Nov 23 - Holiday Shopping

I am slowly starting to chip away at Christmas, one lunch hour at a time. It's so much easier to get my Christmas shopping done this way than having the pressure of going out once or twice and feeling like I have to get it all done in that tiny window of time. This gives me more time to spread it around, and also more time to shop around and find what I have in mind for people.

Right now my life is being ruled by a single little notepad that is tucked into my purse. What it is critical on that notepad that I would be lost without it?

The front page: List of what I wanted to get accomplished this week. Random things I needed from an assortment of stores, random Christmas gifts I wanted to get picked up this week. Movie times for Thanksgiving day to take the kids to go see the Muppets, stuff like that.

Store Pages for Black Friday: I hit up http://blackfriday.gottadeal.com to find all the ads early and start my planning ahead of time. I wanted to make sure I was looking them over carefully and not missing anything and that I had a good plan well in advance. Since Walmart is price matching this year on pretty much everything, I will be spending most of my time there instead of just going store to store for 1 or 2 things.

Holiday Schedule: Matt and I had to coordinate our work schedules, our day off schedules, the kids school schedules, and our family holiday schedules to figure out where we are going to be pretty much every day between December 19 and January 2.

Our plans are to spend a couple of days in the Detroit area visiting my family over Christmas, so I did a quick check to see what that was going to set us back and was very happy to see I had quite a few points saved up towards rooms at the Holiday Inn. For 2 days during the holidays we're only going to pay $80 for our room, so I thought that was pretty reasonable. I booked the rooms today and even had a hard time finding hotel rooms that were open! So clearly I am not the only person thinking ahead.

As I am writing this post and looking down at my notepad, I have to laugh a little about the big sales I am so excited about. Who else but a frugal nut would get so excited about the great prices on socks and underwear?!?! Even better, cereal on sale!! Woohoooo!! Somebody at Meijer is thinking of me!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Matt has to work, so we'll be having the family dinner a little later than usual. The kids won't really notice a difference, but the rest of the family will. We'll do a lot of the dinner prep tonight so that it's a relatively smooth meal tomorrow. If we can get our butts up and moving early, I'm thinking a trip to the theater in Plainwell is in order! We can go see a first run movie (The Muppets) for $2.50 each if we get there before noon.

Grocery Trip - Nov 20

A friend of mine mentioned to me on Facebook the other day that I had a blog. Yeah, welllllll, about that. I admit, life has gotten super busy and I have terribly neglected this poor blog for quite some time. There was just so much more to blog about when we were attacking our debt on a daily basis, and we had so much more of it to tackle. Now that we are down to just my student loans, it's really not as exciting as it used to be.

So I thought I would challenge myself to really blog about my grocery trips and how a non-extreme couponer uses coupons to buy things for the family that isn't just boxes of Pizza Rolls and chicken nuggets. Don't worry, you will in fact see nuggets and Pizza Rolls as I continue doing this, we certainly aren't perfect eaters! But the one thing I hear from people all the time is, "I never see coupons for stuff we eat (or use)", so I am going to attempt to show that you can in fact feed your family on a limited budget and eat a good variety of food. Maybe if I am super motivated, I'll even post a few of our meals to show what we turn all these savings into.

Meijer
Spent: $21.89
Saved: $25.27
What I bought: a turkey, fruit leather (6), dinner rolls (3doz), eggs (3doz), pineapple (2 cans), french friend onions, chips (2 bags)

Meals
Breakfast: Cereal
Lunch: PB&J, pudding, and banana bread
Dinner: We ate out tonight

Frugal Fitness

I realized about a year ago that I needed to start exercising more and taking better care of myself. There were a couple of issues with getting started on that, most of them geographic. We sort of live out in the sticks, so finding a fitness option that worked with my work schedule and that didn't break the bank ($$$) was definitely a challenge.

So I did something I never ever thought I would do - I started running. Well not really running at first, more like a very brisk walk that knocked the wind out of me. I very loosely followed the Couch to 5K program and it took me way longer than 9 weeks, but I am very proud to say, I can actually run an entire 5K now! Yes, that's me and my kiddos over there in the picture before the west Michigan Race for the Cure.

Running was a pretty easy way to get myself exercising with minimal start up cost. The basics:

1. Legs/feet
2. Running shoes
3. Music

I am always looking for a good deal on New Balance shoes, and a few months prior to starting C25K, I picked up a very cute pair of pink and gray shoes. When I decided to start running I looked and it turns out that the shoes I bought were specifically made for running! So no extra expense to worry about, shoes were on hand and they were in excellent condition.

I already own an iPod Touch, so it was just a matter of hunting around online a bit and finding some free podcasts to get started with. I thankfully found quite a few and was able to use those to help me get my timing straightened up. No real expense to get started there.

Now that I've been running for almost a year, I've picked up some things here and there that aren't necessary, but definitely make for a nicer experience. Things like wicking t-shirts, skull candy ear buds, and an armband holder for my iPod. I always check out the clearance racks when I hit the stores and see if I can't find some good exercise clothes while I am there and slowly I've added a few things into the mix besides cotton shorts and t-shirts.

I wish I could say I've lost all kinds of weight running, but I can't. I can say though that I've improved my fitness level tremendously over that time and I've forced myself to take better care of me. When I started out, running for 90 seconds was a challenge and I could hardly do that without gasping for breath. I hit a major wall when i worked myself up to a 5 minute running window and went to see my primary doctor. She ran a few tests, gave me an inhaler and suggested that it could be exercise induced asthma, or it very well could be I was just that out of shape and needed to keep at it. Turns out she was right, I really just needed to keep going and the inhaler did nothing to help me.

My previous primary doctor never sent over my blood work from the year prior, so I can't really compare before and after, but i know the after from just early this fall and I am very pleased! From cholesterol to glucose, everything is looking pretty darn good. The only problem area I have is my iron levels and I am focused now on boosting those through 3 times/day supplements.

Now that the fall is here, it's my goal to still keep at the running and to continue straight through winter as the weather allows.

An Update

It seems like we've been working at this debt free stuff forever, seriously! It didn't take a short amount of time to get ourselves in trouble, so it only makes sense that it's taking some time to get out of trouble.

Good news, the only outstanding debt we have is student loan debt, a total of $8648.12. Not bad considering we started out over $40,000 in debt right?!? We've had a lot come our way since we embarked on this and we've weathered the storms for sure. I know that Dave wouldn't exactly be proud of the fact I am sitting on my brand new couch right now typing this, but he would be proud of the deal I got and that I paid cash for my new couch and love seat!

We had a great summer and fall is looking like it's filling up fast too! So what does a family of 5 do on a cash flow only budget vowing never to charge a penny to have fun? Here's what we do:

1. Cold Memorial Day at Gun Lake
2. Day at Charlton Park
3. Middlville Green Days
4. Swimming in Gun Lake (lots of it!!!)
5. Hawk Island Park in Lansing
6. Run the Riverbank Run
7. Wayland Main Street Days
8. PAWS Open House
9. Cousins came to visit!
10. Gun Lake fireworks
11. Dorr 4th of July Parade
12. Michigan Adventure
13. Miranda Park Party
14. Went wild berry picking
15. Visit Detroit to meet dad
16. Vacation Bible School
17. Nate went to Lake Ann
18. Family reunion at Gun Lake
19. Home Depot Workshop
20. Boys went to Camp Manitou Lin
21. Casino family picnic
22. Orangeville Days
23. Camping at Jellystone& Silver Lake Sand Dunes
24. Sand Lot movie
25. Overnight at the White Caps

We had a great summer, and the best part was the time I spent with my kids. I can't wait for next summer!

On the Agenda

It's a bit of a down time for us right now, but we are getting ready to head into the fun full swing! I am so excited for our summer :)







We've been keeping plenty busy with trips to the Yankee Springs State Park and the Allegan County Park. Who needs swimming lessons when you have a couple of inflatable rings and you can chant "motor boat, motor boat" a thousand times? Lauren and Nick are getting so brave in the water and are starting to get the hand/foot synchronization down. I am betting that they'll be all out swimming by the end of summer. It's so much easier to teach kids to swim when it's a zero depth entry (aka BEACH) instead of just jumping in and suddenly the water is 3ft deep.

We've come up against some challenges since Memorial Day, specifically the transmission on our van went AGAIN. Thank goodness for family! Matt's uncle Larry towed the van from his house to Detroit where my brother fixed it. That alone saved us well over $1500! Not to mention a friend of mine from work graciously drove me to/from work for many, many days and we were able to survive with one vehicle. It's been a challenge, but we've come through it!

I was looking at our calendar today and getting an idea of what's to come, and so far we've got the following on our summer agenda:

1. Saturday, June 25: Wayland Main Street Celebration and PAWS Open House. Lots of free family fun! We'll be busy all day with activities and food, and we might stay that night for the free family movie (How to Train Your Dragon).

2. Sunday, July 3: Gun Lake Fireworks! So excited! We usually have a BBQ that day with Matt's family and then head out in the evening to watch fireworks.

3. Wednesday, July 6: Here we come, http://www.miadventure.com/. We get a small discount because our health insurance is Blue Cross, and we'll pack a lunch and spend the day there. It's close enough to be a day trip, so no hotel costs to deal with. We'll pack up the cooler and eat on the cheap instead of eating in the park. The kids are already talking about how many hours they want to spend in the water park and how many on rides. Oh yeah, it's my birthday that day too :)

4. July 11-15: Vacation Bible School at church. We had so much fun this year that we got this on the calendar MONTHS ago. I hope to be assigned the kindergarten group again so that I can be with Nick and Lauren. Rumor has it a couple of Nick's friends will be there, so that will be a great time for him!

5. July 23: The annual Ward Family Birthday Bash! We had a party last year for Nick and it was just so awesome that we're thinking it needs to be an annual event! We pulled a bunch of picnic tables at the Allegan County Park and grill hot dogs, have cupcakes and just enjoy the day. Thinking that a pinata this year might be necessary, but otherwise we just bring the chairs and relax! Let the kids swim, let the adults fish, and just enjoy each other in that laid back kinda way.

6. July 25-July 30: Nate is headed off to Lake Ann camp through church. They had a special rate if you registered early and if you were a certain age, and Nate just happened to meet the criteria! I am so excited for him to have this time to explore his relationship with Jesus and grow his faith with his friends.

7. August 8-August 12: Nate and Nick head off to daycamp at Camp Maintou Lin! We registered early and took advantage a lot of things to make this happen. I know that they are both going to have a great week. It will be Nick's first camp experience (kindercamp) and Nate's first time at watersports camp.

8. August 22-August 25: We'll be (tent) camping at Jellystone Camp Ground in Silver, Lake MI. Aside from all the fun at the camp to be had, we'll be visiting the Silver Lake State Park and the sand dunes (of course).

9. August 26: Scout overnight camp out at the West Michigan White Caps. Yes, it's minor league baseball, but it's so much fun for the kids! They get to camp out on the field and watch a video on the scoreboard.

Here's to another GREAT summer!

We LOVE Summer!

How much do the Ward's love summer? Let me count the ways!

1. Free admission to the Allegan County Park. That's FREE beach access and a nice little playground for the kids. We've already gone once, and it's only the first of many, many trips I am quite sure.

2. You can add the yearly admission for the Michigan State Parks to the renewal of license plates for only $10/year! What an amazing deal! We haven't gone yet, but we will be spending a lot of high quality time at the Yankee Springs State Park, which is practically in our back yard, but who knows where else we might end up with a sticker!

Summer is always such a fun time for us. Our weekends fill up fast and it's so fun! We'll be spending a lot of time at family reunions, picnics, hanging out at the county park, scouting events, and then we want to do a few (frugal!) things as a family like Michigan Adventure and some camping. The 2 boys are registered for a week of daycamp at Camp Manitou Lin, Nate will be spending a week at Lake Ann Camp with church, and of course all kids will be going to Vacation Bible School.

School isn't even out yet and we've spent this whole weekend in our swimsuits, this is a GOOD SIGN!

Keepin Busy

My wonderful husband started working full time again January 2011. It's been a long time coming and we are THRILLED to see full paychecks again. Hoorray!!! When he was hired on, he was hired for day shift, and then through a whole lot of HR drama, ended up being assigned to a third shift position. This has been quite the adjustment for our family! To add to the fun, he has his days (nights?) off during the week, so that means that he needs to SLEEP during the day on the weekend. No easy task when you have 3 very active children at home.

We have been filling our weekends with tons of fun activities, activities that are either free or very inexpensive for us to do.

So what have we done? A quick glance at my calendar shows:

• Saturday movies. There is a theater nearby where we can see first run movies in the morning very cheap. For the 4 of us to go and get popcorn and drinks it's only $15. There was also a free family movie festival of second run movies that we went to quite a few of. the kids loved it!










• Scout field trip to the TV station

• Camp Open Houses. The YMCA camp near us has held monthly open houses to recruit families for camp this summer. We knew we were going to register Nick and Nate for a week of camp, so we took the opportunity to attend both open houses. One time the weather was not that great and they didn't get to do everything they wanted, the second time they were able to do it all!
  


• Easter came and went with the chance to go to a few egg hunts and other church/community activities.
  
  
  



• Local (flower) nurseries have had season opening celebrations that had kid activities, food and fun

We've also been able to spend a few weekends almost completely outdoors. So nice to enjoy the good weather when we actually have it. The snow in April wasn't very welcome, but we made it through. Nate has really taken an interest in gardening this year, so we've also spent quite a bit of time scavenging for container garden supplies and plants. Because we live in a rural area and our yard is wide open, having a veggie garden in our yard would only be inviting critters in, so we decided to do our garden on our deck in containers.


I'm already filling up days on our calendar for the summer of activities we can't wait to do! The boys are registered for a week of daycamp while our daycare is closed, vacation Bible school, camping, a trip to Michigan Adventure, family reunions, family picnics, and some other community events sprinkled in there. the county park by us stopped charging admission, so we can go there to play on the beach and swim, or we can head over the Yankee Springs State Park and hit the beach there too!