The Sensible Mom

Food, DIY, Chicago Mom Blogger

Tackle It Tuesday: The COUPON PILE

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Since I’ve started school, coupons and deal shopping have been on the back burner.  I’m not happy about this, but, at the moment, I just don’t have time to go to four or five different stores every week to get the deals anymore.  I’m happy if I make it to one or two and don’t overpay too much for items I could’ve gotten cheaper had I had all my coupons in order.

At this moment in my life I feel like my days are FULL.  Too full.  I spend a considerable amount of time at school and working on homework during the week while trying to spend quality time with my family and help the kids with their school as well.  On the weekends, I cook, wash dishes and cook some more.  Then I wash more dishes and clean more.  Ruben does a lot of the meal preparation during the week since I’m usually at school for at least two meals so the weekends are my time to SHINE in the kitchen.  Actually, I’m usually making something with each one of the older kids since I try to cook with them at least once a week.  When we miss that time during the week, it gets pushed to the weekend and that’s okay.  I had also been making more involved meals for us (following recipes) on the weekends, and my husband and I have both decided that that is also going to be minimized….cause my feet hurt at the end of the day!  And I need to make time for more homework and studying.

It’s hard going to school full time with a family to care for, but I’m committed!  I love web design, and I love learning about how to make awesome looking web sites!  And the hard work is paying off at this point.  I have A’s in all of my classes…..while my kids are watching.  They’re interested in how Mommy does in school, and I want to set a good example for them.  I want them to work hard at school and not give up when something seems difficult.

Back to the main point of this post, though!  I got way off track there!  :0)  I wanted to show you how I took the time to cut and put away my coupons this week!  I wanted to get this done because even though I might not have a lot of time to spend visiting all my favorite blogs and getting a complete list put together for shopping, at least my coupons will be clipped and put away for easy access when I do step foot into ANY store. 

Here is my coupon pile BEFORE:

coupon pile
A random mess of inserts, clipped coupons, and store coupons.

And AFTER:

All the non-food item coupons went into their proper category (above)

All the tasty food coupons went into their categories.

And finally, the lovely zebra print organizer holds my “store specific” coupons, Register Rewards, ECBs, etc…

Did you tackle anything this week?  I’d love to hear about it! :0)

To see what everyone else is tackling this week, please visit 5 Minutes for Mom!


Not Me! Monday

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Hello!  It’s time for Not Me! Monday!  If you are not familiar with it, Not Me! Monday is a blog carnival hosted by MckMama at My Charming Kids.net. It’s all about sharing things that we “didn’t” do–but REALLY DID. Here goes:

I did not take another look at the HTML code on my old blog today and feel happy that I could actually read AND understand MOST of it!  I do NOT remember the days when looking at that was like looking at a foreign language.  I no longer fear you, html. 

My brother and his family came over for a visit last week.  They were NOT sick, and I most certainly did NOT wake up sick the next day.  Well, I did NOT decide to take a chance at using a homeopathic drug called Zucol (which I think I got for free from Walgreens a while back) that boasts it can shorten the duration of colds.  It couldn’t hurt, right?  Since I’m still nursing, being sick is horrible because the cold medicines I can take are VERY limited so I took a chance.  And I was NOT completely and utterly astonished that IT WORKED!  The sore throat and stuffy nose were gone the NEXT day!  Wow!  The added bonus was that the Zucol tablets were pleasant tasting.  It was like dissolving a giant children’s tylenol on your tongue.

On the flip side, my littlest one, DID not turn up sick a few days later. :0(  I gave him a children’s homepathic remedy called Boiron Oscillococcinum Children’s Homeopathic Flu Medicine (that’s a mouth full!).  And, unfortunately, I didn’t get the same results as I did with the Zucol.  He’s still sick, but with LOTS of energy!  The medicine didn’t send the cold packing, but it did allow him to his happy self while sick without all the fuss.  I’m happy with that.  Oh, and I did get this medicine super cheap as well!  It retails for around $14.99, but I got it on clearance at Walgreens a couple weeks ago for $1.24 with coupon!

On the school front,  I did not get a 100% on my computer programming test last week!  And I wasn’t in a mini state of shock for about 30 minutes afterwards.  Programming is the hardest class I’m taking right now.  It’s very CONFUSING.  And there’s MATH involved in programming.  MATH and I don’t mix well.  I wrestled for about 2 hours last week with ONE programming assignment just trying to get the program to work!!!  When I kinda thought I had it figured out, I submitted it.  Teacher graded it and gave me the comment of, “Perfect!”  I guess that made the struggle worth it in the end, but it was SO hard!  Please pray for me if you feel lead…

Happy Monday!


Apple Pie Update

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Here’s the apple pie we made Saturday afternoon.  It was delicious, and I can say that with confidence because by Sunday afternoon there was only one slice left.  We ate it with vanilla ice cream, and the best part is that we used some of the apples we picked ourselves at the orchard. :0)


Not Me! Monday

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Not Me! Monday is hosted by My Charming Kids.net, and it’s all about the things that we didn’t do this past week but REALLY DID.  Here goes….

We did NOT go a little overboard on the pumpkins for this time of year.  When I went grocery shopping with the kids, we left the store with seven mini-pumpkins.  Then we went to Walmart the next day and bought four pie pumpkins.  That’s a total of eleven pumpkins!  They are making a nice little display on our counter, though, and it feels like we are just a little bit closer to Fall…eventhough it was over 80 degrees here yesterday.

Many nights, I end up going to bed rather late after a session of homework.  That has NOT affected my sleep in the strangest way.  I end up thinking about html code all night long.  It’s stuck in my head, and I keep replaying the same code over and over until the madness stops when I wake up.

Did you know that Jewel has a program going on right now where you get a “reward sticker” for every $10 you spend at their store?  Once you’ve collected enough stickers, you can redeem them for a piece of “professional cookware” for a penny.  Well, needless to say, I was NOT excited about this program.  I mean, getting a pan for a penny for spending money you would otherwise be spending anyway.  Sign me up!  We were all excited until we found out that ONE pan is going to cost well over $1,000 spent at Jewel!  We’ll be lucky to earn enough stickers for a single pan by the time the program ends in January.  And if you spend $39.99, you only get 3 stickers (one for every $10 spent), not 4.  THEY ROUND DOWN.  So, really, to get one pan you will NOT likely have to spend somewhere around $1,200.  I will have to spend around $1,500 because the pan I want is 130 stickers!  Oh, Jewel….

My thinking that I would not have as much homework in the Fall as I did with my summer classes has NOT completely gone out the window.  What was I thinking?  School is going well, though.  I’m happy to be learning all about building web sites, and I can’t wait to be able to do some giveaways here on The Sensible Mom.  I’m not quite where I need to be, but we are getting there!

David, my 18 month old son, is a climber.  And he has NOT recently decided to start climbing up on the desk chair, OPENING my laptop, and picking OFF the keys!  That child!  At least I’ve been able to get all the keys back on.  Oddly enough, though, he picked off the “P” and the “O” keys last week, and I accidentally put them back in the wrong places so when I hit the “O” key, it types a “P” and vice-versa.  But I’m leaving it because 95% off the time I type just fine this way–maybe better! :0)

Happy Monday!