Five Reasons to Coupon at Publix

Publix is having a major sale right now in preparation for Easter.

See all this food?  I got it for over 50% off the regular price!

How?  Sales.  Coupons.  And a little planning.

5 Reasons to Coupon at Publix

1. The BOGO Sales.  Every week there are an abundance of buy one get one free deals (otherwise known as half off).  You don’t have to buy two of the item to get the sale price, if you buy only one it rings up at 50% of the regular price, so you can buy two, or one, or eight like I did.
2. Stacking Coupons.  Publix will accept one manufacturer’s coupon AND one store coupon for one item.  Example.  I bought a package of Flatout Flatbread on BOGO at $2.99 ($1.49 each) and I used a Publix coupon for $1 off and a manufacturer’s coupon for $0.50 off. My flatbread was FREE.
3. Competitor Coupons.  Publix accepts store coupons from their competitors, the list of competitors varies from store to store.  My Publix accepts Whole Foods, Target, and Kroger coupons.
4. Additional Flyers.  I’m not sure of the frequency or schedules, but Publix releases extra flyers and coupon books frequently giving additional opportunities to collect store coupons.  The coupon books usually need to be requested from the customer service desk but the flyers are often delivered in the newspaper or are available at a kiosk at the entrance to the store.  I use Southern Savers to find out about all of the available booklets and flyers that are currently running.
5. Double Coupons.  Publix doubles coupons up to $0.50.

On my latest trip to Publix we stocked up on pasta, sugar, Special K snacks, cereal, drink mixes, and so much more!

Here’s my coupon transactions.

And my savings.

By the numbers:

Spent. $103.24

Saved. $99.62

Coupon Savings. $31.70

Sale Savings. $67.62

Mobile rebates Cashed in. $4

I also bought 3 gallons of full-priced organic milk, because we go through milk around here like a litter of kittens!

Ike made every attempt to take down my display of groceries.  He can climb on the kitchen chairs now, and also the table.  So he’s super fun now.

This post shared at Thrifty Thrusday on Living Well Spending Less.

Frugal Easter Basket Ideas

Have you ever noticed that nearly every major holiday has special candies dedicated to it?  That candy is the center of so many holidays throughout the year?  The Chocolate Heart boxes at Valentines, the Peeps and Chocolate bunnies at Easter, the candy filled Christmas stockings.  I could go on and on!

I am not anti-candy or anti-fun or anything.  But I would like some balance since we do have quite a laundry list of holidays to celebrate throughout the year.  There will be some candy in the Easter Baskets, but my goal is to have mostly non-candy items creatively chosen to be somewhat useful after Easter is over.  I would also very much like to keep this to a moderate sized budget.  No, nobody is getting a new bicycle or new shoes for Easter, sorry, we are buying a house soon.

For my Toddler

1.  Bunny Ears – because ADORABLE!  Here’s Ike’s from last year.

2.  Bubbles – we need more bubbles because EVENTUALLY it will be warm enough to play outside again.  Dollar Tree and Dollar General are great places to find cheap bubbles.

3.  Sealed plastic eggs filled with corn, rice, or whatever we already have in the pantry – for shaking and music-making

4.  A Stash Bank – for his cash stash.  This is from my gift collection, things I randomly purchase when they are great deals throughout

the year.

 For my Teens

1. Nail Polish – this set was free from Julep

2. Hair accessories – I can usually find these at the Dollar Store in nice bright spring colors.

3. Stationary – These are from the OneSpot at Target.

4. Pens – Also from the OneSpot.  I love Target.

For all of them

Socks.  I swear we consume socks around my house at an alarming rate.  Everyone could always use more socks.  And they should be whimsical and pastel because it’s spring!    These are pretty much everywhere, and the closer you get to Easter the greater chance they will be marked down.  Finally, a benefit for procrastinating!

I fully intend to recycle Ike’s basket from last year, I don’t think he’ll notice.  I found the girls’ baskets for $1.50 with my cartwheel deal at Target.

Happy First Birthdays!

We had a big flush of first birthdays the past two weeks.  Ethan, Jacob, Dominic and Alyssa all turned one in March.  It was an exciting time!  We made appearances at Jacob’s and Ethan’s parties two weeks ago.

Ethan’s party was at Gymboree.  Neither Ike or I had ever been to a Gymboree.  It was pretty fun, although Ike wasn’t exactly sure what to do with all the play equipment.  He eventually figured it out.

With some assistance of course.

The tunnel was a fast hit.  There’s a similar tunnel at the playground in our neighborhood, although it is faded yellow plastic, not cushy vinyl foam.

He found  safe place to observe the other kids.

Ike’s buddy Jake was also at the party.  They hung out briefly.

 

Until Jake noticed there was another person on the rocking horse.

Then this happened.

Which is totally an acceptable form of payback from this.

Sorry son, you had it coming.

Ethan’s first encounter with cake was adorable.  But I missed the chance to get any photos of it, because my kid was busy trying to steal food from other children’s plates.  Ethan stared, he checked for mom and dad, and then he cried.  Did not care to have anything at all to do with the cake.

The next day was Jacob’s party.  Here’s a picture of Ike and Jacob, looking none too impressed with one another.

Then Jacob fled.

And we didn’t see him again until it was time for the cake.  Oh, the cake that his mother made with her own two hands, with the help of a four year old.  She is totally my idol.

I also don’t have any photos of Jacob’s adorable reaction to his first cake.  Because while the cake tasting was happening, my kid was doing this.

Jacob tasted the cake from his mother’s finger, then looked at her for more, when she told him to eat his cake, he stuck his face in it.  This is a second baby you guys, he cannot wait for someone to hand him a spoon or anything, someone might eat his cake!

The parties were so much fun and I am so excited for these boys to stay friends for a long time.

Reasons I Haven’t Been Updating My Blog

Everyday I think about fun and interesting things to write about here.  Things about Ike, travel, couponing, shopping for a house, Atlanta.  My ideas are endless.  But then every evening this thing or that thing gets in the way and I end up thinking, well there’s always tomorrow. There is so much going on in our lives right now!  That’s one of the main reasons I wanted to keep this blog.  To record and remember all of the exciting events that our family experiences.  But as it turns out, those experiences are sort of time consuming, and sometimes I like to sleep.  Sometimes.  Which leaves very little time for diddling around the internet.  Which is a bummer, because diddling is one of my favorite hobbies.

So below is my exquisite list of reasons I have not had time to write.  Or better, all my grumbles about why days really should be longer!

1. Ike refuses to go to bed.  I give him a bottle.  I sing him 58 verses of the Wheels on the Bus.  I rock.  And I rock.  And I rock.  I cave and give him the pacifier that I’ve been trying to get rid of for several weeks now.  Two hours later and he is still up.  This doesn’t happen every night, but when it does, by the time he is asleep I have thrown in the towel and I’m going to bed too.
2. Scale says I’m gaining weight.  I need to pack my lunch, instead of going out for whatever fried/oversized portion/crap I don’t even like food that the rest of my group has decided on that day.   So after I put Ike to bed I return to the kitchen to meticulously pack a breakfast, lunch, low fat dessert, and two healthy snacks….for AN HOUR AND A HALF!
3. I need to shower.  Because I am at work at an obnoxious hour and I pretty much manage to get up and dress myself in the dark because Ike has found a way into our bedroom during the night (aka I have half-sleeping carried his screaming self in there because three times is too many to haul my butt out of bed).  And if I don’t shower at night, then in the morning I cannot remember whether or not I showered at night, and since if I did then I’d buy myself one extra snooze cycle, the answer is always yes in my head.  Therefore, if I don’t shower at night then I go to work smelling like straight up yesterday!
4. My husband and I haven’t had an uninterrupted conversation in a week.  So I should probably talk to him or something for a while instead of write to a bunch of strangers on the internet.  I guess.
5. It’s St. Patties day, and it’s imperative that I go to a pub with something tacky and green on.  And one should never share thoughts and feelings on something permanent like the internet after one has consumed one (or more) green cocktails.  Never.  No matter how brilliant it sounds in your head at the time.
6. It was a long day and I want to go to bed at 8:00pm too.  So sometimes I do.

OK, these aren’t so much “reasons” as they are “excuses”.  And I really do want to write and share and keep things up to date in case Ike wants to read about his babyhood someday.  Or in case I need to go check and see if I was as crazy back then (right now) as I am now (when I am old.  Older).

 

School Daze

Ike went to preschool for the very first time ever today.

After much deliberation, we chose a little Montessori school near work.  Isaac and I both agreed that around a year old we wanted him to have some sort of regular interaction with other children his age to help with social skills and developmental play.  We chose the Montessori principals because we think that they most closely align with our parenting techniques (or plans at this point).  In an overly simplified statement, Montessori education is a guided educational journey, led by the child to foster a nurturing environment while supporting independent growth throughout early childhood.  All of this sounded very good in a theoretical, let’s do this for our child one day, you know, when he isn’t a baby anymore.  I guess that day is here.  And all of a sudden any school or care program just seems a little overwhelming.  For me at least.

He looked so much older standing in the classroom than he does when he races over to hug my knees when I come home from work.  I’m very glad I was already gone when they put the training pants on him, because I could not handle it!

Ike was not too sure about the whole ordeal.

He cried when he noticed we were all gone, which broke my heart and Isaac’s.  We both circled back to the school in an attempt to go check on him, in the end cooler heads did prevail though and we let him tough it out.  For all of five hours, he’s only doing the half day program for now.

Obviously, he survived.  His daily update showed that he even went to the potty!  On his first day!

I’m a proud momma now, although still reluctant to go through the separation anxiety all over again tomorrow.  Good thing his daddy is dropping him off!