I think Sunday nights after a long, busy weekend are the most tiring for me. As always, it was anything but dull around here.

Saturday morning I was up early and selling some of our clutter – clothes that didn’t fit anymore (up or out, we’re all growing in this house!), housewares from my old home in South Carolina (like the chef set my former sister-in-law gave me – sold the entire set for $8 – and other things that I bought one day when my former husband was kind enough to give me $100 and let me go out with some of his co-workers) and even some wedding decor (the candles I bought from World Market were very popular) at a yard sale with my co-workers. I hate getting rid of these things, because I always form some kind of emotional attachment to everything in my house, but it was time to let all of this junk go. I made $72, but only profitted $63 after buying some breakfast and a few items from my co-worker Sara (I bought a small flagship for $1 and a wall hanging for the bathroom for $4; I’ve wanted a flagship since we went on our honeymoon and the wall hanging will look great in the bathroom we’re redoing).

By noon, I was exhausted. We all packed up and left. What clothes I didn’t sell, I bagged and left for someone who asked for them (I was going to donate them anyway, might as well donate to her, right?). I came home and the rest of my family was here and napping, so I napped as well. I think we woke up about 3 p.m. or so and ate lunch (ramen!), then headed down to Bartlett (Memphis) for some shopping.

I’ve wanted curtains for a long, long time. We still have yet to put curtains up in the living room and dining room. I’ve looked for months and cannot find what I need, so I’m making them. We went down to Hancock Fabrics to search for fabric to reupholster the new chairs I bought Friday, but were lucky enough to find fabric for the living room windows too.

The above photo shows the woman cutting more than 11 yards of light linen striped fabric for the curtains. Normally priced at $9.99/yd., it was 40 percent off (so $5.99) and much less expensive than purchasing six panels at Target or Walmart. (Even the husband, who’s an accountant and very cheap, mentioned that.) Hancock’s is also having a huge 50 percent off sale; I found some pale green linen fabric with faint white stripes for the chairs. I wanted muted green and stripes and that’s exactly what I got – for $4.99/yd. We ended up also buying some of this fabric to use as a curtain to soften it up and allow us to remove the doors (because we hate the way they open).

Additionally, we bought some cording and plaited braids for the chairs and a bouquet of dried sea oats for the mantle, all of which were on sale (between 30-50 percent). Loving the sea oats! It reminds me of reading about the Cape Hatteras lighthouse and how sea oats were planted around the base to prolong the life of the lighthouse (the islands are shifting and the coast has moved in considerably since it was built in the late 1800s). Anyway.

We also stopped by Barnes & Noble so I could purchase a copy of Anne of Green Gables and a Moleskine notebook. Jaiden and I have been reading her abridged copy of Anne of Green Gables since her birthday two weeks ago; I liked it and wanted to know the rest of the story, so now Mommy’s reading it and will pass the larger book down to her if she’d like it in a few years. I bought the Moleskine because I love the one Darin bought in San Francisco to keep track of his numbers (he’s diabetic), but also because I’m already working on our anniversary gift (will be a book detailing 365 or more different reasons I love him, one for at least each day of the first year). I’m a little cheesy, I know.

We had some clothing items to hand down to Caiden & Khloe, so we stopped by my brother and Katie’s house to drop them off, then hit up Arby’s for dinner on the way home. Once everyone was asleep last night, I got busy reading about Anne; between reading and watching a movie I’d been waiting to see (The Vacation, save yourself) and a movie I loved as a teenager (Clueless!) I lost track of time and went to bed pretty late!

(PS – Friday when Darin and the kids were packing to go on their camping trip, Jaiden waltzes into Jenna & Emma’s room to tell me, “Look Mom! Puffed sleeves! Just like Anne!” In case you’ve never read it, in Anne of Green Gables, Anne makes a big deal about puffed sleeves for several chapters after Marilla’s made her some pretty plain dresses. lol. I thought it was cute and sweet of her to remember that! She’s comprehending our reading, apparently.)

All day Saturday I kept waiting for this unbearable pain after the root canal. I was a little bit achy on Friday, just headachy though, so I didn’t take the Hydrocodone prescribed; Saturday morning I took some Advil because I was, again, feeling achy. I’m still waiting though. I have yet to be in pain.

This morning Darin was kind enough to let me sleep in! Normally I’m up and awake, but this morning I was not. I woke up after 9 a.m. and found that Jenna was covered in a rash. We decided not to go to church and tried to figure out what was going on with her. She has about 30 bug bites and a rash on her cheeks, arms and legs that looks like eczema (Jaylen had it very badly as a toddler). I gave her some Motrin, put her in the shower and washed her with Cetaphil and also lathered some 1% Hydrocortisone all over her and that worked for a good bit. She has scratched the bites really badly. Last night I put a baking soda paste on them, but that didn’t work too long.

For the most part today, we’ve just hung around the house. I went through and organized my coupons, clipped more, loaded my electronic coupons to my Kroger card, made our menu plan for this week, went shopping, picked up Emma, put groceries away, made dinner (took forever!), recovered one of the seat pads and cleaned up the kitchen tonight. Darin mowed the grass, ran errands, did some laundry, took down the mirror and other items in the bathroom we’re painting, tried to change the lightbulbs in our bedroom fixture and broke it, did the dishes, etc.

I’ve signed up to participate in the All You Magazine Grocery Challenge. Basically, it’s a challenge to see if you can feed your family for $100 a week, or for $25 per family member for those of us with more than four people in our brood. I’m totally up for the challenge, even though I believe the rules are a little too vague (i.e. someone could feel their family ramen for four weeks and totally win). But hey, I’ll be a good sportsman.

Tomorrow the challenge begins! Because we have six people in our family, I wonder if we’re allotted $150? Since we only have Emma half time, Darin and I decided we’d go with $137.50 as our goal each week. This includes lunches and eating out and everything, so I’m definitely going to have to watch my little pennies and habits! I went to the grocery store today and spent $127.35 total – including toilet paper, plastic plates and cups for our upcoming camping trip – and saved $40.86!

Doing this took a lot of research, I have to say. lol. It took HOURS to figure out our meal plan based on what was on sale and what electronic coupons I could find (if you didn’t know, because I didn’t before last weekend, you can download coupons to your Kroger Plus card account AND use the paper coupons on top of them!).

I went to Cellfire, P&Ge, Shortcuts.com, eCoupons and UPromise (needed to update – haven’t done it in FIVE YEARS) to download coupons, then clipped coupons too. My Kroger also doubles coupons up to 60 cents (hey, every little bit helps!).

This is our meal plan this week:

Sunday – Turkey taco burgers, grilled corn, refried beans; chocolate angel food cake & strawberries for dessert
Monday – Roast sticky chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans
Tuesday – Mushroom pork chops, brown rice, carrots
Wednesday – Hot dogs & cheddar brats, french fries
Thursday – Garlic & lime chicken, rotini pasta, asparagus
Friday – Blueberry or chocolate chip pancakes, fruit, bacon, eggs
Saturday – (breakfast) cereal, berries and toast; (lunch) takeout or peanut butter & jelly sandwiches (we’ll be on the road); weenie/brat roast, chips, s’mores

A considerable amount of these items we already had on-hand: turkey, taco seasoning, cheese, hamburger buns, refried beans, chicken, spices, instant mashed potatoes (mix leftover from another recipe), green beans, brown rice, carrots, brats, french fries, more chicken, rotini pasta, blueberries, chocolate chips, bacon, fruit-flavored syrup for pancakes, bread, some chips, and marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers for s’mores (leftover from our rehearsal dinner). Some of these items are leftover from recipes that weren’t made last week and some are from stockpiling, like the green beans (Kroger had case sales a few months ago).

When I purchased items today, many of them were things that will last us more than this week. I always buy a loaf or two of Honey Wheat bread and one or both go in the freezer. I almost always buy pasta sauce (didn’t this time, though), milk, eggs, etc. Yogurt was on sale, so I bought a ton of it; same story with cereal (which, they are having a great sale on General Mills cereals right now and there are $1 off coupons floating around, along with $1.50 coupons from the register).

For Monday, we have no out of pocket costs for our meals because for breakfast Emma will eat Pop-Tarts or pancakes we already had, for lunch Darin and I will have either leftovers (him) or little pizzas (me) that were purchased last weekend and our meal will consist of items purchased last weekend also (we skipped it for some reason last week). Tuesday’s dinner will cost a total of $8.31 ($1.66 each for 5 people), because we already had the brown rice (though I did buy more) and carrots. Wednesday we’re looking at $1 for the package of hot dogs (already had the brats, buns and french fries; hot dogs are 10 for $10 at Kroger). Thursday will cost $1.41 for the asparagus (a whopping total of 28 cents per person for 5 people!) because we’re using chicken we had leftover from the package opened on Monday, plus minced garlic and limes already in our fridge and pasta that’s already in the pantry. Friday will be the most expensive dinner yet – I had to buy Bisquick ($3.59, but saved $1.20 through a 60 cent coupon that was doubled), fruit (strawberries at 2 for $3, bananas for $2.21, Bing cherries for $4.28 and free blueberries from our freezer) and eggs (2 dozen at $1 each, currently on 10 for $10) – but of course we will not use the entire box of Bisquick or eat all of the fruit or eggs at one meal, so Darin will have to help me prorate that (he’s a brainiac when it comes to math, I swear). Then Saturday … wow. Saturday we’ll have cereal (got 24- and 25-ounce boxes for $2.99 each, plus another $1 off for buying 3 boxes; saved a total of $10.80 and they would have normally cost $18.77!) with milk, the remaining fruit, toast with butter and so on. I had to buy everything except most of the chips, s’mores, peanut butter and jelly for this day. I’m sure we’ll probably have snacks too. This will be our toughest day!

I’m excited about the challenge though. It will help to reign in some of our spending, even though I do a pretty good job as it is with the grocery bill. This time, in addition to some household supplies, I also bought the 3 for $11 12-packs of Diet Coke for Darin, an expensive spice to replenish my supply, cereal, a lot of yogurt (I think a dozen for us plus two packages for the kids) and then the stupid cherries (not happy with them – tried to seed them earlier – it’s the pits, pardon the pun!).

And as I’ve mentioned earlier, I’ve also updated my UPromise account in hopes of saving some money for these kids for college. I know it’s not required, but we’d like to help the kids earn an education as much as we can, but with four it’s going to be difficult. I sent invites to the grandmas in hopes they will also register their debit cards and Kroger cards; doesn’t cost anything, just gives rewards for shopping.

If you’ve made it this far, God bless you. I know it’s a lot and it’s boring at that! lol. Just wanting to share our adventures in grocery shopping and how we’re trying to save money. When you think about how much money we saved, it’s almost like getting the cereal, milk and all of the fruit for free!

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