Menu Plan Monday 8/25/08

Monday: Chicken Wrap w/ Ranchero Sauce and Avocado Salsa, Salad

Tuesday: Pepper Rice, Crustless Fruit Tart

Wednesday: OUT

Thursday: Turkey Burgers w/ Avocado Salsa, Chips, Fruity Coleslaw

Friday: Orange Thyme Chicken Thighs, Orzo w/ Mushrooms, Hi-Enzyme Salad w/ Egg

Saturday: L: Chicken, Garlic, Mushroom and Green Onion Pizza, Raspberry Chocolate Bars

Sunday: L: Egg Ham Bake, CB Hash Browns, Grapefruit

D: Left-overs

Lunches: Mac and Cheese, Tuna Salad, Egg Toast, Fried Rice w/ Ham, Soups and Bread, Pitas,

Snacks: Pretzels, Cheese, Kefir, Blueberries, Apples, Peanut Butter Cookies, Raspberry Lemon Bread, Popcorn, Nuts

It's been a rough few weeks! I've had three illnesses in a row and the last one triggered my asthma so that it has been the worst it's ever been! I've been out of commission for a while in terms of energy and being able to do stuff. It's very frustrating to me as I like to be active. Thankfully I got an old Dr. in N. Dakota to give me a prescription that seems to be helping calm the asthma.

One advantage to having to pick up some prescriptions is that I've been able to use a couple of transferred prescription coupons for Rite-Aid and Walgreens. The other day I did one of my prescriptions at Rite-Aid and got a 30 dollar gift card. Then later I did my other prescription at Walgreens for a 25 dollar gift card. At Walgreens I used my gift card to buy each kid a toy since I also had a 5 dollar off 20 dollar purchase coupon. So I ended up getting 42 dollars worth of toys for only 13 dollars out-of-pocket! (If you don't count the gift card.) The kids were very thrilled and grateful for their new toys since I've hardly bought them any toys for a while because of trying to save money.
Yesterday I-guy and I woke up early and hit a couple of deals together. First we snagged a newspaper and went over to Starbucks to look at it and have a little breakfast. I enjoy getting out in the early mornings here as it is most always foggy and cool. We drive by the huge park by our apartment with a duck pond and most of the ducks have migrated out onto the lawns and road which they don't do during the day. I like having to stop to wait for ducks to cross and get out of the way.

I-guy was perfect company and even spotted a coupon I had missed. He brought along his newest WebKinz stuffed animal and was playing with it. About every lady we ran across thought he was so cute and a couple told him so. He gets kind of shy and embarrased by this, I think! I-guy and I also went to CVS and used the CoinStar machine and picked up a couple of things we needed. He loved feeding the coins into the machine and thought the whole thing was so neat.

MENU PLAN MONDAY 8/11/08

Monday: Cod, Rice Pilaf, Baked Spinach, Heath Vanilla Ice Cream Pie

Tuesday: HM Pizza, Veg w/ Dip, Salad, Raspberries & Blueberries w/ Chocolate Fruit Dip

Wednesday: Chinese Chicken Salad, Cheese Straws

Thursday: Chicken Nuggets, Fries, Veg w/ Dip

Friday: Steak, Baked Potatoes, Cheesy Cauliflower, 5-cup Salad

Saturday: Baja Chicken Wrap w/ Ranchero Sauce, Salad, Lemon Cookies

Sunday: Scrambled Cheesy Eggs, Cracker Barrel Hashbrown Casserole, Bacon

LO's

Lunches: Nachos and Pita Chips w/ Fruit Salsa, Mac and Tuna, Veggie Pitas, Egg Salad on Sourdough, Egg Toast, Noodles, Rice a Roni w/ Chicken

Snacks: CCC Cookies, Blueberries, Kefir, Pretzels, Pepperonis, Cheese, Carrot Cake


Lots and lots of menu plans can be found at I'm an Organizing Junkie's blog!

Last week was a rough one and so the menu plan consisted of toast, noodles and chicken soup and Gatorade. We all got some terrible stomach virus which involved all the usual fun stuff that goes along with it. (I'll spare the details). Poor little Nutty got hit the hardest and spent the week looking like this:This is very far removed from his normal active and energetic self, but I'm happy to report that he seems to be mostly back to normal. The main benefit of his not feeling well was that I got some really good snuggling time in with him and we even took a couple of naps together. He's usually too active and busy to stay in one place for long. What a sweetie!!!

Super Savings Saturday 8/2/08

This is the first time I am taking part in Super Savings Saturday over at moneysavingmom.com, a blog I have found extremely helpful in scoring deals and saving money.

Since January of this year, I have been using several techniques (that I am keeping track of on my sidebar) to save money. These include using coupons, playing the "drugstore game," shopping sales and clearances and signing up for freebies in the mail.

This picture shows about 40 dollars worth of stuff I got for free this week!! Here's a rough breakdown:

Walgreens: free-after-rebate BioInfusions shampoo and a hair treatment (11.98 value)
free-after-rebate Jane mineral powder (4.99)

CVS: free-after-ECB's CVS liners and tampons (2 pkg. each)
free Revlon blush (9.99 value) free-after-ECB's
Kotex on sale for 2.50, used 2.00 off coupon. Paid .50

Used two 3.00/1 coupons for Planters (when you buy 3 Kraft products). My 3 Kraft products were KoolAid's at 10 cents each. The Planters were on sale at the commissary for 2.00 each so I actually made money off of them!

Electrasol: used 2.25/1 coupon and got it for about .50 at Target!

We also went to an anniversary sale at our favorite local health food grocery store and got 2 full-size Bumble Bars, 2 mini-Clif bars (not shown because we ate them in the van), and two samples of Tom's of Maine toothpaste (with 1.00 off coupons) for free!

This week was also an excellent week for the mailbox. I was so exited because I got my first reward from MyPoints. For a while now I've been clicking on the emails this site sends me and doing a little of my online shopping through their site that I would've done anyway. So I was so excited to get my $25 Starbucks gift card!!

I also was happy to find out that Target sent me not one, but two $5 gift cards because I am on their mailing list and they had to withdraw a coupon they sent out for toys. (It was a $5 coupon off a $25 dollar toy purchase that had been illegally altered). The cool thing is that I had already used the toy coupon for I-guy's and Em's birthdays back in April before all this happened! I LOVE Target! Forget Walmart, I try to go to Target whenever I can!

Finally I got TWO rebate checks in the mail this week. The first one was for Zout stain remover. I am doubly happy about this one because not only was it free, but I was so happy with the results of this stain remover, I will definitely be buying it again. It worked so much better than anything I had tried before.

The other rebate check I received was for $6.99 for purchasing a hair treatment product. It has been extremely fun and exciting to discover this whole world of savings and free stuff that I barely knew existed before!

Kabe's First Pigtails!