Stage of Life

I wanted to also share a new website with you called STAGE OF LIFE (link on side bar). It is free to join and is packed with some great stuff for everyone. There is something there for singles, planning a wedding, married with kids, married without kids, college and high school students as well as retirees. It consists of great articles, tips, and coupons for savings. Check it out. It is absolutely free to join and you can even contribute your own blogs and articles for whatever stage of life you find yourself in. Check out my article on teenagers. Just click on "Raising a Family." Enjoy!

Catching Up!

We had two birthdays this month in our family. One of our sons turned 8 and another turned 15. They were a week a part. So I want to share a couple of ways we save money for birthdays.

First of all my husband and I set a budget as to how much we will spend on each child. Sticking to this amount has helped to keep things in order and enables us to plan ahead.

Secondly, my children do not care for cakes.When I have purchased bakery cakes, I ended up throwing a good portion away. They look cute. But that is about it.
So we started making ice cream cakes. I can make this cake for about 6 dollars and there is hardly any waste.

Each child picks two flavors of ice cream. I usually stick to the cartons that are no more than 2 dollars. I also allow them to choose two types of candy such as M&Ms, Hershey's, Twix bars, Three Musketeers, or any other flavors of their choice. These can be purchased at Walmart or the dollar store for 1 dollar per package.

Melt the ice cream until softened. In a 9x13 dish, spread one flavor, then the second. Chop all candy pieces and sprinkle over top. Refreeze until firm. This works really well to make a day ahead.

My 8 year old (above)chose peanut butter ice cream sandwiches for the bottom layer (purchased at Walmart). The second layer was vanilla ice cream. For the toppings, he chose M&Ms and Three Musketeers. Yummy!

The ice cream cake for my 15 year old son was made from coffee ice cream (bottom layer) and vanilla (top layer). The toppings included Twix and Hershey bars. For an extra he wanted caramel topping so we added that to each serving for those who wanted it.

Walmart's Bryers ice cream is $2.75 a carton. With the .75 coupons, you can purchase them for 2 dollars a container.

Another way I saved this month was I gave my husband and three of my little ones haircuts. I saved about 50 dollars I would have spent in a Salon for 4 people. This really helped considering we have two birthdays this month.

I also saved about 60% on my food bill last night at Fry's grocery store. For those of you back East, Fry's is a sister store of Kroger. So many of their brands are actually Kroger.

All of the items I could have gotten free were wiped out. So I will be going back. However, here are a few of my savings.

3 Suave Shampoo .50 each
3 Suave Conditioner .50 each
6 boxes Betty Crocker Potatoes .60 each
6 bottles Lawry's Marinade .50 each
6 packages of Knorrs Rice .50 each
3 Soft Soap Hand Soap .30 each
3 bags Dole Salad 1.00 each
5 packages Gold Fish 1.00 each
2 packages bagels 1.00 each
20 boxes of frozen Banquet dinners .80 each (great for lunches or snacks for teenagers!)
8 packages Kroger grated cheese 1.00 each

WE also purchased fruit, meat,bread, breakfast food, etc. and still saved a lot of money. We did two transactions. The larger one totaled 93.60. We saved 111.39. The second transaction was 10.40. We saved 21.53! Not bad for our army!!