Budgeting for Organic Foods-Menu Planning

The key to a successful budget is planning. My biggest problem is waste and overbuying and you can combat both of these with a great plan. The other thing I notice is that when I plan I am more inspired to make more new and interesting foods.
My first step to planning is taking stock of what I have in the fridge/pantry that needs to be used up. This week I have some leftover beef stock from making crock pot roast beef sandwiches, zucchini and ham that I want to use up.

So lets start from there with the leftover beef broth, I'd like to make Risotto. I found a great recipe online that sounds delicious! Now I'm not using tenderloin for this, I'm using leftover chuck roast. That's another one of my big ways of saving money, really stretching our meat and using cheaper cuts. We really just use meat to add flavor and see it as a side not the main component. Pinterest has been a great source of inspiration and I saw these healthy Zucchini chips that I'd love to try. The ham is just begging to be made into Spit Pea Soup, YUM!!

Saturday-
Beef Risotto-I'll be using some mushrooms we have in the fridge for this, so we have everything in house to make this except for the wine. I'm also using Aborrio rice instead of the carnaroli rice the recipe calls for (Aborrio is also a great Risotto rice). As a side I want to make Zucchini chips because I think that would brighten up the heaviness of the meal, Also I'd like to bring them to the Superbowl party we are going to Sunday but want to try out the recipe beforehand.

Sunday-
SUPERBOWL!! We were invited to a friends house so I just wanted to bring a couple things, the first being the Zucchini chips and the second is Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Dip. These look delicious! For the Cookie Dough Dip I'll bring some apples as well as Graham Crackers to dip.

Monday-
Monday I'll be babysitting so its a great day to use my crockpot for some Split Pea Soup. We have some Ezekiel bread that will hold up nicely toasted with this soup! Another meal we don't need to buy anything for.

Tuesday-
Spicy Honey Chicken, Brown Rice and Broccoli. For this we buy our Chicken from Trader Joes and get Organic Cage Free thighs for 4.99 lb. It is a bit pricy but this will be the only meal this week that is featuring meat and using more than a lb.

Wednesday-
Another Pinterest find is Coconut, Shrimp and Corn Chowder. This looks delicious and we happen to have some wild caught shrimp in the freezer and all the ingredients in the pantry.

Thursday-
Dahl with Spinach served with brown rice. One of the hubs favorite foods is Dahl, which is awesome because its cheap and nutritious! We often do vegetarian nights to save cash. Thankfully the hubs will eat everything! If your family isn't big on the vegetarian bandwagon try to cook foods from other cultures, they might be so fooled by the new flavors that they will not even realize that they are eating vegetarian!

Friday-
Pizza! Pizza crust is cheap and easy to make yourself. Pizza is also a great fridge emptier; take your veggies, leftover meats, cheese ends and use them up! One of my friends parents instituted pizza night at their house when we were younger. Everyone was invited and they just made pizza after pizza. It was so fun and delicious and everyone ended up there on Friday nights! Something I definitely want to start doing in our house!

So as far as our menu plan goes here is what I need to buy: Garbonzo Beans, Graham Crackers, Onions, Garlic, Broccoli, Spinach, Chicken Thighs and Corn. As you can see I'm relying heavily on what is in my pantry so I really only need to pick up a few things to make our dinners. Now I go through and add in some of the other things we'll need this week: fruit, yogurt, milk, eggs. For our breakfasts we either eat eggs, oatmeal or smoothies so I try to have those things in the house at all times. Lunches generally are leftovers. Now that I'm all done figuring what we are eating this week I go through my house and see what needs to be re-filled. I like to keep a well stocked pantry (flour, sugar, oatmeal, beans, coffee, butter, peanut butter, tuna, jelly, baking needs, tomato sauce, diced tomatoes, chicken broth, olive oil, etc). Once I see what I need to replenish I check the sales and see if there is anything there that I can buy in bulk. This week my groceries I need will probably only cost $40-45 so I have about $30-35 to restock my pantry or stock up on sales items. Sometimes I'll use this extra if I see good sales and sometimes I will roll it into the next weeks budget to save up in case there is a good sale on meat or I'm close to needing a high priced item (maple syrup, oils, etc). I'll also use the surplus to sometimes treat us to takeout.

What are you making this week?

Grocery List
Garbonzo Beans-3 cans (1 for the dip and 2 for pantry as I used mine up this week on hummus)
Graham Crackers
chicken thighs
Onions
Garlic
Broccoli
Spinach
Corn
Apples
Bananas
Oranges/Clementines
Yogurt
milk
eggs
tuna


Extra
Red Wine

How to check if your yeast is still yeasty

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:"
Ecclesiastes 3:1

Baking bread is such a great thing to do for your family. One of the main benefits is that you can insure what is in the bread, the ingredients on most grocery store loafs can make you cringe! For a time I was baking bread every week for the hubs and he LOVED it, literally ate it up :)
But as things go, I entered a season of not baking bread and my yeast stayed put in a glass jar in my fridge. I'm starting to feel a season of bread baking coming back around and was wondering today if my yeast is still good.

There is a quick test for this; you need
1 cup of water
1 Tbsp of yeast
1 Tbsp of sugar
Basically you mix and let sit and see if it foams up within 5 minutes. If it does than your yeast is good.

I set about to do this while Bug was nursing figuring I could keep an eye on it. and after 5 minutes I had this.


Problem solved right? Yes, I can now confidently bake bread knowing my yeast will rise and will not waste all of my other ingredients. Well Bug didn't finish nursing in the prescribed 5 minutes so I sat and watched this...

the miracle of yeast :)

Cloth Diapering so far

pic of my Bug's cute little cloth diapered tush!

Some of our parenting decisions were made automatically for us; cloth diapering and breastfeeding being the biggest. It was VERY important to both of us for me to stay home to raise the bug and for that to happen we had to lessen the cost of having a child. Diapering a child comes with an obscene cost, cloth diapering seemed like the best way to cut that and it has been. Thankfully we had purchased some cloth when we took care of my nieces twins and one of my friends handed me down some of her cloth diapers as her kids outgrew them; so even the cloth diapers didn't really have a significant impact on our budget. Even if we did have to purchase them it really just does make sense financially to go cloth. There are other bloggers who have gone into the cost analysis so I'm not going to do the math, I'll just link up a few here, here and here. I also like the environmental aspect of cloth diapering and appreciate how my frugal choices also tend to be green.

What we didn't realize is that when we left the hospital they would give us TONS of disposable diapers, we literally left with 5 packages. These 5 packages proved to be a great incentive to start with the cloth, we both HATED them. The bug some how leaked so bad that every time we changed him at night we were changing the sheets and his clothes too (some times ours as well).

It was so irritating, and both brands that they gave us let to the same effect. The hubs and I were so happy when we started using cloth because they really held the business in. We honestly haven't even noticed the laundry part of it too much, it works out to be an extra load every 2-3 days and you don't have to fold them!

So yeah, we cloth diaper and it isn't at all horrible like everyone insisted it would be when we were pregnant (all while giving us knowing looks and saying "we'll see how long that lasts"). It just works for us and for the boy, although I could see how if you were working full time or didn't have a washing machine cloth diapering would be hard. Also breastfeeding has its own advantages on cloth diapering so if I was formula feeding I might be singing a different tune.

The one thing that bothers me when people talk about cloth diapering is that they believe you have to buy the fancy expensive diapers. You can go crazy with cloth there are many many different options and some of them cost over $20 a diaper but you can go way cheaper than that. We opted to purchase prefolds, cheap prorap covers
and snappis to secure. Diapering with those options it costs about $50 per size and you can reuse for subsequent children, super cheap!

So what do you do? What made your decision for you?

Cloth Diapering Amazingness!

So this little lobster is getting cloth diapers, way more for frugal reasons than for any other but the environmental issues did weigh in in our decision making. The hubs is totally on board with it, I think it made it easier that he learned how to do cloth with the twins and realized its not that difficult. Thankfully I have some IRL friends that use cloth on their tots that have totally helped me decide what I do and don't need. When we had the twins we purchased about 2 dozen prefolds and about 6 covers in medium size; which is awesome now cause that money was long ago spent and doesn't impact our current budget. In the past week or so I've gotten awesome gifts and loans of more cloth diapers. One of my former doula clients and friends gave us on loan 32 Swaddlebees with a bunch of newborn covers, woolies and fleece. Another friend who is on her last babe passed along a bunch of prefolds. My dear friend, Mama K, has said she would help me organize my stash and see if there are any holes (as well as pass along on loan some of her small ones). I also won the most adorable medium cover from Deb at Made By Mama by being her fan on Facebook.

As it looks now we pretty much are set for diapering our babe in October. I'm just so incredibly thankful that this is working out so early in my pregnancy and I don't need to worry about it later on. I'm also so thankful that I have friends and family that already do alot of the things that the hubs and I would like to do with our child. What a wonderful support network already in place.

I am blessed.

No TV?!?!

Yeah we're thinking about it. Thats right taking the plunge and getting rid of our cable and possibly our tv. Its just a thought right now but one we're giving serious attention.

Our current contract is up on Jan 14th and as it looks now we'll be getting rid of the cable. I found a high speed internet and phone bundle thats $55 a month, currently we're paying $125 for our Phone, Internet and Cable (plus a DVR). So just by cutting the cable we'd be able to put $70 more a month towards our mortgage which adds up to a whopping $840 for the year. We do have our laptops so we'd be able to catch some shows on Hulu and we do have Netflix (for now) so I don't think it would hurt too badly. The main thing would be that the hubs wouldn't be able to watch sports.

As far as the tv, we have one of the flat screen wall mount jobs and I think its just too much for us. If we don't have high definition channels I don't think its worth it to have the tv either. If we sell it now I think we'd be able to get a good amount of money for it to also put on the mortgage. I have a very romantic idea of not having a tv in the house and how much I would get done in a day. I have crazy notions about a good amount of things though so we'll see if it comes to fruition or not. The hubs is still on the fence so I guess I'll let you know what we decide. We're going to have to figure it out soon!

Anybody gone and rid your house of the tv? cable? What are your thoughts

Happy New Year to Ya!

Hope you guys all had a great and safe new year! The hubs and I did, we were able to spend it with good friends. We made some goals for ourselves as a couple and as individuals this year and posted them by the bathroom mirror where we see them twice a day. I don't want to call them New Year's Resolutions because people never follow through with them but they are our goals and where we'd like to see ourselves by the end of the year.
Our goals as a couple are:
1. We'd like to walk together at least 5 nights a week.

We want to be more physically fit as a couple and regularly walking would be a good
start. It also gives us a chance to talk without getting to distracted by tv or the computer.

2. We want to pay off 50% of the remaining debt in our second mortage

I've been reading so much about setting up a financial plan. Generally, the hubs and I
are pretty good with money and budgets. I tend to be the spendier one in the family but neither of us is a fan of debt. Our only debt right now is our mortgage but we have two of them. I'm praying that we are able to pay off our second mortage within this year but the goal is just for 50% of our remaining debt in our second mortgage to be paid off. Once we have it completely paid off we're going to go aggressive on our first. If I had to do again, I think I would have rented and saved up to flat out buy our first home no matter how long it took. Live and Learn right...

3. We want to read through the Bible as a couple.

With this we both want to grow as Christians and as a couple. This will be a great way to grow and challenge each other. I'm so excited to do it!! It is a pretty aggressive reading to me but I'm excited for the challenge.

Anyone else setting some goals for this year??

Day #6 of Thankfulness

I'm so thankful for a the time to make some good homemade food. This weekend I've made; jalapeno hummus, vegetarian chili and corn and blueberry griddle cakes. I've also pre-cooked some beans and also some rice to use in meals this week. The time to prepare these this weekend insures that we will have good healthy food all this week. Also the food is very thrifty so it saves some coin!

I used my crockpot to pre-cook about 1.5 lbs of beans. I rinsed the beans and placed them in the crockpot with some Kombu (seaweed) and salt. I put water to cover the beans plus about 2 extra inches. This cooked for about 8-10 hours, I put all the beans in jars and will freeze some of them for use next week. It will be really nice to have some cooked beans on hand to use as that is a deterrent for me to make some recipes.

The jalapeno hummus was a 18 oz jar of garbonzo beans (liquid reserved), 1 Tbsp Tahini, juice of 1/2 lime, couple squirts of olive oil, handful of parsley or cilantro. I put all this in a food processor and add the liquid from the beans until it is the right consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Y.U.M.

Quick Fix

I've been going crazy the past couple years because we have about 30 frames in our back room of all different colors, materials, sizes and shapes. Every time I went into that room it bothered me a little bit. Well I found a cheap quick fix, I bought a can of flat black spray paint and painted all of our frames the same color. Not only is this employing what I have already instead of spending $10 + each on new frames. I also never have to worry about getting matching frames. I can pick up frames from the thrift stores or yard sales for .50c to a couple dollars and have them fit perfectly into my room.
Nice!

Go VOTE!!!

Line to vote 11/4/08

Todays the day, get out and vote!

We have a great responsibility to vote for who we feel is the best for us now.

The hubs and I have already gone early this morning and were happy to see a nice long line.
Buut we didn't get a sticker, I think with all my taxes I should at least get an "I voted" sticker!!
Now to pick up my freebies:
Starbucks-Get a free tall brewed coffee when you tell the Starbucks barista that you voted
Also I heard Ben and Jerry's are giving out free ice cream 5-8pm, Krispy Kreme is giving away free donuts and Chick Fil A is giving away free chicken sandwhiches.

I'm only rocking the starbucks but you should get all the voting freebies you can!

Rustic Butternut Squash with Linguini

Oh mama thats the stuff.

I was trying to think of what to make with a yummie looking butternut squash that I have had.  Today I was inspired by one of my favorite reads, Apartment Therapy The Kitchen when they had an article about how butternut squash tastes amazing roasted with butter and thyme.  

I thinly sliced my squash and roasted it in layers with sliced portabellos, mozzerella, provolone, lots of fresh garlic, pepper, salt, onion powder, thyme, sage and pats of butter.  When it was all layered up I poured about a half cup of cream on top. I put this mixture in the oven at 450 degrees until it bubbled and the squash was tender.

I mixed this into some linguini and let me just say FANTASTIC!!!

A really nice rustic tasting fall dish :)

Life Got In The Way

So this summer it feels like I lost it and went into survival mode for a couple of months. I lost a good bit of frugalness and by just surviving we saved a good deal less than we could have. I didn't cook nearly as much as I should have, we skated by not going grocery shopping more weeks than I can count, we ordered pizza or went out to eat more than normal. Honestly I don't feel too bad about it, we were busy enjoying life and having so much fun we didn't have time for the normal stuff. Now that the summer is over and things are slowing down and the house is getting back in order I feel like I can tackle this and get back on track with our savings and also prepare more healthy meals for me and the hubs.
This past week we did eat healthy meals that I prepared myself and I'm going shopping today to make sure that we do the same next week. I'm keeping a tighter reign on us as far as spending goes and making sure we're not going too crazy. Any ideas for quick, easy, healthy meals for this week? I love a challenge so leave me a recipe :)

btw as far as weight loss goes I lost another 2 lbs this past week! Yeah!!

Simple Living

I was very inspired a couple months ago reading Like Merchant Ships to simplify my wardrobe. Currently the hubs and I share one large dresser and the closet. We have it divided evenly, however, my side is constantly overflowing and threatening the rest of the bedroom. I went through last week and took out things in two piles; one was very gently used to be taken to a consignment shop and the other were things that have gotten a lot of love (mostly stained) to be taken to either a thrift store or homeless shelter. I went through everything and was very strict with myself. If it stayed in my closet I had to start including it in my rotation (which as of the whole summer has been 1 pair of green capri's, 1 pair of grey shorts and 1 pair of jean shorts). When I got through I had two very large lawn and leaf bags full of clothes that needed to leave our house. I did go out and buy a few nice shirts as I really didn't have much other than t-shirts in my closet.

The closet is now separated by color, style (tank, short sleeve and long sleeve). I have several sizes of clothes in the closet organized by size so when I undergrow the clothes I have now I can get rid of them (hopefully consignment shop) and just start on the ones waiting in the closet. When I get down to my ideal size my closet should look pretty minimalistic but even now its definitely 100 times better than it was. It does bring me peace to try and pick out clothes and I feel less slovenly since there is nothing I can pick out with a stain on it. It also will save us money because I can see exactly what I have and if I need anything instead of just trying to remember and hopefully I will spend less money!

Just with that completed I am inspired to try to do the same with the rest of the house to go through with a discerning eye and keep only what we will truly use. The hubs and I try very hard to be cautious with our spending habits to not buy too much clutter, but even so it does find a way to fill up our rooms.

Fun in New Castle DE

Pic of Hannah taken by Dirkey on 8/23/08

Did you guys know that if you google "fun in new castle de" is comes up as no results... well it did on Saturday when I googled it from my phone.

Pic of Park taken by Dirky on 8/23

My SIL, we'll call her R-sis, and I were planning an adventure down to a big antique show down there on Saturday. It ended up that the hubs and his brother were able to go as well, so we all jumped in their minivan and headed on down.

Hannah and Pongo Boy, who is coincidentally a girl, taken by Dirkey 8/23

We got within about a mile away and they had one of those banners up that goes across the road. I started reading it and realized that the Antique Show was SUNDAY, yeah we drove that far away (over an hour) for something that was the next day.. grrrrr... We were determined to make Lemonaid out of the sour lemon situation and had ourselves a picnic and hung out at the cute park the Antique show would have been in had it been the right day. We had Homemade Hummus and Pitas, Cheese and Crackers, PB and J, Fruit Salad, Homemade Sugar Cookies.

Picture of some mini pb and j sandwhiches that were assembled by your favorite Dirkey 8/23/08

After we had lunch we had to burn off all those calories so we did some exploring.

Pic where Hannah reminds me of a pirate 8/23/08

And some Shoulder Riding... Ok only Hannah did this because if anyone else did it would cause some serious injuries

Pic of Hannah and Her Daddy 8/23/08

The hubs and I took the opportunity to take our famous self-portrait or as his brother likes to say our "myspace shot"

Dirkey and her hubs 8/23/08

After the park we went to the Christiana Mall for some tax free shopping, and ended up just window shopping.

It was a great day, made even better by some awesome company.

R-sis, Hannah and J-bro taken by Dirkey 8/23/08

So now when someone googles Fun in New Castle De they'll see us and our
Fabulous, relaxing Frugal Fun Day

Garden Bounty or as Beyonce would say Bountyliscious!

Mmmmmm we're still harvesting the goodness, below is some freaking awesome tomatoes we have going on at Casa de Dirkey.
I think I've said before I'm totally digging on this whole gardening thing! I love having the freshest best tasting veggies at my hand for dinner. I don't know if I've divulged this yet, but I'm kind of a veggie snob (shocker I know). I will not buy canned veggies and it causes great pain to buy frozen veggies but I will do it (rarely).
One of my favorite things that I've been making this summer has been Zucchini Parm. Mmm just typing it makes me drool...

Here's the recipe:
need
3-4 good size Zucchini's
Olive Oil
Diced Tomatoes (preferably fresh)
Mozzarella
Parmesan
2 white onions
7-8 cloves of garlic
Lots of spices (parsley, basil, oregano, etc)

I slice the Zuch's up into disks then lay out a layer of them in a Lasagna Pan. I then will spread 2-3 crushed garlic cloves over them and sprinkle with olive oil. Then I'll put a thin layer of diced tomatoes, diced onions, spices and cheese on. I repeat this all 3-4 times and bake at 350 for about an hour or until Zucchini is tender when you pierce with a fork. You might want to cover with aluminum foil until the last ten minutes of cooking time so your cheese on top doesn't get too brown.

Seriously-SO GOOD!

Kitchen stuff is my weakness

Shoes don't do anything for me, I can live without makeup or electronics. Find me in a kitchen store and I'm looking like a five year old in a candy store. I scramble to regain the frugal footing I keep for most of my lifestyle. Recently I got a coupon for One of my favorite stores for $10 off any purchase. I asked the hubs if I could use $20 to just spend there on anything I wanted and he agreed, because it is our joint money we generally check with each other with any purchase. So theoretically I had thirty bucks with which to spend at my favorite store. I walked around with great joy just looking at the gorgeous serving dishes, neat little kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, serving spoons; trying to narrow down my decision to fit within my $30 budget.
I ended up with these

We've recently gotten rid of about 98% of all plastic containers in our house and when we have kids running around I knew I didn't want to feed them off of plastic either. I know, I know you do run into the problem of breakage but you know thats ok with me. So yes I used my $30 to purchase bowls for our future children but can you blame me these are some freaking cute bowls!!!!!
Check out the insides!!!

The hubs convinced me that it would truly be a sin to let these collect dust until we have little ones to feed, so now these are designated for blueberry eating! It makes the berrys taste that much better eating out of the cuteness! :)
Oh yeah, they didn't cost $30 they were $5.95 each. I did buy much more from the store but it was for the hubs birthday so I actually didn't hit my $30 allotment for me.
For the curious here is what I ended up getting the hubs for his birthday. We are big on Miso soup and Oriental cooking so I got him some fun bowls for when I make it at home.

How to travel to Hawaii on a budget>

So I had mentioned before that the hubs and I were planning a trip to Hawaii. We were throwing around alot of ideas, with varying degrees of expensiveness. This trip is probably the last big trip for awhile so we really wanted to make the most of it and do it right. Now I have been to Oahu before, for a family reunion (my aunt and one of my cousins live there), and I definitely wanted to at least spend a week on Oahu to see my family. We were throwing around the idea of going to another island as well and had settled on Kauai as our second island. So we set off to planning with that intention.

The thing I've realized about planning trips is that you really need to decide what type of vacation you want to have right from the get go. We really wanted to just relax and have a good time. We went to Europe together and did the "see everything you can possibly see in 10 days thing", seriously 3 country's in two weeks! So ultimately we decided to stick to Oahu since I'm not going to Hawaii without visiting my peeps! Which thankfully also decreases our total price by about $300 bucks for airfare.

I love traveling and I'm pretty good (if I do say so myself) at getting a good deal. We found airfare from Sidestep. Sidestep is a service that you enter in your information and they search all the travel sites to find out the best value then you complete your transaction on the site with the best value. This time we found our best price was with Northwest Airlines and it cost us about $650 a piece (from Philadelphia). We have one layover in Minnesota so I'm hoping that there might be a possibility to see my sister and her kids even if its only a few minutes.

Once we booked our flight I settled into trying to find a place to stay. I had the luxury of experience with this and was able to remember what each of the parts of the Island were like. If we went with a hotel they really are mostly located in Waikiki, while there was a really nice one near my Aunt called Ihilani. The hotels at Waikiki are nice but it is very much a city type atmosphere and the beaches were very crowded there, it really didn't seam like the best choice for the hubs and I. Ihilani was a gorgeous resort with a really beautiful beach but if we booked there we really wouldn't have been able to afford much else. I then started looking into Bed and Breakfasts to see if this might be a better option. Turns out there are some awesome B&B's in Oahu and we found one that really fits our budget that is right on the ocean!!! We were able to do this for about $130 a night. Since beaches are public property we probably will take a trip to Ihilani's beach one day as its my aunts favorite beach.

We then turned our sites to a rental car, I found most rentals for compact cars were about $25 while the convertibles were about $50. The hubs and I were toying with the idea of a convertible but couldn't justify $50 a day. I was a step away from booking on Sidestep when I thought to check one other website, Hotwire. I was able to find a convertible for $25 a day, which completely rocks my socks off!!!

So thats where we stand now, we have the big stuff out of the way and now we are starting to investigate some of the things to do on the Island. More on that later :)

I scream You scream we all scream for ICE CREAM!!

So I've recently been playing with my ice cream maker, then one of my friends got one as well, now it seems that ice cream recipes are all the rage in my daily reads.
Here is an awesome link from Apartment Therapy-The Kitchn (yes I know its spelled wrong) with every type of ice cream you could ever imagine!!!

You're welcome!!!

Besides being cheaper right now, I love the fact that my homemade ice cream is way less creepy than the store bought. With the exception of a few flavors, most store bought ice cream has some scary looking ingredients. My homemade only has what I put in it! Nice!!

Frugal Friday-My guide to online shopping

Today's frugal friday involves online shopping. Being the stereotypical American, I'm a busy person. By the time I get home from work, make dinner, throw a load of laundry in the washer; I don't want or have time to run out to the mall. Online shopping has wrapped me in its warm blanket of simplicity and ease. I love the fact that I can shop for gifts in the comfort of my own home, bargain shopping easily between sites. I also love being able to find gifts that I can feel good about giving; as I'm becoming more environmentally aware I'm able to find organic cotton, sustainable and fair trade products with great ease right on the internet. When I first started online shopping I wasn't quite the bargain hunter that I am today; I made a few blunders and paid for things that weren't quite what they seemed. So this is a little guide to tell you my tricks to online shopping.

1.)Find the item you want-If I'm completely blank on what to get someone I check out some of the standard gift giving websites (Mighty Goods, Red Envelope, Non Toxic Tots). If I really don't have any idea I just start googling away, when shopping for my wedding invitations I google "cheap wedding invitations" my husbands wedding band was purchased on eweddingbands.com. There are so many online retailers that it really is simple to find ANYTHING YOU NEED. Be careful once you find the item; read the small print, check the measurements, read the reviews of the product.

2.)Figure out what site you will use to purchase-Once I find the item I will google the item and look at the different sites that sell it. Its here that I try to put my money where my mouth is. I try not to purchase on big mega giants like Walmart, Target, Macy's; but put my money to something I feel good about supporting (WAHM shops, Environmentally Sound Companies, Companies supporting Fair Trade). Within these sites I do a bit of bargain shopping to see where the cheapest place to purchase is.

3.)Google for Coupon Codes-I then google to see if I can find a coupon code for free shipping or a percentage off of my order. Its like the old saying goes-You never know until you ask.

I know its not rocket science but these are the things that I've learned from online shopping, hope it helps you!

<a href="http://www.dirkey.blogspot.com" target="_blank"><img alt="Dirkey" src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2306/2422433079_00cdb91b63_m.jpg" border="0" /></a>

I found out that Frugal Friday didn't start here-the original is at Biblical Womanhood, go check out the original!

Update-Breaking the Law

So, I called my brother while waiting in line to the prosecutor. My brother told me before I made a deal to call my insurance company to see if it would affect my rate if I just plead guilty to the charge. He told me most insurance companies will not charge you extra if its a speeding ticket and it is only two points. So I called mine was talking to the guy that works there and he puts me on hold; as I'm on hold I'm inching closer to talk to the prosecutor (and the court). Well the court must have some type of scrambler or something cause it disconnected me. I asked the nice girl behind me if she would hold my place as I called my husband to have him call the insurance company and find out how much my little speeding infraction would cost us. Well he sent me a text and said it wouldn't cost me anything to plead guilty but if I had plead guilty to the lesser charge (with zero points to my license) the lesser charge is usually 4pts to the insurance company. So whew! I'm so glad I checked!!!

So in summary, my two point ticket had two options:
I could plead guilty and pay $85 with two points on my license and no insurance points.
I could plead non-guilty and pay $540 ($40 court costs, $250 for the fine, $250 surcharge on that fine) have no points on my license then have 4 insurance points!

I learned if ever in this position that it doesn't hurt to ask questions!!

While in the HUGE line there was a young girl in front of me with her mom (about 18 years old, because she still had her provisional license). I listened (evesdropped) to her as she met up with three of her friends (one was setting up a payment plan and one was also there with a provisional license and a drunk driving ticket!). She was there to fight two tickets that she got in the same evening one for going 20 mph over the speed limit and one for running a red light (two separate incidents about 20 minutes from each other). Her mom started telling me that she was probably going to lose her license because of prior offenses and how much the fines were going to be. Then she looks at me expecting me to commiserate saying I can't even imagine how much I'm going to pay on insurance for her now. I wanted to slap her and say you know maybe your daughter might take more responsibility with her driving if you forced her to pay the consequences of her actions rather then paying them yourself! The girl who was there was positively bored with it and joking around like she could care less, wearing a shirt that left the bottom three inches of her midriff exposed and dirty, tight, ripped jeans. I can tell you this, my 18 year old would not be driving my car and on my insurance if they didn't respect the responsibility of driving. If they did happen to get a ticket, I'll give you three guesses to figure out who would pay the thing and any and all charges associated with it.. Just standing there got my gumption all up.

The Frugal Friday that wasn't

So I'm still recovering and have been sick all week. So I'm going to rest today instead of doing a frugal friday. I've been having a hard time sleeping the past few days and my throat is killing me. I'm doing some natural remedies which inlcude sucking on a lemon and gargling with salt water, so thats frugal! Hopefully I won't need to go to the doctors but I'm thinking I might need to this weekend if my throat continues to stay swollen and hurtie. Please keep me in your prayers!