Ohhh I am so stickin' to what I said! 2 weeks in a row yo!

Again my menu starts with Sunday at our house. This week I am just listing the dinners:

• Sunday: Broccoli Beef with Rice (super easy! Leave a comment if you would like me to post the recipe...cheap too)
• Monday: Frozen Pizza's (I'm sick so I changed this to tonight, it should have been for 4H night)
• Tuesday: Salisbury Steak again...it was such a huge hit and is highly in demand here (EASY & CHEAP!)
• Wednesday: White Trash Spaghetti (My moms recipe that my BFF named)
• Thursday: Baked Garlic Chicken
• Friday: Meatloaf
• Saturday: By the maniacs request...Hot Dogs....easy enough!

P.S.....have you checked out the giveaways at orgjunkie?

I've said it many times before, and I'm saying it yet again! Times are tough and we all need to watch what we spend.

Safeway and its family of grocery stores (Vons, Dominick's, Tom Thumb, Randalls, Pavilions, Carrs and Genuardi's) are helping Moms make this season a bit easier. Shopping with Safeway's Club Card offers us the opportunity to earn gas rewards whenever we grocery shop, buy prescriptions, and even gift cards.

You can earn double PowerPump Gas Rewards for every $100 in gift cards purchased with your Club Card at Safeway stores. You can pick up gift cards from over 300 retailers, restaurants, sports and entertainment companies (including Best Buy, The Home Depot, Macy's, iTunes, plus many more!).

To find a participating store near you, go to www.Safeway.com/PowerPump and enter your zip code. You can use the giftcards as presents or for your personal use to receive the extra benefit of double gas rewards at the pump. The offer of double PowerPump gas rewards on gift cards will only be available through the holidays.

So Halloween is coming, I absolutely LOVE Halloween! Now things are too tight to do it this year, but I promise....next year I am having a HUGE Halloween bash with Halloween invitations
and all the other stuff that goes along with throwing a real big bash! This year however....we will just settle for taking the kiddos out Trick Or Treating. YUM...free candy! My kids have figured out what they want to be and really I have no investment this year besides having to get a witch hat for Lauren. Lauren chose to be a witch after getting a very cool witch costume minus the hat in a box of freecycle stuff. PERFECT! Little money to be spent makes me a very happy mama! Lauren and Morgan have both chosen to be punk rockers. Again...no investment because they both already have clothing that will work for this. So a witch hat, some bags of candy and we are set! What are your kiddos being for Halloween? What do you have planned?

I love love love FREEBIES! This link has actually been in my favorites for a long time. I don't know why I never shared it here before. Girly Things does not charge a cent for the bow instructions posted to her site. It is all there for every crafty mama to use. Yes, for real...no money needed for the instructions to make a cute little bow! Just visit the site and browse the many many bow instructions and make a few or even a hundred....you can sell the bows even! She even has advice and tips on selling the bows....I swear...this mama is NOT stingy at all! She learned to share her toys....SO go on...get to bow makin'! OH I have a GREAT idea...you make a Neon Green Leopard print bow to match this dress you need to buy from me....sound good?

I can remember it like it was yesterday! The clowns, the animals, the trapeze artists! It was so exciting as a child and it still gets me all excited as an adult! I remember once getting to ride on the Elephants! It was so amazing to be so small and be up there on that gigantic creature!

My oldest daughter Morgan has been to the circus, the little 2 have yet to experience it. How exciting to have two little ones see it for the first time. The looks of pure amazement on their little faces!

Ringling Brothers Circus with the help of Mom Central has given me a special coupon code to share with you!

The code is MCC

This code is valid for the circus shows in the following cities:

Indianapolis, IN - Sept. 4-7, 2008

Kansas City, MO - Sept. 10-14, 2008

Grand Rapids, MI - Sept. 18-21, 2008

Denver, CO - Oct. 2-13, 2008

Boston, MA – Oct. 8-13, 2008

Cleveland, OH - Oct. 24 - Nov. 2

Chicago, IL - Nov. 6 - 30, 2008

St. Louis, MO - Nov. 6-9, 2008

Auburn Hills, MI - Nov. 12 - 16, 2008

Highland Heights, KY - Feb 27 - Mar. 1, 2009

Cincinnati, OH - Mar. 4 - 8, 2008

Please spread the joy of the circus by passing this coupon code onto your friends and family!

They can go to ringling.com and type in their zip code to find the shows and purchase tickets online with the code.

Oh and don't forget about the Baby’s First Circus program! This program allows babies to receive a free ticket voucher that can be exchanged for a free ticket to any Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey performance, anytime, anywhere. No expiration date! How cool is that!

Have you started your shopping?  We have!  I have been picking up new things that I find at great prices.  So far I have a Kids Digital Camera that even makes video clips for Lauren!  We also have picked up a great art desk that is wooden with a matching stool!  I think we may also get Lauren and Emma kids golf clubs ,not too sure...I think they would enjoy hitting the balls in the yard.  Morgan is totally over toys, so her biggie will most likely be her own computer, and shopping cards to book stores, since that is her passion.  Only thing is....would it be more logical to get her a laptop or a desk top?  She is 10, very mature and responsible, I was just thinking the laptop would take up less room in her bedroom.  Any suggestions?

So in an effort to be more frugal and save more money I am investigating every option I come across for lowering living expenses as much as possible.  I have seriously taken up couponing again.  For awhile I slacked because with the baby (now 2) it was hard to get it all done.  Couponing is a LOT of work, but it is fun to see that total drop down in the end.  I have also been paying more attention about making trips to the store, so as to plan everything in a route to save more gas.  Today I am going to auto insurance compare, and see if I can find a lower rate on that.  What are some of your money saving tips to lower living expenses?

This was yesterday right after Play-doh. I wanted to post them last night but I was so tired. SO, um yea....my kids change clothing daily...these are from yesterday. Our humongous paint tray is the plastic lid from our eggs. Works EXTREMELY well as a paint tray. Some of the cups have water, others paint and they were mixing colors. My girls are pretty darn artistic if you ask me. Lauren can draw so well already and she is only 4. I showed her one time the other day how to draw a pig and she mastered it second try! Maybe she will be a tattoo artist like her mama? Nah, I would rather her not be...maybe a book illustrator!

I just have to write about Revolution Money Exchange again. They continue to impress me. I have been accepting payments through them as well as paypal. Thing is...they don't take fee's from my money as paypal does. They also just issued RME cards! I got mine and activated it today so now I have instant access to my cash! I can not brag on them enough. Customer service is great, I have called them with questions on things. I have had NO problems with RME and I highly recommend you sign up. Many Wham's are accepting RME as a payment option now since they can avoid many fee's this way. You can check them out by clicking below.

Home Made Simple is offering a coupon booklet by mail. Save over $27 on 6 great brands!
Click here to sign up! This deal was found via Thrifty Jinxy's Blog.

Also enter the Transform Your Hands Sweepstakes! Enter for a chance to win $3,000 toward a ring or bracelet.
Grand Prize Winner will receive $3,000 that may be used toward a ring or bracelet of their choice.
Six Monthly First Prize Winners will each receive $1,000 that may be used toward a piece of jewelry of their choice.
Daily Prize Winners will each receive a 22 oz. bottle of Dawn Hand Renewal in Pomegranate

Today was one of those Mondays. You know, the one where you have all of these things planned to get done and none of them happen? Yea it was one of those days....BUT I did accomplish things I did not have planned.

I went to Piggly Wiggly first thing and was there before everyone else and was able to score TONS of meat marked way down. There are not many of these around anymore it seems. I love going there because of the markdowns on meat, produce and dairy. The produce guy was bagging ripe bananas as well so we grabbed a bag of those and he gave Lauren a banana just cause. You don't get that treatment at the bigger stores.

Then I went to CVS and Walgreens and got free mini touch glucose monitors, one from each store. These will go to my friend Tereasa whose son has Juvenile Diabetes. They are so much cooler than the monitor I had to use. Small and shiny. After that I went to Kroger and made out pretty well with the $5 off of of 10 items deal. I did the deal twice and saved even more after all of my coupons. After the paying I was looking over my receipt and one item rang up higher than it should have, so I got cash back and that item was free.

Now its after midnight and I really should be sleeping but I do need to let you know about a contest going on over at Thrifty Jinxy. Enter to Win Thrifty Jinxy's Summer Fitness Package!

Thrifty Jinxy has a great summer fitness package to give away. The prize includes a water bottle, Crystal Light Pink Lemonade, St. Ive's Healthy Brilliance lotion and the book "The Delinquent Fairy's Thoughts on Exercise". So go enter!!!

Yea, this is what I let the kids do when I need a moment to just chill. It's art! They add colorful drawings to my already tattooed legs. I thank whomever created the washable marker! Hey, at least we are saving on paper right?

Morgan is working on a short story (something she truly loves) for a writing contest.....From what I have read so far, it is about Horses and Cowboys.

Yesterday we were being crafty and frugal. Morgan was covering cereal boxes with scrap booking paper to make her paper sorters and magazine holders.

I covered a saltine crackers box to make a nifty place to hide the remotes...

We also cut the lids off of the plastic strawberry containers to straighten up the medicine cupboards.

There happens to be a little girl that looks at my blog quite often for Tutus...this one happens to be on its way to her home! I hope it is White, Pink and Purple enough for great flying powers!

Yesterday I went grocery shopping at Kroger's. I got 4 16oz pkgs of fresh strawberries for $5.00! I thought that was an excellent deal! My girls ate one whole package just last night. I saved over $50.00 with just my Kroger card..imagine had I had my coupons! Since life is slowing down I am venturing back into the crazy coupon world!

Haircuts! Emma's first in fact! Emma's hair has grown in like a shag haircut....wispy bangs and all. Its really funny to me that she is 2 and already appeared to have a hairstyle. Well Lauren decided she wanted bangs so I cut hers and then Emma wants hers done too, so here are my girls and their new hairdo's. Lauren looks like a totally different person and I catch myself looking at her like who the heck is this kid dancing around my house????

The next day.....Lauren says "I want my big hair back" I reply well honey you asked me to cut your bangs, we cut your hair off. She then comes back with "I want you to put it back...I know use the glue stick and glue it back on!" HAHAHA! Secretly though she loves it and I catch her on her stool in the bathroom looking at it and fixing it.

And as you can see she was REALLY REALLY happy about it!

Notice I said MAKES and not BAKES. I stumbled upon a blog by Dizzy Dee. They had a post about making a cake in a coffee cup in a microwave. I asked Lauren if she was up to the challenge of testing this cake out. She said she most certainly was.....ok well she didn't say that, but she did say "YUM CAKE" that is the same thing right?

The whole thing start to finish to make this cake was about 5 min. You can visit Dizzy Dee to get the recipe and instructions. I highly recommend it for all you chocolate craving mamas....forget those microwaveable cake bowls. This was CHEAP and EASY!

I had forgotten about Vindale Research until today. Vindale is a LEGIT company that pays you to try out new products, services, and websites.. I have received a lot of products in the mail to try out from them. I have not only received free stuff (good stuff) but money as well
You can make $5 to $75 per survey, and you even get to keep the products you review! The surveys are really easy, and the membership is FREE, so what is there to lose, right?
Check it out!

Market research companies can be hard to track down sometimes. Then you find places online that want to charge you to give you the information! Guess what..... links galore will follow! Some of these will be local to Dallas and Texas only, but many of them have locations in other places too! I suggest signing up for all of them!

C & C Market Research

Dallas by Definition

Delve

Fieldwork, Inc.

Focus Coast to Coast

Focus Pointe Global

Plaza Research

Savitz Field and Focus

Schlesinger Associates

OK, so I was reading an article on Frugal Dad called 75 Tips to Survive a Down Economy. A lot of them are things we already did, but there were a few things on there that we needed to still do. I noticed that he talked about Cash Crate. I have seen this site before but wasn't sure if it was legit. He does it and so I decided to join last night. Its pretty cool, the cash amount moves from pending to earned pretty fast too. My minimum payout amount is set to $10, with my payout date set as the 15Th. I just started yesterday and already have this now:

July's Earnings: $9.18
Pending Earnings: $41.05
Points: 8

The points can be saved up and spent on things like on mypoints (If you want an invite to Mypoints let me know, I LOVE Mypoints and have earned MANY giftcards from there). I noticed a Starbucks gift card for points! I also used the Netflix offer on Cash Crate to sign up for a free trial where it also earns money to my account through Cash Crate. Tomorrow (Since calls are free on Saturdays) I am calling our cable company and getting rid of the Cable TV. We do not need it! I was impressed at the amount of shows that are available for immediate viewing right on the computer from Netflix! So much cheaper! We have had Netflix in the past and we enjoyed it, but they didn't offer the watch now option then.

Do you have a favorite money maker site? Let me know!

I am so exhausted from yesterday. I can't even begin to list everything that was done. Morgan wants to learn to cook so yesterday she helped with brekfast. She made homemade from scratch biscuits completely by herself, then I helped her with the bacon and eggs.

I made this pretty Apron for a GC mama! I think it turned out great and I love the ruffle bottom!

We also made 2 loafs of bread, a huge dinner (Morgan helped, we had a slight grater flesh wound, but she is ok). There was also a bunch of boring household stuff that I do not feel the need to list. Anyhow....off to do more! Have a great day! Please leave me comments...I miss them!

So while the younger girls were napping Morgan and I decided to tackle making our own laundry soap. This has been being discussed at The Granola Chicks Board recently and heck I wanted in on that fun. Also a great money saver and a great project to do with Morgan. We used ZOTE, Arm & Hammer washing soda, Mule Team Borax, and Orange EO. Actually we threw in a bar of Ivory and a bit of Dr B's Castille....I like soap. The directions we used can be found here.

It will not be ready until tomorrow evening. It is supposed to sit for 24 hours and should gel up some. Its pink...I like pink.

Then the wee ones woke up and hmmmmm lets make chocolate chip cookies!

Patience patience!!!

10 min is entirely too long for Emma apparantly!

They all stuffed themselves full of cookies and were a chocolate mess (missed that pic op) and Morgan volunteered to give them baths! How awesome! So I had a bit of time to post our day in pics.