Triple Clicks

Thursday, July 30, 2015

Grocery Trip And Homeschool Stuff

So we went grocery shopping today. HyVee has some good sales this week. 

I'm loving the idea of planning 7 meals and just doing a rotation. So That's what I'm doing again. HyVee has pasta 10 for $10 so we are going mostly with pasta meals. Chicken was also on sale.  I did decide to splurge a little and get charcoal for our grill, because it will save the house from heating up. 

All in all, I spent $330 and a little extra for perishables and some extra snacks we decided we wanted for vacation. 

For those of you who are school shopping, go check out Dollar Tree. I know Walmart and Target run .50 or $1 sales right about now, but if you can't find what you want or need there for cheap, check your local Dollar Tree (or you can buy a case on their website and have it UPS delivered).  I found some great worksheets at ours today. And they have little marker boards I'm debating about grabbing next month. 

On my homeschool sites, I often see questions about teaching kids to budget.  In my opinion, budgeting is a must. Everybody (unless you're a millionaire) needs it. So might as well teach our kids early. And I think they learn best when led by example.  If you don't want your kids helping with your grocery list, give them some random amount and the grocery ad. Tell them they need to meal plan and make a grocery list that fits within that amount. If it doesn't fit, it can't go on the list.   The grocery ad is good for all areas of basic math and life skills to boot. 


That's all to report for now.


I'll be back in a few weeks with vacation tips. 

-Tabitha

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Vacation Food Shopping

Well, we made an unexpected trip to the city today, so decided to do most of our vacation food shopping. I'll hide the goods in the office so the kids don't eat them. 

We've decided we prefer something fresh (Subway or the like) or something hot (think Arby's sandwiches or KFC type).. So we'll get the entree off somebody's dollar menu and use out of our stash for the rest of the meal.  Most everything will last us beyond vacation, but that's ok.

I got variety boxes of cookies and chips and we all love Gardettos, so I got those for a salty snack. Now normally I just a big bag then portion it all out, but in this case, I just bought the boxes of single serving packs. 

Hubby and I (ok..more me) love our coffee.  So since Sam's had the Starbucks Frappucinos on sale, I got a little case of those. Also got Dr. Pepper for him and 7 up for me.  The kids got a case of juice boxes and I grabbed a flat of water. If we need more water, we'll just find a grocery store and grab another flat.   

I was going to get the kids those squeezable applesauce pouches (they love those things), but I couldn't find just applesauce, so I got a variety pack.   

Now, since the plan is to NOT get kids meals, we also made a stop by Dollar Tree. We got a toy for lunch for each day we plan to be gone. One of these days during nap times, I'll put them in paper bags we already have with name on the bag.  New toys are always a good distraction.   We also grabbed a few new coloring and activity books. 

All of this will get stashed away until vacation next month. But I ended up saving $10 by getting it now. 

Have a good week! 
Tabitha

Monday, July 6, 2015

The Next Month

The next month will prove to be a busy one... like I ever have non busy months. LOL

For meals, I've decided on a 5-6 meal rotation. For the most part (unless somebody gets sick from a meal), it's going to be Spaghetti, tacos, stir fry, pork chops, bbq chicken, leftovers.  Then we start all over again.  I am trying to keep dessert of some sort in the house in case somebody doesn't get full on the supper.  

Around the house we have been cleaning and will be prepping for a garage soon.   There's just so much stuff!  

I am doing my homeschool lesson plans, getting everything ready and we'll start again in August.  Still Kindergarten things, but Andrew is determined to learn to read, so we have to learn all the letters and their sounds.  

Lots of sewing projects and still working on the stockings...still on my first of six, I forgot how tedious cross stitch is. 

I'm also planning furiously for vacation this month as we go beginning of August.  I'll go to Sam's soon to grab some snacks and drinks while they are still on sale and then stash them in the office until needed.   One of the biggest vacation expenses is always food.  Our plan is to get hot sandwiches of some sort, then have drinks, chips and cookies in the van and either eat in the van or have a picnic and let the kids get some energy out while we eat.  The van also needs vacuumed and the car seats washed before we go.  

I'm way behind on laundry. I'm really trying to not use the clothes dryer, and that has put me behind with laundry as we have been blessed with many rain showers this last week. 


We'll get to pick our mulberries this week, the kids are really excited. They seem to be small, but are turning black so they are ready. 

That's about all the excitement happening here. Hope you are having a good summer, too. 

Tabitha