I don’t know about you, but I just about can’t accomplish anything unless I am organized.  Currently, I have a stack of inserts on my desk piled high that I ordered from a couponing service.  I think its time for a coupon organizer, or at least an organizing session with the coupon organization system I currently have in place.  Either way, my coupons need some attention.

I really do have to stay organized if I am truly going to reap the benefits of coupons though.  You have to know when the sales are, when the coupon inserts are coming out, and be able to match those two things up.  I recently read a tip about using Microsoft Outlook to set up alerts for these things.  Definitely not a bad idea, Google Calendar could also be used.  Anything that will help you to get organized.

Are you with me?  Do you need to organize your coupons?

*This is a sponsored post.

Well, as you may have read on here last week. I did some freezer cooking so that’s mainly what we’ll be eating this week. You can read more here and here.

Today was the day, freezer cooking day, wow was that a marathon.  This is my first time ever to tackle something like this and I think I did pretty well. I wondered if it would indeed take all day.  For me, cooking 11 meals it did not.  I started around 9 am and was finished by noon.  I didn’t really stop though the whole time.

Here is what I prepared:

2 bags of taco meat

1 bag of shredded chicken

1 bag of cubed chicken

2 wild rice chicken casseroles

1 pot of pintos

1 meatloaf

1 pan of meatballs

In fact, I guess that’s not really 12 meals but I still have a roast and some frozen chicken breasts that will become 3-4 more meals.  I’m excited about how this turned out.  It truly has filled my freezer. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my cabinets and fridge so full.  Yesterday I did my shopping I shopped at a local grocery I’ve never been to before, about 20 minutes from home.  They have awesome meat prices so I got all this meat and ingredients for $75.  I was ecstatic over the prices.  Let me know which recipes you’d like and I”ll try and post them.

See the whole process that I Whrrled while I cooked:

As I mentioned a few days ago I plan to try Freezer Cooking as a “money saving strategy”.  Two bloggers are blogging their freezer cooking and I’m joining them, MoneySavingMom.com and LifeasMom.com.  I planned my “freezer cooking” yesterday and plan to shop today.  I’m going to be shopping at a store here locally that is known for its meat deals. I’ve never shopped there before but I am thrilled to try it out for the first time since I need to stock up on meat for this adventure.

Yesterday, I set out to plan my freezer cooking, I used some simple tools, a pen and some paper.  I am a list maker so I did just that, actually making three separate lists.  One was the list of meals / items I’d like to cook, the second was the ingredients needed and finally I tracked everything out on a calendar I hand wrote out to make sure that I had enough meals for the time period allotted.  I am going to be freezer cooking for 2 weeks or a total of 12 suppers.

Here’s the plan -

Items to Put in the Freezer:

wild rice chicken casserole – I plan to actually cook one of these to take to a friend who just had a baby and freeze a second one for my family.

Cooked shredded chicken (2)

seasoned ground beef (3)

meatloaf (1)

meatballs (1)

hamburger patties (1)

Roast (2)

This will turn into the following meals:

Loaded Rotel potatoes

Wild rice chicken casserole

Tacos

Meatloaf

Meatballs

Sloppy joes

crunchy chicken

incredible pork roast

roast beef sandwiches

hamburgers or hamburger steaks

chicken fajitas

The appeal of freezer cooking to me is that it completes one or more of the “menu planning steps” for a longer period of time.  For me this will last 2 weeks or so because we will have Easter festivities I don’t have to cook for this weekend and I plan to shop again on April 9.  I will be able to stretch these meals out until then.   I have a menu plan in place plus the first step and main ingredient (at least as far as my husband is concerned) in place, the meat!  That is a huge plus for me.

Today, I’ll be grocery shopping for this and tomorrow and Friday I’ll be cooking and blogging my progress.  If you’d like to try freezer cooking check out Money Saving Mom’s posts and strategies.

Coming soon I’ll be blogging about grocery deals in Central Mississippi. For now check out our grocery strategy posts.

In the meantime, I’d love your feedback.  Where are you located? What would you like to see here?

Are you interested in:

- Local deals

- Coupons

-Grocery Store / Coupon Matchups

- Recipes

- Grocery Shopping Strategies

- Other?

Please leave me a comment and let me know. Thank you!

Photo Credit: msjr.com

Ok so you all can tell I’m on a grocery shopping kick.  I apologize, I get on these “kicks” often, if it is not one thing, it’s another, but hey at least I’m continually learning new things right?

So, I have discovered that I must THINK differently about the way I grocery shop.  My old way of thinking regarding grocery shopping was, “sit down, make a list of what you want and find some coupons and go shopping.” Unfortunately, it didn’t work very well, I never had coupons for what I wanted, I only used a few coupons as a result and I never saved much money, usually only between $7-$15 per trip. 

I kept wondering, “how are these other couponers saving big money and here I sit saving pennies.” The problem is in my thought process, or at least I’m “thinking” that.  It seems that the big savers shop only with sales and coupons. Then they use what they get to create meals, not the other way around.  It’s a new way of thinking for me, but I’m definitely going to give it a try, because I’m all about saving big money.

I’ll be blogging my progress, so if you’re interested come back to read more.

Photo credit: krossbow

My few years in small business have taught me alot but one thing it has definitely taught me is to plan and to strategize.  As a result, I am beginning to develop a strategy even for those “mundane” things around the house I have to do, including grocery shopping.  I have always been a menu planner even before I knew it saved me money.  But, I could definitely stand to save more so I have been looking for more strategies to save money.

I have found help all over the blog-o-sphere.  Its exciting really.  There’s everything from just checking out the menus weekly on Monday’s at Org Junkie’s Menu Plan Monday meme to cooking once a month with LifeAsMom and MoneySavingMom here.  By the way I plan to try this out soon. Another strategy LifeAsMom outlines on her blog is 31 Meals With 31 Ingredients, hubby and I wrote out our favorite meals last night and plan to use this strategy too.

Other than that I have determined I was planning my meals backwards.  Instead of looking for what I have on hand and planning as a result I was sitting down, asking my husband what he wanted to eat and making a list off of our wishes.  Still a plan, but not a money saving plan. I’m reforming my grocery shopping strategies.  Why don’t you join me?

Photo credit: peter palander

On days like yesterday I am sooo thankful for Twitter.  Yesterday, off and on all day I conversed on Twitter about my latest challenge, one I have often, stretching the money and the food till the end of the month.  This month, I have to say there is something a little different.  That something is my attitude.  My husband and I are communicating more about money, where we are financially and we have a plan to both do better with our budgeting, but also to pay off our debts, one by one.  This month we paid off our smallest debt, a medical bill, one of many.  Our main debts are medical bills.  Next month, the plan is to pay off the next smallest two.

Anyway, back to the area of meal planning and “stretching the groceries”. Now that my husband is getting paid twice a month I have to make the grocery budget stretch in a bit different way.  I am using the envelope system for grocery money and setting aside $250 at the beginning of the month to last till the 15th and $250 for the second half to last until the last working day of the month, in this month’s case, March 31, NEXT Wednesday. I have to make the groceries I purchased last Friday, stretch until then.  Should have thought about that BEFORE I went grocery shopping huh?

Luckily, as  I mentioned the ladies on Twitter were a huge help. I have successfully stretched the grocery items I have on hand into meal ideas, almost twice as many as I had planned for originally. Plus, I learned a ton of new ways to menu plan, grocery shop and save.  I’ll be blogging more about this over the next few days, so check back.

Here is this week’s revised menu to “stretch” us till month’s end.

1) Parmesan chicken, salad, rice (we had this last night)

2) smoked sausage pasta

3) tacos, beans, rice (trying my hand at pintos)

4) beans, sausage, rice & cornbread (this will be the pintos too, planning to cook a big pot)

5) stir fry chicken and fried rice

6) quiche

7) BBQ chicken, baked beans, potato salad

pancakes, bacon or sausage

9) biscuits & red gravy

10) pasta

11) grilled cheese tomato soup

Here’s this week’s menu plan.

1) Burgers, beans, chips, chocolate cobbler

2)  mini pizzas

3) Parmesan chicken, rice, beans

4)  Tacos, rice, chips salsa

5) Chili

6) smoked sausage, tator salad, beans

7)  bacon sourdough grilled sandwiches, chips

You can find more at http://orgjunkie.com

A frugal lifestyle, I aspire to it, but I don’t always accomplish it, after all not being frugal is much easier.  You don’t have to try as hard, you don’t have to pinch your pennies or count your actions.  Frugalness on the other hand I have learned takes some creativity.

Over the weekend we were running low on meats and proteins in the house, my husband thinks you have to have one or the other in a meal or it isn’t well a meal.  I had reserved a couple chicken breasts from a family pack I had purchased and I was determined to make them stretch. He kept saying, “I don’t know what you’re going to do with 2 chicken breasts to make them stretch.” Oh ye little faith!  I stretched those puppies and he loved it.  It involved pounding them thin, sauteing onions and bacon, need I say  more?

I have also been researching other “frugal” methods. I’m going to try my hand at some of them, such as “making my own laundry detergent”.  It actually seems pretty easy and I”m excited.  I also purchased myself some “dryer balls” this weekend, an alternative to dryer sheets.

What are your favorite frugal “creative” methods?