Crazy Snapfish Deals

There are bunch, so be sure to check out their website today! Deals include 100 Free Prints, when you buy 2 8x10 and BOGO photobooks.

A great one for holiday shopping though, especially if you are shopping for grandparents or godparents, is buy one caledar, get two FREE! Enter 1CAL2FREE by Oct 31. Deal is for 12x12 wall calendars.

Red Envelope 70% off today birthstone necklace

Check this out! Regularly $79.95, today its $23.99!

What a great Christmas present or even birthday present...no matter what time of year the bday is!

Saving more this week

The Monkey got sick with either food poisoning from bad fruit or just a quick virus. Either way Tuesday was lost completely and today we have watched more Barney than I care to remember.

The bright side (always have to look for it) is that I didn't cook today because, in part, we had so much left over from last night. So the crockpot meal I was going to make will be bumped to next week.

As for last night's version, which I mentioned here, it turned out pretty well. Next time I will add less broth (even at half the rec'd amount it was still too soupy) and a bit more than a TB of flour. My hubby loved it though, so thats always a good sign.

Stay dry and safe, the weather outside today is insane!

Send me your deals...

...and spread throughout the Blue Patch Couch universe :) Email me or FB me deals you find and I will share as soon as The Monkey lets me!

Today's deal comes from Erin in Alabama. Get a head start on holiday shopping! Get this pink razor scooter from Amazon shipped for $24.

(thanks to couponing for disney for the original post)

Our food diet this week

In my efforts to eat what we already have, this is our menu for this week.

Tonight: hamburgers (we had the meat), paid $1.17 for buns at Harris Teeter. Total out of pocket cost: $1.17

Tuesday: crock pot recipe found online. Have never tried. Its called Salsa Chicken and Black Bean Soup.
The ingredients: 1 lb chicken (check); 2 cans of black beans (we have one that I have been dying to figure out a way to use so check); 4 cups chix broth (we have this, but I am only using 2 so as not to make so runny); 1 cup mushrooms (we didn't have so bought a package of slicked for $1.79, using half on Wednesday-see below); 1 cup frozen corn (check); 1 jar of salsa (we have almost a complete jar, so check); cumin 1 1/4 tsp cumin(check, will probably use more, I love cumin!); 1/2 cup sour cream (check); shredded Cheddar cheese to sprinkle at end (check). Total out of pocket cost, $1.79/2 = 89 cents.

Wednesday: Guinness Beef Stew in the crock pot. I have had this recipe for years. I thought it was a version of Rachael Ray's but can't find online. So here goes.
2 1/2 lbs stew meat (I have 1 lb, so am halving everything, check); 5 TBSP of flour (check); 1 tsp salt (check); 1/4 cup olive oil (check); 2 medium yellow onions (didn't have so bought for 79 cents at Trader Joes); 1 can of Guinness (check..hey we are Irish, of course we have Guinness on hand); 1 lb baby carrots (check); 1/2 eggplant (didn't have so bought for $1.49 at Trader Joes and will cook the rest shortly); 1 cup of mushrooms (see above, check); 2 cloves garlic (sorta check, I have minced garlic in the fridge so will sub this); zest of an orange (didn't have, so bought one for 69 cents); fresh parsley (subbing dried); fresh thyme (subbing dried); bay leaf (check); one stalk celery (check). If you want how to put together, email me. Total out of pocket cost: 79 cents (times 2) + $1.49 + 89 cents + 69 cents = $4.65

Thursday: leftovers from either Tues, Wed or the pizza from last week.

Friday: on the road for family wedding

Saturday: wedding dinner

Total cost (clearly not including our dinner from Sunday night): $6.71!

Planning this out helped me a lot. As I have said before I am going to try to do this more often.

Night!

October was a bust

The best part about October is that it is almost over. We blew past all our budgets! But hopefully by getting in the swing of things now this will help us come the holidays.

Last night we had an awkward moment, so to speak. We went out to dinner to celebrate a family birthday. Our meals (the 3 of us) came to about $40 with tax and tip. But since it was a celebration originally there was talk of splitting the bill 3 ways. This would have made our portion $95. I couldn't do it. I was embarrassed, yes, but I couldn't do this. I felt a bit like Phoebe (or was it Rachel) and Joey in an old Friends episode where one had a salad and was going to pay $50.

I honestly told my brother and SIL we couldnt do this. They didn't seem upset and just said pay what you could. So we chipped in for the birthday boy dinner and added extra for tax and tip. Our total was considerably less than $95, and while it was momentary embarrassment, I can deal. Having an extra $40 on Amex when we can't afford it is not a good idea. I think/hope my bros understood.

Hopefully November will be better. We have a freezer full of food so we should be able to make most meals at home. And my husband and I came to an agreement about his lunches. It understandably gets boring have a deli sandwich every day. So he can go out once a week. But if he chooses to go out twice (ala last week) then the following week he can't go out at all.

We are making headway and I firmly believe all our struggles and money saving lessons are going to help us when (and not IF) we become more financially sound.

Happy Monday!

Half off Body Shop with Groupon Today

This will go a long way at Christmas Time!

Groupon is giving away $40 worth of Body Shop products for $20! Click here for the details!

Some hard choices

I don't even remember her name. She said she was calling to collect a debt! She called from Wells Fargo, the owner of our first mortgage.

Let's establish some facts:
1. We have never missed a payment
2. We have an above 800 credit score
3. WF has repeatedly refused to refinance or modify us for reasons that escape me.
4. WF has tried to put us in short sale but we don't want this - see #1.
5. There is no amount of stupid juice we can ever drink to make up for the utterly stupid decision we made to buy our condo in 2005 with two loans. This is far and away the stupidist decision we ever made. Makes my idea of cutting my own bangs in grade school look genius!

Apparently we have been assessed a $75 fee for our attempts to modify or refinance! They have some nerve. We earn significantly less than we did when we were both employed, childless and applied for our mortgage. They won't help us, refuse to, but they will charge us $75 for exploring our options. And the only option they can come up with is offering us a short sale.

The poor woman who made the call experienced my full wrath. Its not her fault her company sucks! She definitely made her salary today, and then some.

Its increasingly clear I will have to go back to work and this makes me very sad. I really don't want to. I enjoy playing with our monkey. Today he realized I wasnt wearing shoes when I ran out to put out the garbage as the truck came in our court. Don't go out with no shoes Mommy! That made my day.

He is 2 and a total joy. He tells me all kinds of stories and remembers that Connor gave him a tractor and he thanked him. Tonight he remembered that he saw Otters with Grandma and PopPop. I don't want to miss this time. But the reality is living in DC area is prohibitively expensive. We simply can't make ends meet on one salary, especially if we are going to have to pay Wells Fargo (who despite what all their ads say, is not WITH US all the way) $75, not to mention pay my doctor $120 for having to go see her after the monkey gave me strep in May. Lucky us, that bill arrived today.

I don't know what I will do. I know I don't want to do anything and that will be hard to cover. I have the best job and I hate losing it.

Making some progress

This week has been challenging. Some unexpected things came up (I guess they always do), and we are headed to Baltimore for the weekend, so this will clearly eat into our gas money.

First, the good. Its Friday, and we have spent $70 on food. With one day left, I am fairly confident that while we will be over our $85 total for food and gas, it won't be insane like it has the last week.

Second, I wrote that I signed up for Mint.com last week. Well so far I am loving it. It shows you everything in real time. So I know exactly how much we have in savings, expenses everything. It is tracking all of our deposits, way to save transfers and food. Its annoying that when I budgeted $41 for home insurance it sends me a big red flag alert that I went over when it was actually $41.26. I will fix that.

This month with daycare now out of the picture we should save $400. That will be a nice chunk of change. I found out yesterday by talking to Verizon if we dump my husband's cell phone we can save up to $65/month. Apparently his company can take over the number since they give him a cell anyway so he can keep it, but we are not paying double. If this works out, I will be esctatic for a number of reasons. We'll see.

I haven't written our menu for this week. Here goes.

Sunday: we ate out at a friends house -- Thanks Brownies for yummy pasta!
Monday: steak (we had frozen)
Tuesday: Chicken Hamburger Helper (we had frozen and had HH)
Wednesday: I went to Bmore to visit my Mom. It was my Dad's bday, and the first since his passing. I went to Wegmans there (my favorite) and got us something for dinner. My husband ordered Chinesse from the place I told him we didn't like. He remembered later why we didn't like it.
Thursday: Scallops, Sausage, Bacon and Spinich stirfry. Had everything frozen except lats two. Total was $5 at Trader Joes. I tweaked the recipe found here on Cooking Light so both of us could eat it, YUM!
Friday: pizza
Saturday: we will eat at my Mom's house.

More later. Sorry I have been MIA, as I said this week has been a little nuts.

An even BETTER photo book deal

Look at this, Vistaprint has slashed all their photobooks by 50% and if you want the 4x6 variety, its FREE! More info, click here!

I have always been pleased with what we've ordered from Vistaprint, and when I found out my friend JC worked for them, it made them even better.

Now I am not sure where I will make photobooks. But its pretty clear my favorite Ladies on Lorian will need some books, the pictures of E, J and MFK are incredible!!!

Ok, now I really am signing off.

Winkflash photo deal -- 60% off photo books

Photobooks are 60 percent off, use code BOOKSALE60 for discount.
For more information, click here

End of the week tally...and some new insight

Thanks to Facebook (and a friend from high school who through the powers of Facebook I reconnected) I learned about a site called Mint.com Several friends of friends recommended it and it seemed like an easy way to balance our finances with the help of someone (a computer) who is more mathematically estute than I am.

So far, I am liking what I see. Once I have used the site for awhile and have seen how it works will give more information, but wanted to throw this out there for anyone looking for helpful financial information.

As for our weekly totals, well again we went overboard, but hopefully since I bought a lot in bulk, the food should last us. Here goes.

Food: $140
Gas: $20

I am happy with that gas total!! I made a more conscious effort to not waste gas on meaningless double trips or taking the scenic route for our little monkey.

In an unrelated note, our daycare center for reasons too complicated to explain but needless to say a complete tragedy for all involved was closed this week by the county. As a result we are likely going to be saving $400 a month because we are not going to send our son to a place for funsies just to get him acclaimated and then yank him for preschool next year. Having him all day means less time for planning but thats about the only downside...also means more playdates for him and me too.

Happy Saturday night...hope you are having a great weekend!

Shutterfly sale

Take $10 off orders of $30 or more, enter code N5Y4-DT69-1FBW-TXPCZ3
Also, get free shipping, enter code Ship30

Great way to save money before the holidays!

Where I buy my staples -- updated 10/4/10

Coffee: Wegman's, 39 oz cannister for $5.79
Cereal Bars: Costco, 48 bars for $11 (if you don't belong to Costco, Harris Teeter sells their generic version for $1.97/8 bars)
Chicken, Perdue boneless/skinless: Costco, 10 lb bag for $19.99 = less than $2 per pound...huge deal!

The week ahead...

I planned out our menu for the week, here goes.

Sunday (last night): we had burgers
Monday: Chicken tacos, recipe courtesy of IrishErin, easy...1 lb chix, Package of taco seasoning. Put chicken in crockpot, with seasoning and water recipe on package calls for. Place on low for 7 hours or so (I am cheating, 3 hours low, 3 hours high). Chicken can even be frozen when you stick in. You fix it and forget it...SO EASY!
Tuesday: Shepards pie. I make my own version of Rachel Rays, which can be found here.
Wednesday: steaks
Thursday: Pasta and sausage
Friday: pizza
Saturday: burgers

Most of these ingredients I already had. I was low on boneless skinless chicken, so we headed to Costco this morning and I bought the big 10 lb bag for $20.

We did a lot of shopping this am for food, food for the month. We spent $52 at Costco, including the chicken, red peppers ($5), fruit snacks ($11) cereal bars ($11)and diced tomoatoes ($3.50).

The cereal bars reminded me to update the list of where I get my staples cheapest. It can be found here. For $11 I got 48 cereal bars. My son loves them! We were buying them at Harris Teeter, 8 in a box for $1.98. But 48 from HT would cost close to $16, so this is a $5 savings.

I didn't need the fruit snacks, but we ran into a friend who had her son with her. He is just 6 weeks older than my monkey. They had the fruit snacks, and my friend opened hers mid-store for the boys to try. The Monkey loved them! I checked the label and they were good for him, so I figured what the heck. He eats so little as it is, I will take whatever nutrition for him I can get!

Finally, I usually buy the Contina (sp?) tomato sauce or diced tomatoes. They are $2.99. But when I was reading the label, the Centro was actually better by a long shot with more vitamins and protein, so I spent the extra 50 cents.

After Costco we went to Trader Joes. We spent $13 on salad stuff and vegetables for the shepards pie, minus the potatos.

So its Monday...and I have spent a whopping $65! That leaves us with $20. Lucky for me most of the food was for the long haul so hopefully it will last.

We didnt do so well

We began the day yesterday with -$1 for the week. Then we bought gas for two cars, that brings us to (gasp!) -$45 for the week! Then we went to Oktoberfest in our neighborhood and spent about $10 on food. So its safe to say in week one, ending with a negative balance of $45 we blew it.

Totals:
$70 on gas alone....yikes!
$55 on food
$5 misc
*feel free to check my math.

So should I start this week in the hole with only $40 to spare? Or should I start over and see where we are at the end of the week? I think I am going to start fresh. It's easier on my brain that way.

Will post our menu for the week again later...that I found to be very helpful this past week.

This is certainly challenging

So we were down to $15 as of yesterday morning. Since then $3 for a coffee and muffin for me. So that's $12.

But tell me, how do we figure these items. Do the $7 I spent at Target for shoes for my son count? What about the $6 I also spent there for Vitamin C since we are out? I am not trying to do fuzzy math, I just don't know. I think until I get a better handle on things, I am going to just put them in their own separate pile, not from the $85 for food/gas, but something as yet unnamed. Clearly we will have budget for these things, but how? Who knows.

This morning I went to Trader Joe's. Got cheese and dough for pizza night, bananas, yogart and a $1.99 pumpkin my son saw and liked. Total $13. So we are now -$1 for the week, and we still have time to go. Ugh.

Now if I were looking at this objectively I would say that I didn't need the coffee and muffin yesterday nor did my son need the pumpkin today. You are right. Without these purchases I would still be at $4. But in the monsoon that was yesterday I needed the coffee/muffin and well, I just couldnt say no to my son...it was the first pumpkin of the season. We say no plenty, but today was just not one of those days.

Happy Friday....tomorrow will certainly present some fuzzy math.