My Frugal Adventures

A friend of ours recently got us into game of "coupon clipping". To explain what I mean by this; manufacturers will often advertise with coupons, offering a discount to encourage shoppers to purchase their products. So the game, is then to cut out coupons from the newspaper or print them from the internet and work them in such a way that you leverage an already good retail promotion, by working them both together. I've only been doing it for a week or so now, and here are today's purchases.

At Target, we spent $10.41 for all of the the products pictured below!

Here's how it all worked:

Target was running a store promotion where if you bought 4 Special K items, that you would get a $5 gift card. We also had two "Save $1 off 1 box of cereal" coupons and one "buy 2, get $1 off" cereal bars coupons, so the net result was

2 boxes of Special K Blueberry Cereal for $2.78

2 boxes of Special K breakfast bars for $3.78

Total: $6.56 

With the $5 gift card, we put it towards our ice-cream bargain extravaganza:

Target had a promotion where by if you bought 5 Edy's (aka Dreyer's) ice-cream tubs or Frozen fruit bars, you would get yes, another $5 Target gift card. To add to this, we also had five "$1 off" coupons for these products that are usually $3.99 but were on sale for $2.50.

It worked out as follows:

4 tubs of premium ice-cream @ $1.50 each

1 box of all natural frozen fruit bars @ $1.50

Total: $7.50, less the $5 gift card from the Special K promo =  net total of $2.50!!!!)

Then, we had a coupon for "save $4 off a participating Schick shaving product". Clayton happens to use the Schick Quattro razor (4 blades), and had been putting off buying refill blades due their expense. With this $4 off coupon, and the $5 Target gift card from the ice-cream transaction, we paid just 35 cents for a 4 pack of Titanium blades, a product that is usually $9.94!!!!

At Dominic's (aka Safeway), we bought the following for just $7.95 with $18.29 in total savings derived from manufacturer coupons and a great store promotion on cereal.

At K-Mart they were doubling coupons, so this meant that a $2 off coupon became a $4 saving! Here, the following products pictured below were purchased for just under $30. Doesn't sound quite as outrageous as my other purchases above, but actually, some of the items purchased are typically very expensive. Some highlights include: Jumbo pack of Huggies for $2.26, 3 FREE liquid hand soap pumps, and Scotch pop-up tape with dispenser for 19 cents.

Thank you LORD!!! 

Breaking Bread

I've taken up a new hobby - baking bread. I've tried a number of different recipes, each one better than the last. Most have been pretty disappointing in terms of their crust colour and texture - very dull and lifeless. Like my dad, I enjoy a good crunchy golden coloured crust and a soft, chewy inside. This weekend I struck gold. I stumbled across a new technique and the results were extremely satisfying.

Here's how it turned out:





For those of you who are interested, here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1/4 tsp active dry yeast
1 1/2 cups warm water
3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting. You may use white, whole wheat or a combination of the two.
1 1/2 tsp salt
Cornmeal or wheat bran for dusting

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, dissolve yeast in water. Add the flour and salt, stirring until blended. The dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rest at least 8 hours, preferably 12 to 18, at warm room temperature.
2. The dough is ready when its surface is dotted with bubbles. Lightly flour a work surface and place dough on it. Sprinkle it with a little more flour and fold it over on itself once or twice. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let it rest for about 15 minutes.
3. Using just enough flour to keep the dough from sticking to the work surface or to your fingers, gently shape it into a ball. Dust a clean dish towel with flour, and wheat bran or cornmeal if desired. Put the seam side of the dough down on the towel and dust with more flour, bran or cornmeal. Cover with another towel and let rise for about 1 to 2 hours. When it’s ready, the dough will have doubled in size and will not readily spring back when poked with a finger.
4. At least 20 minutes before the dough is ready, heat oven to 475 degrees F. Put a 6- to 8-quart heavy covered pot (cast iron, enamel, Pyrex or ceramic) in the oven as it heats. When the dough is ready, carefully remove the pot from the oven and lift off the lid. Slide your hand under the towel and turn the dough over into the pot, seam side up. The dough will lose its shape a bit in the process, but that’s OK. Give the pan a firm shake or two to help distribute the dough evenly, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect; it will straighten out as it bakes.
5. Cover and bake for 30 minutes. Remove the lid and bake another 15 to 20 minutes, until the loaf is beautifully browned. Remove the bread from the Dutch oven and let it cool on a rack for at least 1 hour before slicing.

Enjoy!

Apple Pie

Every Friday is family night. I like to bake something special with the boys in the afternoon in preparation for our special night. It helps build their anticipation and it's a fun thing to do together. On this particular Friday night we baked our very first apple pie and it was really yummy.




Leftovers...

Rainy days are good for the soul

Living here in Southern California, almost everyday the sun shines and the kids go out to play. They love to run and push their bikes around the courtyard and enjoy regular visits to the playground across the road. But today it rained. Rain really should not come as a surprise to me - I mean, it is winter after all, and I was brought up in Melbourne where it even rains in summer.

'Where are we going today mum?" Judah asked expectantly, as he does just about everyday. I replied, "I'm not sure. It's raining today." "Let's go to the park!" He suggests. "No, the equipment will be all wet." "But I like that. Because then you can go faster down the slide." He can be such an optimist. After explaining to him that we didn't play outside when it is raining because we might catch a cold, I determined that today would not dissolve into a day of watching DVDs and the kids running around our tiny apartment going crazy. So we read stories. I have to prepare the next curriculum guide for our Playschool by tomorrow, and the topic that I chose is on transport. So we read about Cargo ships, transportation in the third world and astronauts in space shuttles. Judah decided that he would very much like to travel to space when he grows up. We played hide and seek and Judah practised writing a few words on a straight line. We made a picture of a steam train arranging and gluing different shapes of construction paper together. We even made bread and sticky cinnamon rolls together! Such wholesome fun. I thought to myself, about how he had learnt so much and how we had enjoyed so much quality time together without even stepping out the door.



I think that rainy days are not only good for the garden, but good for the soul and the taste buds!