“Coupon Mom”

Sunday grocery shopping is not our favorite event. As discussed in the Healthy Lifestyle section we try not to shop at busy times. However, what we do try to do on a Sunday (besides going to church) is collect coupons.  A lot of us out there are trying to pinch pennies where we can, but sometimes this takes work. Yesterday I caught a feature on ABC from the “Coupon Mom” reminding us all how to save money when grocery shopping. In a nutshell, she reminded shoppers to buy generic items, plan your shopping (and eating) around what is on sale at stores, check receipts, and use coupons (which she has available online).

This mom has a few other favorite ways to save money at the grocery store, and some might seem a bit counter-intuitive:

Let things run out. We found that if we have a lot of something we use more of it and usually gratuitously. Think of how you get when your toothpaste is finished but you just need a teeny bit more. Well you get it by rolling over the tube 4-5 times, cutting off the end, or pushing hard at the top because you need that little bit to get your teeth clean. Whereas, if you have 2-3 in the closet you might just throw out the toothpaste when the cap gets too messy or it is almost gone. So as the saying goes “waste not, want not.” 

Keep your cans. At our grocery store we get charged a deposit just for the possibility that we might bring our cans back. On a 12 pack that is 60 cents. If we don’t take the cans back we loose 60 cents. So keep them, collect them, and get your money back.

Drink water from the tap. Call me crazy, but we have a good friend that works for a public water company and he can’t believe people drink bottled water due to rigorous State and Federal  water testing. If you just can’t stomach that buy a filter that attaches to the fawcett. 

Keeping connected

Ever since our family expanded we found ourselves wanting to be more connected or our family and friends. However, we also found that we are not very good at it! We have close friends and family spread around the world and we find ourselves blaming post office lines, time zones, and our schedules for not being in touch. But really, that is no excuse. We desperately need to improve this, but a few little things have helped:

We send one package with all the birthday, Christmas, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, Easter, etc. cards in them. It feels odd writing them all at once, but actually this has worked for us.

We use skype. This is a phone service through the computer, and it has saved us lots of money (and if your computer has video capability you can actually see the other person).

We found friends that use shutterfly and we post pictures for them to see (and right now they do have a coupon deal if you want to order picture gifts)

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Breakfast in Bed (sort of)

I know Mother’s Day has been and gone, but I still think that the weekends should be a time for breakfast in bed. Okay, okay, I know that sounds unrealistic, especially when everyone is running around doing their own thing. But honestly I think we all might be missing something here. In our family we have been trying to slow things down lately. How? By choosing to. We stopped trying to cram everything in on weekends, rushing from here to there to get everything done. We started to stay in on Fridays because we found out we could order a nice dinner to go. And most importantly we started ‘breakfast in bed’ for the whole family. Does anyone really bring me a tray on Saturday morning loaded with my favorite goodies? No, but we do all stay in our p.j’s and hang out, slowing making breakfast and mom still gets her nice big cup of coffee. So now on Sunday night instead of feeling exhausted we feel like we caught a little snippet of family r&r.

Saturday Morning Cartoons

I grew up loving Saturdays because I was allowed to watch cartoons in the morning. Nowadays cartoons are on 24/7 and many of them seem to be geared towards adults, not children. So if we do turn the tv on to watch cartoons we always check PBS first. This mom, like so many others, loves PBS, and it is my favorite channel. If no cartoons are on, we simply pop one in the DVD player that we bought directly from PBS.

Raising Baby Green

Okay, so right now I am thinking more and more about keeping our family healthy. As seen in my “Healthy Lifestyle” article, this mom believes in raising her family organic & green. Here are a few books and resources that helped me do just that.

Inspiration by Subscription

Today I started thinking about the summer (okay, I know it is not here yet!) and I realized that I might need a little bit of inspiration to help fill those long lovely summer days. So I was going to pick up a copy of a popular parenting magazine until I realized that for a few dollars more I could subscribe to this magazine, or another, for the whole year! Call it a late Mother’s Day Gift, but my magazine is now on its way and will be for the next twelve months.

Blogging Mama

Okay, so really this is all new to me. Most of my time I spend working my “real” job in the professional world and of course raising kids and keeping the family together. But recently I realized that there is a whole new blogging world that exists out there, and I had no idea before I entered this realm. I didn’t know what an RSS was or a mama blog, but I have come to realize that this is the new place where community exists and I am quite glad that I have stumbled upon it. As I learn more about interesting blogs (especially mommy ones) I will keep you all posted with an added column on mom’s favorite blogs!

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Go Organic

Yes, it is expensive, but in our family we have tried to go organic. The more that we learn, the happier we are with this decision. Why? Frankly, because we are not comfortable with the amount of chemicals, pesticides, and genetically modified ingredients in many non-organic foods. So we figure, the cost is worth it in the long run. What are some of mom’s favorite organic products? Gerber Organic, Nature’s Path, Earthbound Farms, Amy’s, Cascadian Farm, Health Valley, Horizon, Stonyfield, and Earth’s Best (to name just a few).

If you want more information, check out a recent NY Times Article entitled “Five Reasons to Go Organic”

As always, be sure to share your favorite organic products with this mom!