We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 3

So Justin had found a job. We had started on the road to financial recovery and thought everything would be OK, even though we were still struggling with medical bills and expenses. Justin's Insulin and blood checking prescriptions were more each month than we had realized, so that was an added burden on our already tight budget. But we made do. Then, before our babies first birthday, I had sudden painful cramps. they got so bad that I couldn't even breathe. My husband and mother took me to the hospital and after some ultrasounds and other tests, I was recommended to a specialist so I could get a Colonoscopy to make sure what was going on. I'd had some issues with my intestines in high school, so the doctor wanted to make sure i was OK. This was just one more thing we had to pay for. So, a month later, and the day before my procedure, we got the liquid drink you have to take before you go in, and I had NEVER tasted anything so gross in my life... but it also made me very nauseated. Somehow though, I was able to keep it down, while drinking ginger-ale in between gulps of the nasty.
The next morning, I was still sick to my stomach. I hadn't eaten anything since the morning before, and since I was going under anesthesia I couldn't even drink anything now. As we were getting ready for the visit to the Dr. I finally realized the date... I had been almost a week late for my period and hadn't even noticed due to all the stress of the procedure. My husband insisted on taking a pregnancy test before we went to the hospital (luckily we had one on hand) and sure enough, I was pregnant. It took all of 10 seconds for the test to go positive.
We went to the Dr. anyway, but couldn't do the procedure now because the drugs could hurt the baby. I was relieved a bit because I hated the idea of having to go under, but upset at the same time that I hadn't realized sooner about being late and put myself through the ordeal the night before for nothing.
The second pregnancy was even worse than the first. I ended up having to go in for an IV twice because I got so dehydrated with being sick, and then when I went in the third time, they basically told me to go home, and said that they would set up a home IV system for me. I had an IV in my arm for more than 2 weeks. Again, building to our seemingly endless hospital bills. They would never stop!

Then, we caught a brake! I was about 6 months pregnant when we got a call from my father. He was in serious danger of loosing his house! After talking it through and a LOT of prayer, we decided to help him out. We took out a large loan to catch my dad up on all of his bills, and moved into his house.
He has a large house, the basement has one bedroom, a 3/4 bathroom and a full kitchen. The main floor has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a large kitchen. My dad moved downstairs and we moved in. We now had the space we needed for a second child. We were also able to pay less monthly on the loan than we were paying on rent. Though the difference wasn't a lot, it was enough that we could start making small monthly payments on all the medical bills that had accumulated in the last 18 months. It was a blessing for us! A few months later, we were able to finish paying all of our existing medical bills just in time for our baby girl to arrive, and add more medical bills. We immediately set up payment plans on those. But now, we had to feed and diaper 2 babies!

Making ends meet was now a week to week, paycheck to paycheck struggle, but we were determined to make it work. We knew it had to somehow. We got by, and provided. We got pregnant with our third child, again before our youngest had turned 1. But somehow we knew we would get by.

More in Part 4, coming soon...

We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 1
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 2
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 3
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 4
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Conclusion

We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 2

After I got back from the hospital, my recovery was painful and frankly embarrassing. I had to completely re-train my leg to work, because the muscle that used to run length-wise down next to my knee, now ran horizontally across my knee cap. Every time I moved my leg I felt like I was tearing my knee in half. I didn't handle the pain well either which made recovery take longer than anticipated. If I hadn't had my wedding only three months later, I don't think I would have Ben able to push myself as hard as I did. I went to therapy, got my leg back just enough to be able to hold my own weight during my wedding, so that was good. Unfortunately, no one would hire me before the wedding because they didn't like the idea of me taking off a week of work, for the honeymoon, so close after hiring me on. So We just decided that I would look for a job after we got back.
I looked, and applied to a lot of places but no one ever got back to me, apparently I was qualified for half of them, and for some reason, being able to type 20 words per minute isn't very impressive for a desk job of any kind. I was resigned to wait til I was fully recovered so I could find a job that I could actually do. Then, one day, I got sick.
Yes, I was pregnant. I didn't handle pregnancy very well at all... I couldn't even keep jester down. I lost a lot of weight at the beginning and then even more later on. I finally started gaining weight during my 6 month along, but I was still sick. Not just morning sickness, it was a 24/7 sickness. I think I spent more time in my bathroom than I did anywhere else in our apartment, and when I wasn't there, I was on the couch trying to not have to go back to the bathroom. Needless to say, I was in no condition to find a job. After the baby came, we decided it was more important to us that I stay home with the baby than for me to get a job. We knew that somehow, we would make it work and that we would be OK.

We were able to, fortunately, pay off the credit cards before the baby arrived, but during the two week paternity leave Justin was able to take off from work, his boss called him in, and informed him that as of the day before, he and everyone else at the company no longer had jobs. So there we were, a two week old baby, and no income! He immediately began the job hunt, but nothing came. After 2 weeks, we had burned through the little bit of money we had in the bank. Justin's parents were wonderful enough to give us a small loan that we could pay the necessary bills and buy food for a couple of months. We were able to make it last three months with careful budgeting. It took that long for Justin to get another job. We were lucky that he found one that quickly.
Once he started his new job, we got a loan from the bank to pay his parents back. We knew we would then be paying interest, but in our opinion, it was better than keeping money issues between us and his family.

We were finally able to breathe and start on the long road ahead of us to become debt free and self-reliant. But we now had hospital bills from the baby that were due, as well as hospital bills from Justin being diagnosed with type 1 diabetes only a few months before. Now we had a significant loan to repay as well as our monthly living expenses. Justin worked hard, but didn't make that much. It was enough to pay the monthly needs and the loan payment, but the hospital bills kept getting pushed back. Luckily, our tax return was able to pay off most of the hospital bills, but we would still be dealing with some of the hospital bills from our baby being born on his second birthday.

To be continued....

We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 1
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 2
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 3
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 4
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Conclusion

.49 cent Classico Pasta Sauce

Just found this printable coupon for Classico Pasta Sauce! At Smith's during the mega event (from now til March 22, 2011) you can use this coupon and snag a couple jars for only .49 cents each!!! If you stocked up on all that free pasta, now you can have some sauce for it too! Make sure you print it off twice! Click here to get your coupon for $1.00 off any 44 Oz. jar of Classico Pasta Sauce

We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 1

I think, to really understand how incredible this is... you need to know where we came from, and how we got to the point where we are now...

When we had our first baby, we almost dies at how much diapers cost us each month. Then, surprise surprise, only 19 months later a second baby joined our little family! We had 2 babies in diapers!!! That was insane!!! On Diapers alone we were spending between $100.00-$120.00 a month! Not to mention wipes, diaper rash cream and baby powder!

Diapering is an expensive necessity!

So I toyed with the idea of cloth diapering. I hated having to budget out $150.00 a month just for diapering! I wanted to change that. And I knew that if I could use cloth diapers, my budget for that part of life would be down to very little! So we gave it a shot, I tried different diapers and different things, but try as I might I couldn't get myself to keep with it. I give MAJOR props to those of you who do the cloth diapers! KUDOS to you!!!
In the end, I decided to just swallow my pride and fork over the $150.00 a month so I didn't have to deal with the re-usable ones; which, by the way, my husband refused to change diapers with. In all fairness though, he told me before I even tried to get them, that he wouldn't be able to handle it, so I knew if I made the switch, I would be doing all the diapering.
Then Came baby number 3! For almost 6 months, I had 3 babies in diapers! About $200 a month just for that! My oldest FINALLY potty trained so we went back to 2 in diapers, but still. that is a LOT of diapers!!!

We are currently still diapering 2 children, so when I say we cut our budget in more than half... That alone is amazing!

My husband has a good job that he loves, and it is stable, and the business is growing. In the current economic times, that is really saying something. But, on the other hand, he doesn't make a fortune either.

Before we even got married, we talked about how important it was, to both of us, that I be able to stay home with the kids, once we decided to have children. So, our plan was to get married, then wait a year before trying to get pregnant. During that year, it was planned that we would both work, and we would do our best to live on his income and my income would go to paying off the credit cards we had and getting out of debt, and once that was paid off all my income would then go into savings. That way, when we did start having children we could be debt free and have a savings to start with, and we would already be living on his income alone, so there would be no surprises!

Then... as usual... life happened...

In High School, I blew my knee out and narrowly avoided having surgery on it. I was in therapy for more than a month though. Then, four months before our wedding my knee got re-injured (I will spare those details as it was very gross). I went to the Doctor to get it checked out. He said that nothing, miraculously, had torn, so I could opt out of surgery and go into intensive therapy to get it better, but also, that since this was the second time my knee had "slipped", the chances of it happening a third time were very high, and that if it happened a third time, surgery would be necessary. So it was up to me if I had surgery now, or basically waited till it happened again.
I talked to Justin, my then Fiance, and we decided to opt for surgery. At the time, I was still covered by my parents insurance, and fortunately I was double covered. So really, the surgery would cost us very little, almost nothing to get it done. Whereas, if we waited to do it down the road, we had no idea what the coverage would be like when we got married or what our financial situation would be when I needed it.
So, March 2nd, 2006, I went in for my first surgery. My fiance and my mother were there to comfort me. I was so nervous. But I knew it would somehow all work out. During surgery, the doctor scraped off a bunch of "ground bone" and had to re-rout some of the muscle in order keep my knee cap from moving again. the surgery went well, but the recovery was long and hard, and the worst part was, our previous plans of getting out of debt and saving before we had kids looked impossible. I was unable to work from the time I had my surgery, three months before the wedding. I had to quit my job, because, even though they were willing to hold my position, the job I had required a lot of climbing and heavy lifting, and with my recovery, if I kept the job, I wouldn't be very productive at it for at least 8 months. We planned on me recovering, then starting therapy and then getting back to work as soon as I could find a job that would let me take it easy, so we could get that debt paid off.

But again... Life was going to push us in a different direction...

We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 1
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 2
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 3
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Part 4
We Cut Our Grocery Bill by 56% - Conclusion

Old Coupon Alert

When I went to the Smith's Mega Event, I got all excited to see this peelie coupon on the cheese I got, I LOVE sharp Extra Chedar, don't really like the mild, but the mild had the coupon, so I grabbed one mild and 2 extra sharp... Glad I only got one mild...

For one thing, it just has a link to a site so you can print it off, and for the other thing? It's an old coupon. Not even working anymore!

Once I got the cheese home, I peeled off the coupon thing, and put it at my desk to remember to grab the online coupon later. Just read the back. "Offer valid 9/1/10-11/7/10" So it has not been available for about 4 months. So if you want mild cheddar cheese, go ahead and grab it, if you are just planning on getting the cheese for the coupon, pass on it!
ALSO this means I bought older cheese... it is still good, but I will need to make sure and use it first.

At least my kids like the mild. Cheese sticks with dinner tonight! :)

Walgreens Explained

I will be honest, when I first started using coupons, I kept hearing all these wonderful things about Walgreens. So I walked into my local store... Only to walk right back out again. I was so intimidated by all of there register rewards, coupon policy lingo, and the multiple transaction thing....

Then, Walgreens had a killer deal on Huggies diapers, I had three babies in diapers at the time and I thought, If I am going to be serious about coupons, and serious about saving money, I had better just swallow hard and do it!

So, if you are anything like me and have avoided Walgreens in the past because of the intimidation factor, I am hoping to help a little there. Most things we are afraid of, are feared in the first place because of a lack of knowledge. So I will try to do my best to help quell those fears by helping you understand the basics of Walgreens shopping, as well as give you some links to the actual Walgreens site so you can do more reading on the topics you are interested in.

Walgreens as whole is a fabulous store! Their pharmacy we have always been happy with, and it is by far the best choice for a pharmacy if you ever need a late night prescription fill. Their customer service also pretty great, from what I have experienced. Yes you will find the occasional ornery sales clerk, but where won't you? Over all though, the atmosphere is great and personable! When they have the really great deals, they are almost always going to include their Register Rewards.

What are Register Rewards? Register Rewards are, for all intents and purposes, cash that print out at the register when your receipt prints out, just from a different machine. Your cashier will hand you your Register Rewards with your receipt once your transaction is complete. You cannot use them anywhere, in fact you can only use them at Walgreens, nut you can use them just like cash on your next visit to the store. But, PLEASE pay attention to your register rewards, they DO expire after a week or so. So just make a note of that when you leave the store.
How do you get them? During different promotions, Register Rewards will print out when you purchase certain items. You can find the different Register Reward deals by looking at their Weekly Ad or by asking a store associate. The promotion may be for a specific item, EXAMPLE: buy 1 Dove Body lotion, get a $2.00 Register Reward. Or it may be for a specified amount of qualifying items, EXAMPLE: Buy $10.00 worth of qualifying items, receive a $5.00 Register Reward.
Now this is the part that got me when I first went, and why I turned and left... You will only get one unique Register Reward per transaction. meaning, if I wanted to get 3 Dove Body lotions, I would have to split it up into 3 different transactions at the register in order to get all $6.00 worth of Register Rewards. But, if I got 1 Dove Body Lotion and then $10.00 worth of participating products, I could buy the lotion and the $10.00 of other things in the same transaction, because the register rewards are completely different. So say I wanted to get those 3 lotions and then $10.00 worth of products. I would break it into 3 different transactions at the register.
Transaction 1: 1 Dove Body lotion and $10.00 worth of participating products
Transaction 2: 1 Dove Body lotion
Transaction 3: 1 Dove Body lotion
I would then walk out of the store with all of my product and $11.00 worth of Register Rewards.
Now, don't use the printed Register Reward from your first bottle of lotion to pay for your second bottle, it will go through just fine, nut it won't print out another one for you. Save it till next time.

As far as using regular coupons goes, you can use regular coupons from your Sunday Paper as well as your Register Rewards and even store coupons all in the same transaction. Here is the rule: 1 coupon per item. So if you want to use those $2.00 RR and the $5.00 RR, but you have news paper coupons for everything you need to buy, don't fret; just go to the clearance section of your store or the candy aisle. Grab 1 item for each additional RR you need to use. You can almost always find things for around .25 cents that you can attach your RR to. Also, when shopping and planning your trip, make sure you don't end up going into the negative with all of your coupons. You will not get cash back.

You can always go to GrocerySmarts to see the current deals and RR that are printing out at Walgreens.

Hopefully, I helped more than scared you more. But don't be afraid to try out Walgreens, you can get some seriously amazing deals. If it helps at all, I still get nervous sometimes when I ask for 5 or 6 different transactions, but it is so worth it, and the nervousness, by the way, kinda just adds to the coupon high I get afterwords.

Happy savings!!!

Smith's Shopping Trip 3/16/11

Today marked the start of Smith's newest Mega Event! My family and I all had a dental appointment this morning and I hate having to do anything in the afternoon on my husband's day off, so I decided to get up at 5:00am and head to the store to get my shopping done and over with.
I arrived at the parking lot 15 whole minutes before store opening, and I felt like a kid waiting at Disney Land for the gates to open and allow the flooding of people into the Happiest Place on Earth... only there wasn't a flood of people... Mostly just me, and 1 or 2 other people. But still, the feeling was there... Made me laugh feeling like that over grocery shopping. All I could think was, I guess you know you are old when... but anyways.
Like I said yesterday, this Mega Event entails buying 10 participating items to get an automatic $5.00 off at the register (you can get multiple rewards, just make sure you get everything in multiples of 10) This was my personal list:

4 American Beauty Quick Cook Pastas
7 Ronzoni Garden Delight Pasta
12 Ronzoni Healthy Harvest Pasta
12 Ronzoni Smart Taste Pasta
8 Jars of Classico Pasta Sauce
4 Packages Ground Beef (1 lb. each)
1 Beach Nut Baby Cereal
2 Beach nut Baby Food Jars
1 Beach Nut Baby Food (stage 4 Package)
3 Bricks Kraft Cheese
4 Bottles Sunny D



A total of 58 items (the baby food and the meat are NOT on the participating item list.)
Would have cost $131.43 but after coupons and the Mega Event sale, I only spent $23.87! I saved $107.56, that's 87%!!! a fabulous trip if I do say so myself!

I want to hear how did! Please, feel free to share the deal you got at the mega event in the comments!