Control Journal

My newest baby step is to create a control journal, it will essentially be my collection of routines, to dos and important info. I think I am going to attempt to make it digital and do it on the iPad and see how it works.
So far here is my morning routine:
Get up
Get everyone fed
Unload dishwasher
Fold laundry
Get dressed and ready
Play with kids (if I am home) or head to work

Bed time routine:
Start dishwasher
Get clothes out for everyone for tomorrow
Brush teeth/floss
Read stories and get kids to bed
Spend time with Handy Hubby (if he is home) or pamper myself with TV, computer or reading time.

This week in my living room...

Each week Flylady has a "zone" set aside to be focused on, this week it is the family /living room. Traditionally the living room has been Handy Hubby's room to keep clean, but he hasn't been keeping it up too well with the bustle of the holidays. So I am going to take the next week and take down Christmas stuff and get it put away properly, and to clear out the clutter. I also have a goal to put up at least one picture this week and to get my knick knacks put out.

P.S. My sink has been clear and shiny every night before bed, it is such a great change in my life!

Nothing to wear...

Well I'm only on day 7 of my Babysteps journey and I am already failing miserably. 2 of the steps thus far have included clothing, and laundry is one of my biggest challenges (note I said one of, because I have many).

Laundry in my house is typically in one of three states:
1) Feast or famine. I'm a marathon washer, I tend to wait until my mini vacations and wash everything in a 2-3 day period. Then I burn out and don't want to do laundry again until my next holiday break.

2) Wash and go. This is the most frequent state of clothing in our house. Hubby and I each dig through our laundry piles, baskets, and small islands and wash what will get us through the next couple days. Then the clothes typically live in the dryer until we wear it with a short fluff cycle each morning.

3)Interclothing relations. When we hit this stage Handy Hubby knows a meltdown in brewing and stays out of my way. Sometimes when I go on a laundry marathon and I don't get everything put away, my clean clothing can't keep themselves away from the bad boy dirty clothes. It's like my mom trying to forbid me from seeing the boyfriend she didn't like, it was futile, we always found a way to get together. So it all intermingles and then there is no way to tell what is clean and what is dirty, I am sure one of my dresses has been washed 4 times since I last time I wore it. Damn dress is a hussy though and always hangs out with the dirty clothes!

So FLYlady says I should be getting dressed to shoes first thing every morning, well it hasn't happened yet. I have nothing clean to wear and my shoes make my feet stink. My Babysteps yesterday was to set out my clothes for this morning as part of my bedtime routine. Well, I'm still in my clothes from last night, does that count? I suppose not. I'll work on the mountain of laundry and try to get to the point of having something clean to wear in the next week. I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you get dressed every morning to start your day or wait until you need to leave the house? Also, confess or brag about your laundry situation here I'm curious to know if everyone else is cowering from the laundry monster like myself.

Merry Christmas Eve, I'm off to sort the old toys to make room for the new ones!

Shine your sink

FLYlady has a 31 day Babysteps program, each day you add a new habit to your day each one building upon the last. Well I have plenty of habits, most of which are bad ones. Isn't amazing how much easier it is to create bad habits than good?!

Day 1 was to shine your sink. The idea is to keep your kitchen sink empty and clean. Duh! We all know that is supposed to be, and how much easier it is to clean as you go when the sink it free. Yet my clean salad bowl, baking stone and large pan were all sitting in the right side of the sink (my holding area) for varying times ranging from a month to a week. Why didn't I just take the 2 minutes maximum to put them away? Because they don't have easy homes, I have to move things around, and use a steps tool. Simply put, I am lazy. Well, I have kept my sink clean and clear for the past 2 days and it really does make a huge difference! I made cookies and bread, I had been putting off because the sink overwhelmed me. It sounds so stupid, but those 3 clean dishes in my sink kept me from using and enjoying my kitchen. FLYlady says waking up to a clean sink can and will make you smile, and that is her way of giving us a big hug. When I walked into my kitchen this morning knowing all my dishes were clean and my sink was shiny I felt so good about myself. I made a yummy breakfast for the kids, and put the dishes straight into the dishwasher, and now my day has started off in a positive and motivated way.

Now don't misunderstand, the rest of the house looks as if a tornado came through, my baseboards are dirty and I am pretty sure no one has anything clean to wear to our Christmas gathering today. But my kitchen sink is empty and shiny, and so at least I've accomplished one thing more than usual!

FLYing to become a better homemaker

I am not a naturally neat person, it just isn't in my blood. Neither is Handy Hubby, so the example for our kiddos has been less than ideal. The reality of that fact smacked me across the face when I noticed Biggest Brother tossing trash aside and dropping toys wherever he was when he was done with it. Wow! The blinding strobe of a light bulb above my head was screaming "Stop being a do as I say, not as I do mommy!!!".

I decided to find a way to make cleaning a routine to better instill in myself and my kiddos the habit or being neat. Off to the Internet I went to google "cleaning schedule" and found a bunch of so-so charts, but nothing that really motivated me. Then I stumbled upon www.FLYlady.net and felt a twinge of excitment! I explored the site and loved how homey it felt, and for the first time I felt ok about being a messy mommy who hated having company over - because I am not the only one!!

Anyways, I joined the site and have decided to begin their "Babysteps" program to create new habits to be a better homemaker. I'll keep you up to date on the steps, and how well I am following them. Go over and check out the site if you could use a dose of encouragement and guidance yourself, if you decide to take the Babysteps challenge along with me let me know!

Careful what you wish for...

All of my followers know I started this blog to chronicle my attempts at saving and creating money in creative ways, with the ultimate goal being able to quit my full time job and be home with my kids.

Well, the law of attraction worked sooner than planned. We have been blessed For the last 4 1/2 years to have free daycare provided by my mom. Unfortunately, with the economy being so tough she has had to work her "real" job more and focus more on her business and we have no other family able to handle all three kiddos on a full time basis. I made decent income at my job, but not enough to cover daycare for 3 children and still be able to contribute to the family budget.

We had to make a difficult decision, I took a drastic reduction in hours and a demotion came along with it. Oh and I lost my insurance too. Huge changes to our budget and life had to happen in a very short amount of time. To try to make up a portion of my lost income I took on a very part time retail job two nights a week, which has turned out to be an amazing blessing in my life in many ways.

Anyways, to make a long story short I'm not home full time but I am closer than I thought I would be today. I've been neglecting my blogging because I was too busy getting my new schedule under control, but I'm back and I have some exciting things planned for myself that I will share with you.

Big Changes

I made the first big (and scary) step to be home more with the kids! I stepped down as a "Senior" assistant, and cut my hours at work. This lowered my hourly rate and I lost my insurance. It is going to be a huge adjustment, but Handy Hubby and I both think that the sacrifice we are making financially will reap more important benefits for the family. So now the real journey will begin...stay tuned for the two steps forward (and probably one step back) we are going to be taking.

Christi Kreg

5 dinners 1 hour

For the last 4 months (and the next two) I subscribed to an online menu service that built and organized a months worth of dinners (20 total). The idea is one day a week you spend an hour prepping the weeks dinners.

I have really enjoyed the ease of the menu plans, and we have really liked all the recipes we have tried. That being said, it was a great starting point for me but there are some major drawbacks.

1) Finding an hour (plus time to grocery shop and set up for my cooking hour) every week where the kids are occupied and I'm able to focus on multiple recipes, is tough for this working mommy.

2) Life happens and we end up having dinner at one of our parents houses, or are running around until too late to cook. I've had food go bad because I thought I would get to it so I didn't freeze it, or it wasn't a freezable meal.

3) The service only helps with my dinner needs, and because Handy Hubby and I both work we need quick and easy breakfast and lunch items as well.

http://5dinners1hour.blogspot.com/

The girl who runs the site offers a free sample menu and if you need help in the menu planning area, I highly suggest you try it out and see how it works for you!

Facebook Deal

Best deal found so far? $10 off $10+ purchase at Pier One! Thanks again to Krazycouponlady for posting about the coupon on Facebook. For $5.50 out of pocket I scored an acrylic tumble (which I have been desperately wanting but refuse to pay $10 for) and a basting brush (which will work much better than my current paper towel method).

While at the store the manager mentioned that the "Friday Flip Flop Deals" on Pier Ones Facebook page are usually really good. There were some great kitchen goodies that I would love since I'm cooking more these days, so I guess I'll have to like their page and check them out.

Christi Kreg

Pretend City

Pretend City is one of the coolest activities to take your 2-5 year old to go do in Orange County. The name says it all, there are a number of "exhibits" for you and your child to experience together to enrich their imagination and spark their interest in everyday community happenings.

My boys loved the water area the best. With out realizing it they were experimenting with and learning about currents and buoyancy, not to mention practicing their manners and turn taking with the manipulatives provided.

Handy hubby's favorite areas were the construction ones, it gave him a chance to be hands on with the kids in a safe and fun way to share his work experience on their level. He also enjoyed watching the boys on the stage dressing up, dancing, making music and entertaining the crowd. He even happily helped Big Brother into a Tutu!

My favorite area by far was the art studio, there were multiple activities available and eager staff to facilitate the directed art and encourage the free art. The boys made a simple color and paste shark, painted on a window/wall, decorated a fish cut out at the free art table and played with Floam.

The staff and volunteers are amazing at Pretend City! There is someone at nearly every exhibit encouraging and participating in pretend play with the kids. They have special "Good to Go, From Head to Toe" activities organized to work on different developmental skills. The activity on the day we visited was a partner bean bag toss to work on spatial awareness. Most impressive though was their quick and comforting response to my lost child. Yes, that's right I lost one of my own while playing. While trading Baby Sister from my arms to Handy Hubby's, Little Brother went around a corner and disappeared. I looked into the sea of kids and immediately knew I needed help. I grabbed a staff and told her my son was lost and she calmly asked for the important info (name, age, clothing) spread the alert via the headsets everyone wears. I saw every employee perk up and start looking, and I was reassured that he couldn't leave the building. He was quickly found, and although I lost a few years off my life from the stress, I was thrilled to see him happily playing away. We set up a "I'm Lost" plan at that moment and told Big Brother the meeting place and kept a hand on Little Brother at all times.

I know this is a super long post, but I have one more super important thing to share because it is near and dear to me. Pretend City is working with local agencies to help encourage developmental screenings for children 0-5 years old. They call it "Good To Go, From Head to Toe" and it is a fantastic program. They offer free periodic screenings on site by professionals in multiple disciplines. Almost as good, they provide parent report screening tools to fill out at home, mail in to "Help Me Grow" (one of their partners in the initiative) to review and report back to you and your pediatrician. Just for filling out the screening tool you will receive a FREE children's admission to Pretend City for another visit, and then you can pick up the next milestone screening.

This early screening is so important to me for two reasons. First, I work with preschoolers with various delays and so many parents are unaware of what skills their children should have, and don't know to ask for help if those skills are missing. Many times they are hoping their child is just a "late bloomer", overly shy, or lazy. These screening tools help identify skills that are missing, and start a conversation with your doctor to help the parent learn how to boost those skill areas or refer the child out to a professional for further evaluation and help.

Second, as an educator I knew what to watch for and was able to spot warning signs early. At 16 months old Big Brother was diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder), and began therapy shortly after. Today, he is a highly intelligent, social, chatterbox that is mainstreamed with minimal support in a typical preschool setting. Early intervention was the key, the earlier you tackle even minor delays the better. We don't know what the future holds, but we all want to give our children the best chance possible armed with every tool and opportunity reasonably available.

Now I'll step off my soap box and give you the website so you can plan your visit!
Www.pretendcity.org

Christi Kreg

First Coupon Attempt at Target

My first attempt at using coupons at Target was less than a total success, but not quite a failure.

Target is running a deal where you buy 2 big packs of Huggies (my favorite brand) and you earn a $10 Target gift card. I grabbed a size 5 for Little Brother, but they dont carry size 2 in the big pack for Baby Sister. I decided to go ahead and get size 3, we will need and use them...eventually.

Then the TP I had a dollar off coupon for was out of stock, they were out of yummy yogurt flavors so i didn't get to use my $.60 off 8 coupon, and my parchment paper coupon didn't want to ring up.

On the positive side, thanks to the back to school sale I got a cute new binder to keep my coupons in. I used my $10 gift card (earned from diaper deal) to pay for it and a pack of card protector sheets to keep my coupons neat and organized. I'll post a picture, and a "how to" once I get it all done!

Did you work any great deals this weekend? How do you keep your coupons and ads organized?

Christi Kreg

CVS Haul 7/24/2011

Today I went to CVS to use my ECB and work a couple deals. I was a tad disappointed because 2 of the items on my list were not in stock. However, I did walk out with 3 handsoaps and 2 packages of my usual brand of tampons and only paid $.43 out of pocket and earned 3 more ECB, even better I earned a coupon for 30% of my next purchase!

Christi Kreg

Sunday Funday 7/24/11

Tomorrow is a big day! I've been reading KrazyCouponLady.com all week and I'm getting more and more confident about going out and working some deals.

Last month I went to CVS to earn some extra bucks, but have been too busy to go back and and use them since. Tomorrow I am planning on working a couple deals laid out on KCL in order to roll at least some of them over (using my ECB to earn more ECB) because they will expire at the end of the week!

I'm also going to brave Target and work a couple of their deals, mostly to just test the waters there. Earlier in the week, a friend on FB posted about a sample of free Huggies from Target.com. I was so excited to learn about their "Sample Spot", where you can request samples of products...samples through the mail usually mean coupons! While I'm at Target I'm also going to grab a binder, some sheet protectors and page dividers to start my very own Coupon book. I'm hoping to be super organized (couponing wise) before I go back to work mid August.

Banana Bread Recipe

Banana Bread Recipe

Breakfast Time

As a working mom, I have very busy mornings and need to prepare the best I can ahead of time. I have gotten into a good habit of making lunches for everyone the night before. The real time consumer in the mornings at our house though is breakfast!

I want the kids and I to eat something with substance in the morning, but I don't have time to make anything decent. So we survive on eggo waffles, and frozen sausage most days. Well eggo waffles are not the healthiest or cheapest choice, so I'm on a quest to find some new quick, reasonably healthy, and at least semi-homemade breakfast foods.

My first attempt was to make homemade frozen waffles. I had never made waffles before, but thanks to Aunt Jemima they turned out somewhat decent. I froze them in a big ziplock bag and then put them in my toaster oven the morning. They totally worked and were WAY cheaper than Eggo, and probably healthier too!

My other breakfast choice was banana bread from scratch. It was my first attempt and I was pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out! I'll post the recipe I found for you in my next post. The kids and hubby loved the bread, so it didn't last too long.

Sunday Coupons

In my quest to cut grocery costs I decided to go back to coupon clipping. My grandmother gets the Sunday paper, but doesn't use the coupons so she happily donates them to my cause. I picked up my first batch yesterday, and was hugely disappointed! The inserts are full of ads, and little else.

Smart Source has 1 cookie coupon, and 1 Silk drink coupon, the rest are pharmacy products or pet food. 10 coupons total, none of which are useful to my household.

Red Plum has 9 products with coupons but only 2 are food related, a bread company I'm unfamiliar with and Foldgers.

Are you noticing the coupon inserts are not useful in helping you cut costs for your household? Are you supplementing with printable coupons from the Internet? If so, what are your favorite sites?

Mint.com

If you are like me and deal with multiple financial institutions, and have multiple people using those accounts, you know that keeping track of your expenses can be time consuming.

There are many options for tracking your finances both on and offline, but my personal choice has been Mint.com.

Mint loads and tracks all your balances and transactions from your various accounts for you to be able to access all from one location, for FREE (my favorite word). They also offer budgeting tools that are super helpful to keep your spending on track. There is even a way to set financial goals for yourself, and track your progress towards meeting those goals.

My two big questions when researching Mint were 1) Why is it free, what's the catch? And 2) Is my information safe?

Mint can afford to be free because advertisers pay them to advise you to try their products. You will receive advice from Mint regarding lowering your insurance premiums by switching to one of their partners, lowering credit interest by transferring balances to a partners card, etc.

Regarding the safety of their services check out this fellow bloggers post. http://www.brokegradstudent.com/mint-myths-debunked/

Basically, Mint is secure and while they know about your finances, they know nothing about you personally.

My favorite part of Mint are the reminders and alerts. I get texts or emails if I've exceeded my budget in a certain area, if I have a credit card payment coming up, or if my balance is low in my checking account. Bottom line is that the program is a quick and easy way to see where your money is going each month, with that knowledge you can make better decisions about where you can really cut back.

What do you use to keep track of your spending and budget?

Pennies For Opinions

Surveys...money makers or crazy makers?

One of the mommy blogs I got some great frugal tips from suggested a number of "legit" online survey sites. Most of these sites are middlemen for real research firms and also partake in clever advertising that encourages you to "complete an offer" to earn more money or points. Always remember in online marketing...if it sounds too good to be true, it is! I signed up for a bunch of sites and am committing to test them out over the summer months to see which ones are actually worth my time. The sites are very time consuming because of the weeding out process, then if you qualify for the actual survey they usually take 30 minutes give or take and are painfully tedious. My plan is to hit one site a night while the kids are falling asleep, and at the end of the summer see which sites offered the best rewards. Of course, I will share those sites with you!

Daily Deal Sites

Group Buying/Discount sites are fantastic for being able to afford some of life's luxuries on occasion. I have recently been checking/buying from/using deals from a number of sites. The sites I check are: Groupon, Living Social, Zulilly, and Plum District.

Friday, Hubby and I used 2 groupons from Famous Footwear. We each bought a $30 voucher for $15 since we both have a hard time shelling out big bucks for shoes. We had to make the trip quick because we had all three kids with us, so we weren't able to really search out great deals. Hubby had to pay $13.09 in overage for his Crocs tennis shoes (they look like vans) and I paid $2.31 overage (which was just tax) for my Roxy Flip flops.

Christi Kreg

CVS

Yesterday was my first visit to CVS to use my ExtraCare card and earn ExtraBucks! Before I left the house I went on CVS.com, browsed my local add and created a shopping list of items that I would use AND earned me extra bucks, or that I needed and were on sale. Then I sent the list to my phone and vowed to only buy what was on it.

I got to the store and it was quarterly earnings day, it was my first time using my card so I had no ExtraBucks coming to me but I did get two coupons. One was for $1 off Twizzlers and one for $.50 off 2 Dove bars. We don't buy candy very often in our house, but I'll hang on to them in case those items become ExtraBucks deals later and I can get them for free or next to nothing as a treat.
Below you'll find what I bought...

Things I needed and were on sale:
Toilet paper saved $2.30
Paper towels saved $4.80
Baby Formula saved $5.00 (saved $1.50 from the lowest price in my area)

Things that earned me EB:
Huggies (buy 2) +$4EB
Bandaids (buy 1) +$1EB
Dove products (spend $15) +$5EB
Colgate (buy 1) +$1EB
Pantene products (buy 2) +$2EB
Schick razor (buy 1) +$3EB

Total Spent: $104.02
Total Saved:$35.27
Total EB Earned: $14.00

I spent a good amount of money, but it was on things I needed and will use and I've earned my first batch of EB to start working on getting my next shopping trip as cheap as possible. The new add starts tomorrow, I'm excited to see what the deals are!

Christi Kreg

First Trip to CVS

CVS

A few months ago I started looking for mommy blogs about living well on a budget, in my search I found a mom that said she got all her paper goods FREE at CVS. Since paper goods take up way too much of my budget for my liking I was very intrigued by the possibility of getting them free. What I learned was that CVS has a rewards program called "ExtraCare" that rewards you with "Extra Bucks" to use on future purchases. I had no idea that the card I had declined to sign up for multiple times could've been earning me cash back with every purchase (including prescriptions). The basic premise is that the card makes it so you can take advantage of special sale prices (like most grocery stores rewards programs) and you earn 2% of what you spend back, you are awarded a coupon with that amount quarterly, in store or I believe online, to use towards whatever you purchase on your next visit. You're thinking "that's great, woohoo, whatever". BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!!! There are always deals going on that earn you instant extra EB (ExtraBucks) that can be used on your next purchase just like cash. For instance there may be a deal running that says "Spend $15 on xyz product and get $5 extra bucks". So once you earn some EB, you can use them to purchase other EB deals and get them free or for next to nothing. If you use coupons you can even earn more than you spend in some cases.

Now, the whole process sounded very confusing and convoluted to me so I spent the next month reading blogs of other people working the deals and tried to better my understanding and build my confidence in attempting my first trip.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

My quest to be a stay at home mom!

I'm starting this blog to document my journey to find the best deals, recipes and moneymakers out there to get me closer to my goal of being a stay at home mom.

First, let me tell you a little bit about me and my family and why I'm embarking on this journey. My husband and I got married in 2006 and promptly started our family. We welcomed Biggest Brother in January 2008, Little Brother came along in July of 2009, and Baby Sister, our newest addition, joined us in May 2011. With each child I had to go back to work 8 weeks after the birth and every time it got more difficult. I work 30 hours a week in a preschool setting, and love my job. The kids are lovable, my co workers are amazing and I'm good at what I do. That being said, I want more time and energy to spend with my own children during these short few years where they still think I'm beautiful, smart and fun!

Being a "stay at home mom" was never part of my original life plan, but these last 2 months home have made me realize how beneficial and important it is for my family to have more of my time and energy. Unfortunately, we live in Orange County, California...and this is where I want to stay. All of mine and Hubby's family live nearby and I'm not willing to leave the extra help (aka free babysitting and meals on occasion) or sacrifice the close and special relationship my kids have with their grandparents thanks to our close proximity.

So I'm scouring the Internet to find and test out different money saving and making opportunities and share the experience with you. Hopefully, I'll make you laugh and help you save or make money along the way too!