Extreme Couponing.. It’s Not for Me!

Have you ever seen the TLC show, “Extreme Couponing”? These men and women treat couponing as a full time job. Clipping thousands and thousands of coupons and paying mere cents for hundreds of dollars worth of groceries. Take a walk through their house and you would find walls of toilet paper and shelves full of items much like a grocery store, all items they likely got for little to no cost. Sounds great right? I think is sounds fantastic in theory, but in reality it is not something I, or most people, would ever have time for. Plus, who has room to store all of that stuff?

I use coupons but by no means am I an extreme couponer. I am very busy most days and don’t have time to look for coupons so I need them to come to me.

Disclaimer – Beware of enticing coupons. If you don’t usually use the product/service, then the coupon is of no use. Don’t just buy something because it is on sale, buy it because you need it and will use it or consume it in your every day life. It is easy to get into trouble with those enticing buys (Groupon is a great example) where you buy them and never use them.

Where to find coupons:

1.     In the mail – You know all that junk mail you get that usually comes in the door and goes right out into the recycling? Take a look through it one day you would be surprised what you could find. There is usually a P&G (Proctor & Gamble) coupon book that comes out with everyday cleaning and household products.

2.     Save.ca – This website is an assortment of coupons you can print at home or order online to be mailed to you. All for free.  The benefit of this is that you can look through the coupons for the products you need or buy on a regular basis and just pay less.

3.     Daily deal websites – Groupon.com, Wagjag.com, LivingSocial.com, etc. A lot of the time, these sites will give you 50%+ off of regular prices for products/services.

4.     On product coupons – When you buy products, sometimes these include a coupon on or inside the packaging. I find these to be the best coupons because they are for products I am already buying and usually the expire date allows me to use the coupon by the time the product runs out and I need its replacement.

5.     Finally the best coupon is no coupon at all. Price matching – There are various stores that allow ad matching. All you need to do is give the competitors flyer to the cashier on checkout and they will match the price. A couple examples of stores that ad match include Walmart and Freshco in my area, but I am sure there are additional.

A lot of people say that they just don’t have access to good coupons, I believe you just need to know where to look.

Now once you have all those coupons how to you organize them? I don’t think I have the most organized system, but it is the only way I remember to use coupons and be aware of what I have.

On the end of my cupboard in the kitchen, I have a magnetic white board that I keep all of my current coupons on. This way the coupons are staring at me every time I go in the kitchen.

·        I check the coupons before I go out shopping to make sure there is something that I can use.

·        I also check the board once every couple of weeks for coupons that have expired to keep it maintained.

There are many different ways to organize coupons you just need to find your perfect solution. You can have a separate wallet to hold them, if you have ever seen my purse you would know why that would never work for me!

Do you coupon? How do you stay organized?

Meal Planning When Life Gets Busy

You may have noticed that in the last month, Mike and I have had two weeks with no meal plan. I am willing to admit, when life gets busy, it is easy to jump right towards those prepared meals or take out. However, when I say I don’t have a meal plan, it isn’t because we are eating take-out or prepared meals every day, it is because we are eating what is quickest within our busy lifestyle. Some weeks, creating a meal plan just isn’t in the cards. You can’t plan chaos, so we work with those busy weeks and make the best of it.

This is our after work schedule for this coming week:

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Mike	Working until 11:30pm	Working until 11:30pm	Free	Home improvement project - Building a bar	Dog training at 5:30pm
Dawn	After work event,  until 8:00pm	Going to visit a friend’s new house after dinner	Free	After work event, until after 8:00pm	Dog training at 5:30pm and girl’s night afterwards

I am sure this is no different than most busy families. So how am I able to maintain order and healthy eating? It is all about being prepared. You need to take the time to do what you can today, to prepare for the busy week ahead.

I do groceries for meals that will make life easier, which includes as much fresh foods as possible. Then, I create snack bags that are easy to grab and go. This way the other grab and go options like a donut at Tim Horton’s or French fries from Wendy’s are not my first choice. I don’t do them all every week, but these are some of the ones I have used in the past to get us through a busy week:

·        Almonds and dried cranberries (watch not to put too many almonds, they are a very healthy snack but high in fat)

·        Vegetables cut into sticks (carrots, peppers, cucumber, celery, etc)

·        Yogurt and frozen fruit

·        Cottage cheese with cherry tomatoes

What other ways can you save time during a busy week:

·        If I am making oatmeal in the morning, I will make a larger batch so I can put it into single serving containers and it is a fast breakfast for the rest of the week.

·        When you make chicken for dinner, make a couple extra pieces at the same time. You can use the leftovers for lunch the next day or in salads during the week.

·        Make larger batches of easy freezable meals. When we make chili, there is always enough to put two large containers in the freezer, that we can use for dinner on one of those busy weeknights.

·        Remember, breakfast for dinner is always delicious! Sometimes, if I don’t get home until after 8:00pm at night, I can’t have a full dinner and then go to bed less than two hours later. So, sometimes it’s quick eggs for dinner or a hearty bowl of cereal.  

·        Also, something I haven’t tried yet but heard it is a great solution is to make a batch of muffin batter and freeze the batter (before baking) into individual muffin liners. If you have these muffins frozen in the freezer, you can make homemade muffins any day of the week. Just take it out of the freezer and pop it into the oven, just add 7-8 minutes to the normal cooking time to allow for it to defrost while baking.

There are thousands of excuses you can make when you have a busy week whether it be work related or social commitments, but you can choose to spend your time being productive rather than using it to make endless excuses and you might just find, it can all work out.

What do you do to make a busy week a little easier?

Good to the Last Drop

Thanksgiving is a fantastic time to spend time with family and be thankful for all of life’s blessings. But as I look back to my Thanksgiving dinner with my family I recall a lot of leftovers. So what do you do with all those leftovers? I envision hundreds of turkey sandwiches, but I am not referring to those leftovers..

What about that Turkey carcass? Yes, you heard right. Immediately everyone would throw that right into the garbage. Instead, I see a fantastic turkey soup.  Why not take advantage of Thanksgiving for every last little bit!

Today, I spent my day making some delicious turkey broth and turkey soup. Here's how:

Start with a large pot, add the turkey carcass and the organs (if you haven’t already used them). Fill the pot to nearly cover the turkey carcass.

Next, chop up 3 stalks of celery, 2 carrots, and an onion. No need to get fancy, just do a loose chop. These veggies are what you will be using to flavour your stock.

Time to add some spices. I don’t do too much measuring, but add about 1 and a half tablespoons of Italian spices, 1 tablespoon each of black pepper and onion powder, 1 teaspoon salt and 3 cloves of garlic.

(Mike sits sneaking a peak at what is happening in the kitchen)

Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for as little or as long as you would like. The longer you cook the stock the better because it will help bring out all of the flavour.

Strain out the bones and vegetables.

And that's it. Your stock is done. This will serve as the base for your soup.

At this point, you can take that stock and freeze it so you can use it later. Even freeze it in ice cube trays for use in stir frys and other recipes.

Now it's time to start the soup.

You will need:

8 to 10 cups of turkey broth

2 carrots chopped

2 stalks of celery chopped

1 1/2 cups of frozen corn

2 cups of chopped cooked turkey (white or dark meat or both)

1 teaspoon of italian spices

1 teaspoon of thyme

1 teaspoon of curry powder

Salt and pepper to taste

2 cups of egg noodles

In a large pot on medium heat, combine turkey broth, carrots, celery, corn, turkey and spices. Bring to a boil and cook until vegetables are tender. Add the egg noodles and keep on heat until noodles are cooked.

Now you have soup! I would have added white kidney beans if I had some at home and you can substitute rice or potatoes for the noodles.

I hope this makes you see leftovers in a different light! You can do this with anything, chicken, pork, ham, fish, and everything in between. Be grateful for the access to all of the resources and amenities we have because not everyone is so lucky.

In the end, it is important to not only recycle your waste but also to reduce your waste wherever possible. So this week, make it a point to be ‘good to the last drop.’ Enjoy!

Life's Moments

Oh and don’t forget to enjoy every one of life’s moments…

 Have a great week!

Many Thanks!

Hi everyone. Sorry for the late post, I think I am still in my Turkey coma!

I had a great Thanksgiving this year. Mike and I spent the weekend painting our rec room. It was a lot of work, but when I sit now enjoying the completed room, I am glad we did all of that hard work.

I don’t have too much to say this week, it has been a really busy week. I was however inspired by another blog I read this week, www.runlovepug.blogspot.ca where Krysta went through what she is thankful for this Thanksgiving. So I thought I would share...

I am thankful for opportunity. I am thankful for being able to take advantage of opportunities as they come available. I recently started a new job and despite the overwhelming training and tasks that come with starting a new job, I am still confident I made the right decision that will provide me opportunities not only now but going forward.

Also, as I spent my Sunday night with family over Thanksgiving dinner being barraged with hundreds of questions about how my wedding planning is going. With each question, I have to answer, ‘I have not decided yet’ to 99% of the question. I am merely thankful I get to marry the man that has been a fantastic part of my life for the last 10 years. Without Mike, I would not have had the confidence in myself to put a foot forward and leave my former job. My former position was a great job with fantastic people, but I had to take a leap of faith into a brighter future.

Last but not least, I am thankful for anyone who takes the time to read my blog every week. I am writing this blog not only to fulfill one of my hopeless New Year’s Resolution attempts, but also to let everyone else know what I am passionate about. I hope that with every entry I write, I can inspire someone.

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving Day?