has a break even scenario worked out. Even if you're not planning on going to Walgreens, you might want to look the scenario over to see how it's done.

Thanks Mercedes!

Free pack of Oscar Mayer Beef Franks

Go here to sign up to have a coupon for a free pack of Oscar Mayer Beef Franks sent to you. Hurry - these usually go fast.

Thanks - Money Saving Mom!

So jealous

Check this out:

In my good friend Kam's neighborhood, they throw a Spanish language edition of the sunday paper WITH inserts FREE to every house. Even to vacant houses. So, when Kam and Vin are out for their evening stroll, she very kindly picks up the papers that are littering the street.

14 sets of inserts y'all. For free. I think I might cry.

Bread Machine Recipe - update

I've made this recipe three times now using 1/2 cup of whole wheat and 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose. Just wanted to update, since I hadn't figured out how much whole wheat flour it could take when I posted it the first time.

ExpressBake Traditional-Style White Bread(makes a 1.5 lb loaf)
1 cup + 2 Tbsp hot water
2 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil
2 Tbsp sugar
1 Tsp salt
3 cups of bread flour - I use 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose and 1/2 cup whole wheat
5 tsp bread machine yeast (I use 2 packets of Fleishmann's Active Dry Yeast.)

Place the ingredients in the pan in the order listed. Make a little well in the flour and pour the yeast into it - making sure that the yeast doesn't touch any of the wet ingredients.

Select expressbake and press start.

This Month - 5/22 - 6/18

I read this post about a Family No Spend Month the other day. Their goal is to limit their family spending to $250 for a month.

The $250 includes:

• food & eating out
• gas
• clothing
• coffee
• household necessities
• entertainment

Not included:

• tithes and other gifts
• house payment, insurance, bills
• health expenses
• work expenses
• savings
• investment

For several months now, I've been beating myself up about our spending. We are loosely following Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover, but I'm not doing a great job with maintaining our envelopes. I also have a hard time making myself budget for eating out. As I've said before, I have a hard time admitting to the fact that we do it. I try to make myself believe that if I don't plan for it, we won't do it. And that's just ridiculous. Grow up, Wendy!

SO, here's what I'm planning. I need to get a handle on exactly where our non-grocery/HBA dollars are going. I don't want to cut my usual $250 for groceries/HBA (although I would like to try the $250 for everything challenge eventually). I'm going to give us a budget of $500 for a month and break it down into $125 per week.

$125 per week for:

• food & eating out
• gas
• clothing
• coffee & beer making supplies
• household necessities
• entertainment
• crafting supplies
• gifts

My plan is to stick to that budget and track my spending in those categories. That way, I'll have a better idea of how to distribute our money in the envelope system. However, if this system works for us, I might just stick with this. Working = living comfortably within these limits while finding ways to cut expenses further.

I'm leaving myself the option of redistributing the amounts - rolling any extra forward to the next week. $500 is set in stone, though.

Here's where you come in. I'm going to track our spending here. In a perfect world, I'll update daily. At the very least, I'll update our spending once a week.

This is a great month to follow along if you're just getting started couponing. We've been hitting the stockpile hard this past month, so I'm in a rebuilding phase. I'm out of RRs and ECBS, so I'll be working on slowly building those back up.

I'm not a big menu planner, so I think I'll try to post "after the fact" menus every couple of days or so.

I'm having a garage sale next weekend. The garage sale money is going straight into savings. We have some upcoming expenses. Derek's in a wedding in June - I'm not sure what our expenses will be with that. I'd like to get a toddler bed for Kira - I'm thinking from Craigslist. I'm still deciding on what I'd like for the kids' schooling in the Fall - again, not sure exactly what our budget will be, yet.

So, what do you think? What am I missing? If anyone would like to join us in the $500 Challenge - I'd love to have you!

p.s. If you know me IRL (which I think is like 5 of my 7 readers), please don't think we're going into hermit mode. I can't track our entertainment budget if we don't get entertained!

Summer Kids' Movies - update

My friend, Mary Elizabeth, was concerned that the theaters listed aren't currently showing G movies. The summer series are actually previously run films (Curious George, Horton Hears a Who, etc) - they're rated G or PG. I added start dates for my area to my original post - check your local theaters for participation, start dates, and schedules.

One of the theaters is showing Coraline. I really want to see that, but think it might be too scary for my kids. I think I'm actually going to try to sneak out and see it by myself!