Have you ever just been in a funk? Well I have been lately it's because I seem to become a master of spreading myself to thin and being no good anywhere. I took on a new responsibility this past summer at the same time that we signed my son up for baseball. I went from being home almost all the time to seemingly never being home and constantly playing catch up. Everything suffered from my business to my housekeeping so this year I've pledged to focus on what's important and making the best use of my time.

I will be keeping my new gig as long as they'll have me because it makes me feel productive and useful. There's something I've missed as a stay at home mom and this is helping that. However I'm not going to continue to devote so much of my time to it, I've worked hard to develop a well oiled machine and have spent the past month working on ways to simplify my job so it should no longer take so much of my time.

My son is once again signed up for little league. Instead of playing games on my phone during practices I will be taking yarn or simple beading projects with me to work on. Using that idle time to create pieces for me to sell in my business will be much more useful than playing candy crush.

I've also done something that is very unlike me and asked for help around the house. We are currently working on de cluttering and simplifying life at home, that should help me save time and money and stress. Everyone will have responsibilities around the house and will be held to those keeping things clean and tidy will help us to stay home more often and resist the urge to go out to get away from the mess.

So this year is a clean slate for my family. We are refocusing on what's important, this blog is important to my family blogging keeps me looking for deals and helps me to stay accountable for my shopping. It also allows me to run fabulous giveaways, test products and generate a small amount of income from my amazon and coupons.com links. Today we are working some more on catching up, I find when everyone helps it's not as bad as the one woman show that usually works around here. I can't wait till everything is done!! What are you doing to kick start your year?

The new year gives us a chance to write a new story, wipe the slate clean and start over. This year I have set goals, I really don't like resolutions so I'm going with goals for the year.

1. Blog more
This blog helps me save money and I hope it helps you save as well. I'll be searching for free samples and the best deals out there and posting them here. I will be continuing my partnership with a few companies to help maximize my earning potential and giveaway potential here as well. I don't have many ads on here but you can be sure that everyone is hand selected by me, making money off this blog has never been a driving force for me but the little bit I do really helps. Please think of stopping by here when you are printing coupons off coupons.com or placing an order with Amazon.

2. Get my home organized
I've never claimed to be the most organized and it makes me crazy. This year I hope to put a stop to the crazy by organizing and de cluttering our lives.

3. Craft smarter
I am a crafter by trade, I set up a craft shows, farmers market and well my handmade creations online so I have a lot of stuff. I've decided that I have too much stuff so this year I'm going to work on reducing my stash of items and organizing my items. Hopefully this will help me make more money without spending as much.

4. Get myself and my family healthier
I know everyone says I'm going to lose weight this year, I'm not going to say that this year. I just want to work at eating healthier and getting healthier losing weight will be a welcome side effect I hope.

This is the start of my goals. I'll probably be posting about all of them at different times throughout the year feel free to comment on what you are doing to make your new year brighter!!

This time of year is one of my favorites to stock up during. Many of the goodies on sale make great gifts in the form of craft/art baskets. In addition gifts if you have a school aged child their teacher is likely to need more supplies about half way through the year when they are full price so having a few extras never hurts and there is an ever growing need for supplies because so many aren't savvy shoppers like us and can't afford the lists. So whenever there are really cheap items I get the max and find a school supply drive, in fact the farmers market I attend at Cagan Crossings is hosting a supply drive on Sept. 6th

So here are some cant miss supply sales I saw in the paper today.

Walgreens is one of my favorite spots for sales on the small stuff.
Backpacks. 3.99. These aren't top quality but are great containers for artsy gifts
Folders and Memo books. 6/$1
Papermate pens or pencils .29 in my experience one can never have too many of either of these and with my sons supply list asking for 6 dozen I guess they are a hot commodity at school too.
You'll need your card and the coupon in the paper for these deals
Wexford erasers (cap and pink) 4/$1 both types are always on the list here
Wexford dry erase markers .99 this is a good price if you need

Staples my favorite place for cheap deals
Filler paper .01 this requires a $5 purchase but that's easy enough to get to
Hammermill copy paper $1 after rebate
4pk dry erase markers $1
Pentel RSVP pens. Free after rebate

Target
Crayola 10pk markers $1
Index cards 3x5 .50
Colored pencils .50
Pencil Box .50

Walmart
Notebooks .17
10pk pens .97
Composition books .50

ToysRUs is still running its free lunchbox (up to $9.99) with the purchase of a backpack priced $12.99 or higher. This is one of my favorite deals and I recommend doing it twice per child we usually do one with characters and one plain that way when he rips his backpack apart due to dragging around school and the bus for 5 months and lunchbox is abused beyond belief I've got replacements that didnt cost me an arm and a leg.

There are lots of other good deals in the ads, but these are the ones that jumped out at me based on the needs of a third grader. Please leave me a comment with any great deals you've found this week.

I always have high hopes for blogging in the summer and always fall short and this year was possibly the worst yet. But have no fear, I've managed to make posting on here a bit easier and hopefully it'll fit into my constantly on the go life. Lol.

I'll be making a big push to start up saving again. The fall is always hard on my family with birthdays and school expenses so I'm going to get on the horse and start squirreling away that money now.

I'll also be looking to maximize my ways to earn some extra cash and of course I'll be sharing my ideas here with you guys. So hang in there I'll be back at it soon.

Totino's pizza rolls has always been a quick, easy treat in my house.  Growing up they were a treat and now for my son they are a treat.  I was happy to see that there are new flavors out and was quick to grab them up!  The new flavors are Chicken Parmesan, Meatball Marinara, and Cheesy Garlic which sounded to me like grown up flavors of my childhood treat and I was right.  These are yummy!!

Our family favorite is the Meatball Marinara which is nice and full and has decent sized meatballs in it.  We are a meatball kind of household I guess LOL!!

Now on to the giveaway Totinos and MyBlogSpark have been kind enough to provide me with an adorable tile tray and matching salt and pepper shakers and of course coupons to try out these great rolls and they are going to give one of you a set as well!


a Rafflecopter giveaway

I'd like to congratulate

38 Sandy Klocinski

And

70 Teresa Dye Dale

You will each receive a coupon for a FREE bottle of Purex with Crystals! Please send your mailing info to belle Mitchell 702 @ gmail.com. (Without all the spaces)

Thank you all so much for entering. I've got a few more giveaways coming up this week.