money-saving-in-the-works

I’ve been feeling a bit funky lately. As a teen, I was depressed, to the point of attempting suicide a couple times. Yeah, I’m not perfect… Never claimed to be though. My parents refused to let me see a psycho-anything, they don’t believe in airing your dirty laundry for others to hear. Plus they didn’t have any insurance & were too cheap to pay for it themselves. So Mom bought some St John’s Wort for me… Luckily, it worked. Otherwise, I might not have made it to college.

I think my depression is back. For some reason, every night for the past week or so, I’ve just felt restless. Nothing I do makes it go away. I’ve tried my coupons, working, cleaning, & my crafts. They only hold my attention for maybe 10 minutes. Not even Hubby being home keeps it at bay. Plus I’ve been crankier than usual, and insomnia is hitting me hard. Lucky for me, I keep a bottle of St John’s Wort on hand, so I can start taking it again. I’ll know in about a week if its working.

Well I’m going to try to get some sleep, hopefully I’ll be able to get back on my schedule tomorrow.

Ok, so for the past 2-3 weeks, I’ve been having problems with my Kodak printer. I’ve tried everything to get it to work, but nothing is working. I’m going to try another new cartridge, from Kodak this time, & see if that helps. It probably won’t though… *sigh*

I just realized that I was ranting to you & you have no idea what’s going on, so let me back up a bit. In Dec, Hubby decided it was time to buy me a new printer. He’d been seeing those commercials on TV for the Kodak printers that only cost $10 for a new black cartridge & $15 for color. So I ordered it. I’ve been using it faithfully since then, had to replace the black cartridge once already. Then the color started getting low. For a few days, I could still print, but it would tell me that I was getting low on color. One day, I couldn’t print anything! Not even in gray-scale so I ordered a Kodak ‘compatible’ bulk set (5 black & 3 color cartridges) from 123inkjets.com. The order was shipped quickly, but the cartridge didn’t work. Since I couldn’t print anything before the order arrived, I figured it was my printer. So I tried contacting Kodak 3 times. Each of their solutions (reboot the printer, reinstall the cartridges, reinstall the software, a new printhead) didn’t work, so now we are talking a total printer replacement. Well today, I installed the new printhead. I managed to get the printer moniter to open & it told me the printer didn’t recognize my color cartridge from 123inkjets. So, thinking that it might just be 1 bad cartridge, I tried the other 2… Not a one worked. I called 123inkjets & they are sending me a replacement bulk set (wonderful customer service!) but I have a feeling thats not going to work either. I’m going to see if I can’t get a ride to Wal-Mart this evening so I can buy an actual Kodak color cartridge & see if that works. If not, I’m gonna get my printer replaced. I’ve been out of a printer for too long. I can’t print any coupons!!! I’m going into withdrawals, but my oldest daughter is happy she doesn’t have to help sort them.

Ok, so I finally did something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I hit the paper recycling dumpster up for more coupons today! I only got a couple off the top, the dumpster was practically overflowing with paper. I didn’t grab many, I already had my bags of groceries, but I managed to get 3 more copies of this past Sunday’s coupons & 1 more copy of the week before. Now I just have to take the rest of the newspaper inserts back up there tomorrow. I may check to see if there are any more copies of the Sunday’s paper while I’m at it. I think I’ve found a new hobby!!

I know I’ve told y’all about the 5dollardinners website, you are probably getting tired of me mentioning it. I subscribe to the update emails & today I got one about this contest.

“Cheerios has offered to giveaway a freshwater pearl bracelets with a heart health charm to 3 readers!  By wearing the charm bracelet, you can show your dedication to raising awareness of women’s heart health.”

All you have to do to enter is go to her blog post & post a comment for the first entry, share it with your friends for the second entry, & then tell her about how you keep your heart healthy for the third entry. Its as easy as that! And you could have your very own freshwater pearl bracelet soon!

…was sort of a lazy day when it comes to working online. Hubby was home, he actually got home early Friday morning & ended up sleeping a good chunk of the morning away. I managed to do some work while he was sleeping. So my work week actually only has 1 day off… Well my online work week. Mommy work is never ending, not even when I’m asleep.

Like predicted, the snow started melting yesterday & is almost completely gone already today. So the whole family went out yesterday (bad idea, I say, bad idea!) & went to Wal-Mart, Albertson’s & Barnes & Noble. Hubby was looking for some political book (yuck!) but they were out so he didn’t get anything to read. Then we went to Albertson’s, spent $45 there & got 10 cans of vienna sausages, 9 different boxes of cereal, & assorted odds & ends. Since the whole family went, I definitely got things that weren’t on my list & ended up spending more than planned. Then Wal-Mart… I didn’t do so bad there, everyone was getting on my nerves making me back track all day long. I hate having to go down an aisle more than once. But I didn’t do so bad there, spent $30 & got almost $55 worth of stuff. Mostly medicine & stuff, but some groceries for the truck too.

There were some good coupons in today’s paper… Can’t really remember much because I looked at it at 630am & then fell back asleep after Hubby left for work. He has to take a load to Kansas, then pick up another load & take it to the Dallas area. All in all, its a 13 & a half hour drive so he left early so he could be sure to get a good night’s rest tonight. He prefers to get to a morning delivery the night before so he knows he’s on time. This company docks your check $200+ when your late, depending on how late you are. After so many late deliveries, they will fire you. So far, no late deliveries for Hubby.

Ugh, its snowing today! And not innocent little flakes either, the weatherman (yes it is a guy on the channel I watched last night) said that its a blizzard! Ummm, last I checked Texas was not supposed to get blizzards, its supposed to be warm & sunny here. But its okay. I can live with it because the snow won’t last long. Its going to snow all day today, but tomorrow it will hit about 40 degrees which means it’ll start melting around lunchtime tomorrow. Sunday will be in the 70s so I don’t think we’ll have any left Monday morning. Weekend snow, gotta love it!

Most days I love my apartment here, but when its cold I really can’t wait for our lease to be up in May, assuming we have enough saved to get in another place. Our bedroom window doesn’t close all the way, its crooked. Plus (I just found out today) the back door doesn’t fit the door jam properly so there is about a half inch gap that snow is blowing in. I suppose I should have figured that out already, since I could see daylight.

Okay, here are the sale items for this week’s meal. Don’t know exactly what to do with it all yet, but I’m thinking about it.

• Pilgrim’s Pride boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.79/pound - use the 75 cent coupon from the paper a couple weeks ago & you can get 1lb of boneless skinless chicken breasts for $1.04 - not a bad deal there
• Mrs Baird’s Whole Grain White bread for $1.50 - there is a 55 cent coupon out that expires on 3/31 making whole grain bread for 95 cents.
• Betty Crocker Potatoes are $1.50 too - there has been a 40 cent printable previously, but not this week, so if you have one they’ll be $1.10, otherwise they are the sale price
• Food Club Hominy is 2/$1
• Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup is only 50 cents at Albertson’s, or 79 cents at United.

I would make Tasty 2-Step Chicken with hominy or potatoes & bread to soak up the sauce. If your family likes to eat (like mine) you can make both hominy & potatoes. The menu stays under $5 either way. Of course, if your going to Albertson’s & don’t like hominy, they have their brand of canned vegetables (Always Save, I think) for 50 cents a can too.

If it wasn’t supposed to snow tomorrow, I’d get 2 of each of these tomorrow & have 2 meals planned for the week already.

Earlier I told y’all about the 5dollardinners website. I absolutely love the site, but none of their meals line up with my stores. So I decided to do my own for my Albertson’s in Amarillo TX.

Pork shoulder butt roast (my oldest had a good laugh at that) is on sale for 99 cents a pound this week. I decided to go with Pork Butt Roast & Veggies with homemade rolls or bread. Of course I have to do some changes, LOL. I’ve never quite been the type to leave recipes as they are, I’m always tweaking them for whatever reason.

My changes will be:

• use Russet potatoes instead of new red one (Russets are on sale $1 per pound) & cut them in quarters to speed cooking.
• I already have carrots on hand, but they aren’t very expensive
• use what spices I have on hand (I think I have garlic powder, salt & pepper, like the recipe states)
• omit onion & mushroom because I don’t like them

So my shopping list will be:

1. 2lb pork should butt roast ($1.98)
2. 2lb potatoes ($2)
3. 1 3-pk of yeast ($1.50-ish, I think)

Everything else are staples that I keep on hand, the flour, sugar, carrots & spices. Some people might find this meal a little bland, but with 3 out of 5 people in the family with reflux, I try to keep things bland. Especially for the younger 2. Oh, I almost forgot, the total cost of this meal will be $3.98 and up, depending on what you have on hand & whether you add mushrooms & onions.

I went to Walgreen’s & managed to drop off the movie I got Monday. But I think there was a problem with the machine because there was no return confirmation screen today. Last time there was. I’ll be emailing Redbox again this afternoon about it. *big sigh* I don’t want anymore promo codes, I just want that movie shown as returned so I don’t have to pay anymore fees. I wasn’t able to get another movie earlier either, the machine couldn’t spit out the DVD. So I tried using today’s promo code, the code itself worked, the machine did not. I don’t know if free movie rentals are worth all this hassle, ya know?

Okay, trying to forget about that insanity for a bit, gotta lower my blood pressure. Although, since I normally have low BP, raising it a little won’t hurt. LOL I went to United after the Redbox insanity. I got 3 packages of 80/20 ground beef for less than $5 total, & they were each over 1 pound. Making it less than$2/pound which is my limit for meat. Hubby wishes he could have steaks, especially T-bones. I am planning on getting a chest freezer & a side of beef when we get our tax return back. The meat averages $1.85/pound that way. I didn’t get to talk to the store manager about ordering 100 boxes of mac & cheese. I think I’ll pass on that though.

This afternoon/evening I am going to go through my Albertson’s ad & get my trip planned. Then I’m going to work on the menu for next week.  I’ve been visiting 5dollardinners.com & they have some great recipes & ideas. Unfortunately their Albertson’s ideas don’t line up for my sales. So I have to do both of my stores myself. They don’t even have a United blogger yet… Maybe I can get them to link to me if I come up with a good dinner this week (my United sales start on Friday, but I can get a preview of it on Thursday). That will be my goal for tomorrow since its supposed to snow or sleet tomorrow & Hubby asked me to stay inside till he gets home on Friday.

Today is going to be a lazy day, no school, minimal work for me, & I’m debating on whether I’m going to Walgreen’s today. I do need to return my Redbox movie (or at least try to anyway) & the weather is going downhill starting tomorrow, so I might go. The girls do need another gallon of milk too… I guess I’m going *sigh* I really was wanting to stay home today, but that’s not in the cards for me.

I do have another promo code for Redbox, good only today - MMM325 - Its one of the March Madness codes. I might use it today, I might not.

I did manage to find something at Walgreen’s that we’ve been looking for at Wal-Mart for probably a month at least. Hubby takes Goody’s Cool Orange Powders for his arthritis & his neck. We usually get 2-3 boxes when we find them at WM & he’s good for a couple weeks. Well, he’s running low on his last box & we’ve been looking every week for at least 3 weeks, probably more like 5 though. They still don’t have any… But while wandering around Walgreen’s yesterday, I saw them! I came home & told hubby. He’s so happy. I use TheCouponClippers.com to order extra coupons & by chance, I saw that they had Goody’s coupons good for $1 off 1 box of Cool Orange powders. I ordered 10 of them, they should be here Saturday. I’m going to buy all 10 at once, if Walgreen’s has enough stock, that is.

The only thing I ‘have’ to do today is get my Albertson’s trip all planned out. Now if Hubby would quit pestering me when I go to the store, I might be able to actually get everything thats on my list. They have over 140 items for 50 cents if you buy at least 10. I’m going to get so much stuff at 50 cents that I might clear the shelves! LOL They also have a ‘Get $10 off your purchase of $100 or more’ coupon. $100 is a bit more that I was planning on spending, but I can always get more soup or canned veggies @ 50 cents apiece.

I’m also thinking about ordering 100 boxes of mac & cheese from United, since it’s 4 for $1 right now & my kids eat it almost every day. I don’t know if the store manager will let me do that though. Going to find out today. Its only $25 for all that mac & cheese & it’ll last about 3 months, maybe 6 if I can talk them out of mac & cheese daily. Not a bad deal for lunch food.