Saving on groceries

I have been playing a fun game for a little over a year now. It's called The Grocery Game. It is a service I subscribe to that saves my family tons on our groceries and cuts my time in the store way down. I pay to get a list every week of what is on sale at the grocery store and which coupons have been in the paper that go with it, along with internet coupons and store specials. It sounded odd at first to pay to get a list to help save money, but for 8 weeks of one store's list I pay $10. I save more than that in one trip! I also have started buying 3-5 newspapers a week to get more coupons to use. I have had to change my thoughts on shopping and meal planning to stockpiling and making meals with what I've got on hand, but we're spending far less each month on our groceries. I typically only spend about $50 a week on groceries, and that often includes disposable diapers!

Here's a great example of how I've saved. This week at Kroger, I paid $39.17 for the following items:

6 boxes of tissues
5 boxes of pancake mix
10 cans of evaporated milk
3 boxes of cheez-its
4 bags of tater-tots/french fries
1 jug of flavored cream
1 bottle of olive oil
10lbs of potatoes
3 bags of frozen lightly sauced veggies and pasta
2 bags of mixed frozen veggies
1 frozen pizza
3 tubs of spreadable butter
1 lb baby carrots

Value for the above: $117.59--that's a savings of 66 percent!!

Birthday boy!

Nathanael turned four!! We have been blessed by God to have four years with our son. He had fun with his friends. Using Forest's huge work van we took some friends to the dollar theater to see the movie "Up" and have cake and ice cream at the house.

Cake and ice cream was a big hit and he blew his candles out in one try:

They had fun playing with his new things along with some old favorites:

New House

So many of you know we've been looking to make Louisville our more permanent home. We have finally found a house we would like to raise our family in.

It's pretty on the outside. It even looks good with Forest's work truck in the driveway. It's a bi-level (a favorite for our Florida boy) with a big fenced yard. There's plenty of room for our family as it grows and great potential to be molded into the home we would like, as you can see:

The stairwell from the inside, looking at the open front door, we even get to pick banisters as well as flooring. The large living room looks out on the front yard

View of the kitchen from the dining room.

The main bathroom off the hallway will require the least work in order to be usable immediately, mostly a change of wall-covering.

What will become the kids' rooms. The first one is closest to the bathroom and has a broken window pane, and the second is at the corner of the house and is long and narrow but bigger than the other one.

Master bedroom window needs quite a bit of attention too

The master bath has immediate needs, but at least all the leaks have already been fixed and much of the demo has been done.

Basement with fireplace and lovely panneling, and right now a huge projection tv that aparently works somewhat. The window that looks out at the front yard has a barn-like feel to it.

We think they had a bar here in the basement next to the glass sliders, complete with a keg tap and sink. This will be one of the first things to be taken out of the basement.

basement bathroom will be usable immediately as well

Garage, complete with Wal-Mart cart, two refrigerators, and pile of yard clippings.

View of the back yard out the basement sliding glass door.

So hopefully we'll be getting a closing date soon and Forest can begin working on shaping and molding (and removing mold) it into a great place for our children to grow up in.

We love music around here. Recently we started listening to Andrew Peterson and his kid's cd Slugs & Bugs & Lullabies. There's a fun song sung to a baby about getting burps out, called "Burp, Burp, Chicken Wiggle" here's Talitha dancing to one of her favorites:

Also on that album is a song about several vehicles and what they do called "Tractor Tractor". Hannah likes this one and is singing, "Carriage, carriage, going to the ball" while wearing her goggles.