I’m getting excited for Money Saving Mom’s and FishMama’s Baking/Freezer Cooking Day tomorrow!  My new chest freezer is being delivered at the end of the week, so I’m looking forward to filling it up (but my current freezers will be stuffed until it gets here!  LOL).

Here’s the list of what I want to make (as of right now).  I’ll be taking at least two days to do all of this, and the majority will be done during nap time and after the kids are in bed.

Breakfasts
Pancakes x 3
Yogurt Fruit Bars (my first time trying these, so I’m only making one batch this time)

Main Dishes
Chicken Tetrazzini x 2
Baked Beef Sausage Stew x 2
Italian Stuffed Shells (the recipe already makes enough for the freezer, so I’m only making the one batch)
Meatballs

Snacks/Desserts
Chocolate chip cookies (I’ll bake some and freeze some of the dough in balls)
Pumpkin Butterscotch Muffins
Pumpkin pie (probably won’t freeze this)
Zucchini bread

Side Dishes
Freezer Mashed Potatoes
Crockpot Applesauce

Other Food Prep
Cut up pineapples (I got two for $0.99 each at Aldi today!)
Wash grapes and take off of stems
Wash and cut up broccoli
Cut up and freeze chicken breasts

Yes, looking at it now, this may take me the entire week to get done!  We’ll see.  Stay tuned…I’ll be posting updates!

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I rarely do personal posts on this blog, but I wanted my readers to know why my posts will be a little more sporadic for the next couple of weeks…

Life is overwhelming right now.  So much stuff I need and want to do, so little time that isn’t occupied with diaper changes, feedings, playing with the kids, and housework.

We’re leaving for an 8-day trip to Colorado in a little over a week.  I need this trip so much right now, but my to-do list to get us ready is a mile long.  I keep wondering how I’m going to do it all.  The answer I finally came to:  I’m not.

I’m going to have to let some things slide a little (i.e. my blogging and all related projects) so that I can do the most pressing things.  It’s not a permanent thing, just a “for right now” thing.

And it’s not like I won’t be posting.  You can’t get rid of me that easily!  I’ll still be participating in Frugal Friday, posting my Super Savings Saturday and sharing my Walgreens and CVS scenarios.  It’s just the more “random” deals that will have to wait for a few weeks.   You can be notified of any new posts by subscribing via the form on the sidebar!

And when we get home, things can get back to normal and I’ll be sharing all kinds of great deals with you!!

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During KMart’s last round of Super Doubles, they said it would be the last one for the year.  Luckily, they changed their minds and Super Doubles will be back next week!

I’m very excited…I always stock up disposable diapers so that I never have to pay full-price for them (we cloth-diaper 99% of the time)!!

Check back soon…I’ll post more details as soon as I have them!

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All you have to do is take this quiz on flu facts here and you’ll receive a $5/$25 coupon!  You could easily rework my CVS scenario here to take advantage of this offer and save even more!

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• Monday: Classic Beef-Barley Soup, Buttery Bread Machine Rolls
• Tuesday: Quiche, Coffee Cake, Fruit
• Wednesday: Cowboy Pie, Steamed Green Beans
• Thursday: Tacos, Spanish Rice
• Friday: Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Steamed Broccoli
• Saturday: Leftovers, Bring cookies to church
• Sunday: Homemade Pizza

For more Menu Plan Monday, visit I’m An Organizing Junkie !

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There will be 2 inserts in tomorrow’s paper: a Smart Source and a Red Plum.  There will be some good coupons, so make sure you get a paper!

Wondering how many newspapers you should get each week?  It’s recommended that you buy one paper for each member of your family.  With that number, you can usually buy enough of the products you need to get you through until the coupon is released again.

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Here’s what I plan to do at Walgreens this week (see Deal Seeking Mom for the full list).  There are just three simple transactions, for under $5!  And if you have any RR’s from previous weeks, you’ll pay even less!  The coupons that you’ll need are printed in blue.

Transaction #1:
Buy 1 Thermacare Heat Wrap, $2.49
Use (1) $1/1 Thermacare printable here

Total After Coupons: $1.49
RR’s Earned: $2.49

Transaction #2:
Buy 2 Oral-B Indicator Toothbrushes, 2/$4
Buy 2 Formula 409, 2/$5
**Filler item
Use (1) BOGO Oral-B Indicator Manual Toothbrush from the 8/23 Red Plum insert
Use (2) $1/1 Formula 409 product from the 8/30 Red Plum insert
Use $2.49 RR from Transaction #1

Total After Coupons & RR’s: $2.51
RR’s Earned: $4.00

Transaction #3:
Buy 1 Roots of Nature Hair Care, $6.00
**Filler item
Use (1) Roots of Nature printable here
Use $4.00 RR from Transaction #2

Total After Coupons & RR’s: $1.00
RR’s Earned: $6.00

Grand Total OOP: $5.00
RR’s Remaining for Next Week: 6.00

**In Transaction #2, you will need a small filler item.  Walgreens requires you to have an item for each coupon you use and they count RR’s as coupons.  Aim for a cheap filler item, such as a pencil (I think they’re around $0.10).  In my scenarios, I don’t count the cost of a filler item.

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Here’s what I plan to do at CVS this week (see Deal Seeking Mom for the full list).  There are just two simple transactions, for under $5!  And if you have any ECB’s from previous weeks, you’ll pay even less!  The coupons that you’ll need are printed in blue.

Transaction #1:
Buy 1 Crest Pro Health Toothpaste or Rinse, $2.99
Use (1) 0.75/1 Crest Premium Paste or Rinse coupons in the 8/30/09 P&G insert

Total After Coupons: $2.24
ECB’s Earned: $2.00

Transaction #2:
Buy 1 Aquafresh Iso-Active Whitening Toothpaste, $3.99
Buy 2 Cheerios Individual Serving Cups, $1.00
Buy 2 Honey Bunches of Oats, $4.98 BOGO
Use (1) $1/1 Aquafresh iso-active Whitening Toothpaste here or in the 9/20 Red Plum insert
Use (2) $1/1 Cheerios printables here
Use (2) $2/1 Honey Bunches of Oats printables here
Use $2 ECB from Transaction #1

Total After Coupons & ECB’s: $1.97
ECB’s Earned: $2.00

Grand Total OOP: $4.22
ECB’s Remaining for Next Week: $2.00

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This week was an easy shopping week for us.  I didn’t go to Walgreens or CVS because I wasn’t that excited by their deals.  I also didn’t go to HyVee even though I was planning on it…the kids napped late and we just ran out of time.  I was looking forward to stocking up on some cheap lunch meat, but it was already almost 4.

And before I start showing you my pictures, please excuse the painting supplies in the background.  We’re in the middle of painting our living room and I knew if I moved the supplies for my pictures, the kids would get into them.  And that would not be good!

On Sunday, I got my newspapers at Dillon’s as usual.

• 4 newspapers
  1.86 x 4 = 7.99 with tax

Also at Dillon’s on Sunday, I cashed some WIC checks and got the following items for free (not pictured and not counted in any totals):

• 4 cans of juice concentrate
• 4 gallons of milk
• 1 can of tuna
• 1 jar peanut butter
• 2 dozen eggs
• 2 boxes of Frosted Mini-Wheats
• 3- 8 oz boxes of baby cereal

I was very excited about my Dillon’s trip on Tuesday.  See those 6 bags of veggies and salad mix?  All only $0.49 each and most of them are organic!  I don’t know why they were on Manager’s Special either…none of them were going to expire until 9 days after I bought them.  I’m not complaining, though!

• 6 bags of salad mix/ veggies
  0.49 x 6 = 2.94
• 2 loaves bread (only one is pictured)
  0.78  x 2 = 1.56
• 4 rolls Bounty paper towels
  1.00 x 4 = 4.00 – three 0.25 coupons (I had 4, but the cashier must have skipped one) doubled to 0.50 = 2.50 or 0.63 each!
• 5 Vanilla Diet Pespi
  1.00 x 5 = 5.00
• Kashi Cereal
  3.99 – FREE coupon from Vocalpoint mailer = FREE!
• Sun Chips
  2.48 – 1.00 coupon = 1.48
• Green grapes
  0.99/lb x 2.18 lbs = 2.16
• Kroger Deluxe Ice Cream
  1.00 (I had a $0.75 Shortcuts coupon on my card, but it didn’t come off and I need to follow up on that)
• Dial soap
  1.00 – 0.55 coupon doubled to 1.00 = FREE!
• Kroger Strawberry Syrup
  1.40
• 2 Beef arm roasts, Buy One, Get One FREE
  13.61 or 6.80 each!

Total w/ tax: $34.34; Total savings: $29.41 (and that doesn’t include what I saved on the veggies!)

At Aldi, I spent $35.79.

Now please don’t laugh too hard when I tell you why there isn’t a picture for my Walmart stuff.  I set it all out on the table, got distracted getting something for the kids and then came back and put it all away, totally forgetting to take the picture!!  Mommy brain…it gets you every time!

The only things I got a good deal on were 3 Clean & Clear trial size face washes.  They were $0.97 and I had $1.00 coupons!

Walmart Total w/ tax: $23.53; Total Savings: $3.00

For the whole shopping trip, we spent $93.75 and saved $32.41.  Not my most inspiring shopping trip ever, but you need weeks like this to make the other weeks look good!  LOL

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Store-bought baby food is one of the most overpriced food items I can think of!  Think about how much you’re paying for that tiny little jar of food that doesn’t even taste very good!  I would much rather pay mere pennies to make my own food…especially since I know exactly what is in it, how it’s prepared and how much better it is for my baby!

I never made my own baby food when Ava was a baby.  I even had the KidCo F5000 BabySteps Complete Natural Feeding System and I rarely used it, except to mash up avocados a couple of times.  With Kelvin, I got up my courage and started making all his food as soon as he started eating fruits and veggies.  Looking back, I’m not sure what I was afraid of when Ava was a baby.  I guess the whole process seemed too overwhelming, but it’s really not.  It’s so simple and doesn’t even take up much time!

If you’re not sure what is involved or are a little overwhelmed like I was, here’s a step-by-step rundown.  Tonight, I made beef casserole (beef, peas and potatoes) and carrots.  I usually make at least two different kinds of food at a time to save on set-up and clean-up time.  I’ll tell you all about the different kinds of foods I make later in the post.

First I got all the food cooked.  Here are the potatoes and the carrots.  I heated up frozen peas in the microwave and had the ground beef pre-cooked from earlier in the day.

After all the food was cooked, I got everything set up.  I mixed the beef, potatoes and peas together and got out the breastmilk (I’d rather use that than water to get the food to the right consistency).

Here’s a close-up of the food before it was mixed.  I used 2 cups of ground beef and a cup each of potatoes and peas.  You can easily scale that down if you don’t want to make that much, though.

Here it is in the food mill, all ready to go!  I put about half of it in there at a time.

All pureed!  I know the color is really gross, but this is Kelvin’s absolute favorite meal!

Then I spooned it into freezer trays.  This tray came with the food mill, but I also use regular ice cube trays (as you’ll see later).  I actually prefer regular ice cube trays because it’s easier to pop them out once they’re frozen.  With this tray, I have to pry them out with a knife.

Don’t forget about the carrots!  I steamed them for about 15 minutes and saved the water I steamed them in for thinning purposes.    Then I pureed them and mixed a little baby cereal and breastmilk in (I like to mix a little cereal in with most of his food so he gets some extra iron).

And here’s the finished product!  It only took about half an hour to produce all this baby food!  Then I just stuck it in the freezer and tomorrow I’ll pop the cubes out and store them in Ziploc bags until I’m ready to use them.

You might think that this homemade food will be less convenient at feeding time than jarred food would be.  But you would be wrong! Here’s what I do:

I keep all my baby food in this bin in the freezer.  Every evening, I pull out this bin and three feeding dishes and put several cubes of food in each dish, for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Then I snap lids on the feeding dishes and put them in the refrigerator to thaw overnight.  At feeding time, I just pull the dish out, heat it up for about 30 seconds, give it a quick stir and it’s ready to go!

Of course, there are far more possibilities than beef casserole and carrots!  You have your basic single foods like apples, peaches, beans, etc.  And there are endless combinations to try!  Here are some of our favorite combinations:

• Apples and strawberries
• Plums and nectarines
• Beef, squash and pasta
• Beef, potatoes and green beans
• Chicken, pasta and carrots
• Turkey, rice, carrots and peas
• Tomatoes, pasta and cottage cheese

And that’s just to name a few!  You can’t ever get bored with making your own baby food!  Sometimes when we have leftovers of a dish Kelvin likes and that is appropriate for his eating abilities, I puree that up and freeze it, too.

For more frugal tips and ideas, visit Frugal Friday!

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