A Way to Keep Food Costs Down - At Least a Little

I can claim no credit for this one - it was my husband's idea. He knows I'm having a hard time keeping anything down, and so he's been kind enough to pick me up whatever sounds most appealing for dinner on his way home from work.

He realized that this did not necessarily mean that he also had to have take out each night. He bought some favorite cheeses and such at Trader Joe's, and now he has an assortment of things he likes to eat - which don't require cooking - and it's much less expensive than getting takeout for both of us.

I'm a bit nervous about Thanksgiving - we have one restaurant meal and two home cooked to enjoy this weekend. Hopefully I will be able to enjoy it and not just feel like throwing up the whole time. But, if I do, it's a small price to pay for a very good thing.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Good News!

We saw the heartbeat this morning! It was wonderful. This is a very good sign.

The statistics are quite encouraging, after seeing the heartbeat. Having lost our last one just a few short weeks after seeing his heartbeat, it's not quite as reassuring as it might be to other people. However, I'm feeling calm and optimistic, and having a great time.

I am feeling awfully sick, but that's fine too. :)

Thank you all for your prayers. We appreciate them so much.

No More Menu Plans for Now

I have reached the point of sickness that there is no point in trying to plan menus in advance. I am trying to eat something we have when possible, but cooking is almost out of the question. "Morning" sickness always goes this way for me, and is usually all day and pretty bad. I don't know in the morning what will seem OK to eat for dinner. Even just smelling the food while someone else is cooking it is too much. I wouldn't call it fun, but I'm taking it as a sign that things are hopefully going as they should.

I'm glad I actually have extra money in my food budget for this month, as a result of building up our pantry some using coupons and sales in combination. I think I can order out dinner for the rest of this month if I feel like it (I will try not to, but we'll just have to wait and see). I think we'll add to the food budget for next month. I'm going to try not to be too extravagent, but at the same time, this is why we make money - to make life work.

I figured out yesterday that I've had morning sickness for more than 30 weeks out of the last two years (and a few months). It usually lasts a little after a miscarriage, and it always starts early for me. I know what I have to do - eat frequently, don't let my stomach get too empty - but as any of you who have been through this know, that's sometimes easier said than done.

I bet by January or February, when this is over, I will be more than ready to try all kinds of wonderful new recipes.

Dave Ramsey Sale

Dave Ramsey is running a great sale right now, through December 1st - all books, CDs and DVDs are just $10 each. If you haven't read Dave yet, I strongly encourage you to give him a try. He motivated us to recently become debt free, and it's one of the best things we've ever done. These would make great holiday gifts too.

(BTW, I don't get any sort of kick back for this - I just really believe in this material. Actually, anything I promote here - whether there is an incentive to me or not - is something I have personally benefitted from. The point is to help, not to make money.)

Posting About Giant?

I've been wondering whether it's worth it, since there seems to be so much variation in when the different stores do their promotions. I'm guessing my information is probably accurate for most of the Philadelphia area, but I regularly hear of variation elsewhere - even as close by as Harrisburg. So, I may make some exceptions to this, but I think it's probably not worth my posting them.

Any thoughts to the contrary? I know I have a couple people who read here specifically for the Giant deals. Have they actually been helpful? Let me know what you think.

A Few Good Links

I always knew debt was dangerous, but according to this article, it can even put you at risk for pre-term labor. Thankfully, that won't be a concern for us.

This blog post talks about the interesting book The Two-Income Trap. I read this several years ago as we were plotting our escape from having two incomes. It's a reasonably good read if you have the time, but to hit some of the high points, especially the most relevant ones, Jen's post is a good one.

Do you love your crockpot? If you don't yet, you will after you visit this next blog. And since we focus on frugality around here, I thought I would link to her post on saving money using the crockpot. But do check out the recipes - I've had a lot of good stuff that I found here.

So Far, So Good

Today I had another checkup with the reproductive endocrinologist. My hcg levels are increasing right on schedule and my progesterone is fine. Ultrasounds are not very exciting at five and a half weeks, but we were able to see that the sac is just the size it should be at this time. So it looks like everything is going well.

I really appreciate everyone's prayers, thank you so much. A special thanks to those of you who posted about my prayer request on your own blogs too. You guys are the best, and this kind of stuff is what makes blogging great. :)

Giant - Double $1 Coupons

This week's Giant flyer came with four $1 coupon doubler coupons. You can use each of these plus a $1 manufacturer's coupon to get $2 off an item. This can be a great opportunity to pick up free or near free items.

The details: "With any purchase of $15 or more (after all discounts have been subtracted and before sales taax has been added, where applicable.) Limit one item per manufacturer's coupon. Coupon excludes tobacco products, lottery tickets, milk and pharmacy items. Limit 4 coupons per household." This promotion goes through November 22.

There is sometimes variation among Giant stores, so do leave me a note in the comments if you have seen something different than this.

Menu Plan Monday - not quite a menu, but sort of a plan

This is an unusal week in several ways. First, my husband has a strange week with work where he won't be home for dinner most of the week. (Fortunately, this is rare.) So I don't need to plan for him.

Second, and bigger - as usual, my morning sickness has struck early. I usually start feeling a bit off before I can even test - I thought I was imagining at first, but after four tries, I know the routine. I often can't eat anything I have to smell cooking. What sounds good and what sounds disgusting flip flops day to day if not more often. So I am being prepared with a number of good options with minimal cooking, and I'll pick what sounds good that day. If all else fails, I've got a little extra room in the budget for take out.

Garden tomatoes and (pasteurized) fresh mozzarella salad

Tuna salad - as salad or tuna melt with swiss cheese

Tuna helper

Grilled cheese and canned soup

Borscht (in a jar) and whole grain bread

Pesto (frozen from our garden) and spaghetti

Green salad with smoked almonds

Clearly some of these are light meals, and that's intentional - I find eating less more often is the key to keeping it down.

At this point, I don't have a big problem with having morning sickness. Obviously, it is a challenge, but it's one I'm happy to have to deal with. It means things are probably going well. Bring it on!

Check out more menu plans over at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Debt Free Celebration

We had talked about how we might celebrate becoming debt free, but one day we decided to dig into our savings and suddenly had some celebrating to do! Naturally, a debt free celebration should be FRUGAL!

We had decided to finish while on our favorite walk near our home. So we celebrated with another walk. Sounds dull I know, but we really liked it.

On our way back, we noticed a free pile in front of someone's house. There were several nice, plain vases in it. I picked these up, figuring they'll be perfect for taking flowers to people as gifts.

I made us a lovely dinner with stuff we had in the house, including some of our homegrown tomatoes that are still ripening indoors. We had wine we had already purchased (this was in October, before our recents good news.)

We finished with a cozy evening at home in front of our fireplace, talking and resting, and just generally feeling even more relieved and relaxed than we had expected.

Paying off debt, especially large quantities of it, is definitely hard - no way around it. But it is SO worth it.

Techniques for Becoming Debt Free

We will use the same techniques that have gotten us here to get us to the house.

Here are a few:

• Not buying more car than we need. We had no cars in the city, one car in a suburb with good public transportation access, and now two where public transportation isn't so good. It wasn't mentally easy to have no car when we made a good bit of money between my job and my husband's grad student stipend, but looking back it was worth it. We bought my car in cash, and will buy all future vehicles in cash, most likely used. My 2000 Ford Taurus runs fine - I don't need a BMW.


• Not buying more housing than we need, and looking for good deals. Our rental house is bigger than we need, but it costs no more than the two bedroom apartment we had been living in. We get a deal by renting from a relative, in not quite as nice an area. We can stay here indefinitely - that makes life much easier.


• Not spending much on clothes - our clothes budget is $100 a month, and we never spend that, so we've accumulated a lot. We wear things out, shop used and sales, and shop at home first (look at what we already have).
  
• Not eating out, or spending a lot on entertainment in general - when you do these things less often, two really great results happen. First, you really notice and enjoy the entertainment, since it's not your everyday activity. Second, you can spend for a really nice dinner or concert, etc., without spending too much in this category.
  
• Not spending too much on eating at home - I must admit that I have added fancy cheeses and such back into our diet, and that my new low-carb diet (for PCOS) has demanded some more expensive items too. But we keep it within reason, and I'm always looking for ways to save.
  
• Shopping creatively for home items - we have a lovely, comfortable home, and that's a priority for us. We like spending time together at home and taking walks at a nearby park best as recreation. By enjoying inherited items and shopping at thrift stores and garage sales (and free piles) we have a home that looks like it cost much more to decorate than it really did. I'll wait and wait until I find the right item at the right price - right now, we're waiting for the TV armoire. It's coming.


• Allowing ourselves well chosen luxuries from time to time. We try to make sure we really get a good value for our money. As Amy Dacyczyn would say, we look for a low cost-per-wow.


• And the NUMBER ONE TECHNIQUE - working together on our goals. We always talk about our budget, celebrate good savings tricks and plan for the future together. We keep ourselves motivated, and we are in agreement about where we are headed. We share relevant books and articles that help us understand more and encourage us. Everything else we do is the fruit of this one principle.

Tomorrow I'll share how we celebrated becoming debt free!

Check out more frugal ideas over at Biblical Womanhood.

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!!!!!!!!

After nearly two years of working hard to eliminate our debt, we have finally accomlished our goal. We are so happy.

As I've mentioned before, we started working on paying off our debt after reading Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. When we started, we had somewhere between $80,000-$90,000 in debt. This was made up of a car loan and our student loans. Because we both went to graduate school, we accumulated a large amount of loans. (If only we knew then what we know now - we hope to help our children avoid having this bad start in adult life.)

Here's how we got rid of it all:

We started with several thousand in savings as well as Roth IRAs and a 457 (government employee retirement account).

At the same time we started the program, I had recently stopped working after the health setbacks of our first miscarriage. Because I stopped working, we were able to take the money out of the 457 penalty free - the one nice special feature of this kind of account compared to a 401k. We were never sure we wanted to leave it in there, thinking we'd maybe use it for a house. Instead, we built up an emergency fund we felt comfortable with (more than $1000, because we are a single income family with some health issues, and often a baby on the way, all reasons Dave says to keep more on hand). Then we used the rest to pay off the car. That felt fantastic.

Next, we started on the student loans, smallest to largest. This was a huge amount of debt to eliminate. Nearly everyone we knew thought it was ridiculous to pay off loans that were at less than 2% interest, so we needed to motivate ourselves. We had two kinds of charts to encourage us - one had empty boxes for us to fill in with the amounts of our loans, with each graph paper square a thousand dollars. With our biggest loan at $27k, it sometimes felt like we would never fill them. Our other chart had time on the x-axis and debt amount on the y-axis, with a downward sloping line that represented our goal - $3000 a month. Sometimes we did less, sometimes we managed more.

Just a little aside here - we have, as Dave Ramsey would say, a big shovel (income) to help us get out of debt. After years of study toward a PhD and lots of hard work, we are very blessed to have an income that lets us pay off in debt what some people make - close to what I did as a librarian, actually. We are very thankful. I know some may feel this in some way lessens the accomplishment of paying off the debt, but I don't think so, and here's why:

We know a lot of people who make as much or more than we do. Some of them have a lot of toys, big houses, nice cars. (So do some of the people we know who make much less.) In some ways, a higher income just gives you more rope to hang yourself with. Right before we learned about Dave Ramsey, I was feeling ready to do it. After years of sacrifice (including taking Philadelphia's awful subways to work, living with no cars), my husband finally had a real job. I was dreaming of a nice house and a second car. It was so tempting. It didn't quite feel right, but it would definitely have been the normal thing to do. I'm so glad we didn't. Instead of having several times our annual income in debt, we have none, and have healthy savings. Often, higher income just means more debt - without debt, now we will really be able to get ahead. Dave's book and podcast cured our "Doc-itis" as he likes to say.

Back to the graph with the slope for our goal - it was a bit ambitious, but possible, and it was so encouraging to see that we really should finish by early 2009. It was too much money to think about, so thinking about the goal in terms of time was good. In mid-October, we started talking about using some of our emergency fund to just pay of the rest. In some ways, it seemed like a bad idea - the economy is unsteady, and my husband works in finance, which has been hit so hard lately. But at the same time, his job seemed pretty safe, and we both really wanted to get it over with. After planning how we would build the emergency fund back up right away, we did it. It was so exciting. We clicked "submit" for that final payment together, and then were jumping up and down in excitement.

So now it's on to the next goal - buying a house in cash. That sounds crazy to me sometimes too, since we live in a suburban area that is not too cheap. However, we live in a nice rental house with room for at least a few children, so we don't mind staying here for a while. It will take years. After what we have just accomplished, I think we can do it. It's a really big goal, but somehow the size makes it even more exciting.

Tomorrow I'll be posting about some of the techniques we used to get here - which will also help us meet our next goal of a home purchase.

PS - I'm too shy to call in and scream on the radio with Dave - so thanks for hearing me celebrate here!

Just realized I forgot to add in my excitement - head over to Money Saving Mom for more financial updates. These are always inspiring and full of good ideas.

Remember to Ask

As I've mentioned before, we're in the process of emptying my grandmother's apartment, as she is moving into a nursing home. In her opinion, this is temporary - in the medical staff's opinion, there's no way she'll live alone again. So serve both sides, we are moving nearly everything into a storage unit.

That means lots of packing, which is a lot of what I'll be doing for the next week. We need to get finished before Thanksgiving - an excellent goal (I chose it after all), so we can all enjoy the holidays more. My grandmother will be able to feel more settled, and we won't have a lot of work to do away from home.

Anyway, about asking: as I took some things to our biggest local thrift store to donate the other day, I noticed two staff members throwing out a bunch of collapsed boxes. I almost just got back in my car, but something clicked and I thought to ask if I could have them for storing my grandmother's stuff. They were delighted to give them to me - less work for them. And I was happy to save at least a little money on packing supplies, as well as a trip to buy boxes and get started. I think we get so used to just buying stuff that we sometimes overlook these opportunities, so it was a good reminder to me to really keep my eyes open, and ask if it seems like it will benefit both parties.

Giant Coupon for this Week

Since I've been a little distracted, I just now went through the store flyers for this week. Giant has a pretty good coupon this week that you could work in with whatever you already plan to get:

$8 off $80 or $5 off $50 or $3 off $30

So this could be as much as ten percent off your grocery bill. As usual with Giant, the "minimum spend must be met after all discounts have been subtracted from order and before sales tax has been added to order." One coupon per customer.

I bought only three things this week to add to what I already had, so I won't be using this. Remember, the Thanksgiving turkey promotion is still going too - this is the last week to earn points toward your turkey or turkey substitute.

I love Freecycle

Back to our regularly scheduled programming here...

I am guessing most of you have heard of Freecycle. It is a forum where people both offer free items and can request free items that others might have. This allows you to share with people you don't know and save good stuff from landing in the trash.

I posted before about getting some amazing baby stuff that way. Along with gifts of used stuff from people we do know, there's not much we'll need in that department - though I'll certainly keep looking.

Yesterday I picked up the perfume and lotion you see above - one unopened box, plus a partial bottle of Shalimar perfume, it will last me forever. I don't use perfume a lot, but I do like this one so this was a nice, luxurious treat for me. And the person who gave it to me was delighted to get rid of it and have someone else enjoy it.

I don't know what you might be looking for, but there's a good chance that if you watch for a while, freecycle may have it. You can google for the one in your area. It's considered polite to also offer something when you are starting. You may find that it's a good way to get rid of some of your clutter and bless someone else at the same time. (Always be sensible about having strangers come to your house, especially if you are alone a lot.)

Great News and a Prayer Request

I have some great news - and a prayer request:

After just two weeks of treatment with my fabulous new doctor PCOS specialist doctor (metformin for PCOS and levothyroxine for hypothyroid), I ovulated, and now I'm pregnant!

I'm at 4w4d. I've been pretty calm, especially given this is my fourth pregnancy, with no living kids at this point. At this point my HCG looks great and my progesterone is not bad but a little on the low side, so I just started supplementing. Hopefully everything will work out fine, the reproductive endocrinologist will be checking me regularly.

I would really appreciate any prayers. We so want to have a healthy pregnancy and a live baby to hold. Thanks in advance. :)

Menu Plan Monday

I should only have to buy a few things this week. It's going to be a busy one, so I'm keeping it simple.

Monday - Tomato feta spaghetti, salad

Tuesday- Quesadillas, salad (I may also may slow cooker black beans on this day - we'll see)

Wednesday - Hamburger Helper with soy crumbles, cooked frozen veg

Thursday - Salmon salad, lima bean salad

Friday - Banana pepper and pineapple pizza, salad

Saturday and Sunday dinners will be spent with friends and family.

Shopping list - pineapple, feta, soy crumbles

Check out more menus over at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

A New Coupon File

This sad looking envelope box has been my coupon storage for about a year. It does a decent job of holding things, and I can generally find what I need. But it's awfully big to actually take with me to the store, so I tend to pull what I think I'll need and leave the rest at home. I'm sure I've missed some opportunities this way, but I just couldn't see bringing something so big and unattractive with me to the store.

I have seen coupon organizers advertised, but I couldn't quite bring myself to pay something like ten dollars for a new toy when I already had something that worked. It seemed silly, especially, for a task that's all about saving money. So I waited.

We are currently working through the long and challenging task of cleaning out my grandmother's apartment now that she will be staying at a nursing home. As I was going through her impressive stash of extra office supplies, I found this clear plastic file.

It comes with month and alphabet lables, so I will need to make my own labels. It has plenty of sections for all of my coupons - in fact I'll probably be able to divide them more than I already do, which will make them easier to use. I think I'll wait a little while before making the labels to see how I want to use it.

Triple Coupons at Superfresh

Today I'll be making a stop at Superfresh to take advantage of their triple coupon promotion. This week they will triple any coupons up to 99 cents. I just called to check - there is no limit on the number of coupons they will triple. This is great news - and better than when Giant does triple coupons with a limited number of store coupons to triple your manufacturer coupons.

My plan is to pull coupons I suspect will result in good deals and make it as quick a trip as I can. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bunch of free or near free stuff.

Recipe - Easiest Applesauce

I had a lot of apples that were getting a bit soft - we went apple picking about a month ago, and we hadn't eaten them all yet - so I made applesauce over the weekend. Apples that are a bit past prime are perfectly good in applesauce. This is what I do - calling it a recipe is probably a bit of an exageration.

I peel and chop up the apples, and throw them in a pot. Then I add a little bit of water to just get the cooking started and keep them from burning in the beginning. I usually add cinnamon while it's cooking, but it's good without too. Bring it to a boil, then put the lid on and simmer until soft. When you can smush the apples with a spoon, you can call it done. I just smush them up because we like chunky applesauce. If you like it smoother, I would suggest an immersion blender.

I like this much better than store bought applesauce. It's also fun to use something that you might otherwise throw out.

Menu Plan Monday

I shouldn't have to buy anything new for this week's menu. I will be doing some bargain shopping later in the week - I'll post more about that later.

Monday - Enchiladas with green sauce (using low carb tortillas)

Tuesday - Tomato Feta Salad - some of our tomatoes I brought in green are now red enough

Wednesday - Quesadillas with sour cream, salsa

Thursday - Grilled cheese and canned soup (free)

Friday - Stirfry and rice

We'll be eating with friends and family for the weekend.

For more menus, head over to I'm an Organizing Junkie.