And I'm back!

Since my last post in October, our family has had an incredible period of change. A new baby on the way in June, a move to a new town, and a cut in my husband's hours at work has really kept us on our toes. As I stood in the shower this morning I started to think about all the things we have been doing to keep our growing family afloat.

To be perfectly honest, there are days where I really do feel like washing my hands of it all and taking the easy way out. We have one income that is currently much smaller than it was even a month ago. We have one car, and it's 18 years old. We rent, not own, and will not be in the position to even think about owning a home for several more years. We struggle from month to month to get all our bills paid on time while still feeding and clothing all of us. There are days that I definitely do not feel like doing the "right" thing and would much rather order a pizza than take the time to shop for, plan, and cook a nutritious, inexpensive meal.

Why am I back? Because I want to encourage and equip other people in similar situations to continue the 'good fight' and find a way to climb up the ladder in an economic climate that is less than ideal. If I can show one person how to shave five dollars off their weekly grocery bill, then that's sixty dollars I've helped someone put towards paying off a debt or saving for an emergency.

I'll be posting my first weekly grocery roundup tomorrow night. I live in the Kroger/Atlanta region and have yet to find a blog that covers deals for this region's weekly sales. It's good to be back!

While you're here, click this link to receive a coupon for a free Kashi frozen entree by mail.

Chaos!

We're in the middle of a move this week, so things will be slow going on The Healthy Hearth. I'll be posting every 2-3 days over the next couple of weeks. We're expecting our phone/internet/cable to be installed sometime in the middle of next week which means I'll be without internet for 3-4 days. With four days until the big move, I'm a bit pressed for time. At least this move is organized - it's saved my sanity and my wallet!

We are absolutely in love with our new home. It's the first place we've ever lived without anyone directly above us and we're thrilled about it! Our daughter has a huge fenced in back yard to play in and we have lots of storage space to regrow my CVS stockpile. What's not to love?

Tonight Tomorrow night I'll be posting a weekly freebie and coupon round up. Make sure you bookmark The Healthy Hearth - this is a post you don't want to miss!

Friday Feature: Chorebuster.net

Chorebuster.net has become a fixture in our day-to-day schedule. Chorebuster is a comprehensive site that assigns and organizes household chores. Setting up an account is easy and best of all? It's free!

1. To start, enter in people and chores.
2. Specify how hard/undesirable each chore is and how often it should be done.
3. ChoreBuster automatically generates a fair schedule of chores.
4. Schedules are emailed to you daily or weekly - no need to log in.

I set up our account to have a weekly schedule emailed to me every Saturday night. I print it out before going to bed and post it on the fridge. Now I don't have to wonder when the last time the carpet was vacuumed - it's all taken care of for me!

Chorebuster is also a great way to keep track of hard to remember monthly/seasonal chores like flipping mattresses and changing air filters. My favorite feature is the ability to assign differing levels of difficulty to each chore. Chorebuster also allows you to adjust the amount of chores assigned to each person.

Don't forget to check out this post for some amazing freebies!

Free, free, free!

• Sign up for a free General Mills 'Dinner Made Easy' newsletter full of meal ideas, coupons, and free samples. This is a great freebie because you can use the coupons from the newsletter to make the featured recipes!
  

• Sign up to receive your FREE Kotex sample pack complete with a Kotex Ultra Thin Pad with Wings, Kotex® Lightdays® Pantiliner and two Kotex Security Tampons.

• Sign up to get a free subscription to Remedy magazine. Remedy is a great resource for healthy living!
  

• Home Depot Do It Herself Workshops - Click here and enter zip code to register for an in-store class and receive a 10% off coupon!

I'll be out of town this weekend on semi-vacation before our big move. I have a few posts set up for this weekend, so make sure you bookmark The Healthy Hearth!

Toddler Thursdays: Crayon Nibbles

This is probably my favorite toddler-friendly to do with my daughter. It's surprisingly simple with very little cleanup. As long as you have old crayons, a mini muffin tin, and an oven, you won't have to buy anything to make these.

Round up all the homeless and broken crayons in your house. Start by having your little one help you peel the wrappers off the crayons. While you're peeling crayons, preheat your oven to 265 degrees. Break the crayons into 1/2"-1" sized pieces.

Help your toddler sort the crayon bits according to color. We made several kinds of crayons - in one cup we added pinks and reds. In another, we put in a jumble of color so they would swirl as they melted. This is a great teaching opportunity! As you sort the crayons, ask questions like "What color is this? Can you find the other red crayons? What color do you want to make next?"


Once you've sorted your crayons, bake for 6-8 minutes. Do not over bake - you only want to melt the crayons so you can't distinguish their shape anymore. Let the crayons cool on the counter for a few minutes and then pop them in the freezer so they can harden. It will take about thirty minutes for the crayons to set. Once you're ready, they should pop right out.

These crayons are great for chubby little hands that can't quite grasp smaller crayons yet. They also make great party favors and birthday presents. Wrap up a few crayons in a clear cellophane bag and tie with a pretty ribbon. Add a coloring book and you have a great, inexpensive present.

We usually unwrap, sort, and bake the crayons pre-nap. By the time J is up from her nap, the crayons are ready to go!

Frozen Food Savings

Publix has put out a ton of great coupons for frozen foods. Some are Publix only coupons, but a good deal of them are manufacturer's coupons. Here's a list of what's included:

Publix Only
.25 off carton 4 Grain Eggs
$1 off 2 Alexia Products
$1 off 2 Egg Beaters 15-16 oz
$1 off 2 Better Bakes Cookie Dough
$1 off 2 International Delight 16 or 32 oz
$1 off 1 Publix Vanilla Ice Cream 5 qt
$1 off 1 Publix Round Top Ice Cream Cones 16 oz
.55 off Publix Greenwise Soy Milk
$1 off 1 Publix 6-pk Yogurt
$1 off 1 Publix Frozen Pizza
$1 off 1 Publix Frozen Pizza Snack
$1 off 6 Weight Watchers Yogurt 6oz
.55 of Any Welches Frozen or Refrigerated Product

Manufacturer's Coupons
BOGO Attune Chocolate or Granola Probiotic Wellness Bar
1 Boston Market Signature Side FREE WYB 4 Boston Market Entrees
$1 off Any Delizza Product
$2 on 1 TGIF Snack WYB 4
.35 off Friendship Sour Cream or Cottage Cheese
$1 off Any Morningstar Farms or Gardenburger Product
.55 of Any Gortons Fish Product
$1 off Any 2 Jimmy Dean Products
$1 off 4 Lean Cuisine Products
$1 off Any 2 Marie Callender Products
Free Ore-Ida Steam and Mash WYB 3 Ore-Ida Frozen Potatoes
$1 off 2 Pepperidge Farms Frozen Garlic Breads or Texas Toast
.55 on 1 Reddi-Whip 7oz or Larger
$1 off 1 SeaPack Product
Free Weight Watchers Smart Ones Frozen Dessert WYB 4 WW Smart Ones Entrees
$1 off Good Belly 4 pk
$2 off 2 Birds Eye Voila Products
$1 off 1 Smart Ones Butter or Milk Products
.35 off Birds Eye Frozen Vegetable Box w/ Sauce

Go to frozenfoodsavings.com and click on the "coupons" tabs to print these coupons. Enjoy!

Moving for less with less

We're moving in less than two weeks! The home we live in now is almost 1500 square feet. The home we'll be moving to is just under 1000 square feet. In theory, it doesn't seem like that much of a difference, but we're losing about a third of the space we have now. When you have big furniture and a two year old, that means downsizing as much as possible.

We've tried to come up with some creative ways to keep this move as stress-free and inexpensive as possible. The little bit of effort you put out will come back to you several times over!

• Take only what you need. Moving is a great excuse to purge your house of as much 'stuff' as possible. If it's been hidden in the depths of your closet for a year, do you really need it? As much as I love to cook I've pared down my kitchen to the basics. If I don't use it at least once a week it isn't something I truly need. The same principal applies for every room in the house. This goes back to our shopping philosophy: buy what you love. If you only purchase items you truly love you can cut back on clutter.
  

• Have a garage/yard sale as close to your moving date as possible. Why? Because until you have gone through most of your possessions, you won't have an accurate idea of what to put in a yard sale. We're holding ours the day before our move. We plan on holding the sale from 7am-12pm. Whatever is left at 11 will be half off the marked price. The last fifteen minutes, everything (within reason - no furniture, etc.) left will be sold for .25. Whatever is left at the end of the sale will be boxed up and sent straight to Goodwill. That way we have everything out of the house that isn't coming with us and we have a bit of cash to fund those first few weeks of "Uh, oh. I didn't know we'd need that!" shopping.

• Don't pay for moving boxes. A liquor store down the street from where we live sets out boxes every morning that are free for the taking. These are fairly sturdy boxes - they're built to hold large glass bottles, so we know they're strong and sturdy. Ask the staff at your local grocery store when they receive stock and what they do with the boxes. Look on sites like craigslist.org for free boxes. Many people save the boxes they purchased from stores like U-haul or the UPS store to re-list.

• If at all possible, don't pay for movers. Paying for a moving van or trailer out of pocket is always cheaper than hiring a moving company. Not only do you risk damage to your possessions, you lose control over where things go and how they are loaded. Ask neighbors, family, and friends. As a thank you, order pizza or take everyone out to dinner. The more you can do yourself the more money you will save.

• Start packing as early as possible! In the past we made the mistake of underestimating how long it would take to pack up our very, very small apartment. What we thought would take 3-4 days actually took 2-3 weeks! As we got closer to the moving date, more and more things were thrown out simply because we didn't have the time or resources to pack them properly or we were too stressed about how much stuff we had accumulated. Give yourself the time to plan as much as possible to eliminate stressful last minute struggles.

CVS (bought on 9/29/08)

1 3-pack kitchen scrubbing pads @ .09
9 Arizona Pomegranate Green Teas @ .13
1 CVS brand dental tape @ $1.15
3 Garnier Nutritioniste Nutri-Pure wet cleansing towelettes @ $5.99

Total before coupons = $20.38

-$1.00 off any Garnier product
-$1.00 off any Garnier product
-$1.00 off any Garnier product
-$4/20 CVS CRT
-$5.99 in ECBs

Total after coupons = $7.39

I hate to admit it, but I'm addicted to make-up removing cloths. I am entirely too lazy to remove all my makeup, cleanse, and then moisturize every night. $7.39 is a high out of pocket total for me, but not too bad when you consider that I stocked up on three months worth of face wipes.

The teas were in our store's 90% off summer clearance section. My husband likes to take them with him to work, so I figured we might as well stock up.

I'll be making a trip again tomorrow morning to use the Cristophe CRT I received today. I love their sulfate and paraben free shampoos and conditioners! Since they're on sale for $4.99 right now, I'm going to take advantage of the September ECB deal. Here's how it should go...

2 Cristophe shampoos @ 4.99
2 Cristophe conditioners @ 4.99
*small filler item

-$5 off WYB any full sized Cristophe hair care products CRT
-$4/20 CRT
-$5 in ECBs from today's Garnier deal

Six dollars out of pocket isn't so bad for 4 of my favorite products. Here's to hoping I can score some more summer clearance items in the morning!

What did you buy this week?