What more can you ask for?

So I went to Kroger. Again. They're still having their Mega Event Sale, so I wanted to take advantage of some of the good deals we'd gotten last weekend. Like....

Getting fruit cups for 1.25 a package (Abbie eats 2-3 of these things each day at preschool b/c it's one of the easiest ways for me to get fruit in her while she's at school 8 hours a day)
3 packs of Horizon chocolate Milk for 1.99 (again, a favorite for preschool lunches/snacks)
Sliced and crushed pineapple (perfect for fruit salads we love) for $1
100% Grape and Apple Juice for Abbie- 1.29
100% Orange Juice for 2.27
Sliced tomatoes for .45 (stocked up b/c I can use them in sooo many recipes!)
Lunch meat- I can't remember how much it was, and my receipt is confusing me, but it was cheap :)
Bread
Dog treats- Because I have three of them and they're crazy. It's a great way to keep them off of me while we play. :P
Vitamin waters that Jeremy, Abbie, and I can all take while we're on-the-go all week long.
And a few other random items

I saved 30.32 and spent 37.90. And yes, I probably could have saved much more if I had combined some of the deals with coupons. But I preferred to be in and out (which I was, suprisingly! :)) and be on with my day.
So 20 minutes and $38 later, we left the store having one incredibly successful shopping trip under our belt. Abbie stayed in the cart the entire time and I'm almost done grocery shopping for the week- What more can you ask for?

And oh yeah, I got gas for 3.36 a gallon, and that wasn't even with rewards built up :) :) :)

20% of the way there!!!! YAY!

So just a month or two ago, I reported that we had all of .01% towards our down payment. I am happy to report that we are getting closer and closer... and are now sitting with 20% of our minimum down payment!!!!

There are still plenty of balls in the air. Jeremy is flying to Orlando this week to begin what will hopefully be a promotion very soon. I will be going back to school in just a few short weeks and subsequently making decisions about my work schedule. So we'll see how all that pans out. Unfortunately, my school schedule (and availability) can change as late in the game as the school decides and can, of course, throw my life into utter chaos. So we'll see. :)
A month ago we were at .01%. Today we're at 20%. Who knows where we'll be a month from now...

We're tentatively planning on buying at the beginning of the year. The reasoning is, even without any income (albeit Mary Kay :)) from my end (because I'll be student teaching)... we can swing it at that point of the year without any worries about money being tight.

But then again, I have found a house that I am afraid I'm going to love entirely too much when I meet with our realtor tomorrow to see it. :)

So we'll see. We shall see.

Still Trying to Save on Groceries...

I'd consider this a pretty good week of grocery shopping. I ventured to Kroger for the first time in quite awhile because they were having one of their "Mega Event Sales" where you buy 10 participating items and save $5.00 at the register. I did not use any coupons, although a lot of the items you can use coupons on. But couponing just takes me too much time at this point in life.
So I went to couponmom, selected Kroger, and found items that I needed and that were on the list of items for the Mega Sale event. I really like this event because they pick a LOT of items to participate, and they're not expensive items. For example, 2 of my 10 items were under $1. And really, you could stock up on some things for free.
For example, they had .45 cans of Hunt's Tomato Sauce. So if you bought ten, you'd technically be owed .50 (99% sure they don't pay you, but you'd still get them for free!)
Or you could get 10 boxes of Pasta-Roni or Rice-a-Roni for 2.90! :)

But I stocked up on a variety of things- Orange Juice, Soy milk, Yogurt, Cheeses for Abbie's lunches, granola bars, organic chocolate milk, and quite a few other things. I also scored 3 poster paints for my classroom from their clearance section! :)

31 items, 14.60 saved, and only 30.00 spent! Not bad! :)

Then we hopped on over to ALDI and stocked up on other essentials to get us through the week:
Bread
Fruit cups and other fruit
Grape Juice for the Abbster
Applesauses
Cherries- cus they make a yummy snack for me :)
LOTS of cat food - dry and wet- because we have 3 cats, including a diabetic who has to have high-protein food.
Toothbrushes for me :)
Cat litter
Waffles because they've become my saving grace as Abbie and I are running out the door 15 minutes late every morning :-P
And other items that I don't remember right now.


I spent 37.00 for a grand total of 67.00 on groceries this week.

More Savings At Aldi....

I gotta say.... I'm lovin Aldi. Real quickly, I'll share what we picked up this week. :)

For snacks:
Beef hot dogs for Abbie
2 cans of crushed pineapple
Cherries (my favorite! :D :D)
Baby carrots
2 chicken pot pies
Frozen vegetable egg rolls... Never tried them before, they look yummy!
8 fruit bowls in light syrup

For dinners/meals:
2 Salisbury steak dinners (for mommy to pop in the oven and not have to worry about after working all day ;))
Turkey for lunches
3 loaves of whole wheat bread (at .50 a piecce, thank you!)
Crinkled french fries that will go great with the hot dogs and burgers we have tonight!
2.33 pounds of chicken

For breakfast:
2 cartons of Orange juice
A 10-pack of waffles
Indiivudally wrapped mini muffins for Abbie
Gallon of milk


MISC:
4 pack of toilet paper
Disinfectant wipes
100% pure apple juice

Grand total: less than $42 :D

Changing the American Dream....

As I sat with Abbie the other night and she told me the things she wanted to pray about that evening, I had a revelation. WHAT exactly am I chasing? Why am I in such a hurry to get all of these things done now? I'm finishing my degree; my husband is moving up in his career. Our first child is just barely 3 years old. We've got enough going on without adding the stress expanding our family, buying a home, and trying to achieve all of our life goals before the age of thirty. So I decided to slow it down a bit.
I know some of you may have figured this out many moons ago. But I tend to be the type of person who always has to have SOMETHING to work on. And buying a home was what I was currently stuck on.
And we're still working on it. But just at a slower pace. I've decided to put our energy and efforts into where we're at now, which is a plenty good space for us. I'll work on making that feel more like home instead of insisting we buy a NEW home. I'll paint and decorate and do lots of things I haven't done for the last 2 years b/c I've never viewed this as our permanent place. and I still don't. But I finally realized that we are incredibly blessed and if I'd just take a minute to sit back and enjoy what we've got, I wouldn't be in such a hurry to chase after something else.
So those are my words of wisdom for today.
The blog will go on... We're still chasing many dreams in our life, including our first home. But the blog will also take a different turn, as we come to accept that we'll probably be where we're at for a little while longer. :)

Snow-Balling and Progress

So I mentioned that we had already taken steps to pay off our credit card debt. And while we've never studied the Dave Ramsey plan, I'm a huge fan of his snow-balling technique. And for those who care, that's what I plan to do with some more of our current debt so that I can get us right where we want to be before taking on a mortgage. :)
My goals are to get our oldest car paid off first (which sits at about a $6000 balance right now). Right now, that means a good 17-18 months left on the loan. I'd love to get it paid off in 8-10. And I'm not gonna lie- figuring out those numbers scare me a little. :-P
We DO carry a small balance right now on one credit card, and I plan on having that paid off in 2-3 months.
We'll save a little by not paying $185/ month for preschool this summer, so I'll try and stash anywhere from $150-$200 or more away each month from that. :) And all of that will go towards the down payment fund.

And for those of you who are wondering just how close we are to obtaining our 1st portion of that American Dream... We are currently at .84% of our minimum down payment goal. LOL. I know, I know... It's less than 1%. But you gotta start somewhere, right? Right?

YAY For Changes!!!

So, lots of changes for our family this week! I got a job! A real, clock-punching, doing something I love to do job. It has been almost 2 years since I have worked for someone else. But I have to say, this job is so perfect for me that I'm not worried at all. I'm just so excited to be teaching and to have the opportunity to take money and set it aside for our house and our future. Plus, Abbie will be right there in the same school with me. It's perfect. :D

In other news, I spent less than $60 on groceries for the next week or two. AND it only took us like an hour to do all of our shopping (thank you, ALDI, for setting up shop right next to Wal-mart). That's how I like my grocery shopping- Cheap and easy.



Have a great day!
Melissa