Couponing

Seeing how it has been a few days since I blogged and I am at a loss for a topic, I figured I'd write a little about couponing.

I never used to use many coupons because I figured I'd just buy generic brands and it would be cheaper. And the generic brands that I've used in the past have worked just fine. However, Dan and the kids went to my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's house late December (I stayed home cuz I was working) and she told Dan all about the coupons she uses to get things for really cheap or free. She gave Dan a crash course in couponing and he came home and told me all about it. So I did some internet research and talked to Mandy about her strategies. She had taken a free (I think) course at her local library about couponing and shared what she had learned there.

One of the tricks to making coupons work for you is to pair the manufacturer coupon with a sale. Most items have a twelve week price cycle so the best time to use the coupon is when the item is at the bottom of the price cycle. Also, sometimes stores will have their own coupons and you can pair the store coupon with the manufacturer coupon.

There are several places to get coupons--Sunday inserts, online printables, ebay, coupon clipping sites. Sometimes grocery stores will also have manufacturer coupon booklets or sheets near the items that are being promoted. Once Dan found a coupon booklet at HyVee that resulted in really cheap Yoplait yogurt and free frozen veggies. He grabbed several booklets for me. :-)

Anyway, ever since I've started couponing I've actually been able to stay within my grocery budget! Dan is obviously very excited about this. Now don't get me wrong, it's not like I was going crazy with my grocery spending, but with trying to put balanced meals on the table and not using coupons, I usually went over budget by around $25-$50. Now I have no problems staying in my budget, I'm buying name brand food items and I'm stocking up. For example, I now have lots and lots of cereal and my price point for buying cereal has dropped considerably. I used to think that paying $2 for a box was a good deal. Now I generally don't buy cereal unless I can pay less than $1. And I probably won't be buying cereal for awhile since I have quite a stockpile.

Another thing we've stocked up on recently is the Nabisco Snack packs--Teddy grahams, mini oreos, nutter butters, etc. Target had them priced for $1.52 and they had a coupon for $1 off. Well, Target finally got smart and raised the price to $2. So I guess my Snack pack buying days are over. However Target currently has a coupon out for $1 off apples so we've been buying apples quite cheaply (I usually buy 3 at a time and then they only cost around $0.35-$0.50 total).

The best deal I ever got was free and almost-free meat. Once Cub had one pound packages of ground pork on sale for $1 and there were $1 off coupons. I bought 40 coupons online for around $4 so I got 40 pounds of ground pork for $4. Also, Target at one point had $2 off coupons for their Sutton & Dodge steaks. Well, for two weeks they had either the chuck steaks or the sirloin steaks on sale for $2/pound so I bought several packages that were around a pound each, used the coupon and paid only pennies for each package. All this meat came in handy when I did a big once-a-month cooking session a few weeks ago.

Couponing has turned out to be not as much work as I initially thought it was going to be and I'm enjoying it. It is kind of like a game to see how much I can save.

Our new art curriculum

While at the homeschool conference this spring, I attended a workshop entitled "Why art is essential to your child's education." Dan and I weren't really sure which workshop we wanted to go to during that time slot as none of them we felt very strongly about, so we picked two that piqued our interest. Dan wasn't interested in the art topic so he went to one on physical education at home. I chose the art one. I knew that this workshop was sponsored by a vendor, but I still wanted to hear what she had to say. I know that art is important but often gets pushed aside, so I wanted a little encouragement. I certainly hadn't planned on buying a new curriculum. I didn't really figure I needed one since I had one at home, and I really like art. It was one of my favorite subjects in high school.

At the beginning of the workshop, the speaker gave the history of the art curriculum called Atelier Art . It was begun by an art teacher who was passionate about teaching art to kids in schools whose art programs had been cut. Kids would come either before or after school to learn art. This video-based program is now used by public schools in at least 3 states and has been reconfigured for homeschool use. The lessons are 12-20 minutes long although an art session actually takes around an hour since I usually pause the video so the kids can finish whatever step they are on before moving to the next step.

During the talk the speaker also gave personal testimony to the use of art in helping kids in other areas of their schoolwork. She has two children--one who is gifted and one who is dyslexic and has a couple of learning disabilities. Art made her gifted child actually slow down (not academically--he just is gifted and does everything quickly) and think about things a bit differently. Art helped her dyslexic child learn how to read and improved her math scores.

One of the great tactics that the speaker used was letting us try an art lesson. She gave us each a sheet of paper and a pencil and made us do a lesson. It was great! So we bought it.

Darin and Natalie learned about the use of line on their first lesson. They drew turtles. Here are their pictures--the first is Darin's picture, the second is Natalie's.





Ellie and Kara's second lesson was on color. Ellie's balloon is on the left, Kara's is on the right.

It's been a long time

I know, I know. It has been forever since I've blogged. And it has almost been so long I don't even know where to start. So what have we been doing?

Well, in April we went to the homeschool conference and picked up some awesome new art curriculum (more about that in another post), spent a weekend in the cities and rode the rides at the Mall of America, I worked a bunch of overtime, and I quit blogging. I didn't quit intentionally; it just sort of happened. Well, really, life happened and it got pushed to the wayside.

For several years now, instead of showering our kids with presents for their birthdays, we have taken them somewhere to do something special with the rest of the family. Part of the reason that we started doing this is that I don't like having lots of stuff around. It just creates more stuff to clean and the kids generally lose interest in the new toy after a couple of weeks anyway. It just seems like such a waste of money. Plus I want to help shape children that value time spent with family over "stuff."

Ellie and Kara's birthdays are only 5 days apart in November and we usually spend a night in a hotel with a water park. For several years we went to the Holiday Inn in Owatonna, but this past fall, since the older girls were outgrowing that water park, we went to the Dells.

Darin and Natalie's birthdays are about a month apart in the spring so we celebrate theirs together as well. For the past couple of years we have stayed in a hotel and then ridden the rides at the amusement park at the Mall of America. We all had a blast. It is especially fun riding the roller coaster with Ellie, listening to her hyperventilate and watching her knuckles turn white. Sick sense of humor, I know. But she was willing to ride it more than once as long as she was with me.

Here are some of the pictures of us:



Darin and Natalie had a blast on this ride. It whips you around the ends and elicits loads of giggles from the kids that ride it.






We happened to be there a couple of weeks before Easter and they had an Easter-cookie decorating station. Free snack for the kids!!





Both of the kids loved this ride too. And the people who were watching got an absolute kick out of watching Natalie. She was giggling uncontrollably and unlike her fellow riders, she let her legs flop up and down along with the ride.





Here are Natalie and Darin on the bumper cars. Natalie thought it was pretty funny when she'd run into Darin.


Here are the girls on one of their favorite rides. Last year when I made Ellie ride this with me, she had the same hyperventilating response that she did this year on the roller coaster. But she liked riding it anyway because it made me laugh.

Cream Cheese Tomato Soup

'Tis the season for soups! Here is another one of our favorites from Dining in the Spirit of Naniboujou.

Cream Cheese Tomato Soup

2 T butter

1/2 cup finely diced onions

6 ounces cream cheese

2 cans (11 oz each) condensed tomato soup

3 cups milk

2 cans (14 oz each) diced tomatoes, with juice

2 tsp basil

Melt butter in pan and saute the onions until tender, about 3-5 minutes. Add cream cheese, stirring while it melts. Mix in the tomato soup until smooth. Add the milk slowly, mixing well. Continue cooking and add the diced tomatoes and the basil.

Ice Skating

Ever since Dan started his new job where he doesn't have to work such crazy hours, the kids have been begging to go ice skating. So we decided that yesterday would be the day. The local ice rink has rather limited free skate hours so our only options were Saturday evening from 7-9 or Sunday afternoon from 1-3. The choice was obvious.

Unfortunately I didn't bring the camera. I figured there wasn't really any point since there were four children who didn't know how to skate, one adult who really knows how to skate, and one adult who knows how to skate but can't for the life of her figure out how to stop (without running into a wall). Plus, when I wasn't using it, where was I going to put it? I wasn't about to leave it out in the open for someone to take.

While I was working on getting everyone's skates on, Dan took Natalie out on the ice (she had her skates on first). She was petrified and cried every time Dan tried to put her on the ice. Eventually we found the little walkers made from PVC pipe for kids to use to learn to skate. I pushed her around with that for about ten minutes and then she didn't want my help at all. She wanted to do it on her own. Even when she fell she told me she didn't need my help. Pretty soon she was zipping around the ice rink having an absolute blast. She'd even skate up to Ellie and tell her that she needed to race her.

Darin did pretty well too. All of the kids managed to snag one of the walkers (there aren't nearly enough there and some were being used by kids who obviously didn't need them) for awhile and that really helped. Kara had the hardest time learning to skate which surprised me since she seems to be the most athletic.

But being at the Rec Center just reiterated that homeschooling is a good choice for us. Some girls can be so mean!! Once when Kara stepped off the ice and Dan was holding her walker, Natalie fell so he leaned over to pick her up and this girl snatched Kara's walker almost right out of his hands! And there were other instances of disrespect that I saw. It made me very thankful for the sweetness of my own children. And I'm not saying that all homeschooled children are well-behaved or that all public school children are rotten. There just seems to be a greater incidence of disrespectful and mean children in the public school.

All in all we had a great time and have decided that we need to go back soon. Several times throughout the rest of the day Natalie would tell me how much fun she had ice skating.

Ellie's new job

Last year Ellie went to camp with her friend O at Ironwood Springs Christian Ranch and loved it. After she got home last year we told her that she wouldn't be able to go every year since it is rather expensive. Well this year O is going to camp again so Ellie, of course, wants to go too. Instead of going to the overnight camp, she is going to the day camp that focuses on horses. O loves horses. Ellie wants to go too but knows that I'm not forking over the dough for her to go. She's got to make the money herself. She has thought of selling friendship bracelets to the neighbors, shoveling their driveways (I vetoed that one since she hasn't yet proven herself on our driveway), and doing extra chores around the house.

She'd pretty much given up hope that she would be able to raise enough money to go until Dan came up with a great idea!! Dan asked me what things around the house I'd most like help with, and I told him washing the dishes and doing laundry. So we proposed to Ellie that we would pay her to wash all of the non-dishwasher dishes and do all the laundry (including folding and putting away) until mid-July when the camp is. She will get paid $10 per week if she does these chores with a good attitude, does them to my specifications and doesn't let her schoolwork suffer.

When we told her what our plan was, we told her that she needed to think about it overnight as it was a big commitment and we didn't want her to take it lightly. And she would still need to come up with some of the money on her own.

At first when Dan brought up the idea that we pay her for doing chores, I wasn't too keen on it. I didn't really like giving up $40 a month to give to her, but I quickly saw the value of not having to do the dishes or the laundry--my two least favorite chores.

The next morning Ellie said that she wanted to accept the challenge and promptly went and folded three loads of laundry that still needed to be folded from the previous week. (Have I mentioned how much I hate laundry?)

This is only the first week and time will tell if she follows through all the way to the end. But so far it is working out well. Her schoolwork hasn't suffered and she's been doing it with a good attitude. She's actually been quite cute. She will frequently ask me to come look at whatever she has washed or folded to make sure that she is doing it right. "I just don't want it to come out of my pay, Mom (if she doesn't do it right)," she often says.

The big adjustment will be when I have to go back to doing those chores. I just may have to try to hire her again!!

Poem by Ellie

Ellie brought me this poem last night that she wrote--completely unprompted!! I thought it was cute so I thought I'd share it with you.

Oasters
I like to ride on roller coasters
I don't like to buy toasters and coasters
I really don't like big, big boasters
I hang lots of pictures, comics and posters.