Wishbone Salad Dressing Coupon--Could mean free dressing!

Coupons.com on my side bar has added some new coupons. Including one for Wish Bone salad dressing. If you pair it with a sale, this could equal free or very cheap salad dressing. Thanks to Money Saving Mom for bringing this to our attention.

I prefer to use olive oil and vinegar on my salad, but I love to use the store bought Italian dressings for marinating chicken. It makes it so moist and yummy, especially when you grill it!

My Shephards Pie

I talked here about my love for leftovers and shephards pie is my go to recipe for using up left over mashed potatoes. Only I do not make it the way most people make it, I make it to appeal to our tastes and it is the easiest one you will ever make.

Here is what you will need:

1 lb ground beef

1 packet onion soup mix

1 can corn

1 can green beans

2 cups leftover mashed potatoes

Simply take a pound of hamburger and brown it with a packet of onion soup mix. Once that is browned, I simply mix in a can of green beans and a can of corn. This is also the recipe that I will use any green beans and corn that I had leftover in the freezer. I put that in a casserold dish and then spread out the mashed potatoes on top of the hamburger mixture. Sometimes I will sprinkle some paprika on top of the potatoes but they prefer it without. I bake for about 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees. That is it! I told you it was simple.

We all love it, my girls get so excited when I make it.

This post is linked to Tasty Tuesday and Ultimate Recipe Swap.

Menu Plan, Week of December 6

Sorry this is posted so late, but we got in late last night from our visit and then I worked today. I didn't have the forethought to have this ready and scheduled, I was too busy packing for 6 people to go on a trip, one being only 8 months old! Crazy how much stuff you need!

Wow, what a fun weekend we had visiting with our friends! We had a blast, it was cold up there but the dads and kids still managed to get in a nice walk on the walking path into the woods! And mine and their second oldest found the energy to dig for worms and shock them from their sleep into the freezing cold!

We had some wonderful food up there, including homemade tacos and some delicious pork shoulder that was flavored with ginger, garlic, soy sauce and if I remember correctly, orange marmalade, it was heavenly. Even my oldest daughter liked it, and that is quite a compliment.

So this week I have a ton of laundry and cleaning to catch up on. I am also going to try and get a start on wrapping gifts to put under the tree. And not to mention do some of my holiday baking.

Sunday, December 6--breakfast and lunch at friends house, then traveling on the road, ate sandwiches for dinner.

Weekly meals:

Breakfast--toast, sausage, cold cereal, pumpkin bread

Lunches--soup, sandwiches and leftovers

Dinners--Hamburgers and homemade french fries, barbeque slow cooker chicken with homemade buns and a vegetable, loaded baked potatoe night, homemade pizza, leftovers

I am really looking forward to making the homemade buns, I think my family will like them. I do not eat bread, I know, wierd. But I rarely eat it, it is a texture thing, it makes me gag. Unless it is sweet bread like pumpkin or zuchini or a dense bread that has been dipped in olive oil and spices. But to just eat a sandwich, yuck.

This post linked to Menu Plan Mondays.

Visiting Guests and Bringing Treats

As I said in a recent post, we will be visiting our great friends this weekend. We love going up there, it is nice to hang out and just let the kids play. However, when we stay there, we eat all our meals in and hang and graze most of the day. Even though we reciprocate when they come to visit, I hate showing up empty handed.

As her kids also have food allergies, one reason I think we are so close, these recipes are all egg, dairy, treenut and peanut free. The fudge is also wheat free.

So this is what I will be bringing with us to enjoy a day of watching Christmas movies, doing Christmas crafts and anything else Christmas that we can think of.

This may not look like much, but it is delicious. I got the original recipe from my sister, who got it from a coworker. All you do is take a store bought cake mix, I used a yellow mix. And then take a can of diet lemon-lime pop and mix together. Bake according to the directions on the cake box, it is that simple. However, my husband had an idea to take the yellow cake and mix it with a diet can of orange pop. So that is what this is, and you know what? It tastes like a creamsicle! It tastes like an orange and vanilla creamsickle, it is so good.

I also made these chocolate chip cookies. This was a new recipe for me and I did it as is, however I am thinking I will have to tweek the recipe as it didn't come out as soft and chewy as we like our cookies. But these too are delicious and are better for travel as they stay together much better than my other recipe.

I also made my pumpkin muffin recipe here, but this time I put it into two loaf pans and baked them for 55 minutes. My almost 9 month old LOVES this stuff. He can really shove it in!

Finally, I made some fudge. It isn't as solid as other fudges, but it is super tasty. And my daughter with food alergies loves it, which is the whole point. Here is the recipe.

3 1/2 cups confectioners sugar

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

dash of cinnamon

1/2 cup milk free margerine

1/4 cup vanilla soy or rice milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

Line an 8 x 8 inch pan with wax paper. In a bowl, combine sugar, cocoa powder and cinnamon. In a saucepan over medium heat, bring the margerine and rice/soy milk to a boil. Turn off and remove from heat. Combine with the sugar mixure and mix well. Pour into the pan and refrigerate for atleast an hour, or until it sets. It doesn't taste like traditional chocolate fudge, but it is very tasty and gives my little one another special treat to share.

So that is it, we have a weekend of spending time with great friends, making crafts, sitting around a bonfire and just enjoying our families. We are so looking forward to it.

Ways I Save Money, Number 3 on my Thursday Thirteen Post

Number three on my list of ways that I save money is by using coupons. As I mentioned before, I was not always frugal and didn't use coupons until about 4 years ago. So, around 4 years ago, I first purchased the following books.

Miserly Meals: Healthy, Tasty Recipes Under 75¢ per Serving

Frugal Families: Making the Most of Your Hard-Earned Money

Cheap Talk with the Frugal Friends: Over 600 Tips, Tricks, and Creative Ideas for Saving Money

 Greatest Secrets of the Coupon Mom


For those of you new to the frugal bandwagon, these books are a plethora of information! I read them cover to cover and just tried to soak it all in. Coupons seemed to be one thing that I could easily try. So I gave it a shot.

I have tried many things over the years, from cutting out every coupon and having a huge plastic container to hold my coupons, to having a small organizer in my purse, to what I have now, a nice cloth envelope type organizer with slots for my coupons. I bought it at Meijer.

Most people organize their coupons by type: baby, frozen, baking, meat, cereal, etc. I tried it that way, but I had so many that I ended up having envelopes in each slot to help me seperate them and make it easier for me to locate. After a while I realized that didn't work.

Then I read this book Shop, Save, Share. In her book, she talks about organizing her coupons in alphabetical order. So I tried that and it totally works for me! It is much easier to find Pampers diapers in the "P" section rather than the "baby" section. Kellog cereal would be in the

"K" section, not the "cereal" section. You get the picture.

Now, here is a secret, I do not pay for coupons. I used to have the Sunday paper delivered to our house. But some weeks we would not get our paper and we would have to go out to buy them anyway. Not to mention our subscription kept slowly going up. So we cancelled it and if I know there are going to be alot of coupons that I will want, we will go buy a paper, but that rarely happens. I get my coupons from my mom. She only cuts out a few coupons and usually for things that I don't buy anyway. I will print coupons from Coupons.com (which is on my sidebar) and from anywhere else that I find them. MoneySavingMom.com will always list the latest online coupons, I check her site multiple times a day.

So, I cut out any high value coupons and anything else that we will use. Even if it is something we can't use, with the high value coupons, if I am able to get it free, or for pennies, I will buy it and then donate it or give it to family and friends who can use it.

Once I cut them out, I then organize them in my coupon organizer.

When I get the sale ads delivered, at our house, that is Saturday morning, I will sit down and go through the ads and circle anything that might seem like a good deal. At this point I am not matching up to the coupons yet. Once I am done going through my ads, I will then go back to the ads, armed with my coupon book and see if I have coupons for anything that I circled. If I do, I will pull it out and start making a pile.

I do this for each sale ad. I will also check out MoneySavingMom.com, as she will list the links that will list deals at the stores that I shop.

After I make this pile, I will then write a list of everything I want to buy at the store. How much it costs, how much my coupon is for and what the final cost will be after sale and coupons (sometimes doubled). I do this for every item I have a coupon for. In addition to that, I will add items that I need to the list, also checking to see if I have a coupon for it. This comes from my running list on the fridge. When I run out of something or am getting low, I add it to my grocery list on the fridge.

So, armed with my grocery list, I head to the store. I also take my coupon organizer with me, incase they have an unadvertiesd sale.

But I don't just buy something because I have a coupon: No matter how good a deal it is, if you still have to pay something out of pocket and will not use it or can't donate it, then it isn't a good deal.

Since I don't buy alot of processed foods or cleaners, I mainly use coupons on toiletries like shampoo, toothpaste, personal items, etc.

As for toiletries, usually CVS will run items that are Free after Extra Care Bucks. I always buy those and when paired with a coupon, they turn into a money maker. I then roll those Extra Care bucks into another deal, or buy formula with them.

Using coupons is a great way to save money, I have been able to stock up on lots of things. For instance, I probably have enough disposable razors to last myself and all three of my daughters until they are grown and on their own. I still have about 20 bottles of shampoo and conditioner that I got for free or pennies. Not to mention the 20 or so bottles of lotion, also free. Same for panty liners, I am set for years with my free Kotex! I just ran out of toothbrushes, I haven't had to pay for any for about 4 years!

I used to keep a price book, but have gotten to where I just know in my head if it is a good price or not. Plus, Aldi's has the lowest price in town on staples. If something is more expensvie than Aldi, even with a coupon, I will not buy it.

There are however many things that I cannot buy with a coupon simply because I cannot find them. I have to have them anway, due to my daughters food allergies. So using coupons to save on one thing, allows me to spend the extra on the others.

Currently we are buying diapers and formula, so I am not sure what our grocery costs are right now, as we spend about $100 a week on formula alone. However, before the formula and diapers, we were spending $150 for 2 weeks, I would go to the store every two weeks. Not bad for a then family of five, including one with special dietary needs.

I am hoping that once we are done with formula that I can get back to the $150 for two weeks grocery bill. We'll see how it goes.

How do you organize your coupons?

This post links to Frugal Friday and Works for me Wedesdays.

The Snack Tub

My youngest daugher is in preschool. I was very worried as they have a snack during their time there. This is the first time anyone but a grandma has watched her. I was a nervous wreck about what to do about the snack. Having allergies to eggs, dairy, treenuts and peanuts, there is very little that she can have that is store bought.

My best friend Cindy, who also has a food allergy daughter gave me this tip that she used for her while in school. She took in a tub of safe snacks. So that is what I have done along with a few other things to make sure my daughter is safe at preschool.

I took a tub and put safe snacks in it. Raisins, applesauce, Teddy Grahams, pretzels, Oreos, all of the store bought snacks that she can have. I also sent in individual packs of soy milk for the days the kids have milk to drink instead of juice with their snack. If the mom has already dropped off the snack (we have a rotating schedule) I will check it to see if it is safe or not. If it isn't, or it has not been dropped off, I tell the teacher that she must choose from her box that day.

In addition to that, for birthday parties, I make a cake that is safe for her and ice it. I cut it into serving sizes and wrapped with parchment paper. Then I put those in a container and they keep that in the freezer at school. When one of the kids has a birthday celebration, they simply pull the cake out at the beginning of class and it is ready to eat by snack time. I also keep a box of Tofutti Cuties in the freezer. These are soy icecream bars and they are delicious, for the days the other kids have icecream.

This helps me to know that she is safe and not to worry so much.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesdays.

Coupon.com

COUPONS!

It is the first of the month, which means the coupons have been reset at Coupons.com!  The $1 off any Muir Glen organic product is back! This will enable you to get free or almost free tomato products if paired with a sale! or if you have luck with getting Walmart to take computer coupons, I do not have suck luck.

There is also some $5 off Playschool coupons listed! This is an awesome deal for those of you that still need to buy Christmas gifts! I used these at Target last month and got some great deals on gifts for my little guy.

You will see these coupon on my side bar on the left. All you have to do is click on the Quick Print button. You should be able to print each coupon twice. You can scroll through the coupons on my site, or click on a coupon to take you to Coupons.com.

Happy Saving!