How I earn my keep

Since I stay at home with the kidlets, we often joke that H earns the money and I spend it, but I sort of look at what I do as a job too. Since I don't bring any money to the table (or not enough to really count anyway since I do work a bit for my dad), I try to save where I can. I hardly ever buy anything for myself (save 2 more nursing bras after M was born), I buy the kids clothes on clearance, and I coupon. I mean really coupon. This is my coupon box.

(that says "IF FOUND PLEASE RETURN TO: my name and phone number". This thing is so imporant to me. Shortly after V was born H left it in the cart at the store and I was infuriated with him. Like the maddest I have EVER been. A few days later this kid called me and said that he found this box with coupons in it and asked if I actually wanted it back! Of course I did! H thought that was pretty funny)
I have all my coupons organized so it is pretty easy to find what I am looking for. Each "divider" is labeled with something like "Baby", Bread","Drugs", etc all in alphabetical order. Then, behind each divider are envelopes labeled as well. For drugs, I have envelopes labeled deodorant, feminine, lotion, make-up, medicine, soap, and toothcare. Inside each envelope are the coupons in alphabetical order by brand and then by expiration date.

H used to be a little more than embarrassed when I would walk into the grocery store, coupon box in hand an spend an hour looking for "deals". Now, I don't have an hour at the grocery store unless I am going after the kids are in bed, and even then, I feel like I am on borrowed time since if M wakes up and is hungry, H can't feed her. So I do much of what I used to do at the store at home, but I still save a ton.

Let's take this weeks shopping trip for example. I got:

10 boxes of Kellogs cereal

1 box of popcorn

2 hot pockets

1 box of Boca burgers

10 pears

1 bag of chips

5 boxes of oatmeal

2 rolls of sausage

1 carton of ice cream

grand total: $14.86 PLUS the register printed of coupons for FOUR free gallons of milk! So basically I got all of that PLUS 4 gallons of milk for less than $15! Pretty darn good if you ask me!

Now, let me add that we don't NEED 10 boxes of cereal this week, but I put them in the pantry so I don't have to spend $4 a box on cereal when we need some. We just go shopping in the pantry.

I also want to add, that that was not the only grocery trip. I also made another trip for perishables (fruits, veggies, milk). The reason though, that I don't have a list like most people do, is that I can plan my meals around what is in my freezer, fridge, and pantry.

I honestly think we could live for 6 months and only buy milk, fruit, and veggies. It is sort of scary, but most of the stuff I hardly paid anything for, got for free, or even better got PAID for.

My favorite thing is when I get paid for stuff. Yesterday I got toothpaste (not that I NEEDED it, I probably have 20 tubes of toothpaste) but, it was on sale for $3.99. I had a $1 coupon and so I paid $2.99. The store also had a sale where if you bought it for $3.99, they would give you $3.99 towards your next purchase. I shop there weekly, so I will definitely spend the money, but they essentially paid me $1 for my toothpaste. It nearly makes me giddy!

I also got the kids entire Fall/Winter wardrobe for under $50 and it was all new at the Children's Place (so nice stuff) and JC Penney. When we were in Texas they were having a crazy good sale at TCP and I got pretty much everything M will need there and about 1/2 of V's stuff for $30-$40 (the boys stuff was pretty picked over) and then at JC Penney I finished V's shopping for about $10. Now I just have to hope that I got the right sizes!

So, all that to say that even though I don't earn much of a paycheck, I think I definitely earn my keep around here :)