Cookies in the oven

Hi there!  I haven't posted anything in a while. I named this The Mom Show because I wanted to post about various things that I, as a mom, do with and for my child and family.  Today, we baked and decorated sugar cookies and had a great time.

See, every once in a while, my daughter and I will go to the store, we will buy refrigerated cookie mix (sometimes we do make them from scratch, but she has much more fun decorating them than anything else, and buying refrigerated dough helps us get there quicker..), icing, sprinkles, sometimes chocolate chips, etc.. we get the ovens baked, and than she spends hours decorating them all..  It is so much fun.. In fact, last year, for Christmas, we baked sugar cookies and made homemade ornaments, (I will post a blog about how to do those a little closer to the holidays) and that's what we sent to friends and families as Christmas gifts.. (I baked some other goodies in there too..)   See, it's good because she is SO interested in what I do in the kitchen.. She is always so interested in what I'm cooking and how, that I like to involve her whenever I can..  Which isn't nearly as much as she'd like, given that she's only three.  It's also like an awesome art project for her also.   See, neither my husband or I are really big on sugar cookies..  (and we are both trying to diet right now..) So we usually end up giving some away to someone..  So, I am involving her in my cooking, which she loves, she gets to use her creativity, and we are usually able to brighten someone else's day also..  It's a win-win-win..

Free samples and coupon codes. Saving money online!

I have talked quite a bit so far about my couponing adventures, but I also wanted to share something else that I do quite normally, and that is online shopping............for free samples.  I LOVE doing this.  There are a TON of blogs and websites that devote their time to sharing tons of free sample links every day.  A quick google search and you will have a whole free sample shopping spree right at your fingertips.. and another really great part is that a lot of these samples also come with coupons for the products you're sampling... it's a win win!! I am someone who LOVES shopping, but I hate the buyers remorse that comes along with it (for me). So every so often, I will go online and order a ton of samples.  And then, for the next several weeks, it's like Christmas whenever  I walk down to my mail box to see what samples may have arrived today.

Coupon codes..  I LOVE shopping online..  And I love coupons.. so I NEVER shop online without first googling coupon codes for the website that I want to shop at.  For example, we want to get my cat a new cat tree.. so we looked at amarkat.com.  Upon finding one that we wanted, I immediately went to google, and typed in "amarkat coupon codes" and found a coupon for 10% off purchase plus free shipping!!  Seriously... NEVER shop online without doing this!! It's such an easy way to save money!!

Please follow and recommend this blog!

Hi everyone! I know I haven't checked in in a while.. I have been SO busy.. We are in the process of building our first home, and we close in less than a month and a half, so we are busy selecting all of the things that go inside, such as cabinets, countertops, appliances, etc etc.. It is SUCH an exciting yet busy project.. I am also desperately trying to ensure that we're not packing our entire home the day before we move.. So I am trying to get this blog started and really make it something good, and I will continue to do so, but please bear with me.. However, if you've liked it so far, please follow!! And tell others also!! Please feel free to add comments with what you'd like to see me write about.. I'm always up for a challenge, and if you comment asking for a particular subject, I WILL write about it!

Small blessings... (Another story about my beloved coupon binder.)

So... I have posted twice now about saving money and my new coupon binder that I am SO proud of... Well, after my last CVS trip, I thought I had misplaced it somewhere because I haven't been able to find it.. Now, keep in mind, that I had just spent hours clipping coupons and setting this up just perfectly. I was so psyched to have it, and it was working out so well (It has already paid for itself in savings three times over!!) so I was really heartbroken not to have it.

I called CVS this morning, and they said that it wasn't in their lost and found, but to call back in the evening and they'd look for it. Well, I called this evening, and lo and behold, they do, in fact have my binder.. I was so psyched.. Like I said.. Small blessings..

Online opportunities

Hi there everyone! I just wanted to share a few opportunities I have found online (there will probably be similar posts like this one in the future, I am just sharing two that I am using tonight, and as a result are on the forefront of my mind)

The first one is a website called Superpoints. It's a website that you can play a game called superlucky button, and win points, you also get points for referrals, and by completing offers. The points can be used for gift cards to awesome places (Amazon and Best Buy are a couple of popular ones.), or cash via paypal. It's easy and actually kind of fun! This website only allows people to sign up using a referral link, so if you're interested, and someone else has already snatched up the link am sharing right now, (you get a new link per referral) send me an email, or put your email address in the comments and I will get you a new link.

Here's the link for Superpoints Network: http://superpoints.com/wrpgs/s7s5z0

As I said before, this particular link is only good for one person, so feel free to contact me for another one, and I will be more than happy to provide one.

The other one I wanted to share with you is great for those of us who want to do a little bit of work at home. You can find any kind of freelance work. You can also earn money through referrals on this site also, but there are so many other opportunities here that you won't need to worry about that. It's called Elance. If you can write, do data entry, or any number of other things you can do from home, you can look for work whenever you wish.

I hope that someone is able to benefit from the two websites that I just shared.

Here's the link for Elance. http://www.elance.com/?rid=2289L

Saving money!

I have to post on this again. Now that I'm starting to get good at using coupons, I am wondering why I didn't start this before!!! There was a time when we were slightly worse off financially, and I could have saved an abundant amount of money by doing what I'm doing now.

Today I went to CVS.. I didn't pay a penny for hundreds of dollars of groceries like you see on the Extreme Couponing show, but I did only spend about 50 percent of what I would have without a little bit of planning. Let me show you exactly what I did today to save money so that hopefully you can do the same. Like I said, I'm haven't mastered shopping for free. (I understand the concept completely, but I am still working on building my coupon collection, and I don't have the space in the apartment I am currently living in to do it. But here is today's shopping trip for us (keep in mind, that I already did my weekly grocery shopping trip the other day, and today I only needed some odds and ends, and I added in some things that I knew I could get good deals on.

This stuff all rung up to an initial total of $45.25. With coupons and my CVS customer reward card, I only spent $22.26, saving $22.99. That's right, over 50 percent. I also accumulated $3 in Extrabucks by buying things that gave them. This is awesome to pay attention to, and I'll explain how further into this. Here's how the sale went.

They had a sale on the dawn dish soaps for .99 each. I had two coupons for any size dawn dish soap. One was $1 off one, and the other was .20 off one. So, 1.98 initially turned into .39 each, or only .78.

CVS had a sale on General Mills cereal at three for $6. 00 I also had a $1.00 off three, making them three for $5.00, or 1.67 each.

The three twix bars, I had a coupon for one free twix bar, and CVS was doing a sale for buy two get one free, so I paid the price for one, and got two free. The thing to remember in situations like these, is to give your customer rewards card before you hand over your coupons, or this kind of sale might not work.

The toothpaste was on sale for $3.99, I had a $1.50 off coupon. This made the out of pocket cost of the toothpaste $2.49. This product also gives you $1.50 in Extra bucks, so it's like paying .99.

The two boxes of ziplock bags were on sale for two for $5.00, I had a $1.00 off two, making it two for $4.00 out of pocket, but there was also a .50 Extra bucks reward for each one, making them $1.50 each.

The finish dishwasher detergent was on sale for $2.49, and there was a .50 Extra Bucks reward on that also.

The two sodas, I bought at full price simply because I wanted them.

There is an in depth description of how I managed to pay half of my cost at CVS today. The Extra bucks that I kept writing about are awesome. CVS is basically giving you money back on certain items that can be used again in the store. This is an another awesome way to save money.

Coupons

Hi again!!

I said I was going to write about the coupon binder I was working on.. Well, it was finished the other day.. Using baseball card holders, a zippered binder, dividers, and over 700 clipped coupons, I organized my coupons in a way that I would be able to easily search them whenever I went to the grocery store.

Now, it came out looking great! It was nice and organized just the way I wanted it, and it was just the way I pictured it. It was beautiful, and between all of my other daily parenting responsibilities, it took me hours (A large chunk of that was just clipping all of my coupons that weren't clipped yet..) and I was really proud of it.. But, that doesn't mean anything if it doesn't work.. So I knew I wouldn't be satisfied until I actually got to go shopping, so, I tried to go to Walgreens to see if I could get anything for an extremely low cost.. My daughter was with me, so I had to concentrate on her, and she was deciding not to behave properly on this particular day, and, regrettably, I told her that if she didn't listen, that we were going to leave and go right home (I had promised her a trip to the park afterward if she had behaved herself.). Well, needless to say, she did exactly what I was telling her not to (in this instance, it was standing in the shopping cart) so I turned the shopping cart around, and than we walked out of the store and back home..... That's OK though.. I have been looking through the CVS flier, and I have a feeling that I will face some MUCH better money saving situations there.

Today, however, I went to Harris Teeter to pick up some our groceries. Now, normally, I will spend a considerable amount of time going through the sales ad and my coupons comparing prices and deals.. On this particular day, I honestly didn't have the opportunity that I thought I would to do that. So, I blindly grabbed my binder, and went into the store with my daughter. Now, I still spent $118. BUT, I got a lot of meat, two large containers of Tidy Cats cat litter, and some other usually really expensive items. Without any planning, in a little bit of a hurry, and with my three year old in tow, I still managed to save over $45. In this one (though slightly disappointing, since I honestly thought I'd save more on my first trip... this is the importance of planning) I saved enough to justify the cost of the binder and its contents twice. I am pumped to do this with a little more planning next time!

First post

    Hi there!  My name is April, and I have decided to try my hand at blogging professionally..  I am going to try my hand at blogging about various things that moms have to deal with on a daily basis.. As a mom, and someone who wanted to try my hand at some kind of work that I could do from home, I decided to take up blogging, and what better to blog about than the things that I am doing on a daily basis.  Especially since so many other people are also doing the same things, facing the same issues, and hoping for the same results at the end of the day.
    I am going to write daily, and hope for followers.  I will write about money saving tips, craft ideas, and other fun activities that both you and your children will enjoy.  
     The first thing I will share with you, is a craft that I recently did with my three year old.  Here is the photo of the one crafted by her own hands. (with perhaps a little help from mom.)

We made a bird.  We used feathers, pop poms, pipe cleaners, beads and some glue.  We had two different sized pom poms, glued the smaller one in front of the larger one, and than we took two beads, (you can use some of those squiggly eyes that they sell, but we had beads on hand so we used those) and glued them onto the smaller pom pom for eyes.  We also used a yellow pipe cleaner, cut it into three pieces, two larger and one smaller.  The smaller one, we bent in to an approx. 45 degree angle, and glued the ends under the eyes to form a beak.  The two larger ones, we folded feet into the bottom of each, and glued them to the bottom of the larger pom pom.  We had craft feathers, the bag had a few different sizes, so we took four larger ones, and glued two to each side of the bird (we put glue on the ends, and than pushed them in between the head and body) and two smaller ones, that we glued to the bottom end of the bird.  Now, my daughter just wanted SO badly to play with her new creation, but we had to wait for the glue to dry.  It was fairly fragile before the glue dried, so make sure you keep that in mind.  Another thing to remember, (let me rephrase that, here's something you can learn from my mistake)  My daughter and I are going to have to make another one of these, because apparently, our cat LOVED it.  I woke up in the morning to find the feathers all over the floor, and the bird in pieces on our cat tree.  Keep this in mind if you have pets.  


This was today's project to share with you.  I am so excited for what I'm about to share with you tomorrow.  I have started really trying to budget and save money with couponing.  I recently ordered all of the things to make a good coupon organization system.  I will share it with you tomorrow!