Money Saving Mom®

Yesterday, I tried to heat up some hardboiled eggs in the microwave. For the record, that was not a good idea. 🙂

As I was cleaning up the egg particles that had exploded all over every nook and cranny of the microwave (I had to use an old toothbrush to get some of it cleaned up from the crevices of the door!), I realized how fitting this egg explosion was — because it has pretty much felt like my whole week was a series of one mess or explosion after another.

I said earlier this week that I was back to regular blogging this week… and I totally expected to be. But I failed to really take into consideration what all was on my plate this week — and then there were some unexpected curveballs thrown in there, too:

• We were out of town all last week, so I came home to piles of emails, work projects, and laundry. (And my assistant was out of town all of this week — we’re so glad she was able to go on vacation, but boy did I realize how much I rely on her help!)
• The first pass of my book was due back to my publisher on Wednesday. Finishing this required a number of hours’ worth of work on Monday and Tuesday. (The first pass is the version where it’s all laid out exactly as it will go to the printers — my mom and I went through it with a fine-toothed comb trying to catch each and every typo or other error).
• A child accidentally spilled a big glass of iced tea on Jesse’s computer causing it to stop working and resulting in a $250 repair bill.
• Our car was in the shop for half of the week… and they were unable to figure out what the issue was.
• I forgot to take my sinus/allergy medication at the end of last week and paid for it this week with a chronic headache that sent me to bed a few times because it was so severe.
• And then, my blog’s server had major issues which resulted in it being down or crawling at a snail’s pace much of Tuesday and Wednesday. When we finally got everything worked out and up and running again, something happened somewhere that locked everyone on my team (including me!) out of my blog. (We are in the process of switching servers to resolve this problem and prevent it from happening again in the future.)

My visions of a quiet, organized, calm week definitely didn’t materialize… but I tried to count my blessings in the middle of the messes:

• I’m grateful we were able to take a vacation as a family — we made many memories and it was a wonderful time away.
• I’m thankful for my assistant and all she does to help relieve my workload — I’d be sunk without her!
• I’m humbled to have the opportunity to write another book and am so thrilled to see it coming together so beautifully!
• I’m thankful we had money set aside to pay for the computer repairs and the car repairs. Both cases could have been worse and more expensive.
• I’m grateful for my sinus/allergy medication — without it, I would be in constant pain.
• And I’m so thankful that it’s been years since we’ve had blog/server issues to the severity that they were this week. I’m also very grateful for Joy from FiveJDesign.com and her technical expertise — there’s no way I could figure out how to fix and resolve these issues on my own!

In reality, these issues this past week were so minor. Yes, they were inconvenient. Some of them were costly. Some of them took a lot of time to deal with. But none of them were life-threatening. None of them were permanent or even long-term.

So in the midst of mess, I’m grateful. So very grateful.

And maybe next week things will be a little more smooth sailing? We’ll see!

The following is a guest post by Kimber Daley:

Although I am not normally a Kroger shopper, when I saw the post on MoneySavingMom.com with a link to the amazing General Mills e-coupon (buy 4 boxes, save $6), I knew I had to check out the sale. My husband I ended up running an errand right next to Kroger, so I popped in for a few minutes – and I’m so glad I did!

Here’s what I bought:

3 boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios: $8.97 total ($2.99 each)
3 boxes of Multigrain Cheerios: $8.97 total ($2.99 each)
2 boxes of Kix: $5.98 total ($2.99 each)
2 boxes of fruit snacks: $2.49 each
2 bottles of juice: $4.48 total ($1.99 and $2.49)

Since the cereal and the fruit snacks were participating in the “Buy 5, save $5” promotion and I bought 10, $10 came off at the register. And since the amazing $6 off coupon can be redeemed up to 5 times (WOW) and I bought 8 boxes of cereal, that took off another $12. There was also an e-coupon for $1 off Betty Crocker fruit snacks (also redeemable 5 times) which took off another $2.

To make the deal even sweeter, I joined up for the Old Orchard Fan Club over a year ago, thanks to the recommendation of MoneySavingMom.com. I had earned enough points from surveys to cash in for a free bottle of juice recently, and they also sent me a promotional coupon to try one of their reduced-sugar juices.

I used those coupons today. Unfortunately, the cashier took off $1.99 twice instead of $1.99 and $2.49, but I didn’t notice until I got home. But 50 cents for two bottles of juice is still fabulous!

One quick tip: I started by checking out the smaller boxes of cereal. But I looked at the bottom of the aisle, and found out that the biggest boxes of cereal were on sale for the cheapest price! The huge boxes are normally $5.39, but after the sale and the e-coupon, I paid 49 cents each. It was amazing!

My quick shopping trip ended up costing me $5.40 and I saved $44.48! We are set on cereal for months, and my kids are so excited for the special fruit snack treats in their lunch boxes once school starts up again!

Kimber is a stay-at-home mom living in Texas. She loves playing with her two kids, going on dates with her husband, reading a good book, and shopping for her family (and for Operation Christmas Child)!

Have you gotten a great deal thanks to a tip you’ve found here on MoneySavingMom.com? Take a picture of your deal/purchase and write a short post on the deal details and submit it here. If your submission is chosen to be posted, I’ll send you a $25 Amazon gift card! Note: the more creative, unique, and well-written your post, the more chance it will have of being posted.

After our vacation last week, we had a LOT of laundry to catch up on today.

My initial reaction was to be a little overwhelmed by the mountain of clean clothes, but then I decided to turn it into a fun memory: we popped popcorn, turned on a movie, and had an afternoon Laundry Party.

You know how they always say that Mom’s attitude sets the tone in the home? Well, that was certainly true today!

When I enthusiastically pitched the Laundry Party idea to the kids they were all SO excited about it. In fact, by their reactions, you would have thought I had told them we were all going out for ice cream! 🙂

I think we just might be having some similar parties like this in the not-too-distant future!