Free Stuff

I love signing up for freebies. Here's what showed up in the mail today. In addition to samples, these packages come with coupons which means there's potential for more free stuff!

More Jam

This week Meijer's has a fantastic sale on red raspberries and since I LOVE red raspberry jam I decided to take advantage of the sale and make some. It is so tasty!

A Little Outing

John took the day off so we wanted to do something special. We promised the kids we would take them to Chuck E Cheese's if Clara got a good report at her homeschool evaluation (which she did way back in June!). So, today was the day to celebrate!

Using up Coupons

We had a bunch of coupons about ready to expire. Instead of letting them go to waist we went to Target and bought a bunch of stuff out of the trial size bins. Everything was FREE or almost free. These will be great for care packages.

Science Fun

This is Clara's science book for this school year. We've been having fun learning all about cells these last couple of weeks. Below is her first scientific drawing.

Reading with Nicholas

FREE Stuff

Here are the things I picked up while we were out today for FREE.

Another Board Done

Well, almost done. We just need to get the exact titles of the military personel and some pictures of the church plant congregations.

Peaches!!!

There was a GREAT sale on peaches last week, so we bought about 25 pounds. Clara helped make jam. Our Bible club made peach cobbler and we'll be freezing the rest for peach pies and more cobblers.

Walgreens

Now that I figured out how to shop CVS, I've been learning more about Walgreens. I got all of this for $8.00 after sales, coupons, and Walgreen Bucks.

• 2 Dove shampoo $2.50



• 2 Dove conditioner FREE



• 2 Dove deoderant for women $2.50



• 2 Dove deoderant for men FREE



• 4 Lady Speedstick deoderant $2.00



• 2 Pert Shampoo FREE



• 2 Scope mouthwash $1.00



• 2 pkg. Expo dryerase markers FREE

Frozen Banana Bites

Here's what you get when you combine these three ingredients.


Tasty, yummy banana bites.

A New Tree

Some of you know of the demise of our Lindenbaum. =(
After much deliberation we decided to plant fruit trees. Here's the first one, a plum tree.

New Subject this Year!

Clara started learning German in preparation for our next trip to visit Mimi and Pappy. We chose the Rosetta Stone homeschool edition. It's fun to use and it looks like this will work very well.

Here she is working through her first segment. She increased her percentage by 13 points from the first run through to the second!

Bulletin Board Display

We were asked to change up the bulletin boards at church. Here's our first one.

Back To School Deals

Now is a great time to get deals on office supplies. You can get many items for free or almost free. I've found great deals at Target, drugstores and office supply stores. It doesn't have to take a lot of time, either. I follow two blogs and make a list of deals I'm interested in. Then, when I happen to be out I make a quick stop and get ONLY the things on my list. It usuall only takes about 5 minutes.

Here's what I picked up today:

I paid a total of $1.80 for all this after a $4.00 rebate at Staples!

After coupons and sales I paid $0.80 out of pocket for all this at Walgreens!

Ok, so these are not office supplies, but I was able to get these for $1.25/each. I only ended up paying taxes, since I had enough Extra Care Bucks to cover my out of pocket expenses.

Best Deals Today

• 2 Tide detergent $3.00/each after sale & coupons (regular $9.99/each)


• 3 Ivoy soap packs *FREE* after sale & coupons (regular $1.59/each)


• 3 Crest toothpaste *FREE* after sale & coupons (regular $2.09/each)


• 3 Skippy peanut butter $0.17/each after sale & coupons (regular $2.59/each)


• 3 salad dressings $0.50/each after sale & coupons (regular $2.15/each)

I spent a total of $8.01 for $45.25 worth of groceries. That's a savings of 82%.