Lately I’ve been thinking about the costs of things in life.  The cost of my groceries, electric, driving, blogging or lately the lack of blogging these all have been running through my head.  See we live awfully close to paycheck to paycheck and everything has gone up lately with the huge exception of the paycheck.  So how do I fix my cost problems?

1. I’ve decided this craptastic economy isn’t one to start living off my stockpile in.  I plan on making sure we have plenty of food and keep everything rotated but I do need to stock up at the best prices and will keep up with it.
2. My electric bill well we are making an effort to keep things off as much as possible.  If Mother Nature would just cooperate and stop giving us the warmest start to fall I could turn off the A/C.
3. We have cut way back on driving lately and will continue to plan our trips out so that we make the best use of gas.
4. This blog.  I love you guys and love sharing my shopping trips, when I’m overwhelmed I neglect the blog and then I neglect the sales which hits me square in the wallet.  So no more, I’m making the commitment to blog once a week at least about what we’ve done to save money.  This will keep me more accountable and hopefully keep money in my wallet.

In addition to dealing with these costs I’ve been working with a dear friend to set up an online store to sell my crafts and handmade goods.  I will be offering discounts to readers every once in awhile and offer custom work all the time.  I would love if you would like my store on facebook Tiffany Mitchell Designs and share it with your friends and family.  I will post the web address once we get the store up and running so you can check it out. 

So how are you handling the costs of everything?  I’d love to hear your ideas and tricks!

Print out the new $2 Expo Marker coupon for some freebies at Walgreens.  You can go this week and pick up 2 2pks of markers this week for free  or you can wait until next week and 2 6pks for free!!

This week the 2pks are on sale for .99 and next week the 6pks will be on sale for $3.99 so you can use this coupon and the $3 coupon for the August coupon booklet and get them for free.

This couldn’t come at a better time because I just realized I hadn’t gotten dry erase markers for Shawn’s supply list. 

I do receive a small monetary referral for every coupon you print through my link to coupons.com.  I appreciate you clicking my links when printing your coupons  :)

I had a great trip to Publix today.  We didn’t really need for much but I wanted to get a jump on snacks and juice since we seem to go through so much lately.  Unfortunately I’m not completely sticking to my .50 rule but I still think I am doing great.  I ventured out to Sav A Lot the other day and was able to buy the bulk of my grocery list for $25 which included 3lb of pork and 3lb of hamburger.  So anyways back to today:

• 2 boxes of Aunt Jemima Pancakes on BOGO for $2.69  used a $1 off coupon from the Facebook promo
• 4 jars Peanut Butter on BOGO for $2.95 used 4 $1 mq from 7/31 SS and 2 .75 TQ from today’s paper
• 2 Bottles of Vitamin D $2.99 each  used a $6/2 PQ and 2 $1 mq from today’s paper for a profit!!
• 2 Children’s Advil $5.99 each  used $5./2 PQ and $5/2 printed coupon from the Advil site
• 4 bottles of Blueberry Ocean Spray on BOGO for $3.99  used 4 .55 mq’s from 5/15 RP
• 1 Pantene Shampoo  FREE with coupon from Facebook awhile ago
• 1 Herbal Essence Shampoo  FREE with coupon from Facebook awhile ago
• 4 boxes of Nabisco snack packs on BOGO for $5.99 used a B3G1 Free TQ
• 1 Sunny D $3.99  with no coupon I forgot I needed it

I used a $10 off $50 Sweetbay coupon and paid $9.16 for everything and according to my receipt I saved $85!!  I also picked up a raincheck for 10pks of Crayola crayons at .33 each they are a bit cheaper at a Walmart about 15 miles up the road (unless they changed the price) but at my store they are currently .40  I use these for my crafts and Shawn uses tons of crayons so I was glad to get a raincheck for at least a few.

My analysis:  If you break it down to item price I only spent .43 per item so I did actually come in below my limit.  The snack packs are great for Shawn’s lunch box once school starts they aren’t needed but are nice to have.  The pancakes will give us some easy meals as we make the transition from summer to getting up at 6:30.  Because we have funtainers for his lunchbox I can buy bottled juice at a much lower unit price then juiceboxes so I am getting a jump start.  The advil is one of the few meds we use and well we go through peanut butter like water (I’m disappointed I didn’t have more coupons).

So how did you do at the grocery this week??  I’d love hear how you did.

or Sampling Event?  There are many different party/sample sites out there and you should be signing up for them.  A few I can think of are HouseParty, MomsMeet, and Psst (MyGettogether).

To receive the party pack or the sampling pack you need to fill out an application and get picked out of tons of other people that also applied.  MomsMeet recently posted an article to help make sure you get selected check it out here.

You have to be willing to provide your opinion of the products and sometimes pictures, blog posts, video, or facebook posts on it.  In return you usually get free products, coupons to share with friends, and usually a few other special goodies just for you.  For example I just was notified that I will be hosting a sampling event for GreenMomsMeet, I will be sharing some Kashi TLC Peanutty Dark Chocolate bars with some mom friends at our next big playdate.  For this event I will receive enough bars for everyone coming and Kashi Cinnamon Harvest Cereal, Kashi TLC Strawberry Cereal Bars, and a Kashi reuseable bag for me in return I will be providing them with the groups feedback, some photos of friends (who are ok with me sharing their photo) trying the bars and a blog post with my opinions (this isn’t required).

So what are you waiting for sign up for a few of these companies and check out the article on how to get the best chances for being accepted.  Another piece of advice don’t apply for every party just because you can I did that at first and ended up with a few events that I wasn’t really excited about and possibly missed out on getting ones that I really wanted.

If you can think of any other sampling/party sites please share!!  I’m sure I am forgetting some since I’m running on just a few hours of sleep today.