Sleepy Time

This is my new job!

Doesn't it look peaceful?!?

I didn't know Marcel was taking pictures, but when we got home from the concert and put pictures on my computer, I found these. He's so sneaky, but he's still worth keeping around!!

Rock & Worship Road Show

Yesterday, Marcel and I attended the Rock & Worship Road Show at the Idaho Center. It is an awesome concert with no pre-sold tickets, it is first come first serve. We knew people who didn't get in last year in Portland so we decided to get in line at 2:30pm, 3 hours before the doors opened! There weren't as many people as we expected, since we asked my old volleyball coach what time they were getting there, and her husband was going out at 9am! We had fun waiting in line, but just wished it hadn't been so windy.

The concert featured 7 bands: Sidewalk Prophets, Remedy Drive, Fee, Franchesca Battestelli, Family Force Five, David Crowder Band, and MercyMe and was just $10 to get in, which was definitely in our budget! I could have done withouth Family Force Five, they were WAY too rock and roll for me, but the rest of them were all great. Did find it a little interesting that Franchesca B was the ONLY girl ever on stage.

awesome concert

enjoying a wonderful budget-friendly date night that is hard to come by these days

I'm guessing this is FEE

Franchesca Battistelli
one of my newest favorites, even before the concert

David Crowder Band playing the next instrument Marcel wants to purchase

MercyMe


My favorite Franchesca song "I'm Letting Go"
I posted the lyrics & video to this song on the blog awhile ago

I LOVE Cereal

Whenever I post something really important, I try not to post something for awhile to make sure that the most important thing stays on the top of the page. Hannah getting engaged is pretty darn important and while I know it deserves to be on the top of the page for quite a bit longer, I can't help but to post something new.

Turns out, I have a little thing for cereal. Actually that is a lie! I've had a thing for cereal for as long as I've ate solid foods :) I'd wake up and nearly cry for a bowl of cereal. Ask my mom or aunt Wayla to demonstrate it in their best MaryBeth impression. It's quite humorous. It still continues to this day. I wake up, go to the bathroom, and get myself some cereal. We joke at our house and in my family how easy Marcel has it to make me breakfast in bed. All I want is a big bowl of cereal! I'm always grateful when he makes me something else, like this week when I got served French Toast (it will never be pancakes unless that's what I crave while I'm pregnant, because that it a deal we've made...that's a whole different story) but I would much rather eat cereal!

Marcel and I were at Albertson's last week sometime buying Kellogg's cereal (Apple Jacks & Fruit Loops) on a super good deal that I can't remember right now, and the manager saw our cart loaded with cereal and said, "Next Wednesday, all POST cereal on sale for $0.78." Being a new couponer I knew that was a deal that would be CRAZY so I asked him what time they open and how much they were getting in. They open at 6 and they ordered over 40 pallets of cereal. It was my plan all week to be there at 6am to try to beat a lot of the crowd who can't shop much until they get their kids dropped off to school (I am not embarrased to be in the couponing community full of stay at home moms, while right now my family is just me and Marcel...I think of it as great practice for when we have a bigger family to provide for on just a teacher's salary!) But a change of events, mainly our fasting for church, meant I wasn't going until I ate for the day (Another post about fasting later). That didn't happen either because I was just sitting at the table watching the clock, waiting for lunch time. While our pastor warned us against grocery shopping while you are fasting, Marcel and I decided at least it would get me out of the house. Plus we were only going for cereal, it's not like we were going to make any impulse buys out of our starvation.

Turns out the deal went like this

Box of cereal = $1.59

Buy 4, receive $3.00 catalina for your next purchase

Buy 5+, receive $4.00 catalina for your next purchase

I also had $13.00 in catalinas from other deals that helped to pay for a lot of the cereal.

So we bought 30 boxes, in 6 transactions, always using 1 catalina as part of our payment and received a new catalina after paying each time!

We saved $132.86, spent $9.01 and still have $10 in catalinas to use again, so we really made $0.99 shopping for my absolute favorite food in the whole entire world. Couponers strive for money MAKING transactions. While I've gotten really close before, this was my first actual money making day of grocery shopping.

What the store looked like last night

Wish everyday was cereal day at the store!
picture credit: athriftymom.com

what we got for $9.01

only got the fruity and cupcake pebbles to use for Rice-Krispy treats. Are they still called that if you don't use Rice Krispies?

Just part of our stockpile of cereal

10 more boxes on a shelf you can't see!

We have 42 unopened boxes of cereal, most of which doesn't expire until February 2011, but I have no doubt in my mind that this will be gone way before then.

Little Sister Is Growing UP!

Can't believe it has taken me this long to blog about this but our family got some big news last Sunday:

HANNAH IS ENGAGED!!

Hannah had been in town all week and we got up at 4am Sunday morning to take her to the airport for her to head back to Kansas. I got a phone call around 1:30pm, and Hannah said, "Guess what?" Well, I thought that Matt was late to pick her up because he had been joking all week that he might forget to pick her up. "I don't know, what Hannah?"..."Matt proposed to me!"

I got a little emotional and shed a tear or two (well, lets just be honest here, probably more like 100). I've never met Matt, but she seems so happy, so we're happy for her too!

Since she's been in Kansas, I have a hard time remembering how grown up she really is. It is hard for me to hear her telling me how to budget my money, or how The Love Dare would do wonders on my marriage, just like did for her and Matt when they read it. I realize I'm almost 25 so of course that means she's almost 20 (21 at her wedding on August 5th, 2011, as of now!) but I still picture and remember her as a much younger girl, like pre-teen!

Both pictures are stolen from her facebook!

The Burkdolls...to-be

Her ring on Matt's finger so that there could be a decent picture of it :)

My Hardworking Husband

Today as I was cleaning the living room, I straightened up Marcel's pile of school stuff. It has a designated cubby under our coffee table, but I had never realized just how much work he does each week.

(his school cubby is where that paper is)

As you can tell, he has 6 books that he has been reading this week. He's currently enrolled in two classes, but is presenting his final today for 1 of them, but being done with that class will only remove the book on the bottom of this pile! The good thing about George Fox is that your books are included in our tuition so just about every week when he goes to class he come home with a handful of new books. He also has a designated shelf on our bookcase to store the ones that he is not currently using.

Finding this today made me realize how hard he is really working. On top of subbing about 3 days a week, he has homework like crazy to keep him plenty busy. Also, the night before I FINALLY put in my 2 weeks to Banana Republic, I told him that I hated working there. I understand that there will always be period where you don't feel like going to work, but I had gotten to the point where I dreaded it everytime. I started dreading it each night when I went to bed if I had to work in the morning. He said that he didn't want me to feel that way and insisted that I quit, even if it meant he'd have to work 5 days a week. He's just that supportive :) I'm a pretty lucky gal. Good thing for Marcel, I will be babysitting a 5 month old in our house starting March 22nd, so I won't be staying at home doing nothing while he is out working and then coming home to do homework!

Stretching A Buck

I have gotten on the couponing bandwagon. I get super excited to get the paper from outside on Sunday morning to start the clipping :) Just like getting the mail I actually enjoy doing it everyday but on the other 6 days of the week, I just like the paper for the sudoku; I need something to keep my brain from rotting!

I check a handful of coupon websites a handful of times each day trying to decide what store has the best place to use each coupon to get the best deal! Haven't gone on too many major coupon shopping trips, but this week was really good.

Wednesday I took Hannah with me to Albertson's for the AMAZING fruit snack deal. I'm so glad I did since it was my first experience at feeling like a full-fledged couponer. We came home with 20 boxes of fruit snacks, 10 boxes of mac & cheese, 8 frozen juice concentrates and 2 frozen pizzas. Should have cost $98.99 but I saved 91.4% of that price! I wish I would have taken a picture of that shopping trip but it didn't cross my mind.

Thursday, I went for more juice and fruit snacks ALL ALONE! I managed to do just fine except they were out of the juice and I have yet to remember to get a rain check. This is what I did manage to get:

after I displayed the purchase, my real camera battery died, so I used my phone
15 boxes of fruit snacks (Scooby Doo & Fruit Gushers)
1 tub of frosting (to go along with the cake mix I got for $0.25 for the next time Marcel has to bring treats to school)
1 Olay lotion (to complete the $15 mail in rebate)
1 Snuggle dryer sheets (because we NEEDED them--learning that you should never need anything!)
2 sour creams
2 Vitamin Waters
2 bags of Rhodes warm-n-serve rolls.

The percentage of savings wasn't nearly as big this time, only 81.4% from original price of about $74 (I don't have the receipts right in front of me). I do know that my savings were $60.60! Plus I still have $7 in catalinas to spend on my next shopping trip!

I've been telling Hannah this week, that of course Marcel and I could definitely use to save money on groceries. The money I get for food stamps (recall from a facebook status that Marcel doesn't qualify since when I applied he was not working 20 hours/week which is required for college students to be eligible) isn't quite enough each month so it is nice to stretch it even further. But it has been really fun to see how cheap I can get laundry detergent and dish soap (have enough to get to Christmas I guarantee it, plus that supply cost less than I would have paid for 1 bottle of detergent before!) and other non-food household items. On top of stretching a buck or two, though, it is really nice that it does give me a few more websites to add to my list of ones I check regularly. I can only blog-stalk and be on facebook so much in 1 day :)

Hope this was interesting to someone else. While blog-stalking I always feel myself getting upset at people who haven't blogged in a really long time and then just tonight I looked at my own blog and it had been way too long for me and couponing is about the only thing going on lately in our life that I haven't blogged about :)

In case you are new to couponing, I LOVE:
thekrazycouponlady.com
athrifymom.com
fabulesslyfrugal.com
idahodealdivas.com
hip2save.com
I read plenty of other sites occasionally but these are the ones I check a few times each day!