I have had 2 major grocery shopping trips, each a success with oodles of savings.
The above is a photo of my shopping trip 3 weeks ago. I don't remember all the details, and I am pretty sure I have no idea where the receipts are, but this is a combined photo of stuff purchased at Meijer and Kroger. The following numbers are close but approximate, nonetheless:
Spent: $115
Saved: $118
I was so thrilled about having saved more than I spent. I couldn't wait to get home and blog about my super-sweet deals. But instead, I came home and found out that there had been an extremely tragic death in my church family and somehow bragging about bargains was just about the last thing I wanted to do. Something about death totally changes how everything looks.
I didn't photograph last week's shopping trip, but it was another fantastic success. Spent $107, Saved $85, plus got some "catalinas" (I hate that word. Don't know why.) for a total of $8 off my next shopping trip. A more hardcore (or smart) couponer would have properly divided up her purchases into separate orders so that the catalinas could be used to pay for things she was already buying that day. Meh. Instead I used them for a midweek restock of miscellany. Some highlights of that trip were Philadelphia Cooking Creme for $0.99, Goldfish crackers for $0.84, Zatarain's frozen dinners for $1.40, Betty Crocker brownie mix for $0.67, Apple and Eve juice boxes for $1, and fresh strawberries for $1.
Today I stopped in to do my midweek restock. Major highlight was getting 2 half-gallons of Horizon organic milk for $0.80 each. Ordinarily they are $3.99! That's outrageous! I would have stocked up on more, but I only had so much to spend, didn't want to let it all go on more milk that we might not be able to finish!
I am considering switching from my current routine, which is to do one major shopping trip every two weeks, to shopping for only one week's worth at a time. I am wondering if that might help to curb my spending a bit more. I mean, I am already going to the store each week (because, due to a lack of freezer space, I can only fit one week's worth of Timm's frozen stuff in at a time, and we will inevitably run out of milk) but one trip is the big trip with my stacks of coupons, pages of notes, my calculator, iPod, must-not-take-children-with-me-because-we-might-not-make-it-out-alive type of trip. The mid-week trips are small, the kids can come, and generally I'll only need to use one or 2 coupons.
Something to consider. I don't mind having my me-time at the grocery store once a week.
On to other things...
We have completely given up hope that our children will ever learn to share a room. Instead of moving to a new house to accommodate our son's sensitive sleeping habits, we have rearranged our entire house. I'm not joking. I called it The Whole House Shuffle. Asher's now has the little room upstairs all to himself. Iris has what was formerly the master bedroom (the largest room in the house) as her own room plus playroom. Timm and I have moved into the downstairs bedroom (which once was the computer room/toy room), and the computer has been moved into the dining room. It is an ongoing process as there is junk of mine still in Iris' room that I have yet to figure out what to do with and toys that still need to make it upstairs. We have been living this way for nearly 2 weeks now and I am finally getting used to it. We have had to change our entire day to day routine just because the stuff got moved. Iris' room is super cool, though, and I hope to share some photos of it once I figure out what to do with my stuff that is still stashed in the corners up there. Asher's room is another story. It needs to be rearranged now that we don't have to fit 2 beds in that tiny room, but I am convinced that moving his bed to another part of the same room will be just as difficult for him to adjust to as moving him to a new room entirely. I don't want to deal with that so his room is just... there. Maybe when he switches from the crib to a toddler bed I will try to decorate it, but I am definitely putting that move off as long as humanly possible. That child does not need free-roam of an entire room, no matter how "child-proofed" it may be.
And more of what has gone down...
My 16 year old pup died. It will be 2 weeks on Tuesday. It has been much more difficult for me to deal with than I expected. No one who has a 16 year old dog hasn't thought about the dog dying, or even planned on what to do in the event. I always assumed she would go quietly in her sleep. We'd wake up one morning and she wouldn't. But the reality of her passing could not have been more opposite of peaceful. Her last night with us was sleepless, screaming pain, seizures, and fear. At 1am, I pleaded with her to stop fighting and to just let go. At 4am I pleaded with God to please put her out of her misery because it was too much for me to bear. At 8am the animal hospital down the street opened for the day. My pup was still holding on to life but barely. We had to put her down. At 8:30am I said goodbye to my dog who'd been my constant companion since I was 12 years old.
I wish I had something more eloquent to say to memorialize her, but it just sucks. She was too good a dog to have had to suffer so much in death. And as crotchety as she had been growing in her old age, this house still feels empty without her. I miss my pup.
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