Non-Extreme Couponing

I've used coupons a few times in my life.  I was really proud of the times I've said close to $10 on my grocery bill by using manufacturer coupons.  It's great saving money on things you were going to buy, anyway.  But every time I've tried using coupons, I've found myself letting coupon inserts pile up or finding that half of the coupons I'd clipped were expired when I was finally ready to use them.

We've been looking to cut down our budget where we can, and I know that groceries are one area that can really vary from month to month.  I was also sure that I could save some money there by going back to planning menus a month ahead of time (which I still need to restart) and by using coupons on a regular basis.

I watched Extreme Coupons a few weeks ago.  Rather than inspiring me, it freaked me out a little.  These people were *really* extreme.  The first woman profiled claims to spend 70 hours a week couponing, but she also has a full-time job.  I'd like to know how much work she actually gets done for her job on any given day, not to mention how much attention she pays to her husband, who was clearly fed up.  She has two rooms devoted to her stockpiling and had started to take over the room that was his "man cave."  I personally think that's a goofy term, but I get it, and she was telling him he should remove some of his things from that area so that she'd have more room for storage.  The woman had 3,000 rolls of toilet paper in her stockpile!  I read that it's enough to last an average couple for 30 years.  She also had things that she didn't seem to have a plan for using ("They paid me a dollar for each of those tubes that I took out of the store;" "Those boxes there are beauty products.") and was simply hoarding.

At any rate, I have no desire to duplicate that obsessive level of couponing.  I *do* have a desire to save my family some money and help pay off debt sooner, and free up money for the fun things we'd like to be able to do more often.  And I think with a few hours here and there (especially once I've gotten in the habit), I'll be able to do so.  Some couponers use coupon clipping services, but I think I can save plenty by just using the ones in the paper.  Still, it's good to get extra copies of the paper for particularly good coupons.

We already get a free city paper on Saturdays with 1-2 coupon inserts in it.  I checked to see if I could get more copies delivered (as my friend Angie had done, and is now getting 5 copies for free every Saturday), but I was told it would be $80 for a subscription, and I'm not sure if that would be $80 for each of the copies (or $320 for the non-free copies total).  I didn't want to pay for the extra copies if I could help it, but I did find some places in town where they stock extra copies for people to take for free.  Score!  I figure that since pretty much everybody in my city gets the paper for free, it's not a problem for me to pick up a few extra copies, so my plan is to now have 5 copies of the Saturday paper each week and use those coupons in my shopping.

With that taken care of, my next problem is organizing them in a way that will work for me so that I can stay on top of what I have and use those savings at the best times, and before they expire.  The best way to save is by combining coupons with store sales.  I've been told by friends that the easiest thing is to choose 1 to 2 grocery store for this process, since more than that becomes overwhelming, and I agree.  There are coupon websites that list store prices for quite a few chains (like Coupon Mom and My Grocery Deals), and some of those websites also show you which coupons are available to go with the sale items.  Northwest Coupon Lady lists the sale and value aisle prices at her local Richmond, WA Winco, which should match up with other Wincos even if the price varies just a bit.  I have to test this but am looking forward to doing so!

To actually organize the coupons, I'm going to give a coupon binder a try.  I've tried putting them into envelopes, but it's hard to find the ones I need and to make sure I'm using coupons before they expire.  I was thinking about trying a small file box, like a recipe card box, but I think I would run into some of the same problems.  Then I read this article from BeingFrugal.net on organizing a coupon binder.  Some of the things I noted that I think will be helpful to me are to use a zippered binder (so that if your binder falls when you're carrying it closed up, you don't end up with coupons spilling out all over the place) and to use photo or baseball card pocket pages to sort and view your coupons.  I noticed the extreme couponers on the show used binders, and I think there's some sense to it.  A Thrifty Mom also has a great article with tips on getting started and how she organizes her coupons, along with a list of the section headers that she has in her binder to help her find the right coupons quickly.

I've currently got coupon inserts spread out on my kitchen table.  I'm tearing the pages apart and stacking the same coupons together so that I can cut them out several at a time, then I'll get them organized.  I still need to pick up a binder and the pages to go in it, but at least I can get started and start checking the sale flyers for bargains.  I'm looking forward to seeing how much I can start saving by shopping this way!

I Love My Contigo Water Bottle

That's all there is to it.

I've been thinking that it would benefit me to start using a reusable water bottle.  I've tried a metal one before with the theory that it would keep my water colder and wouldn't taste "plasticky."  It didn't.  It tasted metallic.  I did a little searching for a metal bottle with a ceramic liner, thinking that might taste better.  I didn't search too thoroughly, but I didn't find any.  And if they exist, I'm betting they're pricey.

Cut to last week when I was shopping at Costco.  I spotted a 3-pack of Contigo water bottles in aqua, raspberry and a dark charcoal color.  James loves his Contigo travel mug and uses it frequently for his coffee.  These water bottles were cool-looking, they were in the AutoSeal line and they were only $15.99 for all three.  I decided to give them a try.

This one is similar to the raspberry one we have:

Ours is a little more slender, I think, and it has a bumpy grip on the bottle near where the lid attaches, which makes it easier to hold.  This one also appears to have lines measuring the volume of the liquid, whereas ours don't, but I don't miss that.

Pros:

• Bumpy grip
• BPA free
• Thick walls keep water cool for a long time
• Narrow enough to fit in car and stroller cupholders
• Automatically seals closed so it doesn't spill or leak.  You press a button on the lid to take a drink and release it to seal it again.
• The button is easy to press and it's nice not having to unscrew the cap or lid of a water bottle.
• Dishwasher safe in the top rack
• Lid allows you to drink water quickly
• Has a carabiner so you can attach it to bags
• Environmentally friendly way to stay hydrated
• The water I drink from it actually tastes good!

Cons:

• Lid is heavy, which can make it the tiniest bit unwieldy when putting the lid on until you get used to it.  The bottle height and heaviness of the lid might make it difficult to use in most stroller cupholders.
• If you don't empty out the lid's opening, when you press the button, you can get a little blast of water (very small, just a couple of drops) in your face.  Yes, I speak from experience.  That's easy enough to fix, though - I just bring my bottle upright before I release the button, and that empties it enough.
• Most people probably don't have dishwasher top racks tall enough to accommodate; handwashing it is pretty simple, though, and I don't mind.

By the way, you should definitely wash out your reusable water bottle regularly (every other day, if not daily) and sanitize it periodically to keep it from growing bacteria, mold and algae.  A simple way to sanitize it is to put in half an inch of baking soda, then fill the bottle most of the way with hot water and close it tight.  Shake it for about a minute and leave it for half an hour, then rinse it thoroughly.  If the water from your bottle still tastes weird after you've sanitized the bottle, it's time to recycle it and get a new one.

The best part of my new water bottle is that I find myself drinking a lot more water, and I know that's good for me.

Hey, How've You Been?

I was sitting here composing a Facebook mini-rant about magazines and websites that don't post nutritional information for their recipes (what is UP with that, Real Simple?) when it occurred to me that I hadn't posted in a while.  I'm not going to post an extended rant here, but suffice it to say that people really should at least say how many calories, fat grams and carbs are in the recipes.  Websites like SparkRecipes have free recipe calculators.  It's what I use to find out the info when I don't have it for a particular recipe, but I think it's ridiculous that things like Real Simple magazine and FoodNetwork.com don't include that type of information already.  It's not like people won't cook that food if they see the nutritional information, since many people don't really care about their calorie intake, anyway, or can afford indulgences here and there.  But for those of us who do care, it would be nice if we didn't have to do the work ourselves so much of the time when it's readily available information for those who are printing the recipes.

Okay, so that was sort of a medium-sized rant.  I'm sure you can deal with it.

We're in the midst of Ye Olde Unplanned Bathroome Renovation.  I think it's going well, but what do I know?  Yesterday was day 1, which involved ripping stuff up, basically.  The toilet was removed (and placed on our front porch - as James said "Take that, HOA!"), old linoleum came out, the old tub and shower surround came out, and the damaged portions of the subfloor were cut out.  Today, they cleared out the debris from the removals, cut the hole in the laundry room ceiling to take out a little more that was damaged and give it a nice square-edged area for replacing, installed new subflooring, put in some new 2x4 supports behind where the shower head will go and attached that piping to it and put in the new tub, which appears to now be connected to the drainpipe.

I'm not sure what's next when they get started again tomorrow, but I'm really hoping the shower surround and hardware go in, because I'd like to see that coming together.  I don't know what else they might need to get done before that, but I'm pretty sure they'll be getting to that at some point during the day.  I'd absolutely love it if they got the surround in and secured and the plumbing things all connected and the tub and shower caulked, but that may be too much to hope for.

By the way, we found out that the tub and surround were not cracked.  There were two issues that combined to basically thrash the subfloor and require replacement.  One was not enough wax rings under the toilet, which caused the one ring to deteriorate over time and prevent the seal from being complete.  The other was something that the builder apparently did when installing the tub, which was to fail to properly seal off a spot where 2 pieces of pipe were connected.  There's an inner pipe and an outer one; the inner would overflow into the outer spot, which could hold a certain amount.  If showers were short enough, the water would just go back down and be eliminated.  If showers were longer, the water would fill up the outer pipe, too, and overflow that, resulting in the drip that we were seeing rather severely with some showers and not at all with others.  So at least we found out the mystery and this should indeed fix the drip there permanently.  Our tub was technically okay, but it's 32 years old and getting rusty, so it would need replacing in the nearish future and the contractor recommended taking care of it now.  We concur since it wouldn't save much, with labor to put back in the old tub probably being about the same as the new one.  And this way we were able to get a tub that's a little bit deeper and roomier but still fits into the same footprint.

I was going to talk about more things, but now this post is already really long, and I'm not sure anyone is even still reading this.  Are you?  At any rate, I'm also tired and am going to wrap it up and move on.  But I'm sure I'll be back again soon.

Call Me Ranty McRanterson

Allow me to vent for a moment (or close this page and move on to something else).  Today just wasn't a good day.  The weather has been cold and the mornings have been dark and the days have been gray, which makes it really hard to feel rested and find motivation, which means I end up with not that much done at the end of most days.  And that's frustrating.

We have the ongoing leak between the master bathroom and the laundry room, STILL.  After 3 visits from the first plumbers that American Home Shield sent out, they decided upon the 4th call to send another plumbing company.  Those plumbers determined that we had no leaks in our pipes or connections and were fairly certain that we have a hairline crack in our bathtub or surround, and recommended replacing both.  I'm pretty sure that they are both original to our 32-year-old house, so I guess that's a good amount of usage, but it stinks that this happened after we took ownership so that it became our problem.

So we got a recommendation for a contractor who could take care of replacing the bathtub and shower surround, replace the bathroom floor, brace the damaged truss underneath in the laundry room ceiling, and redo and finish the drywall in the ceiling.  The estimate was more than we hoped it would be, but probably a fair price for the work we're having done.  The cost of the tub and shower was on top of the estimate.  Ouch.  We hadn't been planning to redo the bathroom any time soon, so this is a bit financially painful.

The contractor came in the daytime on New Year's Eve (a Friday) to take a look at what needed to be done so that he could give us an estimate.  He asked how soon we'd like the estimate and mentioned Mondayish, and we said that would be fine.  On Wednesday, I called him, and he called me back to give me the estimate.  He asked if I wanted it in writing, and I asked him to please send it in an e-mail just so that I had it on hand.  I also mentioned that we had a pediatrician's appointment for Monday and asked if he could start on Tuesday instead, since we'd discussed starting on Monday.  He said that their current job was running into some complications, so he wasn't sure if they could start on Tuesday, and that it might be Wednesday or Thursday. I asked him to give me a call and let me know once he knew when they would be able to start.

That was 5 days ago, and I still haven't heard from him.  No phone call to give me a start date, and no estimate in e-mail.  This is a man who was recommended by a very reputable man from our church who works in construction.  He also replaced all of the windows in the house of our friends, and they were really happy with him and his work.  So I'm left to wonder what on earth is going on that the only time I've spoken with him is when I've contacted him.  He did come on time for the estimate; everything else has been initiated by me.  I don't know when (if?) he's going to get started on our project, and this makes me nervous about how things will go once he does get started.  Am I going to be stuck with no working bathroom and a gaping hole where the tub once was, looking down into the laundry room, for days or weeks or if turns flaky?  Is there some reason why he has been slow to get back to me?  I suppose it's up to me to once again get ahold of him to see what's happening.

I hate dealing with home repair stuff as it is, and when people put the burden on me to have to do the legwork or be the one to initiate everything, it just gives me a giant ball of stress in my stomach.  I don't need the uncertainty of whether or not I'll be able to depend on the person who's charging us a sizeable amount to do an unexpected repair.  I want to know that the people I hire for services will actually offer me good customer service.  Why is that such a problem?

Food Tips I've Found Helpful

As I've become more calorie-conscious, there are things that I've been learning or of which I've been reminded.  Some of them are things I've known for a while but to which I haven't given much thought, while others have been a new discovery for me.  You may already know all of this, but then again, you may have forgotten or may be unaware of some of it.

• Types of salad dressings vary great in calories and fat grams.  The ones in our refrigerator currently range from Newman's Own Low Fat Sesame Ginger (35 calories and 1.5 fat grams in 2 T.) to Newman's Own Caesar Dressing (150 calories and 16 fat grams in 2 T. - ouch).  In between are Ken's Fat Free Raspberry Pecan, Kraft Zesty Italian, a French dressing and Ken's Creamy Balsamic.  Make sure you check the labels to see if the dressing is worth the calories.  The Newman's Own Caesar Dressing is totally worth it, but I have to use it on days where I know I won't be eating other high-calorie meals in order for it to be worth it.  Otherwise, I pick one of the lower-calorie dressings.
• Additionally, I find that 1 tablespoon of dressing (and not the "serving size" of 2 T.) is generally plenty for a side salad.  Sometimes I need a little more than 2 T. if it's a large dinner salad.  I used a measuring spoon meticulously when I first started tracking my calories on LoseIt!  I still use it most of the time but will sometimes eyeball it and make sure I'm not being overly generous.  I really used to drown my salads, and I'm enjoying them more without dripping soggy lettuce.
• Salad dressings also vary widely from brand to brand.  I've seen 35 to 40 calories difference in "light" ranch dressings.  Sometimes price isn't the only consideration, even if you're on a budget.  Don't sacrifice a healthier product to save a quarter or two, especially when salad dressing can last for a long time.  The same is often true with light mayonnaise, sour cream, lunch meats, cheese and other products.  Read those labels!
• Portion sizes are probably smaller than you think, if you haven't been paying attention lately.  For example, a 4-oz. portion of meat is about the size and depth of a deck of cards.  An ounce of cheese is approximately a 1" cube.  Chips can be anywhere from 7 or 8 to 32 chips for an ounce of something like Fritos.  When you're building that giant plate of nachos, you can bet you're having at least 2 to 3 servings of tortilla chips, and that can easily get you to 350-500 calories just as your base.
• I'm a lot less likely to grab a handful of crackers, candy, Goldfish grahams (those things are GOOD) or other foods that happen to out on the counter if I know that I need to account for those calories.  Sometimes I'll have some, anyway, and make sure I enter those calories.  Other times, I pass on it so that I don't need to track it.  Keeping count has made me much more conscious of eating things instead of absently just grabbing for something that's out in the open and looks tasty.

I truly had no idea before how many calories I was consuming.  I also didn't know how many calories I should be consuming, so even on days when I thought I did well, I'm sure I was overeating by a fair amount.  Thus my slow but steady weight gain over the years, until I was 40 pounds higher than I was 10 years ago.  I've been working hard and have lost about 22 of that so far.  I'm planning on losing another 15-20 and seeing how I look and feel at that point.  I don't think I'll feel the need to lose more because I think that will have me at a healthy, and maintainable, weight and size.  But once I've moved on to Maintenance, I still plan on keeping an awareness of portion sizes, how many helpings I'm eating of something and the other helpful lifestyle changes I've made to finally take off this extra weight.

New Recipes for a New Year

I've been trying some new recipes lately.  Partly driven by leftovers and partly driven by wanting to try new things, I've been using other recipes for inspiration and tailoring them to what I like and what I have on hand.

Here's one for Chicken Tortellini Soup.  I must say, I think this turned out particularly delicious!  I had most of a package of 3-cheese tortellini in my refrigerator and was looking to use up about half of a rotisserie chicken, so I made this one up.  I referred to a few other recipes for proportions of liquid and spices, but then did some tweaking of my own for the actual recipe in the link.  And at just over 280 calories per serving, it's a healthy, hot meal, too.

I used a similar process to come up with this recipe for Ham and Cheese Quiche.  James loved it!  I liked it but thought it could use some sliced green onions, probably about 3 or 4.  (I left them out because Rachel doesn't like them, and then she ended up not caring for the quiche, anyway!)  I only use the green parts because the white are a little too hot for my taste.  Minced dehydrated onions would be also good mixed in to this.  I diced a brown sugar cured country ham steak but would use a smoked ham steak next time as I think the smoky flavor would be a better blend than the sweet flavor of a brown sugar ham.  I used Swiss and Parmesan cheeses but would like to try it with sharp Cheddar in place of the Swiss for a stronger cheese flavor.  I still thought it was tasty but think I can improve on it with these changes.  There were 358 calories in 1/6 of the quiche.

Lastly, there's Chocolate Butterscotch Fudge.

The original recipe for Peanut Butter Fudge is from Bakerella, who is always coming up with phenomenal ways for me to blow through my calories in a day.  In reading through some of the comments from her post on the PB fudge, I saw someone mention making it with butterscotch chips in place of the peanut butter and thought "Hey, I need to try that!"  This is a very rich and sweet fudge, perfect in small bites (and 105 calories per piece if you cut it into 60 pieces in a 9x13-inch baking dish).  I'd like to try the original recipe with the peanut butter, too; I think the peanut butter would make a nice contrast.  I was also thinking of other potential combinations, and one I definitely want to make is a Cherry Chocolate Fudge, using white vanilla chips and cherry extract in place of the peanut butter and vanilla.  I think that would be delicious, and so festive with a red layer on the top!

Happy New Year!

Once again, my blog posts tapered off sharply in December after a full month of posting in November.  And the dropoff was even worse in 2010 than in 2009.  Some days just felt really busy, and there were some days when I didn't have any good topics to talk about.  But I'm determined to post semi-regularly, at least a couple of times a week.  I need to work on my list of blog topics so I have those to draw on when my mind is blank.

As you well know, yesterday was New Year's Eve.  For a long time, it's seemed like an odd holiday to celebrate.  We all stay up late (or to the normal bedtime for some) so that we can say "Yay, it's the beginning of a new year!"  There's not really much that's different between 11:59 pm on December 31 and 12:00 am on January 1 from year to year, but we ascribe a lot of significance to it as we close the books on one year and look ahead to a new one.

We used to go out for New Year's Eve.  I think we mostly went out because we felt like we should.  In fact, the year it turned 2000, we went to Disneyland for New Year's Eve.  We were there all day.  It was cold and rainy for much of the day which, while miserable, also kept the crowds down for the most part.  But then 7pm arrived, and the crowds started flocking in.  Main Street got more and more crowded, to the point that it was ridiculous to try to even think of going on more rides as we waited - or even moving from one side of the park to the other.  We ended up staking out spots on Main Street with our friends and then just hanging out until it got close enough to midnight for Disneyland to start entertaining us in preparation for the countdown.  Although we *did* do a practice countdown and faux celebration for the East Coast, who would be seeing Disneyland celebrating at midnight their time, 9:00 pm ours.  When we were done at the real midnight, we stayed around long enough to get in a couple more rides, then drove about 2 miles to a nearby hotel and stayed overnight instead of trying to drive back home at 2am with a bunch of drunk people on the road.

Once I got pregnant with Rachel, it gave us a great reason to stay home.  The year she was born, we ordered a meal to go from a restaurant (Chili's, I think) and rented a couple of movies.  Got her settled in bed, then we ate while hanging out and watching the movies we'd picked.  We were pretty much sold on that after we'd done it the first time, and it's become our favorite way to spend New Year's Eve.  It's just nice to have an extended quieter time without the kids to enjoy a great meal together (that I don't have to cook) and catch up on movies we've missed.

The last 3 or 4 years, it's been Olive Garden for the meal.  I don't care if people say it's not authentic Italian food (although they send their top chefs to Tuscany to get cooking experience from the area, so I think those people are at least partly wrong).  We really enjoy their food, and it's high in calories, so it's not something that we indulge in regularly.  But New Year's Eve is not about counting calories, which makes it a great time for an indulgent meal!  And I must say, their Parmesan Crusted Bistecca (steak) was really delicious, as was the asparagus that came with it and the fettucine alfredo that I substituted for the garlic mashed potatoes.

Last night's movie picks were Date Night and Iron Man 2.  Date Night is hilarious, and there was a sequence involving a cab that made me laugh harder than I have in some time!  Iron Man 2 was darker than the first one, but it had some great character development and relationships, and a genuinely hissworthy villain.  All in all, it was a really nice night hanging out with James and having grown-up time.