Savings Galore

So I decided to try couponing a bit more seriously this last shopping trip.

My inspiration is a woman that shops at Target, quite frequently. She comes up with a cart full of stuff and ends up paying very little. The other day I hung around the lane in awe watching how high the total came to and then how low it went after all the coupons. The last time it got up to over 80 bucks and she ended up paying 20 bucks and got 3 gift cards totaling 15 bucks.... I was shocked and jealous at the same time.

I decided to try this and to see how well I could do. With Mike (hopefully) starting back to work our budget is going to be tight so cutting our food budget down would be great!

So today I ventured out to do some shopping...I ended up spending 122.61...but I saved more than 99.00 in coupons and sales!!! So I saved nearly half! Wow

Some of my greatest buys were:

#1. 10 individual string cheese packets from Target that ended up free
#2. 8 boxes of cereal (cinnamon toast crunch, cocoa puffs, trix, ect...all the stuff I normally don't buy) all for 2.75....drum roll....that comes out to 34 cents a box....wowzers.

So I think I am going to try to stick with this. It does take a bit more planning and more time and more printer ink but all in all, I like saving money!!!!

Next up...the New Park

On the way home from the Children's Museum we decided to stop at a small park that is being built or at least is in the planning/fund-raising process. I drive by this little park every day on my way to work and I see the sign saying the trails are now open. So we decided to take a little hike and see how it went. The kids loved it.


It took us about 20 minutes or so to walk the trails and I think there was one more loop we didn't take. The kids enjoyed not having to hold our hands and they could run ahead to their hearts content. The only drawback we noticed was that you could still hear the cars and traffic driving by..but other than that it was fun.



We also stopped and took a closer look at the sign posted at the entrance and realized that right now it is just trails but soon....(we hope) it will include walking trails, 2 soccer fields, 2 baseball fields, a basketball court, a sand volley ball court, pavilion area and a nice park area with trees and gardens.. I just can't wait.

Free Friday at the Children's Museum

So I have been on the look out for free or cheap family friendly events online and I heard about a free day at the children's museums....most of the ones around here do it too so we have a few to check out. Today was the first free day that has occurred where I wasn't working so we took advantage and headed out to play.

We picked the Children's Museum of Tacoma for our activity today and it turned out well. It was a bit smaller than I had imagined but in all reality it was plenty for the kids to do and kept us all entertained for a full hour which was perfect since our parking space was only good for an hour....

They choose monthly themes and this month was a book about coyotes and Native American history.

They also had an art room which I think was my kids favorite! But they also enjoyed the blocks and movie maker




So if you are in the area on the first Friday of the month be sure to check it out. It was not overly crowded, especially being a free day. The kids were kept busy and there were a bunch of different activities there to do! Overall this was an event that we will gladly participate in again!