That’s my boys after Shawn’s skating lesson on Saturday.

Yesterday we had a good time having smores and lighting off sprinklers and what not.  I hope everyone else also had some sort of family fun.

Today was completely unexciting.  Dave worked and Shawn and I were both exhausted of course there are no naps around here so the kid is going to bed early tonight.  Breakfast, lunch and dinner were all homemade so we didn’t spend any extra money.  I’m thinking about going out to Publix this evening to get some cheap laundry detergent but that means I have to get motivated.  I have the worst time getting motivated when it’s rainy out all day.

So how have you been saving??  Feel free to leave a comment and let us know.

For the month of July my family is on a quest to eat all of our meals at home.  Well not at home but they should all be made there. 

I was very concerned about Friday since we were at the racetrack in Daytona all day but I am pleased to tell you that we spent almost no money on Friday.  The only food bought was a pack of Dunkin Donuts Munckins at the gas station.  The prices at the track were just like I thought they would be high bottled water or soda was $4 beer $5-$10 depending on size and a simple hotdog was $7.  We made sandwiches in the car and ate before we entered the track then snacked on Chex Mix, nuts, fruit and gummies throughout the day and enjoyed water, soda, beer, and juice boxes that I had either frozen or laid on top of the frozen stuff.  I’m willing to bet I spent less on all that stuff than I would have feeding one of us.

However we didn’t get home until almost 2am Saturday morning and had to leave for Shawn’s skating lessons at 9:45.  I was so tired that we got up found Shawn’s stuff and left.  Since there is a 2 hour gap between lessons and public skating and we had to eat we unfortunately had to stop at McDonald’s YUCK!!!  But Shawn requested it so that’s were we went.  Next week I’ll be much better prepared and rested before we go so we’ll take lunch with us.

How have you been doing on your challenges for the month??

Did you set any goals for the month??  How did you do?  I’d love to hear because after going through my post history I realized I never set any goals this month.  See I told you it was crazy!  So I guess I’ll start fresh this month with some new goals and see how we do.

I’d really really like to stop eating out.  I know that Friday may end up being a challenge as far as that goes but for the rest of the month I’m going to do my best to make everything we eat.  We do plan on spending a day at Disney this month but I will make sandwiches and bring lots of snacks in my thermal totes so that we don’t have to spend any extra money.

I’m really hoping that by the end of the month we have started the house buying process, we’ve been in the looking process for far too long.  We should be hearing soon on a house that we like so here’s hoping.  So I have some goals related to this:

• We need to put away some money for moving expenses.  Every extra penny at the moment will be put towards an account for closing costs, moving truck, boxes, paint etc to get the apartment cleaned up and out and to get the house ready to move in.
• I will most likely be putting off another yard sale until after we move as we don’t have a garage and it’s incredibly difficult to hold a sale away from the house in no shade in July/August.  But I still will be packing things either in yardsale boxes or moving boxes and will be hitting the sales hard to have lots of stockpile stuff to sell.
• There are some things that will sell better on Ebay/Craigslist then at a yardsale so I need to get those listed now and just get rid of them.  I’m hoping as I pack up stuff we don’t need now I’ll find more things and that money will go towards moving.
• With yardsale on the brain there is a lot of stuff that we just don’t need and that needs to go.  I don’t want to move clutter and disfunction so hopefully I can fill lots of yardsale/ebay boxes.

Unrelated to moving I would love to start and get my photography business off the ground and running.  I’m trying to learn about websites so I can build one for this business and explore ways of advertising on a shoe string budget.

I really would like to sell one item (at least) on Etsy this month.  That means I need to get all these ideas out of my head and turn them into a real thing.  Crafting calms and centers me so it should be good for my mental health.

My last goal for this month is to host 2 Thirty-One gifts parties.  I really need to use the opportunity to increase our savings and haven’t been.  The hostess deal is great this month and with a new catalog coming out next month I’m hoping to get 2 qualifying parties in.  I’m going to have a blog post on that probably tomorrow explaining all the details but if you are interested please let me know.

Please feel free to share your goals or add a link back to your goals I love reading what others are aiming at doing.  I find it very inspiring so please share.

I swear I blinked and it was gone.  It seems like just last week Shawn was graduating from preK and now it’s almost July.  What happened I know I couldn’t have slept through it because I’m exhausted.  I’m fairly sure I shopped and probably spent too much but who knows it seems like it was a blur.

I’m determined to actually see July go by.  LOL  On the calender so far for this month is every Saturday we’ll be at skate lessons with Shawn from 11:45 to probably after 2.  Lessons aren’t that long they are only 45 minutes but public skating starts at 2 and it’s included in his lessons so that he can practice.  Since these lessons are about 30-45 minutes away I’m going to be doing some research as to what shopping I could do out there and we’ll be packing a lunch each week to eat.

We are also going to the Nationwide race in Daytona this Friday.  I got a great deal on tickets on Groupon we’ll be there for most of the day on Friday so again we are taking the cooler and my Thirty-One Thermal Tote bags so that we can save some money.  You don’t even want to know the prices they charge at the track but you can take small soft coolers with whatever you want in them so we’ll be bringing our own drinks, snacks, beers, etc

I have been talking to Dave and I am going to try my best to make every meal we eat this month.  Friday may be the only exception depending on where we have to park we may be forced to eat one meal out and carry one meal in the totes.  If we can park close to the track then we can go back to the car between the practices and the race.  Most of the time we end up eating out because I’m too tired to cook or I didn’t get anything out so I’m going to make sure we have spaghetti on hand for those days.

I’ll also be putting my new camera to good use and hopefully get my photography business off the ground.  I’ve been wanting for years to take family/kids photos and to sell my own personal photographs.  I have some beautiful photos and I would love to start selling some prints.  I figure why not make some money off something I’m really good at and am doing anyways.  In the next few months I’m also going to start listing some of my homemade goodies on Etsy in an effort to help bring some more money in to fund our savings. 

In the meantime I seem to be here floating along and keeping my head above water.  I’m hoping at least the electric bill is lower since I don’t remember keeping the AC too high.  So how have you been saving??

on Thirty-One Gifts.  Until Saturday you can purchase the Thermal Lunch Tote in Navy Breeze or the Thermal Tote in Brown or Multi-Dot for only $5!!!!  The normal retail is $12.50-$14 so this is a great savings.

Aren’t these bags great??  I personally love the thermal totes and they work great.  Don’t forget the customer special

The Cinch Sac is available for $18 with free embroidery!!! So while you are stocking up on Thermal Totes for Christmas, Birthdays, and other holidays be sure to check out these totes.  I’m ordering one for my son’s sports stuff. 

Enter to win a Hawaiian Vacation Package and receive a free Vanilla Lip Balm here

Free Dora or Deigo Potty Training Kit here 

Free Sample of Baby Barn Body and Hair Wash and Lotion here

Use promo code FREE5x7JN to order a free 5x7 photo collage at RiteAid.  If you are like me and don’t have one local check out if your family does and load one for them with pics of your kids.

Free Desk Calender just pay shipping here

Murad Eye Lift Illuminator here

Ok that’s all I’ve got at the moment and if I don’t just post this now they’ll expire before I remember to get back to it.  I’ll try and be back with a money saving post this evening.  But now it’s time for lunch around here.

I get asked all the time if it’s worth it to do survey’s, clip coupons, buy stuff I may not need this month, etc.  So let’s look at each of those things and I’ll let you decide if it’s worth it.

1. Survey’s- Well lets see I’ve been doing surveys, paid emails and Swagbucks for months now and managed to buy this yesterday.  I paid less than $100 and that was out of my ebay money.
2. Clipping Coupons- In the past 3 years I haven’t paid full price (or nearly anything) for razors, toothpaste, groceries, etc.  Yesterday I bought 2 packs of blueberries, 2 things of raspberries, 2 razors, 3 yogurts, 6 bottles of dish detergent, ant bait, garlic bread, 5 bags of nuts and 2 packs of gasx for $3.20 So for me the little time it takes me to clip and organize coupons is definately worth it.
3. And the last one for today Buying things you don’t need- To be honest I don’t really need for anything right now but if I stopped buying things we need I would have to pay full price when we needed it.  I’ve bought things we’d never use (blood pressure monitors) and in return I have a wonderful tower fan and a topsy turvy tomato tree that cost me absolutely nothing.  I’ve also held several successful yardsales selling the extras and have been able to buy a Wii and lots of games to go with it plus lots of other things.  The next yardsale will raise money to buy paint and new things for our house.

So you’ll have to decide if doing these things is worth it for you.  Being a stay at home mom leaves you very few ways to make money but there are lots of ways to get the things you want or need for very cheap if you put your mind to it.  I’ll be composing a post to show some of the different places I’m a member with that help make money/gift cards but to get you started if you haven’t already go sign up for Swagbucks it’s one of the easiest ways to make free giftcards to Amazon or free money through Paypal.