Happy March!

I'm so glad to see we only have a few more weeks left of winter. I think we did pretty well this year so far with not much snow. We did have a stint of freezing temps, but overall we made out well. Hopefully Spring will be here soon and we'll really get to enjoy it!

This is a big month for us. Our little lovebug turns 6 months tomorrow. I can't believe how fast time has flown! She amazes me more and more each day.

I will be travelling for work this month, my first time away from my family. I know I will be okay and will miss her like crazy. It's a short trip and I'm on the east coast so won't be too bad. I am looking forward to sleeping in a bit though, at least for one morning!

With March I've created some new goals to achieve. Last month I wanted to incorporate a fitness schedule and began using one that was focused on Abs. While it would have been a good challenge if I did other workouts, it just wasn't working for what I eventually wanted to do. This month I am challenging myself to work out 14 times. With my travel schedule, I think 14x is fair since I know I won't workout while I'm away. I am only looking to do 30 minute videos, which is very possible to do. If I do more than 14 times so be it, but my goal is 14. I know this will in turn help me lose weight faster which I would like to do. Baby steps!

My other goal is to not spend more than $50 a week at the supermarket and that includes formula. I will allow myself to carry money over from one week to the next, but this will be tough! I will have to be a bit more strategic with this. I do very well with coupons, but I feel as though I spend frivously while food shopping. I buy it because it's on sale and a I have a coupon, not because it's something we necessarily need. I think this will cut down on our grocery bill a lot. We really only need produce weekly. I stock up on meats when they are on sale. (I'm about $80 away from my free ham or turkey. Not sure what I will select.) I also need to do a better job of eating what we already have in the freezer. We have 2 freezers stocked with stuff that I can make for meals. No excuses to buy more stuff unless it's a necessity. I spent $43 yesterday so I'll take that leftover $7 and use it for next week, giving me $57. I only plan to buy 1 coldcut, milk and produce. We're stocked on cereal, yogurt, canned goods, etc. I'll have to find a very cheap corned beef either at ShopRite or King Kullen but I can hold off on that until at least the following Friday.

This should be a fun challenge!

February, a month to remember

I haven't blogged much this month, although we've had a lot going on. It's been a busy month to say the least and March will be just as busy. And nothing is better than planning to avoid choas and slip ups!

We started off the month saying goodbye to a family member. Kenny's step-grandfather passed away at the end of January and we buried him on February 1st. We had a major snowstorm that crippled most of Long Island. We only had about a foot by us and the city didn't get much at all. Further east had upwards of 3 feet. It wasn't Abby's first snow storm (her first was the N'oreaster that hit 10 days after Hurricane Sandy) but it was her first time I put her in the snow. Abby also had her first cold the same weekend as her first swim lesson and baptism. She did so well at swimming and seems to love it!

I got a bit lazy with my preplanning cooking this month. I didn't plan the week before so I didn't know what to cook come Sunday and when I figured things out, I wasn't able to cook much because everything needed to defrost. With this I also saw a gain on the scale this past week. Granted it was a .2, but still a gain when I want to go in the other direction. Hopefully this Friday I'll see it go back down again.

I've done well in terms of saving too. I've followed the 52 week savings plan to a T and will be depositing the money into Abby's account soon. I wanted to make sure I had a decent amount before making the deposit. As the weeks progress I'll be making deposits more frequently.

My monthly goal of not spending anything on extras went to the wayside. Since I didn't plan well, I ended up buying lunch 2x last week and need to buy lunch for today. I will have leftovers from dinner tonight to eat tomorrow for lunch. I also bought a Groupon deal for music classes for Abby and we got her a LOL Elmo. I did say she wouldn't get it until she rolled over though HA! All in all, I didn't spend a lot, but I wanted to spend nothing and I failed.

My 7 week goal of no meat crockpot hasn't turned out too well either. I've had no ambition to find recipes to make that are meatless. What I should have done is change it to a different day during the week or had the crockpot going Sunday so we at least had a meal done. I still have another month to make meatless meals on Fridays and I've already adjusted my next week's meal plan to include a crockpot meal that we will eat on a different night.

I've started thinking of some goals I'd like to do for March and will get those in order before I post them!

Lots to learn with couponing

Knowing that CVS was offering a lot of ExtraCare Bucks on certain purchases, I decided to give it a whirl to see how good I would do. My goal was to spend the least amount of money possible. I screwed up and could have saved more, but lesson learned. This stuff takes time. This is what I went in for:

Spend $30 on specific P&G products get $10 ECB
Buy Colgate Optic Whitening get $2.50 ECB

I had coupons for:
$3 off one Gillette cartridge (included in deal) and one razor
$2/2 Pantene products
$1/1 Robitussin
$5 off $25 purchase

I scanned my ExtraCare card when I got into the store and got coupons for:
$1.50 off $5 shampoo, conditioner, styling products (not salon)
$2.50 off Colgate Optic Whitening Toothpaste

I put the following items in my basket:
Gillette cartridge (P&G deal)
Gillette razor
Pepto Bismol (P&G deal)
Robitussin
3 Pantene conditioners (P&G deal)
2 Cadbury eggs

I really should have read the info on the ECB a bit more carefully. I thought I would be able to do this no problem, but it didn't happen that way. I ended up spending about $32 out of pocket. I did end up with some free stuff, but I could have done better. I think my issue was that in my first transaction I only had about $28 toward the P&G ECB deal and the one Gillette razor was not included in that but I had to put it with that to use my coupon. My total came to over $30 and I used the coupons (Gillette, Pantene, $5/$25, $1.50/$5) which brought me to $26 with tax. I had to ring up the Pepto separately so I could get the $10 ECB. I then had them ring up the Robitussin and Cadbury eggs, gave my coupon and had over a $5 credit. I had to get something else so I wouldn't lose the credit so I grabbed the Colgate Optic White toothpaste and then owed about $.67 at the end. I used a colgate coupon but I completely forgot about the $2.50 off coupon I got when I scanned my card! So I could have gotten something else too. I also realize I could have gotten 6 Pantene items and would have hit the $30 and would have been able to use my other Pantene coupons. I didn't need the Gillette things, but got them because of the coupon. I need to strategically plan this out better for next time.

When I got home I had 2 ibotta deals and submitted those too for an additional $2 back. I plan to go back and pick up another Colgate toothpaste and get it for free. I got another ibotta deal for it as well for $1.50.

In the end I still have that $2.50 coupon and also received an additional $5.50 in ECB to use towards my next purchase. I'll see what I can get this week. I already plan to get the Barilla microwaveable meals since I have several $1/1 coupons.

Saving money like this is fun. I enjoy figuring this stuff out! We'll see what happens next time!