Getting ready for spring

I saw on Facebook that spring is just 55 days away.

I have not had much success with growing vegetables, so far, but this year I am going to try starting my plants from seeds in the house. 

This is a plate of eggshells that will be used for little starter pots. 

It's easy, just crack your egg carefully on the side of a bowl, just below the pointy end and kind of keep cracking in a circle until the end is off. Use the inside egg for whatever you are cooking. Rinse out the egg shells and let dry. 

As cold and harsh as this winter is, I don't expect any early planting outdoors will survive. So hopefully my plants will get a good start indoors and be strong and hardy when spring finally gets here. 

Freezer pockets, a shaving deal and my first CVS deal of 2014

Some of my children wanted to restock their freezers with hot pockets so I made up four batches of Calzone dough. I did the rolling and they made the fillings, filled and shaped them.

They made breakfast ones, ham and cheese ones and pizza ones- 48 in all. 

When I mixed up the dough, I used the calzone recipe for all the batches but the other pocket dough is good too. I just forgot about it.

Most all ingredients were purchased at Aldi. We did a rough estimate of the cost and decided the total cost was less than $16 to make- not bad for 48 servings of convenience food.
Calzone dough recipe on a previous post
Breakfast pockets recipe on a previous post

Have you heard of the dollar shave club? I read about it on this blog and thought it sounded like a good deal. I told my son about it and he joined. He got his first shipment really quick too. He signed up for $9 a month deal which is a nice razor with 4 extra 5 blade razors. They also sent a sample of their shave butter. He texted me later and said he compared them to his razors at home and thinks the shave club razors are almost the same as much more expensive Mach 3 razors. 

Dollar Shave has 2 other other cheaper plans. 

It seems like a great deal to us if you like the premium disposable razors, 

If you belong to Swagbucks, you can get points there if you go through that link.

CVS

I have not shopped there at all in 2014 but they have some great deals this week. This is a good week to earn Extra Care Bucks to have for future deals,

I spent $39.25 and got back $22 ECB.

The Estoven was $10 and had a $10 ECB

The Tea and Hellmans mayo were $3 each, coupons in today's paper for 50 and 60 cents and got back a $3 ECB

Suave body  wash was $2 each, coupons in today's paper were B2G1F and a $4 ECB for buying 12

Pantene was $3.50 each - I used 2 B1G1f coupons from today's paper, a $3/2 coupon and a CVS scanner coupon that was $3 off a $15 shampoo purchase.

I would of spent less out of pocket today if I had done multiple transactions and rolled one ECB to the next deal.  But I don't like to spend so much time in the store and I will use these ECBs in the next weeks to come.
Our sales tax was $4.85 :(

I always wrap any ECBs around my CVS card and secure with a paper clip so I don't lose track of them.m

Money management-how we spend less on smart phones

When cell phones started becoming common, we had cell phones with AT&T and paid a pretty high monthly fee every month.  We never have spent lots of time using cell phones. The bills were just too high for what we used.

Then in 2009, when our contract expired, we switched to Tracfone, their phones are cheap but work fine, they don't require contracts and the charges for use are really low. 

With tracfone, my husband and I each spend roughly $100 a year for the phone and service. Our old plan was about $80 every month.  $200 instead of $960 a year for cell phones that we don't use much is much better. 

Just before Christmas, my basic tracfone was a year old and I was having a hard time hearing on it. (It had been probably been dropped by me or a grandchild just a few too many times) 

Many stores now take coupons on smartphones and I like to use coupons. So we did some research and ordered a Tracfone LG Optimus Dynamic for me from Amazon. 

Once it got here, we liked it so much, my husband got one too. He ordered his from QVC.

These will probably end up costing us each $150 or a little more a year. Still much better than the $960 we used to spend. 

The Tracfone LG looks a lot like a smartphone.

It is easy to check your balance.

I can read blogs, like this from Terri who writes at BlueHouseJournal, one of my favorites.

I can read silly picture text message for a son

I can read my email

I can pull up store coupons like this one from Hobby Lobby and watch YouTube videos. 

The text messages show up in bubbles on a scroll so it is easier to follow a conversation.

It also takes photos and movies, goes to any website and probably does lots of other stuff that I don't know how to do or even want to do. 

Tracfone used to activate their phones through a call center that I think was in India. That was difficult but now, all activations, questions and number changes can be done though their website and it is very easy. 

If you do buy a tracfone, we recommend you buy one with triple minutes for life. Anytime you buy minutes, you will get triple and that makes them cheaper in the long run. 

This model does not have lots of storage so we added a big memory card to each one. 

If you are a heavy IPhone user, I don't think you would be happy with this one. 

But if you are not big time cell phone users and just want a smart phone with minimal cost, we think these Tracfones are great.

Linking to several parties including

Friday Finances at Renaissance

Saving 4 Six

From the Farm

 

 

One little dress up outfit

My granddaughter has a quite full calender and she needs a Belle dress to wear to a Beauty and the Beast event later this month. Her momma showed me a few styles of Belle dresses on Pinterest and requested this dress be more everyday than fancy.

So, I went from there. I used the same peasant dress pattern from the granddaughters autumn dresses and I even had all this yellow fabric, white lace, thread and elastic in my sewing room. 

I cut the skirt separate from the bodice and added in several inches so the dress would be fuller and twirl. It is 100% cotton with all the seams finished so hopefully it will stand up to some playtime after the event. Granddaughter can dress up and look like a princess but she can play really hard.

Some of the pins I was inspired by, especially the first one. 

This dress was a fun afternoon project. But I have 2 granddaughters and a room full of supplies so I think I will be sewing up some more princess dresses soon. 

 

 

I did not mean to take a week off from blogging but the past week was busy and that Monday holiday was nice but got me off my regular schedule. 

I was so happy and surprised to see that my old fashioned tea towels post was featured on

Create With Joy

thank you! 

this post will also be linked  up with Show Off Saturday

What's happening here

I took the Christmas decorations down around the first of the year but I left this little white tree up and got out the Valentine decorations.  I really like twinkle lights so i may of been 6 weeks early for St. Valentine, but I like it.

My mom crocheted the heart ornaments. The vintage Valentine postcards were my grandfather inlaw's and I made the felt and sequin ornaments. They were a free-hand project that I used the supplies from a thrift store Christmas ornament kit.

Toile heart wreath, idea from another blog years ago.

In the craft room, I've been sewing on this scrappy string quilt.

Handwork- I am making a set of plastic canvas zoo animal squeezums. I made them for my children back in the 80s and they had so much fun with them. I don't know if my grands will like this new set, but some of their parents and uncle have seen this set in progress and they acted silly with them, just as if they were in elementary school again. Plastic Canvas is not the coolest of crafts these days but I enjoy it, it is easy and quick. A good project for children to start out on needle skills too. 

Cooking- we've got enough weekend leftovers to keep us going for a few days.  Meals will be easy for this cook for a few days.  

Easy meals will be a good thing because I will have grands here 3 days this week

And this morning will be the 2 youngest grands- 9 months and 18 month old boys! 

Won't be any sewing or crafting going on, just lots of playing and cuddling and feeding.....