Small world and saving a few bucks

I'm ready for school mom, and I'm taking my hockey stick for show and tell. Again.

Isn't my Thomas back pack cool? It's not new, but I just started wearing it like this!

La princesa, just being adorable as usual.

Ah ha! I finally got bubba's cup all to myself! Woo hoo! Now what do I do with it?

Aren't my kids cute? The correct answer is "Yes, they are the cutest EVER!" hee hee

Guess what??!! I met another blogger in real life yesterday at Babie's R Us! If you didn't know, it's apparently THE place to be to meet other people who have internationally adopted children. A few weeks ago, the Covey's spotted me there, but I was gone before they could ask if it was me. Erica emailed and I confirmed and the rest is history. Then yesterday, I saw an awesome mom, Mary Ann, and her two little beauties from Guatemala who we met at the event last weekend. We had a nice chat and exchanged numbers/email/blogs. THEN, wait for it . . . I was walking to the cash register and thought I recognized the person putting their things on the counter. When she moved a little, I saw her sweet baby and rushed up to her saying something like "I know this is weird, but is his name Malak?" It was! He's even more handsome in person. How cool! I've now met seven of the blogger moms/dads whose blogs I follow regularly. I hope to meet the rest of you someday in this incredibly small world we live in. Just go to BRU in OKC and I'm sure we'll run into each other eventually!

Now on to money matters. Let’s face it. We’re not loaded with cash. If you are, consider yourself especially blessed! I’ve been doing some money saving things for a long time, but lately have kicked it into high gear since we’ve got an insane amount of daycare to pay starting next week.

Here are some of the things I’ve been doing for awhile:

*clipping coupons
*making grocery shopping lists (sometimes aisle by aisle!)
*combining errands to save trips to “the city” (about 15-20 minutes away)
*menu planning (when I can stick to it)

With the addition of la princesa came LOTS of extra expenses. I’ve gotten really creative while I’ve been home with her in an effort to save money, and in many cases, reduce, reuse, and recycle! Here are some of the new ways I’ve been cutting back:

*Trash bags! Holy moly the price just keeps going up. Imagine my horror when I went to purchase said trash bags, the kind I’ve been buying for as long as I can remember, and I notice that the price has stayed the same, but instead of 30 bags you now only get 20 in a box. Sneaky. I’m NOT going to let the trash bag makers win this battle and make me buy more of their overpriced bags, so I’ve been more diligent with using the gazillion plastic bags we get (seemingly for free) when we shop at “Tar-zshay” and Wally world. Instead of filling those in my small trash cans then popping the full ones into a pricey trash bag, I’ve reversed that. We now use lots of small cans/bags and only about one big bag per week. Works great, saves money, reuses something. All good in my opinion.

*Paper towels—another way manufacturers stick it to us. Fewer sheets on the roll for more money. Not only did I stock up (I HATE stocking up on stuff, so this is big for me) when I found a great buy on the paper towels we use, I have also cut back drastically on how many we use. I’ve started using actual kitchen towels for hand drying and dish towels (clean ones—if they’ve been wet for more than 5 minutes I consider them filthy!) for cleaning the counter, wiping down walls, etc. Not a new concept for most, but huge for us! And, since I use the “keeps on working” kind, if a paper towel is just used to dry clean hands, it gets to lay out to dry to wipe a face with later!

*Taking cooler showers. Saves some energy and doesn’t dry out skin so badly!

*Opening the blinds. Wow—my first week home I was pretty sure I was living in a cave. Majorly depressing. Then I realized that I could simply open all the blinds each day and let the sunshine in! I rarely need to turn on a light during the day. Natural light is good for us, and less lights mean less electricity, meaning lower bill. Cha-ching!

*Feeding my family more processed meats. Just kidding, but seriously, it seems like processed meats/foods are the only things that haven’t gone up in price lately. Oh yeah, and those Stouffers animal crackers. What a deal. 2 lbs. of low fat snacking for only $1.72! ha ha It’s the only food I can think of these days that you can get for under a dollar per pound! We could all save a bundle if we’d just buy hot dogs and junk food instead of fresh meats and veggies. And we’d probably cut several years off our lives by doing so, thus reducing the amount of retirement savings (what’s that again anyway??) we need in the long run. A concept we should ponder . . .

*Dryer sheets—I’ve started using each one twice. Why not? They still work just fine! Reusing and reducing waste! Yippee!

*Paper plates—I love paper plates, but hate how much waste they cause, so instead of having my sandwich on disposable plates, I’ve been using my fancy dancy Corelle dishes instead. Gotta run the dishwasher anyway, what’s one more plate a day? Saving money, reducing waste, go me!

*Buying lots of clothes for the kids for next year for way cheap clearance prices. Lots of people are scared to shop a year in advance, or they just want the most current styles/designs. Not me! Who cares! They’re little kids, after all, and while there are certainly a few 3 year olds in the little man’s class that are already noticing/judging what their friends wear (not kidding!), not many really do. I hope I can raise my kids to know that as long as someone looks nice and has clean clothes and body, it doesn’t really matter what they’re wearing. We’ll see . . .

Really, though, it’s hard to make the almighty dollar stretch like it used to. For us it means very few nice meals out, carpooling when we can, and, at least for me, putting my frivolous wants on hold indefinitely. Who cares if mama needs a new pair of shoes when the kiddos need diapers, you know? I do want to be clear, though, that we're not destitute and we're not looking for handouts. Things are just super tight right now. We're going to take it day by day, still try to do fun, inexpensive things as a family, and get through this time of sky high prices and added expenses. It's a fun challenge, really, and one that we'll be a better family for having experienced it together. We are so blessed to even have our basic needs met, and that's something we never forget.