Saving Money on Baked Goods

Kids love baked goods from the bakery. I however, don't really care for the price. I can spend the same amount and make tons more of those yummy baked goodies. I love to bake and spend time in the kitchen, but I am really trying to cut back on the calories, so I don't like to bake, because I have a tendency to eat said treats, if they are homemade!

That's why I like to check out the quick sale racks when I go to the store. I take my goodies home and I freeze them. Today I scored 3 trays of cinnamon rolls for $0.99 cents a piece! Regularly priced $2.99 a tray.! They had the sell by date, marked for today, so really, they aren't a day old. These cinnamon rolls are being used for a Young Women activity this weekend, so I just popped them in the freezer, because I will need all of them at the same time.

My kids love glazed donuts. It's such a treat to get them when we go to the store. I also buy these on the quick sale rack. I bring them home, let the kids have one for a treat and then I package them into freezer bags in groups of 3 or 4 donuts. Lay them in the freezer, so they are flat and freeze them that way. That way when the kids want a donut, I pull out a package, pop one in the microwave for 30 seconds and wala, warm, yummy glazed donuts!! For $2.99, I get 4 packages of donuts!!

File Folder Games

I'm on a file folder kick. I googled file folder games and tons of sights popped up, but I weeded through them and found some of the best one's available. Here are some great site's with free games.

File Folder Fun: Lot's available here! You can search by theme or by age.

Giggly Games: This link will take you to the freebie page, which has some awesome games. Including the one pictured above. They also have some great ones you can buy for cheap.

Child Care Land: This is a goldmine of goodies! Lots to choose from.

Check out this previous post, full of great links and ideas for recycling workbooks.

File Folder Games and How to Recycle Work Books

** For the next week we are going to repost some of our favorite posts from our archives. This was one of the very first posts I did and it is also one of the most searched for in google! Please enjoy our oldies but goodies!**

I love file folder games. I have a love affair with contact paper. The stuff is dang useful. I went through a phase where I made tons of them. I fell another of the phases coming on as Tyson goes into preschool! All of the ones pictured here are one that I made for J.D. several years ago.

This is my favorite one that I have ever made. I actually found it on a church website, Sugardoodle. J.D. loved this one to. You could use any colorful candy, but you have them sort them, obviously, into color. There is also a place that older children can write the number of each group. Dry erease markers are another favorite have to have item in our house. The best part of this game is that I let the kids eat the M&M's afterwards. But this kid, Tyson, he's weird. Note that he is holding a bag of lemon drops in his left hand. He passed up the chocolate for lemon drops! Piper and I happily ate his M&M's.

This is also a fun one. You can practice addition with goldfish! This is a good one to take to church because we take goldfish every week.

Mormonchic ~ Large variety of games.

Tons of LDS themed File Folder Games

Sugardoodle Educational Lesson Plans ~ To get the two games above you have to actually go into the gospel themed lesson plans. For the Goldfish one, you will want to go here and then scroll down. For the M&M sorter, go here and scroll down.

This is a great idea! I actually got this at a yard sale and have since done it with other books. Gradelevel workbooks are expensive. Why not reuse them? Tear pages out and put them into sheet protectors and use a dry erease marker for writing! This is another thing that goes over well at church.

Hopefully this gave you a few idea's that you can do at home! I love that all of mine are being well loved by many kids!

Lollipop Bouquet

I needed an easy birthday gift for a Young Women who was coming into the Mia Maids. I was put in as the 1st counselor on Sunday and her birthday was Wednesday, so I was looking for something quick. This is what I came up with and I thought it was pretty cute. I made a lollipop bouquet. I printed the flower template from Skip To My Lou. I found the little vase at the dollar store and put a floral Styrofoam in the bowl and filled it with colored confetti, also found at the dollar store. Super cute and super easy and easily adaptable for many different occasions.

Free Root Beer Floats at Sonic

On Wednesday, June 3, Sonic is want to thank their customers by offering Free Float Night!! They will be giving away free 10 oz. Root Beer Floats from 8 p.m. until midnight at participating Sonic Drive-In locations. Check with your local Sonic to see if they are participating and then take the kids out for a free float!!

Save $50.00 with Kraft

Starting today and with limited quanities, you can go to Kraft Foods and print off coupons totaling $50.00 in Kraft and associated brand products!! I'm excited to see what I can use with my double coupons that came in this weeks papers!

Free Precious Places DVD from Fisher Price

I found this awesome deal, via Making Life Sweet.... One Deal at a Time.

Fisher Price is offering a free dvd for your little princess!! It's a new product line by Fisher Price, called Precious Places! This is completely free to do. No shipping, just an offer to get a great movie! I ordered one and I'm thinking stocking stuffer!

Just click on the link HERE, and follow the instructions! You will have to wait for 12 to 14 weeks to recieve it. They even have the episode online so you can watch it first, if you'd like. This won't last long, so hurry and go get your free movie!

Darling Cards & Gift Tags made by Crafty Ladies

I am so grateful for the creativeness of others! I wanted to share some of my favorite printables that I have stumbled upon. I have saved these to my computer, so that I will always have a card, close by, should an occasion ever warrant a card. And oh my, I love to give cute cards!! I love to give cute gift tags. I just love to feel crafty, although I always try to give credit, where credit is due!
Adorable gift tags from Fog and Thislte. Click here.

Super cute card by Creature Comforts. Click here.

This is a silly little card. I think it's rather funny! My motto, if you will. Click here.

Just Because and Thinking of You Cards. Click here.

Cute birthday card templates. Click here.

Emergency Birthday Card, by How about Orange. And matching envelope!

DARLING Button card. Simply print and use buttons to embellish. Again, from How about Orange. Stinkin' cute, gift tags for little kids or perfect for a baby shower! Click here! Provided again, by Fog and Thistle. Also a fun little sight, is A Print a Day. She has oodles of free downloads to choose from.

I Heart Albertsons!!!

Another successful and slighly intoxicating grocery week! I used to HATE to go into Albertson's, because they really are expensive, but boy, do they know how to have a good SALE! Now I LOVE them!! I wanted to take pictures of all of this, but my hubby was helping me put away and he thought that was a silly idea and I'm all for letting him help out if he wants to. I was going to pull all of this out and take a picture, but why?? It's put away. So here you go, I bought:

1 loaf of bread, (my only item I didn't have a coupon for)
2 Betty Crocker Warm Delights
3 Pillsbury Ready to Bake Cookies
4 Betty Crocker Cookie Mix's
4 Betty Crocker Frostings
5 Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
5 Campbells Soup at Hand (72 hr kit item)
11 Pillsbury Grands Biscuits
11 boxes of cereal (Lucky Charms, Cinnamon Toast Crunch & Trix)
12 Progresso Soups
17 boxes of fruit snacks / fruit roll ups (It's insane, I know, but I have kids at my house every day, and some of them will go into 72-hour kits, but mostly they will be hiding at the top of my closet)


My Grand total before coupons and sales was $239.91. My total out of pocket cost was $43.14. Just so you know, I love Grocery Smarts as well!! I also love Pinching Your Pennies. I use them to preview sales and also they have some amazing coupon links that I haven't found on Grocery Smarts.

It would have even been $10.00 less, but I messed up on my first transaction and missed buying 1 item, in order to recieve an additional $10.00 off coupon. But what do you do? I'm soooo happy with my shopping. Can't wait to see what's for sale next week.

$1.00 off candy coupons

Click here to go to the Nestle Celebration corner. You have to sign up, but it's free and you will have access to 2 coupons for $1.00 off a bag of Nestle brand candy!! I got 2 bags at Albertson's last week for .66 cents a bag!! If you have more than one computer, try to print off of both!! It might get you more coupons. Every little bit helps!!

Free Shipping at Oriental Trading

If you love shopping Oriental Trading, you will love this even more....free shipping on ANY order until October 24th! Use code AHW903. How awesome is that?

Oriental Trading is a great place to stock up on crafts, scrapbooking items or fun holiday decor items. Thanks to Making Life Sweet, One deal at a Time for the tip!

Food Storage

For years the prophets have counseled us to be prepared. To have a years supply of food on hand. I just barely jumped on this bandwagon about 18 months ago. I have really enjoyed learning how to use my food storage and every time I put something away I get this little jolt of pleasure. I know, it's weird, but I feel like a little squirrel storing up nuts for the winter.

On the side bar I have several links that I frequent for food storage ideas. I sell bulk, wholesale food for a company called Alisons Pantry. This was initially what got me involved in food storage and I love it. It's been a great way to supplement my grocery income. Every month I put all of my earnings back into product and it has been a tremendous blessing!!

I want to share fun website with you called All About Food Storage. My friend Kim runs this sight and she has lots of great ideas. She also likes to share about Alisons Pantry! She's so great. Thanks Kim! Go check out her sight for lots of great ideas. Leave her a comment and say hello. Tell her I sent ya! You'll love it I promise.

Also check out this link for a way CUTE idea. It's a food storage fairy. Kind of like the Halloween Ghost idea, you take 2 items out of your food storage with a recipe and share it with a neighbor. They then copy the food storage fairy and put a copy in their window and then leave one with another family. Better watch out, I might come and get ya!!!

Grocery Smarts Update

Okay, I have actually spoken to someone regarding the Grocery Smarts website and system. I also have the Utah passport, which is g84rcm. Now you Utah gals can go in and browse the system. I will be holding a class at my home on Tuesday, Sept. 23rd at 7:00 p.m. If your intersted in attending please let me know. If you would be interested in holding your own class, leave me a comment and I will email you Jodi's phone number. She is one of the local representatives who comes and teaches people how to use their system.

It's so worth it to use coupons. I saved myself like $28.00 just in manufactures coupons between my 2 trips to Albertsons this week and if I knew the system better, I am POSITIVE that I would have saved more.

Coupons

If you don't cut coupons, your throwing away money!!! Josh's grandma used to tell me that all the time and she used to give me her Sunday paper coupons. And I hardly ever used them. Shame on me!!!

Since I quit my job last year we have been trying to pinch pennies every where that we can. This picture was from my shopping excursion today. I spent $55.00 with tax for everything here, plus a few other things and I saved almost $77.00 in coupons and in store sales.

I hit Albertsons this morning because they are having great 10 for $10, $15, & $20.00 sales. I automatically saved $15.00 from in store rebates by buying the 10 for 10 items. That was on top of the sale price. And then you add in $13.00 in coupons and it adds up quick.

I think I have a new hobby! There is a website called Grocery Smarts that is amazing. Basically, Grocery Smarts has a website that offers FREE listings of local grocery store ads matched with manufacture coupons from the Sunday paper. They mainly operate out of Utah, specifically the greater Salt Lake/Provo/Ogden areas and in St. George.

You have to have a passport code in order to access the whole sight. But without the passport you can print off coupons. That is how I managed to help myself save quite a bit. It's a shame that in St. George there are no grocery stores that double coupons :(.

The passport code for the Las Vegas Area is g89ccb. I have been in touch with the manager of the Las Vegas area and am waiting for her to get back to me with codes for Utah. They teach FREE classes to organizations and church groups as well as in-home classes to show people how to save big on groceries!

As I find out more information, I will pass it along. Go to the website and check it out. Use the Las Vegas passport code to look and get an idea of what they offer. Click on this link to check out the fun website of Collette, who is the Las Vegas area manager.

Best Ever Garage Sale FInd

I paid $2 for this cute little guy! My kids love to do puppet shows, but more especially it's something for BayLee to do in my house filled with Boy's Toy's. We had homemade puppets until just recetly when Kris loaned us a bag full of cool ones! Thanks to Kris! I love this picture with Piper peaking out! Too cute!

Thriftstores and yard sales are so much fun! What a great way to be frugal and oh the treasures you will find. Sometimes I have to look beyond the appearance to what it may become. Bring it home, clean it up, paint it, fix it and you have an amazing treasure!

Fabulous Websites to Help You Spend Less

I love saving money! I must admit that I am a thrift store and garage sale shopping mom.

One place that I cringe every time I visit is the grocery store. FOOD IS SO EXPENSIVE! If you don't already know, I am a food storage nut. I started selling for Alison's Pantry about a year ago and have got into buying bulk and have recently really started to watch my coupons. You can save a ton if you do it right.

I have found several websites that will help you save money when shopping at the grocery store. I had to share these with you.

Way More 4 Way Less ~ What a great blog. They have lots of ideas on saving money, but the amount of resources they have available for coupons is AMAZING!!

Pinching Your Pennies ~ You have to sign up to access this sight, but it is free. They have forums where people post the best deals of the week and where you can find coupons to save you a little more money!

Coupon Cravings ~ Another great coupon sight.

Box Tops 4 Education ~ Agian, you have to sign up but it's free. This website let's you print off coupons for items that carry Box Tops. It also let's you track how much money your local school has made from box tops! Kind of neat.

Thanks to all you ladies and gents who run these sights and for sharing your knowledge and insight with us!! Now lets all go save some money!!