Kiddie Pool/Sandbox

So I'm not a mom yet, but isn't this the most genius idea ever?

I copied this from the blog Passionate Homemaking. What a great idea to use this plastic bin as a kiddie pool...it's cheap and you can snap on the cover so you don't have to keep changing the water AND when your kids outgrow it, you can use it for storage!! And bonus - you can switch it to a sandbox easily if you feel like it.

YESSSSSS!

Do you ever feel like that when you go grocery shopping?  I did today...with stops at CVS, Food Lion, and Kroger, I got all kinds of good crap!  I won't bore you with all the details of my groceries, but here are the highlights...

4-12 packs of pepsi

4 bags Lays chips

3 dozen eggs

Milk, ice cream, cream cheese

Bunch of Hormel chili

Lots of other random grocery items

So basically my total bill for all 3 places should've been about $84, but the grand total was only $35.50!!  Woohoo, that's less than half!!

Food Lion is not my favorite store by any means, and their products are usually pretty expensive, but one of the ways I save is their printable coupons.  Just go to this site to register and sign up for their weekly emails.  Today I used coupons for $1 off Food Lion brand ice cream, peanut butter, ketchup, cereal and potato chips.  Combine that with MVP savings and the stuff is really cheap.

Also, Kroger usually has the cheapest milk of any store, and they often mark it down when it is getting sorta close to the sell by date.  Sometimes you can get gallons for only $2!!  Sometimes Reber drinks tons of milk and sometimes not, but if we aren't using it fast enough, I just make homemade pudding or biscuits and gravy.

Happy Shopping!

Dollar Tree Delights

Have you been to Dollar Tree lately?  Today I got:

Dijon mustard

Jar of minced garlic

Rockstar energy drink - triple size

2 woven baskets to organize our medicines

Scented oil warmer

1 pkg real bacon bits

A coupon organizer

And apparently something else I can't remember

...for $8.26!!  I would've paid at least double for all that stuff at Wal-Mart, and they have the best dijon mustard.  You can also get Nature's Own Whitewheat bread for $1!!  Some of the stuff is crappy quality and some stuff is not a good value because it's a smaller size, but if you look you can get some good stuff at.

NOTE:  They do NOT take Mastercard but do take Visa and Discover I think he said.  Moral of the story, take some cash with you just in case.