Frugal in Franklin

Free Bowling for the Entire Summer!

 

From April 15 to August 31st Jaymar Family Entertainment Centers is offering one free game each day to children 18 and under.  Go HERE to sign up for a membership card.

Fill out the parental form and then click submit. For some reason it may take you to an unauthorized page after you submit. Even if you get that page, you've submitted correctly and you should get your membership card in your inbox immediately.  To be eligible for the free games you have to sign up and bring your membership card with you.  What a GREAT deal for bored kids this summer.  
 

This is available at all 3 of their locations:

Cumberland Lanes: I-24 & Haywood Lane
24 hr info line 843-4693

Franklin Family Entertaintment Center: I-65 & Hwy 96
24 hr info line 790-2695

Tusculum Lanes: Nolensville Road near Bell Road
24 hr info line 833-2881

 

Note:  Thanks to Kelly at Faithful Provisions, and to readers Julie and Holly for passing on this fabulous deal!  Don't forget that you will need to rent shoes.  Call ahead for pricing, and be sure to leave a comment to let us know what you find out.

Tightwad Tip Tuesday

 

Do you need a little help on the road to Tightwad?  Stop by every Tuesday for a quick tip to help you on your way.

My husband mentioned that we may have some days that reach 80 degrees this week, which reminded me of one of my favorite tips.  We do not turn on our air conditioning until the daytime high reaches 80.  Then we set the thermostat to 80 and leave it there for the summer. 

How do we stand to keep our house at 80?  We have ceiling fans in almost every room.  Just remember, ceiling fans cool people, not air, so be sure to turn the fan off when you leave the room.  For a great explanation of how this works, visit my favorite site for saving money on energy Michael Bluejay.

I won’t lie, it gets a little warm sometimes, but definitely not unbearable—and we never have to cringe when we open the electric bill!

Looking for more frugal ideas?  Check out BeFrugal.net

This Week's $50 Budget

  

This picture includes the majority of this week's shopping.  It includes:

 

Publix

 

Total before coupons and sales:  $108.21

Total after coupons and sales :$22.03

-$10 Gift Card from Italian Meal Promo

Total: $12.03  (93% Savings)

Aldi

Total $8.64

Kroger

 

Total $6.40

Items Not Pictured:

 

Kroger  (Markdowns)

 

2 Boars Head Pepperoni

1 Gallon Horizons Organic Milk

Total  $4.28 

Publix

 

2 Banana Nut Cheerios

1lb. of Bananas

1 Honey Nut Cheerios

Pace Salsa

2 Muir Glen Tomato Sauce

1 Arnold’s Whole Wheat Bread

Publix Bleach

Total $3.84 (84% Savings)

 

HG Hill

 

4 pkgs of Hamburger Buns

1 Box Honey Bunches of Oats

1 Blue Bell Ice Cream1 Box Totino’s Pizza Rolls

Total  $6.04

 

 

Grand Total for the Week:  $41.23  (Surplus of $8.77)

 

 

 

Philanthropic Friday

Who says you have to give million dollar endowments to be philanthropic?  Start where you are! 

Often, when we think about donating to a food pantry, we forget to check and see if they also need non-food donations.  I often see items like toothpaste and deodorant on Gracework’s wish list.  Here are two easy donations you can pick up today or Saturday while you are shopping at Kroger:

Sun Burst Liquid Detergent 41-50 Loads $1.88

 

Suave Deoderant $1

-.50/1 Suave Deoderant RP 3/29 FREE Stockpile

I pray that someone blesses you with a small act of kindness this week.

It's Time to Think About Curriculum

I'm so busy talking about couponing, I rarely get to talk about one of my other great passions...homeschooling.  I have been schooling my own kids for 8 years now, and it's time to start planning for year nine. 

Generally speaking, I think homeschooling can be a really frugal choice.  No private school tuition, uniforms, trendy clothes, hot lunches, etc... But all that can go out the window when it's time to buy curriculum.  Even moms that are super thrifty in other areas seem to let loose when it comes to curriculum.  Given the tight economy, I have a feeling everyone is going to have to make some careful choices this year.

So, how do I get great deals on curriculum? 

1. The first key is planning.  If you know well in advance what you will be doing, you'll be more likely to find a great deal.  Last minutes shopping means higher prices on books and shipping.  If you're curious what we'll be using next year, you can take a peek here: Download Curriculum list 09-10 .
2. Then I start scouring the used curriculum sights. These are my personal favorites:
   • Sonlight Used Curriculum Forum--You will have to pay to use this forum if you do not already have a membership to their forums.  If you are planning on using a complete core, you will be glad you spent the money.
   • Homeschool Classifieds--This is a well organized site, and I have great success with the honesty and integrity of the sellers (of course you should always use good common sense).
   • VegSource--Vegsource is a little disorganized, but worth the hunt, very much like going to a thrift store!
3. I'll be visiting some used curriculum sales. 
   • Clearview Baptist
   • Whole Heart Academy --Tuesday, April 21st at Oak Hill Assembly
4. I will also go through our old curriculum to see what we have to sell.  Usually, I sell anything my youngest child has completed or passed up.  I used to sell things that just didn't work well, until I realized that each of my kids is different.  What doesn't work for one, may be just the thing for the next one.  Last year, I was able to foot about half of our curriculum bill with money from selling old curriculum,
5. Finally, I'll use my local libraries.  Because we use a literature based approach, we go through unbelievable numbers of books.  Anything I can get at one of two libraries in town helps to reduce our overall cost.
6. One more option I am excited about for this year is using my Amazon gift cards from Swagbucks.  It will only pay for a small percentage of my curriculum needs, but every little bit helps.

Do you have any great strategies for saving on homeschool curriculum?  I'd love to hear them.  Please leave a comment.

 

         

Deep Dish Pizza Casserole (Flexible Recipe)

 

I still have a crisper drawer full of biscuits from the Kroger biscuit deal awhile back.  I wanted to use some up, and thought that modifying an old recipe that I had from Cooking Light would be just the ticket.

Ingredients:

• 12 refrigerated biscuits (2 small cans of 6 each)
• 1lb of Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage
• 1small jar of Spaghetti Sauce
• A generous handful of cheese

Procedure:

1. Start by preheating the oven to 350 degrees and spraying an 8x11 casserole with non-stick cooking spray.
2. Lay all the biscuits out in the bottom of the dish and then pat them out flat, overlapping them to eliminate holes in the dough, and pressing the dough 3/4 of the way up the sides of the dish.
3. Brown the sausage and add the spaghetti sauce.  Pour the sausage/sauce combination over the biscuits.
4. Top with cheese
5. Bake for about 30 minutes.

Substitution ideas:

Dough:  Bread dough (fresh, frozen, or refrigerated), Pizza Crust Dough (fresh or refrigerated)

Sauce:  Pizza sauce, tomato sauce with a few added spices, or italian style diced tomatoes drained

Filling:  Hamburger, breakfast sausage, pepperoni, ground pork, chicken or turkey,  or veggies (saute the veggies before adding so your finished casserole is not soggy)

Cheese:  Whatever you have on hand (not swiss).  I used a combination of cheddar and mozzarella because I had several almost empty bags of shredded cheese I wanted to use up.

Looking for more great recipes?  Head over to Grocery Cart Challenge for the Recipe Swap.

The Real Menu Plan

 

I typed up my menu plan with links and a pretty picture, just like I always do.  But somehow, it got sucked into cyberspace and lost forever!  That made me think this would be a good chance to give you the real skinny on my menu planning.

I have this magnetic planning pad that sticks on the fridge. (I used to use the odd scrap of paper until I found this for $1 at Walgreens).  Whenever I'm poking around the kitchen and a meal idea comes to me, I write it on the planning sheet.  When Thursday rolls around, I check to see that I have 7 days of meals and all the ingredients to go with them.

We do not necessarily eat the meals in the order they are written.  In fact, the only definite plan is Monday Crockpot Night.  After we eat a meal, I cross it off the calendar.  That way, I have some flexibility to eat what sounds good, or what best fits our schedule for the day.

I've tried lots of different menu planning techniques, from a rigid full month plan to keeping a running list of all the possible dinners I could create with the ingredients I had on hand.  This loose system of organization turns out to be the most managable for my family.

Tightwad Tuesday

Do you need a little help on the road to Tightwad?  Stop by every Tuesday for a quick tip to help you on your way.

I buy just about everything with a coupon, but one thing I don’t see coupons for very often is pancake syrup.  Instead I use a product called Mapleine.  It’s an imitation maple flavoring (the flavors are all natural, just not maple).  You boil water, add sugar,  and a small amount of Mapleine and you have pancake syrup.  A single bottle of the flavoring costs about $3.50 at Walmart, but will make 24 pints of maple syrup.  With sugar, I’m paying about .40/pint for syrup.

 

Looking for more frugal ideas?  Check out BeFrugal.net

 

 

 

Our $50 Budget for the Week of 4/6-4/12

My big shop this week was at Publix

Total before sales and coupons $112.76

Total After Sales and coupons (with tax):  $25.12 (savings of 83%)

 

Kroger

5  1.75 qt. Ice Creams

2 Dozen Eggs ($1 ea.)

2 ¼ lbs. of Beef Stew Meat (reduced)

1lb. of 15 Bean Soup Mix (Reduced to $1.19)

Total $14.83

 

Aldi

Gala Apples 3lb. $2.49

Bananas .67

Ketchup $1.15 (How did I run out of this in my stockpile!)

Brown Sugar $1.19

Total $5.93

 

Harris Teeter (in 2 trips)

2 Breyers Ice Cream

1 No Yolks Egg Noodles

Asparagus

Total before sales and coupons $16.96

Total after sales, coupons, and tax: $4.21 (79% savings)

 

Total for the week: $50.09

 

 

A Penny Item Plan

I just love the Publix Penny item.  This week's item is reported to be bleach, and I'm all out!  I put together a very small Publix shop, just to pick up the penny item.  I thought you might enjoy seeing my plan.  Don't get discouraged if you don't have the right coupons to duplicate the shop.  It is just an example of how you can pick out the best deals to have a pre-coupon total of $10 and pick up a penny item for a small out of pocket expense.

My plan:

2 Muir Glen Tomato Sauces  $1.78

1 Honey Nut Cheerio $2.15

1 Pace Salsa $2.79

1 ArnoldWhole Grain Bread $1.85

1 Banana Nut Cheerio $2.15

1 Publix Bleach (Penny Item)

Total Before Qs $10.72

 

-$1 off any MG Tomato product (Overage .11 ea.)

 

-$1 off Honey Nut Cheerios Q (printed awhile ago)

 

-$1 off Banana Nut Cheerios printable (Food Lion exp 4/14)

-.55/1 Banana Nut Cheerios printable (IE) or printable (FF) (use with FL coupon makes it .60¢ ea if included)

 

 

-$1 off Arnold Bread March All You Mag. (makes it .84¢ ea)

 

-$4 Pace Printable (Printed awhile ago, overage of $1.21)

 

Total after Qs:  $2.17

 

 

(Note:  I will take an extra Honey Nut Cheerio Q with me, in case the Banana Nut are not included in the sale)