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My Extreme November Challenge: Couponing

Posted in Crazy Couponing, Works for me on November 4, 2011| 6 Comments »

As I mentioned in this post, I watched a bunch of Extreme Couponing episodes while I was sick a few weeks ago. I was amazed. I was inspired. I was jealous. How on earth do these people finagle their way into getting thousands of dollars of groceries for FREE??? I’ve always been a coupon clipper, but clearly these people are out of my league. Or are they? What if I could take what they know and apply it to my shopping habits? Could I save my family hundreds of dollars by becoming a little more extreme? (I already switched to Geico.)

Challenge accepted! I needed a new one for November anyway. So here it is:

4 weeks. 4 shopping trips patterned after the extreme example.  Save at least 75% off the retail value of each week’s haul.

Coupons get delivered to my door every week via the Sunday Denver Post, but I also went to the 7Eleven on the corner and bought 10 more papers. It was $15 well spent, but the guy behind the register looked at me like I was crazy. When my mom was in town, she helped me sort and file the coupon mess I already had, and I spent a few hours creating a system that works for me. I’ll post pictures of my binder in the next post because it’s still a work in progress. Not to be deterred by an unfinished system (which I’ll explain later), I compared a few websites, looked through the circular ads for my local stores to see what was on sale or being featured, then got to clipping coupons. Here’s what I bought during this week’s sale:

Dawn Dishwashing Liquid retails for $1.49, my coupons were .50 off one, and the store doubles coupons up to $1, which made them .50 each.  $16.39 down to 5.50= 66% savings

Gillette Body Wash retails for 3.79, they were on sale for 2.99, and I had coupons for $2.00 off one, which made them .99 each. $7.58 down to $1.98= 73% savings

Schick Razors 3 pack retails for $6.28 each, they were on sale buy 1 get 1 free, I had a coupon for $6.oo off one, which made them .28 for both packs. $12.56 down to .28=98% savings)

Oral B Toothbrushes retail for $1.79 each, they were on sale 10 for $10, I had .75 off two, and the store doubled them to $1, which made them .50 each. $19.69 down to $5.50= 73% savings

Crest toothpaste retails for 2.25 – 3.25 each, they were on sale 10 for $10, my coupons were .50 off each – I had 11 for regular and 11 for kid’s toothpaste, the store doubled them to $1, which made all of them FREE. $65.78 down to $0= 100% savings

Tombstone Pizzas (not pictured) retail for $3.99 each, they were on sale $2.20 each if you buy 5, I bought 10; used .75 off each coupons, the stored doubled them to $1, which made the pizzas $1.10 each. $39.90 down to $11. =72% savings

$161.90 down to $24.26. An 85% savings over all. Goal achieved. Not bad for my first attempt!

This is one of the actual receipts for the toothpaste and toothbrushes. You can’t see it very well even when you enlarge it , but it says “You saved 100% off your order” on the bottom. 🙂

This week I only used coupons for 6 different items. I have hundreds more just waiting to save me money. It’s kind of exciting. I learned a few things this week:

  1. You have to know your store’s coupon policies because the checkers often don’t. One checker told me there was a limit of 3 like coupons per transaction, another told me it was 4, which is what I have printed out and in my binder, another (who was very snotty) told me that the policy changed this week and it’s now 5 like coupons per transaction per day. Seriously? She was clearly not a fan of extremers – which I’m NOT calling myself yet. She said the stores are catching on to the people who take advantage of the system. I was so irritated that I tried to make her feel bad by telling her I work with the homeless and the stuff I’m buying will help a lot of people. I know. Shame on me. One of the checker girls was so impressed that my bill dropped down to just the tax, she asked for my phone number so I could help her get started by teaching her what I’ve learned so far. Nice.
  2. Organization is key, so find a system that works for you. I started out with clear zipper pouches (bought on clearance for .25 each) which I labeled for all of our categories. I thought the baseball card collector’s sheets were too much work. I was wrong, so I’m switching my system around a bit. Pictures coming. It also helps that I have a lovely 9-year-old assistant to help me clip and file.
  3. Take your binder to the store with you. Even if you think you’ve pulled all the coupons you will need, you’ll be surprised at the deals in the store that aren’t advertised. And there’s always the clearance section to consider.
  4. Get friends and family to save coupons for you instead of throwing them away. Most of the people I know don’t want to bother with them, and I’m happy to take them off their hands. I’m also willing to share my loot with them when I find great deals like the toothpaste haul this week. It’s incentive for them to help me.
  5. Don’t be a hoarder. That sounds a little judgmental, but the very first thing checkers asked me this week was if I had a separate room in my house to hold all of the stuff I’m getting free or for pennies on the dollar. I laughed and told them I live in a mobile home, i.e. Itty bitty storage space.

This was fun AND it will help my family and friends get the things they need, and some of what they want. Can I refer to this as my new hobby? 😉

Anyone care to join me? What’s the best deal you’ve gotten lately?

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A Night Owl’s Reprieve

Posted in Learning to Cope, October Challenge, thinking things through, Works for me on October 16, 2011| 6 Comments »

Here it is friends, the conclusion to the insomnia posts, for now. After my discussion with Benny about my sleep issues and thinking through our kid’s sleep patterns, I wanted to dig a little deeper. I’ve read several articles and received advice from many friends, and I have some new conclusions which may change again in the future, who knows?

As with most topics, there are a wide range of opinions. I was pretty sure I knew the cause of my insomnia, and there is plenty of data to back it up, but then I read a few articles on Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome, which is a fancy name for being an extreme night owl. It has to do with the circadian rhythm and where most people can make their bodies adjust to earlier bed and wake times, people with this disorder (I really hate that word) cannot, and attempts at therapies to correct it cause a variety of issues such as depression and physical illness. Often there is a feeling of having a lack of will power or others viewing you as lazy because it’s difficult for you to get up in the morning. BUT, those who have DSPS usually get good sleep once they go to sleep, it just happens later in the 24 hour cycle than the societal norm.

I was chatting about this with my friend Beckie today and I told her that my perfect sleeping hours – the ones that feel most natural to me – are 2 a.m. to 9 a.m. If left to sleep when my body wants to, and wake up feeling rested, this is when I sleep. But friends, it’s an early bird world we live in, and all the early birds want us night owls to conform. Whether or not I am ever diagnosed with DSPS, I have almost all of the symptoms, and guess what? It’s thought to be hereditary. I know both of my parents are morning people, so it must not come from them, but it does explain why my son Max has similar tendencies.

Now, this doesn’t mean I’m ruling out a calcium or magnesium deficiency, or the amount of stress in my life, or even the fear aspect of going to sleep, but it was eye-opening for me to read that this isn’t as uncommon as I thought. This article mentioned a few therapies that have been tried to help those who might suffer from DSPS such as practicing good sleep hygiene, light therapy, Chronotherapy, and Melatonin, which incidentally can cause nightmares and actually disrupt sleep. Hmmm…interesting. I’ve taken Melatonin – a natural OTC supplement sold in the U.S. – a few times to help me relax and sleep. The article also listed several external links on the subject of sleep disorders. It’s interesting reading if this topic suits you.

There is a group out there called the B-Society. I haven’t fully researched them, but I loved this blurb on their website:

Why do we need to work at the same time and in identical patterns as the industrial times, when today’s innovation society does not demand this from us? Especially now, when we discover that a fourth of our entire population does not even fit to this old-fashioned day rhythm?

Why do we all have to be stuck on the road to work every morning and hurry back from there to pick up the kids before the day-care centre closes, when actually this could be different?

B-Society’s mission is to change the structures, on the labour market and in society at large, so B-people can finally fit in. We are going to reckon with the 8-4 society and its lacking respect for B-persons’ day rhythms.

YEAH! Oh…um…sorry. So now that I’m even more (and less) confused about my insomnia, let me wrap this up for us, okay?

I do feel that my natural circadian rhythm is okay and because of the lifestyle we have chosen (running our own ministry, freelance writing and homeschooling), I don’t see a reason to change that. Thank God Benny doesn’t either. He doesn’t get the whole being a night owl thing, but he loves and supports me and said he’ll get the kids going in the morning with breakfast, their chore charts, and school work until I get up. In turn, I’ll get everyone ready for bed and tucked in at night. I love it when a plan comes together. 😉 Speaking of plans, here’s mine, and it’s even better than the one I came up with the other day.

I’m going to keep a sleep diary for the next few weeks and figure out if I’m correct in the 2-9 a.m. thing and adjust accordingly.

I will make sure that I take my vitamins, drink plenty of water (blech), and get my exercise.

I will practice good sleep hygiene, and get a regular bedtime routine down, and then I will reevaluate. My hypothesis is that I will discover I do have a delayed sleep pattern but it’s not necessarily a disadvantage.

I will track my normal habits and see what patterns emerge, and I’ll revisit this topic with an update in about a month.

I know there are other factors to insomnia, but I want to see what happens when I approach this from a physical standpoint. We’ll see…

So, are you a night owl or an early bird? An A person or a B person? Are you happy with whichever you are?

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September’s De-cluttering Challenge – Medications (And a new challenge for October)

Posted in Big Announcements, De-cluttering, October Challenge, Works for me, Writing on October 1, 2011| 9 Comments »

As we prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse, it’s important for us to know how long our medicines and vitamins will last and update our stash of expired bottles, so I made that my September de-cluttering challenge. 😉

Seriously, we are as homeopathic as we can be, but a few weeks ago my son had such a terrible headache that we went for the hard stuff. I pulled the ibuprofen & acetaminophen out of the medicine drawer and it was expired. I wasn’t all that surprised because we hardly ever use it, but then I was faced with a dilemma. Let my child be in pain, or give him expired drugs in the hopes of killing the headache.

I hopped online and did a little research (after giving him the Tylenol) and found out that it’s up to me to decide how long to continue using medicines after the printed expiration date on the bottle. Whew. What a relief. Thank you Google for clearing that up for me.

According to this article by the Harvard Medical School, and many other sites I found, drug manufacturers are required by law to stamp a date on their products. This is the date at which the manufacturer can still guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug. HOWEVER, in a study done by the FDA, at the request of the military, 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date, so the expiration date doesn’t necessarily indicate a point at which the medication is no longer effective or has become unsafe to use.

“It’s true the effectiveness of a drug may decrease over time, but much of the original potency remains even a decade after the expiration date. Excluding nitroglycerin, insulin, and liquid antibiotics, most medications are as long-lasting as the ones tested by the military. Placing a medication in a cool place, such as a refrigerator, will help a drug remain potent for many years.”

Good to know.

We’re not into taking medication unless it’s REALLY needed, so we don’t keep a full medicine cabinet, but I still decided to take a look at every bottle we do have and toss most of the expired stuff – especially the liquids. Here’s a picture of what I threw away. I added the quarter for size comparison. I’m clever like that.

One more thing. Here’s an article from the FDA which explains the proper disposal of over the counter and prescription drugs:

http://www.fda.gov/forconsumers/consumerupdates/ucm101653.htm

Moving on…

October’s Writing Challenge:

I emailed Don, my American friend living in France, and asked him to hold me accountable with my writing. Being a blogger himself, I knew he’d understand the need for motivation in the form of a challenge. WordPress issued such a challenge back in January, but suggested it to me again for the month of October. A post-a-day challenge is just what I need to get my butt in gear and quit making excuses for not writing. You can read about it at http://dailypost.wordpress.com/.

Consider this Day 1. 🙂

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August’s De-cluttering Challenge – Clothing

Posted in De-cluttering, Family, Works for me on September 6, 2011| 4 Comments »

I swear I’m not sprinkling miracle grow on my children’s food, but Max has gone through 4 shoe sizes and 2 clothing sizes so far this year! His brother and sister have also hit growth spurts which means it’s time to shop. Being homeschoolers, we don’t usually feel the pressure to arrive at the end of August with new wardrobes. Although they did ask for new pajamas, I’m sure that had nothing to do with our schooling. *wink*

I said usually, so here we are in September and I’m tired of the incessant nagging about the need for new clothes. The kids are bothering me about it too, but before shopping for bigger sizes, we had to get rid of the smaller stuff. In true leadership fashion, I started with my closet and dresser then took turns with each of the kids sorting theirs. Here is my 5 step method:

1.  Make 2 piles on the bed: Donate and Trash. Start with the closet and work from top to bottom and left to right.

Does it fit?

If not, let it go. I don’t play the size game. I don’t need 8 shirts I hope to fit into in the next year. When I lose weight, I’ll reward myself with some new shirts instead of ice cream.

Am I comfortable when I wear it?

If not, I probably haven’t worn it in months and it doesn’t belong next to my beloved favorites.

Does it need repairs?

If yes, I usually let someone else repair and wear it. I can sew buttons and seams and that’s about as far as I’m willing to go.

When did I last wear it?

Unless it’s seasonal, I’m ruthless. If it’s been more than a month or two, I get rid of it. There’s a reason for not wearing the clothes you have, and it doesn’t require a therapist to figure it out. Repeat the previous questions to get to the bottom of the issue and move on.

Is it a good color for me?

This one is tricky and makes me wonder if I might need therapy. I wear A LOT of black. I’m talking a 6 to 1 ratio to any other color in my closet which means teal and brown get a small shout out and there might be a blue thrown in there somewhere. I work with street people and dark colors help me blend in better. I’m also a round, red-headed, blue-green eyed, fair-skinned woman. Teals, browns, and greens look fabulous on me. Black is slimming (nobody really believes that, right?) and trendy. Ha!  Besides, all of those colors match my sleeve tattoo. That’s an important fashion detail for me.;)

2.  Moving on to the dresser, I repeat the same questions as above except for the sock/underwear drawer. Old and single socks go into the cleaning rag-bag and underwear beyond repair end up in the trash. Why are they still in there anyway??

3. Shoes. Our house is not overrun by them, so fast growing feet is a bit of a challenge. Everyone has a pair of athletic type shoes and either Crocs (Benny & the kids) or flip-flops (me), and Zoe and I each have a pair of sandals. In warm weather I wear my five-finger shoes about 6 days a week.

I seriously LOVE these shoes. I even got one of our summer interns hooked on them. Max is begging me for a pair of his own. I told him maybe for his 21st birthday or when his feet have stopped growing, whichever comes first.

4.  Seasonal items like winter coats, snow pants, hats, and gloves, and swimming suits are sorted too so we’re ready for the next season, then the previous season’s clothes go in a tub up in the closet.

5.  Max takes the trash out, Zoe takes the donation bag to the van, and Pete…well…that boy needs to step up and get a job instead of standing there with his cute little grin.

There you go. Another de-cluttering month to brag about to you fine people. One last thing before I move on to September’s challenge (which I completed today). I have 2 very important clothing philosophies:

When donating: Be a helper, not a hoarder. If I’m not using it, I know there are lots of people out there that need it. I start with my friends. I pass clothing on to them instead of storing them, but I don’t pass along crap that needs to be thrown away. That’s just rude.

Check out local charities to find out who needs what and how to schedule a donation pick up by visiting:

http://www.donationtown.org/news/donate-clothes.html

When buying new stuff: Be smart and buy what you love and will wear. I don’t buy items just because they’re on sale and there’s a 30% chance I’ll wear it in the future. I ask myself the same questions I ask when I’m de-cluttering so I won’t have buyer’s remorse the next time.

There was nothing weird to report this time, but I’ll bet some of you have stories.

What’s the strangest or funniest item of clothing you’ve de-cluttered?

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March/April De-cluttering Challenge: Paper

Posted in De-cluttering, Works for me on April 30, 2011| 5 Comments »

11 pounds. That’s how much paper was in the box labeled, “To Be Shredded.” That didn’t include the 2 kitchen size trash bags (13 gallons each) full of old papers I threw away. Do you know what’s better than Office Depot shredding paper for you at 99 cents per pound? Your city doing it for FREE. Did you know that several cities around the country host free shredding days in April to coincide with Tax Day? Google it and save yourself some money! Lucky me, ours happened during my March/April de-cluttering challenge. Sure, I could buy a shredder, but I’ve gone through 2 of them so far and they always break on me. I also don’t want to store the darn thing. For me, it’s worth it to spend a few bucks 2 times a year to shred the important stuff at the store. The rest can be recycled or tossed.

Benny used to ask me where something was by saying, “which Wal-Mart sack is it in?” He was only half-joking. Paper in all forms is my downfall. I’ve been recovering for quite some time, but went from shoving it in sacks to piling it in stacks. Sadly, I’m still a piler determined to be a filer. 😉 Embracing my “I don’t need to keep everything” attitude for 2011 is helping. There are rules like saving tax returns for 7 years, and receipts and warranty information for the life of your appliances, etc., but do I really need the receipt telling me how much is left on my Starbucks card? Or 5 copies of a magazine article I meant to mail to some friends but never did? I won’t even talk about the big stack of Christmas cards we’ve received over the past 18 years. I had no sane reason for saving that stuff, so before my family could nominate me for that hoarder show on TLC, I challenged myself to cut the paper clutter. This is how I did it:

I borrowed some tips from Peter Walsh and the 15 minute rule from FlyLady and got to work. (BTW, I used her 27-Fling Boogie to de-clutter my knick knacks back in February.) I started with the pile on my desk then moved on to a big box of papers I had set aside for a rainy day. Finally, I dove into my 2 filing cabinets. File by file, I was a purging queen. As new paper entered my home, I sorted and tossed the best I could. I’m proud to tell you that I didn’t stop after finishing the purge. I set up a filing system for bills, receipts, and other papers that I need to keep, got my calendar in order, and found the perfect spot for my trash can and recycling bin. And it only took me 2 months. 😉

I’m now 1/3 of the way through my 2011 challenge and I’ve de-cluttered some weird stuff:

  • The hospital brochures from my first child’s birth…almost 12 years ago.
  • A 3-inch thick file of magazine articles I had saved to read someday; some dating back to 1996-still unread.
  • A few notes from a high school boyfriend. Yes, really. They were buried in a file marked, “personal”. Whatever.
  • A book about breastfeeding. My youngest is 7 years old.
  • An ink cartridge from 2 printers ago.

What are you holding on to that should be recycled, tossed, or passed on to someone else? I challenge you to find something weirder than the things I’ve listed here. 😉 Now who can I re-gift this to? (Peter would be so proud.)

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