CVS, Cooking, Our Pantry and Rocking

Hello.

Below is this week's CVS purchases.  I did go earlier in the month but didn't blog about it.  

CVS nuts were $3/15 with a $1.50 App coupon and I got back $5ECB

Shakes were $2.50 for both and gave back $2 ECB

Hair color was $8.49 each.  I used a $8/2 newspaper coupon and got back $5 ECB

Lady Speed Sticks were $3 each.  I used 2 B1G1F coupons from Sunday's paper and got back $6 ECB.

After coupons and ECBs from earlier, I spent $1.75 from a gift card I earned from MyPoints.com and got back $18 ECBs for next week.  

For CVS deals info - I look on Facebook at some of the big couponing pages called IHeartCvs, Couponing ar CVS and 

On YouTube, I watch LASavings8 and SavingWithJanandShirl The Coupon Queens. 

To see CVS ads early, I look at IHeartCVS.com 

Also, I have a CVS card that I got at my local store.  I always scan it at the red coupon scanner before I shop at CVS.  I went online and signed up  my CVS card at CVS.com for their Beauty Bucks program and for their pharmacy rewards.  

And I get more coupons with the CVS app.  

I know this all sounds complicated but CVS is the only store I regularly do deals at and I don't spend massive amounts of time at the above deal sites.  I do watch the weekly videos which are short and I just scan over the Facebook pages when I have time, only looking at posts that really interest me.

This week's cooking so far 

Monday- I cooked 5 pounds of ground beef and seasoned it all with homemade taco seasoning.  I froze 5 containers for future meals.  We also had tacos and tacos salad for supper Monday and Tuesday. 

Wednesday morning, I cooked a pot full of homemade pasta sauce.  I put 5 containers in the freezer for future meals and we will have pasta for supper Thursday with a big salad.  

Wednesday afternoon- I repeated our New Years Day meal of black eyed peas cooked with ham, rice and sautéed cabbage.  I also baked a pecan pie.  Some of these leftovers will go to my parents tomorrow.  I know they will be especially happy to get Pecan Pie, made with Mom's recipe. 

Our Pantry 

I've showed our pantry before, but since I spent several hours this week straightening and organizing it, I'm going to show it again.

It is tricky to photograph because it is narrow.  

The shelves are about a foot deep and go from floor to ceiling.  

Cereal, tea, chips, crackers, some baking things, oils, a giant smoked sausage we didn't eat Christmas....

Paper goods in the corner, extra bags and wraps on the top end 

Ramen type noodles in the corner, jars of salsa and drink mix, lots of past and panko bread crumbs.m

The jars are 3 deep so you can't see what's in all of them - they hold rice, dried beans, dry milk, cocoa, oatmeal, popcorn, salt....

The glass containers mostly hold snacks like nuts, bars and some candy 

Lots of condiments and spices, peanut butter, vinegar, jelly, molasses

Canned goods 

Mostly canned goods on the bottom

On the tray is where we keep opened snack chips and bread products 

On the floor - the crocks hold fresh onions and potatoes

The pink tub holds bags of sugars and baking chips

The dark red basket holds prepackaged snacks for the grands

The clear tub holds flour and the other pink tubs holds cartons of shelf stable milk and broth.

Several years ago I used red checked vinyl shelf paper and strips of lace-look vinyl tablecloth material from Walmart to cover all the shelves.  Because it is vinyl, it has held up all these years and I still enjoy it.  

And in case it sounds like I've just cooked, organized and shopped all week,  below is what I did Tuesday.

We had this little guy who is almost 8 months old and not much of a daytime sleeper.  So, I held him for both of his naps. 

Rocking babies is one of my favorite grandma activities.  

If you do stuff, stuff gets done list for this week

Good morning everyone!  I didn't mean to disappear for 2 weeks.  At the first of the year, I even thought I would try to blog everyday. Well, that sure didn't happen.  

I've had a long lasting cold that has worn out its welcome with me.  I think it is 99% gone and I'm very happy about that and ready to get back to doing what I want to do instead of coughing around the clock.  

So, here's my list for this week.  I don't use a fancy planner,  just notebook paper decorated with rubber stamps and washi type tape.  The clipboard is hung on the wall right by the pantry door.

I even added a section for my newly retired husband.  He has been helping around the house but there are a few areas that are bugging me and now he knows.  I don't know about your family but my family has always preferred a list- verbal requests can come off as nagging but everyone likes marking things off a list.  

There were several questions asked in my last blog post and I will get to those very soon.  

Have a good week everyone! 

Saturday cooking, boy fun, some make-do sewing and CVS

I got busy with some cooking Saturday morning.  I made a Dutch oven full of chili.  I put some aside in a saucepan to reheat for our supper.  2 chili-loving grandsons were here for an overnight and that is one reason I cooked chili.  My dad has been wanting chili so I filled a quart jar to take to him.  The other containers were labeled and went in the freezer for future meals. 

Chili is such a convenient freezer food- it reheats quickly and is just as good after freezing as it is fresh cooked.  We like it with corn chips or rice or crackers or pasta.  

I have based my chili loosely on the Flat Landers Chili recipe on AllRecipes.com for years.  I don't add the celery or bell peppers, sometimes I make it heavier on meat and sometimes heavier in beans but the spice mixture in the recipe is simple and just right to us.  

I also sliced a pound roll of breakfast sausage into 13 slices and cooked them.  I also baked 2 small cans of biscuits, bought with coupons for 19 cents a can.  We had sausage biscuits for breakfast and the extras all went in the freezer for future breakfasts,  

I prefer homemade biscuits but store bought biscuits really do freeze and reheat better than scratch biscuits. M

The grandsons wanted to do a craft so they painted some pine car kits from the thrift store. 

I set out acrylic paints and was a little nervous that 3 year old Braeden might be trouble with permanent paints but it was just fine.  The table was covered with a big sheet of brown packing paper I saved from a delivery box.  

The boys had lots of fun painting the cars and playing with the cars once the paint dried.  

They wanted to sleep with the cars but I said the cars had to stayed parked on a table all night.  

Saturday sewing was 5 potholders.  The blue squares with appliqued hearts were in 2 huge bags of scraps given to me awhile back from an acquaintance.   There were not enough heart squares for a quilt but they were the perfect size for potholders.  

I put all the old potholders in the laundry.  Once washed, some may return to the kitchen, some may get recovered and some might get thrown out. 

CVS 

I had coupons for everything and I had $27 in extra care bucks.  

It didn't go quite like I expected.  The Gold Emblem coupons I blogged about yesterday can only be used 1 kind per customer.  So, I checked out a second time and got more nuts and snacks on the second receipt

I thought I was buying the right things to get the $5 back on Gold Emblem like in the ad below but only $6 of it counted.  

Still- I am very happy with the outcome.

5 6 roll packs of Viva paper towels

4 100 count Lipton tea bags - we drink lots of hot and iced tea!

6 bags of cashews and mixed nuts

6 bags of assorted snacks

2 pounds of elbow pasta

2 boxes organic white cheddar shells and cheese- we had them for lunch and it was delicious 

Total spent was just under $15 and I got back $13 in extra care bucks.

CVS shopping takes some preparation and organization to get the best deals but for me,  it is worth it! 

CVS is the only store where I try to do deals.  I've read about other shoppers doing good at Target, Dollar General, Publix, Rite Aid, Sears, Kmart .....if you want to stretch your shopping dollars and are willing to do the preparation, my advice is to look on Facebook for a deal group for a store you can shop at or to look at the forums on SlickDeals.Net 

I hope you have all had a nice weekend! 

New Years Day- cooking, sewing, walking and CVS

Happy New Year everyone!  

I'm hoping 2016 will be a year to be more organized and to plan ahead more.  

One thing I need to do is keep some bread in the freezer.  I make whole loaves sometimes and we serve it warm or as toast,  but for sandwiches,  we prefer homemade buns.  They are simple to make and I've blogged about them so many times.

They are bread dough but rolled and cut into circles instead of baked as loaves.

I slice them almost all the way once they cool and then I freeze them until we need a sandwich.  

Buns just stay softer and don't get crumbly like sliced homemade bread seems to.  

Above are the dozen buns I baked today.  

Our traditional New Year's Day meal is black eyed peas served with rice and stir fried cabbage

This is an easy meal to cook and it just tastes so good.  We may just have it on the first day of every month this winter.  

The little boy is a thrift store purchase from years ago.  His face and yellow curls look a lot like our little JJ.  

Of course I've made the standard resolution to exercise more.  I walked 2 miles this morning with a free video on YouTube.  Leslie Sansone has put out many walking program DVDs and she even has several full length ones available on her YouTube channel. 

Leslie Sansone walking videos on YouTube

I have a craft room chock full of supplies, many are from my mom's downsizing.  I have lots of good stuff so I am hoping to sew a little every day in 2016, even if it's just 15 minutes.  

Today,  I hemmed these 2 panels and made them into 2 generous size kitchen towels.

A heads up if you shop at CVS- these printable coupons are available on the CVS.com website with the other manufacturer coupons.  You can print each one twice and they will make for free or very low cost purchases.  I used these several months ago and was happy to see them available again.  

The first one is $2/2 Gold Emblem nuts.  CVS sells single serving nuts for $1 so with 2 of these coupons, I think I can get 4 bags free.  

The second one is $2/2 snack items. I think their popcorn and chip type snacks are $1 are bag so I may get 4 bags free. 

The last one is $1 on any Gold Emblem grocery or beverage item.  I'm not familiar with what CVS sells but I am pretty sure I can match it up with something we use for a good deal.  

Also at CVS, today is the day that quarterly bonus extracare Bucks come out.  If you have shopped there in the last 3 months, you can check your reward on the CVS app or at the scanner in the store or they may send you an email.  

I got $2 - not much but it is based on your final prices paid, not before coupons, and since I didn't spend much actual cash there,  I'm happy for the $2. 

That's the highlights from my first day of 2016.  I hope to do lots of home stuff and to blog about anything that's worth sharing.  

Happy 2016 everyone!

Ironing, Christmas clearance and CVS

Hello everyone! 

I let the ironing pile up (again!) So I spent part of an evening this week getting it all done while I binge watched YouTube.  There were 15 shirts to iron- 

6 blouses were mine and 9 shirts were my husbands.  

The ironing went fairly quick.  I still use this homemade version of spray starch,  

The jugs of liquid starch last a long time and I think I get the same results ironing with the homemade kind as I did with the much more expensive aerosol cans of starch.  

My original post about homemade spray starch HERE

I needed to go the bank today so I also stopped at Joanns fabric store.  Their Christmas was 75% off and all I bought was these 4 mugs.  They are big, maybe 18 ounces, and they are Christmasy but I plan to use them the rest of the winter.  The mugs were originally $5.99 each so at 75% off, all 4 mugs were $6.

I went to CVS one more time this week when I read about this deal on a Facebook group called Couponing at CVS.  The Eucerin and Aquaphor products are buy $20 and get $10 ExtraCareBucks.  

I also had a CVS app coupon for 30% all lotions.  

I actually got 2 tubes of the hand cream, my husband was already using one when I took the photo. 

I picked out products to get my total as close to $40 as possible.  

I used $29 in ExtraCareBucks I earned in previous purchases and that 30% off coupon.  

My total ended up just $1.17 and I got back $20 ExtraCareBucks and then 2 days, I earned $5 more in Beauty Bucks.  

This cold winter weather makes our skin dry and itchy so I am very happy to get all these high quality moisturizers for almost free.  

Happy new year to you all.  We are having a quiet evening at home and that suits us just fine.  

Decorating, CVS and Budget Planning

Hello everyone!  

We didn't put out a huge amount of Christmas decorations so they were easy to pack away today.   It always feels fresh to pack them away, doesn't it? 

Then, we put out a little white tree with snow themed decorations.  I enjoy the twinkle lights and this little tree is just right for now.  

CVS purchase this week

 

I spent a bigger than normal amount but it was less that I expected it to be.  Because the cashier overlooked the blades at first, my total is on 2 transactions.  

3 jumbo packs of Charmin toilet tissue

6 Pantene hair care items

3 Revlon color stay lipsticks

Gillette blades and a razor

And a box of 1/2 priced clearance cookies my husband picked out.

I spent $47.13 and got back $24 in ExtraCareBucks and will get back $5 BeautyBucks for the Pantene  and makeup.  I used newspaper coupons, CVS app and redbox coupons, and $10 ExtraCareBucks from previous purchases.  

ECBs for next week

A new year is starting and I just redid my home notebook where I keep track of bills, and spending and such.   Our budget is simple and last year I used some free printable monthly sheets from a blog and I was so happy to see she is offering updates ones for 2016.  I've printed the news and updated my book.  Her sheets worked great for us in 2015.  

Below is the link to these great printables.  They are free but she asks that you subscribe to her blog.  

I recommend both! 

2016 free printable budget planning worksheets

Some sweets cooked today

I'm trying to do everything simply and this is how I started our Christmas baking today.  

Double batches of oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies and one batch of that "crack" cracker toffee candy. 

  My husband tasted them all and gave them the thumbs up.  The oatmeal cookies are his favorite and he joked I could just put that container in our room (so he wouldn't have to share.....) 

But I packed them all away in containers we already had and put them in the freezer.  

I'll take them out later this week when the family gathers here.  

The cracker toffee chocolate candy is very simple to make and it makes a lot - I do recommend it if you're  still planning your holiday cooking.  Just look on Pinterest for the recipe and method-  lots of people have blogged about it.  

My brother's birthday was in the summer and I sent him this coupon.  He sent it back to me last week in my birthday card.  I happily filled his request while I cooked today and now his container of cookies is labeled and in the freezer too.  

Are you cooking this week?  I'm guessing most all my readers are! 

I'm back with a gift idea

I cook a lot but I've never had or even thought I needed a pasta pot.  But I got this one free last month from a Proctor Gamble cancer awareness refund.  

It quickly became one of favorite and go-to things in the  kitchen.  

It has a nonstick finish and the lid acts as the strainer or colander.  The lid locks on so it is so easy to drain cooked pasta or any cooked food like corn on the cob or potatoes to mash. 

Last week, I used it to cook a batch of fried rice.  

I thought I would blog about this pot in case anyone is trying to come up with a last minute gift for a cook.  

Or if someone is asking you what you would like for a gift,  this might be something to ask for. 

I did see them, in different colors, for sale on Amazon and I'm guessing about any store with a big kitchen selection also sells them.  

I had a sweet little observer while I cooked the fried rice.  

And would you believe that even though we are having winter weather and it's just a few days until Christmas,  this rose bush is still blooming?   I guess it is protected just enough being near our front door.  

This month

Hello everyone.  

I thought you all might like to see our Seven.  We were all together for lunch yesterday to celebrate my mother in law's 80th birthday.  

Life is good here, to say the least.  

One family group photo from the birthday party - it was at the clubhouse of our aunt's retirement home and was a very nice setting for a gathering. 

In the photo are my in laws, my husband and me, our 7 adult children&spouses and the 7 grands.  

My to do list and manicure from last week.....I haven't made my list for this week yet. 

The nails are Impress press on nails, with a sticker type adhesive and I really like them. 

My brother's tradition is to make fresh wreaths for us- here is this year's.  He decorates them different each year and they are always so nice. 

One of the pleasures of retirement- Grandpa and the grandchildren sharing lots of time together.  

CVS

I didn't go last week but I went yesterday. 

I used 4 $2 Tide coupons that were in a Sunday paper a few weeks ago and a $5 ECB. 

4 Tide detergent pod packs were $2.76 and I got back $5 ECB.  

Days are busy here and we have yet to find a routine with husband being retired but I think that will be happen after all the busyness of December.  

Would you all believe I have not bought or wrapped a single gift nor have I rounded up any stocking stuffers? And it takes a lot of stuffers for the 20 or so stockings that will here.  

So, this will be last blog post for 2015.  I hope to keep reading blogs and I plan to be back blogging in January.  

Merry Christmas everyone !