Spring Cleaning - The Living Room

I finally decided to do some Spring Cleaning in the Living Room. In case you didn't know it before, I do have a toddler so there are lots of toys in these pictures. The living room is her main play area as we spend most of our time on this level of the house. So, here are the before pictures of my living room.

Yeah, there were toys EVERYWHERE! My daughter is 17 months old so we are starting to work with her on putting her toys away, but she still doesn't get it. As a result, mommy and daddy wind up putting away most of the toys (or not).

Here are the after pictures:

Yes, there are still a lot of toys in our living room, but now they are all neatly put away. At least until my daughter wakes up again. Sigh! Sadly, this isn't even a third of her toys. We rotate her toys out so that she has an ever changing assortment. Luckily most of these toys were gifts or hand me downs. It does make for a hard time storing them all though. For now, we keep most of the toys in the toy box with some of the larger toys around the room. I think I have pretty much come to terms with the fact that our living room will be a play room for the next 10 years or so.

Have you done any Spring Cleaning this week? I have to say that I'm very glad that I'm getting things cleaned up around here. Even if they don't seem to stay clean for very long. We have a couple boxes ready to be donated and this week we filled our trash can. Thank goodness yesterday was trash day because I'm sure I will be getting rid of even more stuff as the week goes on.

To see more Spring Cleaning posts, head over to Simple Mom's Spring Cleaning Party Day 3 post.

Top 10 Frugal Grocery Tips

This week Works For Me Wednesday is following the frugal theme. We're all supposed to give our best frugal tip. It's hard for me to figure out my BEST frugal tip. There are so many good tips. I think I could rattle off tips all day. Yeah, I come up with some crazy stuff sometimes. Anyway, I finally decided that the grocery budget is where most people look to cut their spending first; so I settled on doing a list of frugal grocery tips. So here you go, my best frugal grocery tips:

1. Don't be afraid of generics. Some of the generic products out there are really good; others, not so much. It's trial and error figuring out which ones your family will like. So each grocery trip, pick one or two generic items and try them. Only buy one of the item until you try it. That way you don't waste money on items your family won't eat.
2. Limit trips to the store. Think about it, how many times have you run to the grocery store for just one or two things and spent way more then you planned. Enough said.
3. Bulk items don't always save you money. Check the unit price. Sometimes it really is cheaper to get the smaller container; especially if you have a coupon.
4. Coupons aren't always a savings. Sometimes its cheaper to get a generic version. Or maybe the item is one you don't really need or want. Don't feel like you have to get the item just because you have a coupon.
5. Stockpile non-perishable items that you use regularly. When you find an item that you use regularly at a low low price. Stock up on it. That doesn't mean you need to buy the store out of that item. You just need to buy enough of that item to last you until it goes on sale again. Once you watch the sales for awhile you will start to learn the sales cycles. When stocking up, keep your storage space in mind. You don't want to buy so much that you don't have room to store it all either.
6. Know your target price. Do you know how much you usually pay for milk? bread? soap? Create a price book where you track the unit prices for the items you use regularly. This allows you to know when it's a great price (stock up time) vs a good price (buy one if you need it) vs a high price (don't buy unless you have no choice)
7. Use reusable shopping bags. Many stores give you credits for using your own bags. These credits aren't much, typically $0.05 per bag, but over a year, that adds up. So use um.
8. Link your store cards to Upromise. This gives you free money for college. You can use it for yourself or a family member. And did I mention that its free? It isn't much, but every little bit helps with college bills.
9. Groceries don't need to be purchased at the grocery store. Lots of times you can find great deals on milk and other food items at drugstores. You can also pick up some grocery items for cheap at Walmart and Target. Keep your eyes open and know your target prices so you know when to stock up.
10. Use online resources to help find the deals. You can use sites like A Full Cup , Hot Coupon World and Slick Deals to help you find the deals at lots of different stores. These sites are all free too which I love. And don't forget all the great blogs out there that help you find the deals. Find some sites you love and check them regularly.

Do you have any frugal grocery tips you would like to add? If so, feel free to leave them in the comments.

And for even more great frugal tips, head over to Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.

Wordless Wednesday - Party Weekend

This past weekend my family decided to celebrate Mother's Day a week early so that we could avoid the crowds at the restaurants. This was Pumpkin's first trip to Red Lobster. Here she is with the famous biscuits. Although I have to say that we like Uncle's version better.

Biscuits were followed by the chicken finger kids meal and a little bit of the dinners of everyone around her. I don't know how she manages to eat all of this food.
Then, immediately after that dinner, we headed over to her cousin's birthday party. There she was able to indulge in a little bit of birthday cake. As you can see, the frosting was a hit. Even mommy wound up wearing some.

For more Wordless Wednesday, head to these sites:
5 Minutes For Mom
Mom Dot

Free Music - Week of May 5

It's free music time again. I love music and finding new artists is so much fun. To help you explore new music, here are the songs I found this week:

iTunes

• Single of the Week - "No More" by Boaz
• Discovery Download - "Light Through the Veins" by Jon Hopkins
• Video - "Divinations" by Mastodon

Walmart "Turnin' Me On" by Keri Hilson

Amazon Music The featured free songs at Amazon change each time you refresh the page so you'll have to head over there and check them out. They have the largest selection of free music I have seen from a reputable source. Click here and then scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the free songs.

CNET has a new free song featured every day. Plus you can look at some of their previously featured songs and still download them for free.

Blender still has their April Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands, you can see the list here.

Blender now has their May Mix available here. It contains songs from 15 new bands, here's the list:

• "Fitz & Dizzyspells" by Andrew Bird
• "Me & Mary" by Arbouretum
• "Paranoria" by The Death Set
• "Lightworks" by Doom
• "Anyango" by Extra Golden
• "The Sun Main" by Fusion Unltd. feat. Little Broth
• "Strictly Game" by Harlem Shakes
• "The Mountain" by Heartless Bastards
• "Yours Truly" by Jason Lytle
• "Red Oak Way" by Lotus Plaza
• "Help I'm Alive" by Metric
• "Animal" by Miike Snow
• "People Got A Lotta Nerve" by Neko Case
• "Bitter Heart" by Zee Avi

This week I have 3 different Pick of the Week codes from Starbucks to give out. I'll email them to the first person to leave a comment here letting me know that they want them. You can get 1, 2 or all 3. Just let me know which ones you want. The available codes are for:

• "Flashing Red Light Means Go" by The Boxer Rebellion
• "The Rake's Song" by The Decemberists
• "Nine Sixteen" by Bruno Merz

That's all for this week's free music. Come back next Tuesday for another free music post.

Mother's Day Giveaways

5 Minutes For Mom is hosting a set of giveaways in celebration of Mother’s Day. The giveaways include a laptop, designer purses, a Blu Ray player, a digital camera and more. I’m a little late posting this, since well, the giveaways are almost over, but it isn’t too late to enter. So head over there now and check it out.

Spring Cleaning the Kitchen

As you can see by my before pictures, my kitchen was in need of a good spring cleaning. I would like to say that my kitchen isn't normally quite this bad. I had guests over for dinner the night before and got a little lazy with the cleanup since I knew I would be Spring Cleaning in there in the morning. Lazy, I know, but I was tired and didn't feel like cleaning.

And yes, I do keep the play pen setup in my kitchen. When I'm the only one home and I'm cooking I feel much better if my daughter is in her play pen there. I try to avoid this by cooking when she's napping or when someone else is home, but that doesn't always work. Hence, the play pen taking up a large portion of my kitchen.

And now for the after pictures:

Here's a brief summary of what I did:

• clean and put away all dishes
• clean off and wipe down counters & pass thru ledge
• scrub stove, microwave, dishwasher, toaster and fridge
• wipe down flour, sugar and tea canisters
• clean off and wipe down kitchen cart
• clean off and wipe down bakers rack
• scrub floor
• take out trash and wipe down trash can
• clean out play pen and change the sheet
• scrub sink
• wipe down the walls

I think that's everything, but I could have missed something. There was a lot to do in there. I do still want to go through the pantry, but that can wait for another day. It's so nice have a clean and shiny kitchen now. It's so much nicer cooking in a clean kitchen.

This post is being linked to:

• Simple Mom's Spring Cleaning Party Day 2
• 5 Minutes For Mom Tackle It Tuesday
• Lazy Organizer's Talk About It Tuesday

Month End Summary - April 2009

Sorry it took me so long to get my totals for this month posted. I was a little behind on logging in my data.

Here are my totals for April:

• Coupon Savings: $48.58
• Found Money: $5.23
• My Points Earnings: $0.00
• Rebates Received: $17.09
• Rebates Submitted: $15.00
• Swagbucks Earnings: $5.00 in an Amazon Gift Certificate
• Upromise Deposits: $0.12
• You Data Earnings: $1.94

My coupon savings are really down for April. This is mostly because I just didn't go to the grocery store as much. Instead I had a few trips to Costco. I seem to be able to find more of the products I like at Costco so we head there more often. For May I am trying to only go to Costco once for the month. We'll have to see how I do with that. I'm also taking part in Learning The Frugal Life's Eat From the Pantry Challenge. We'll have to see how I do with everything that's going on this month.

Now that it's the beginning of the month, don't forget to go print your new online coupons and load the new coupons onto your cards at Upromise. In April I want to see my coupon savings numbers and rebate numbers both go up. Let's see how I do.