Target Deals

I have decided that I LOVE Super Target. They have some great deals. The other day I managed to snag a Scrubbing Bubbles shower cleaner for 99 cents! I have been wanting someone or something to clean my shower for ages and now I have that!

I am putting together deals so that I can make a run to my local Super Target here in the next few days. It is about 25 minutes away, so I don't go very often.

Here are my favorite deals that I have come across online:

Scrubbing Bubbles Shower Cleaner Starter Kit is $12.99. Us the $7 IP and the $5 target gift card coupon from 7/26 SS and it is like you get it for 99 cents!

I read online that Hefty One Zip quart sized storage bags 22 count box are on sale for $1.02 and if you can find the $1/1 coupons it makes them 2 cents.

Healthy Choice fozen meals can be a good deal with $2.50 IP and 50 cent Target printable.

The cheap pack of Bic pens are free with the $1/2 coupon from 8-9 SS or the IP plus the $1/2 Target printable.

There is a 50 cent Target printable for a lb of bananas! If you purchase a lb of bananas then you should get it for 9 cents. My kiddos just love bananas.

Get 1lb banana's FREE wyb Hefty OneZip Fresh Extend Bags (this is a tearpad coupon, Bags are $2.99 Also there is -Any $1/1 MQ from 06-07-09 RP insert. =$1.99 Ggbwg

Pop Tarts are $1.52 a box and with the $1/2 manufacturer coupon and the 75 cent Target printable they are 27 cents a box.

There is a printable Target coupon for $1 off of a lb of apples.

Monthly Grocery Shopping & Menu Plan Monday

Today I am working on my monthly grocery shopping trip. I can not say enough how much I love Pepperclip. As I have told you before that it is an awesome website that takes all the drudgery out of making a grocery list. All I do is choose my recipes that I am making that month and it prints out my shopping list for me.

I have made out my menu for the month -

Breakfast:

homemade peanut butter granola with milk or crock pot yogurt
banana nut muffins
strawberry and kiwi muffins
scrambled eggs and oven toast
breakfast cookies
breakfast tacos
waffles

Lunch:

pizza pockets
tuna macaroni salad
chicken nuggets
grilled cheese
egg salad sandwiches
chicken salad sandwiches
Spanish omelets

Dinner:

lazy girl potato skins, salad
loaded baked potatoes, brisket, green beans
lasagna, salad (2)
Mexican casserole, avocado salad (2)
chili & cornbread, green beans
Cajun chicken pasta, salad
BBQ beef cups, tomatoes, peas (2)
empenadas, sour cream, guacamole, rice
cheesy pasta casserole, pea salad (2)
meat loaf, mashed potatoes, broccoli & rice casserole
pizza, salad (4)
Italian cream cheese chicken over pasta, broccoli
Potatoes Au gratin w/ ham, pea salad
chicken spaghetti, salad
tacos, sour cream, guacamole, romaine, tomatoes
sloppy Joe's, salad
hamburger-corn-pie, avocado salad
creamy chicken enchiladas, rice, beans
Talapia, broccoli, sweet potato fries (2)
taco meatloaf patties w/ Mexican mac and cheese, avocado slices
steak from the grill, corn on the cob, salad

Sorry. I do not have the time to add all of the links for the recipes, however I will slowly do that this week when I get a bit of time here and there. I am trying to print out my grocery list right now to go shopping. I will tell you to go visit Cooking During Stolen Moments for many of the recipes that I use. Kate has an awesome blog with a lot of good ideas and yummy food! My tummy is growling just thinking about it.

May was a terrible month for me when it comes to cooking. I spent too little time trying to cook and stock my freezer and way too much time eating out with the family. In my defense there were many things this last much such as my birthday, our wedding anniversary, mother's day, etc. But anyways, I have been struggling with figuring it all out. If you notice I have 7 breakfasts and lunches listed. I am going to quadruple each of my breakfast and lunch meals this first week of June that way I do not have to cook those meals for 3 whole weeks. I am very excited about this approach and very optimistic. It is very important for us to start saving money, so I really have no other choice this month.

Please visit the home of Menu Plan Monday to see what other fellow bloggers have cooking this week!

Monthly Shopping Trip

This last Monday I tackled my monthly shopping trip. I had decided to go each month on the first Monday of that month, however now I am rethinking that and wondering if I should go on the last Thursday or Friday so that I can make freezer meals over the weekend when my hubby is home to entertain the kids.

I did pretty well with my shopping trip. I have realized that it really isn't much harder to go once a month as it is to go once a week. I go to two stores usually and I can leave with only one cart full because I stockpile during the month when things go on really good specials. I love hunting for deals, so my mini trips are more like a hobby than a chore. Now my large shopping trips are a chore.

I really wish that I was as good at keeping track of receipts as I am getting at grocery shopping. :) I have been running around the house like crazy looking for my receipts so that I can tell you about each of my shopping trips. I can't find them, so I guess that isn't going to happen.

However, I did find a receipt from when I sent my hubby to the store to buy green olives. I didn't feel like making anything off of my list and I decided to invent my own version of tuna pasta. All I needed was some olives and he managed to spend $24.16 at Kroger! I am so fuming over this receipt. I am considering not even counting it in my grocery budget because he wasn't supposed to purchase these items. He grabbed things that I would have never. He bought a bag of Lays Classic potato chips and a case of Bud Light! What was he thinking? Doesn't he know we are trying to improve our health? I guess not. Just makes me want to... uh never mind!

So my first trip of the month was to Kroger. I always stop there first to see what is marked down off of my list. I found two boxes of either organic or natural (I can't remember now and we already ate both boxes :o) graham cracker sticks that were marked down to 50 cents a box. All of those hot dog packages you see... they are actually veggie dogs! Perfect for my kids lunches! Way to sneak some veggies in! They were all marked down for less than the coupons they had in the little blinkie machine so they were free! The organic eggs were less than $2 each. I normally spend over $2 for plain ol' free range eggs. I also picked up some heavy whipping cream to add lots of tasty fat into our diets!

Right now I am focusing more on using whole ingredients (I am trying but not doing the best job at) rather than the fat content. I am trying to limit my portion sizes as well.

The whole trip came to $12.33.

When we got to Wal-Mart we stopped at McDonald's to get lunch. I know... bad mommy! However, I think we are going to do this each month. Once a month can't hurt... can it? I realized that a kids meal does wonders for my sanity. She has left over apples (take away the camel... fruit drenched in sugar can not be good!) that she can snack on while our shopping trip and a new toy to play with all for $2! Our lunch came out to $4.55.

At Wal-mart I got a whole cart full for $152.95. I was pretty proud of myself. I even told the cashier how proud I was to have almost all of my monthly shopping done for way less than my budget. She was not impressed.

My total for the month so far is $193.99 counting my hubby's Kroger shopping spree. I have a little over $200 to use for stocking up and purchasing the last couple items off of my list that Wal-mart was out of.

I am really going to try and get great deals this month so that I can start saving up my excess because my hubby's hours at work got cut, and they will be cut even more here in the next couple weeks down to 40 which is not enough. I am going to try, but I am also having to eBay really heavily so that we can keep our heads above water. And just when I thought I could quit stressing about making money at home and just work on being a sahm.

However, it is absolutely wonderful that we have backup plans. My hubby might actually go back to his old job and go into field service which I am pretty sad about, however, I wouldn't have to work at home anymore and I could focus completely on my family once again. We are not sure what he should do.

Go check out what else everyone has tackled this week over at 5 Minutes for Mom

Sunday Night Savings

Mondays are now my shopping days! Because of this, I am going to be here every Sunday night scouring the Internet for deals! I hope you will come join me and please leave me comments about any deals that I missed.



Thanks to Gina over at "Mommy Making Money" I now know that Old Navy children's clothing is an additional 50% off! I can't wait to stop by tomorrow to stock up for next winter. And while I am there I may even treat myself with the 40% off coupon which is good on any full price item. The link is posted on "Mommy Making Money".



Another wonderful deal I learned about on Gina's blog is that you can sign up on Kashi.com for a free frozen entree coupon.



Today when I went to drpepper.com to type in my hubby's code from his cap I learned that you can choose for Dr Pepper to send you a coupon for either a free 20 oz bottle or a 2 litter bottle. That choice was a no brainer. Click here to sign up.



HEB is having a great deal on shredded cheese - 5 for $5. I will be stocking up, but I am going to be using next months grocery budget to purchase the cheese. I am not using any of it this month, but it is too good of a deal to pass up. I love how cheese prices seem to be coming down.



Click here to print out Aquafresh coupons. Travel sized Aquafresh toothpaste has been found at Wal-Mart for 50 cents. With the 75 cent coupon you get it for free with a possible overage of 25 cents!

Thanks to Tracey for letting me know that you can get free Excedrin, Thereflu, and Reynolds Wrap this week at Walgreens. Check out IHeartWags.com to learn all about it.

Wal-Mart Deals

Remember when I said I would post some deals! It is Wednesday which is the day that all of my grocery stores start their sales, however I can't find anything good for sale! I have moved on to Wal-Mart. I searched www.hotcouponworld.com to find the deals. Let me know if you have something to add and I will add your link along with the deal.

You can always find something at Wal-Mart. You just have to watch out for the cashiers. Look them over and see which one looks most coupon friendly to you. Normally the youngest ones don't care. If you get the wrong cashier they will try to figure out something wrong with each coupon. They may even make up a reason why you can not use your coupon if they can't figure out any real reason.

Beechnut Let's Grow microwavable bowls on roll back for 92 cents
- $1.00 coupon from 1/4 SS
= -$.08

Some Sunsilk hair products have been marked down to $1.50
-$1.00 coupon from
=$.50

Durex 3 pack for $1.97
- $2.00 coupon from 02/08
= -$.02

Russell Stover Sugar free mint patties have been found for $1.00 a bag.

Time To Fess Up

I have gone out to eat more times than I have realized. I have no good excuse. It is all due to stress and poor planning.

Next month I am going to work on it a bit more. I am going to use www.pepperclip.com to help me put together an accurate grocery list and go shopping on the first Monday of the month.

This time instead of writing down what I am going to make on a calender, I am going to just list what all I plan on making for the month. I have found that I don't always feel like making what I was going to make for that day. And when I don't make a couple of meals from the calender than I feel that my whole month is just out of control and I can't get myself back into the groove.

Each night I am going to pull out anything that needs to be defrosted for the next day so that when I wake up I can do any prep work that needs to be done for dinner and only have to put the meal in the oven or reheat it that night. Kate gave me this wonderful idea, so go check out her blog Cooking During Stolen Moments and A Simple Walk to learn more about it.

My main goal for March is to take one day and make all of my breakfasts for the month and freeze them. Breakfast is the most freezer friendly meal time of the day for me I have found. It really helps to have something I can just heat up and feed the family because when I get up in the morning I am very out of it. It takes me a while to wake up enough to deal with cooking and screaming kids, so this way I don't have to wait a while in order to have a meal ready for my kids.

Oh, I also hope to start waking up at 4 -5 am with my hubby. But... I don't know when I will actually start doing that! :)

Back to my original point of this post... to let y'all know how much I have eaten out and how much I have spent.

$14.29 at my favorite Mexican restaurant here in Katy - Tony's
$11.83 Wendy's
$14.20 Taco Bell
$13.93 Ci-Ci's
$8.06 Dairy Queen
$12.65 Arby's
$27.48 Bertani Ranch Steakhouse on date night - would have been quite a bit more seeing as how I had lobster and hubby had some kind of steak, but I used a gift certificate from www.restaurant.com

Total spent eating out $102.44

Total spent on food for the month $331.62

That is still awesome because I used to spend $400 just at the grocery store and eat out on top of that. I am trying to get myself away from eating out except on date nights or special occasions. You know, since it can be pretty unhealthy. My hubby and I started going out every other weekend for a date night. My sister watches our kids, and then on the other weekends we watch her kids so they can go on a date night too. It works out pretty well.

Wish me luck on meeting all of my goals for this next month!

Free Movie Night!

If you sign your cell phone up with Redbox every Monday they text a free movie code to your phone.

Today's code is M7DM23.

What better night to curl up in front of the TV for a family movie night? And that is what "Makes My Monday" much happier than it could have been. Visit Twinfatuation for more great reading!