"Couponing"

Today was my first attempt at “couponing”. I’ve been wanting to “learn the art” for a long time now, but finally after hearing some recent success stories from friends, I determined to make it a goal to educate myself and give it a try. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and asking questions, and it looks like I still have a ton to learn, but today was my first time putting into practice what I’ve learned so far. With about a dozen coupons (2 were “stacked” - for the same item), and a great deal going on at Target right now: Buy 7 frozen food items, get a $5 gift card off your next purchase, I was able to get this...

...for $17.67; all of which would have cost me $41.00. Now, to those who are avid “couponers”, this may not seem like a huge deal, but I’m pretty excited about it. This is what I bought:

4 bags frozen vegetables (with 1 Target coupon)

3 small containers Cool Whip

2 Weight Watchers meals

4 single-serving frozen yogurts

1 box (6 count) mint chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches

7 frozen juice concentrates (2 - o.j., 2 - 100% fruit juice, 2 strawberry daquiri, 1 - lemonade)

2 small blocks cheese (with 1 Target coupon)

4 boxes pasta (2 - whole wheat) (with 1 Target coupon)

dishwasher detergent (with 1 Target coupon)

cotton balls ($0.62 with 1 Target coupon)

aluminum foil ($0.62 with 1 Target coupon)

Halls cough drops ($0.19 with 2 coupons)

floss (free with 1 Target coupon)

A couple tips I got that helped: When shopping for the frozen food items, or for an item that you have a coupon for, look for something that’s very inexpensive to begin with (frozen food items for around $1 or less). Also, in some cases, as in mine, it worked best to do separate transactions: First, buy 7 most inexpensive frozen items; get $5 gift card. Second, buy 7 more frozen items; apply $5 gift card to that; receive another $5 gift card. Third, buy 7 more frozen food items; apply $5 gift card to that; receive another $5 gift card. Buy the rest of your items (use coupons); apply $5 gift card to that. It seems tedious, but using a credit card it actually went very smoothly. You could always buy the 21 frozen items all at once, getting $15 in gift cards to use towards your next purchase, but I wasn’t buying a lot of product outside of the frozen foods.

Anyway, thought I would pass along the tips and info. for those of you who might be interested. By the way, these Kemps Frozen Yogurt Parfaits are really good!

The CJV Bible - Coleton James Version

Introducing Baby...

We had our second ultrasound today. We are just over 21 weeks now. The kids were so excited to see the baby, as we all went together as a family. Of course, Chase and I were excited, too! We were able to see some great views of the baby, including the baby's mouth opening and closing, eyes, four-chamber heart pumping that the doctor said looked all good, feet, hands, hand holding onto the feet...it's so amazing! Here's a couple of our favorite pictures:

This is a picture of the baby's face. On the left, you can see the eyes and mouth (open) clearly.

This is a little blurry, but it's a picture of the bottom of Baby's foot, a hand at the upper left, and part of the other foot on the bottom left.