Grocery Inventory and Price List

Southern Savers has created two incredibly helpful documents that will ensure you are saving the most possible money at the grocery. You can print a pantry inventory (to help you avoid having six unopened containers of Parmesan cheese or eight bottles of salad dressing, like...you know, my "friend" once did...) and a pantry staples price list. I looked at the price list and it's very accurate for this area. The prices are what we all should be shooting for when we shop and when they reach that price, it's time to stock up!




Thanks for your hard work, Southern Savers!

Giveaway: Lizzie's Lovelies

If you want to win this sweet bow and $3 towards another item from Lizzie's Lovelies, enter on her blog here. The winner will be chosen on Thursday at 8pm so enter now!

Make your own cleaning supplies

I have been doing this consistently for about a year and I love both of these recipes. If you search, you will find hundreds of variations of these so if you find something isn't working well for your needs, you can always add or exchange ingredients.

Laundry Detergent
I can get all of this at Publix in the laundry detergent aisle. It's about $8 for all three things but the washing soda and Borax make about six  batches. A triple batch lasts me about five months and I do at least one load a day. I use it for cloth diapers, as well.

• 1 bar Fels Naptha soap
• 1 1/2 cups of Arm and Hammer Super Washing Soda
• 1/2 Borax 
• a sprinkling of baking soda (more if you have hard water, I add it to cut down the ammonia smell from the cloth diapers)

I need to get a food processer but I just use a cheese grater and grate the Fels Naptha into a container with a lid (I use a 6.5 qt. Rubbermaid bucket.) Add the rest of the ingredients and stir. You only need 1-2 tablespoons for each load depending on how dirty the clothes seem.

All Purpose Cleaning Solution
I buy all of this from Lucky Vitamin. I've used the same shipment of ingredients for over 6 months and they are no where near empty.

•   .5 oz of Aubrey’s Earth Aware Cleanser ($5.42/32 oz. bottle)
• 10 drops NOW Tea Tree Oil ($5.39/1 oz. bottle) 
• 20 drops NOW Lemon Oil ($10.19/4 oz. bottle) 
• Mix in spray bottle with filtered water
• Final cost: $0.20 per bottle of household cleaner

How to Shop Walgreens

Have you been curious about Walgreens and how their Register Rewards program works? Friend Family Savings has a great guest post that spells it out. They do mention northern grocery stores that will accept the register rewards as cash but unfortunately, Florida doesn't have any that do.

This is an easy way to get lots of products you use every day for free or occasionally actually make money!

Winning Sweepstakes

Some of you know that I love winning stuff. I enter blog giveaways and sweepstakes often. Since I've started tracking my winnings, I win something useful about twice a week. Not bad as a second income! A friend of mine has recently started entering contests as well and just won a $300 car seat! It really does pay off and it's worth the time you put in.

I love this guest post on Freebies 4 Mom. It will help you get started and discover the world of winning!

Free Bedtime Story

A Story Before Bed is offering a free bedtime story ($9.99 value)! All you need a a camera and microphone on your computer and you can record a cute story for your kiddos. This would be great to have grandparents or family out of state do for your kids. The only downside is you can't save it to your computer but Deal Wise Mommy had the great idea to record it with your camera and put it on a DVD so you can save it.

Thanks, Deal Wise Mommy!

P&G Home Made Simple coupons

Get $30 worth of coupons from Procter and Gamble.
The Home Made Simple mailer has great coupons and they usually have long expiration dates so you can wait for sales.

Thanks, Deal Wise Mommy!

$3 off Huggies Little Swimmers

It's summer (it has been for a month in Florida!) which, hopefully, means you and your kiddos will be swimming more often.

Thanks to Fiddledeedee Mom's research, you can save $3 when you buy Huggies Little Swimmers at Target!

Use this $1.50/1 manufacturer coupon with this $1.50/1 Target coupon!

Enjoy the pool!

Free Twilight Novella

Here's one for all you Twihards! You can read Stephenie Meyer's newest edition to the Twlight Saga, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, for free here. It's not a download so it won't help to have a reader but it will save you $8 to read it online. 

Thanks, Deal Seeking Mom!

Cheap Summer Activities - Central Florida

•  Joann's Fabric - Kid's Camp, most of the projects are for kids 8 and older but some are for 5 and up. Check the schedule in the store before you get your kids excited.

 

• Bass Pro Shops - Family Summer Camp, they will have weekly activities from June 5-July 11. The free activities, crafts, and snacks are every Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday from noon-6pm. One of my readers went this past weekend and said there was so many things going on and they loved it! 

• AMC Theaters - Every Tuesday through the summer (June 15-August 10), they are showing a kids movie for $1/person! They also have KidsPack concession combos for $4. All movie and concession proceeds go to charity. We did this last summer and it was great! I even took The Little One who was only 7 months old. He did great so if you are scared to take your kids to the movies, this is the time!

 

• Garden Theater - They will have $1 movies, too. They are also every Tuesday at 10 am (June 15-August 3). I plan on going to all the movies we don't own so I'm glad two theaters are doing this!

What else is going on in Central Florida that we need to know about? Let's keep these kids busy!

Thanks, HM, KG, and Our Family Ramblings!