Need A New Car Seat?

We bought our current 5 point harness 4.5 years ago, at Wal Mart. It's a Safety 1st Vantage. I love this seat, and it has served us well through 2 children. But now that our youngest daughter is outgrowing it, we've had to get her a new seat. The Vantage only goes up to 40lbs/40" as a 5 Pt harness, and she is also too young to be in a belt positioning booster seat.

I did my research, and since we're on a budget, I decided to go with another Safety 1st Seat. I really like their products, and since this seat held up so well, I figured another one would. I purchased a new Safety 1st Apex 65 seat from Albee Baby. The ladies over at Car-Seat.Org were very helpful in giving me any sort of information I needed on this seat, including the height of the top tether strap (17.25"!!). So if you're looking for a good, AFFORDABLE seat, this one is available on Albeebaby for only 94.94, including UPS Ground shipping. If you buy it elsewhere, expect to pay upwards of $130 US for it.

What I love about this seat is that it puts the child in a 5 pt harness till 65lbs and 57" tall! I don't think I'll keep her in the 5pt harness till she is 57" tall, but at least till kindergarten. That's only 2 years away anyway! Right now she is 40" tall and 38lbs, and you have to get a new seat once your child has outgrown either of the height and weight limits. I don't think she'll outgrow this one for awhile. Once the 5pt harness has been outgrown, the seat can be used as a belt positioning booster to 100lbs. And it also uses a LATCH, which we have in our van. Our LATCH is only good for weights up to 48lbs, and after that only the tether can be used. And thankfully, we have both!

I know my husband thinks I'm a little crazy for wanting her in a 5pt harness still because she's 3.5, but I just feel safer that way. We didn't know any better with the older 3 kids, and put them in a booster quite early. His reasoning for putting her in a belt positioning booster seat was just because we did it with the other kids, so why not her? I don't exactly recall how old the twins were, but it was a lot younger than they needed to be. We didn't know any better. And with our middle daughter, she moved out of the current seat once she hit the height and weight limit, right around 3.5 too if I recall.

At least now I have peace of mind, and I'm happy with that.

Bargain Shopping

I'm not sure I am what some people would call a bargain shopper, but to myself I am. We've had a bit of good luck with sales lately, so I wanted to share my good deals.

Today we had to run to the mall to pick up a charger for my kids' game boy, and also stopped into The Children's Place and Gymboree because both were having a Memorial Day Sale.

Shopping at TCP was even more of a bargain today, because their points card was giving double points for the month of may and June. I spent $28.20 before tax, so double points brought me to $76 worth of qualifying purchases (I had $20 already). Once you reach $75, you get a $10 rewards card. So I will be getting that shortly, and can use it in store to shop. With my perks place rewards card, I also got an additional 10% off my purchases. Today I bought 6 t-shirts and only spent $31.25 total.

Gymboree was my favorite stop of the day, as if that isn't already painfully obvious, lol. I haven't been shopping there very much because we've been trying to save some money, and because my husband just had an accident. But I had been saving my pennies, and also had a coupon saved for this weekend's sale. For a total of $55.72 including tax, I got:

2 pairs of pants
6 pairs of pajamas (2 for each older girl, one for the baby and one for the boy)
2 sets of hair accessories

The pajamas averaged about $6-$7 each, and my cheapest item was only $.95!!! I tried to paste pictures, but the stock photos are missing for some reason off the website. I can't find them anywhere.

While I wasn't planning on shopping at Gymboree today, I'm glad I got some good deals, and everyone got something. Even I did, because Bath and Body works was having their Memorial Day Sale as well. I bought myself some "Just A Minute" hand scrub for only $6. It was 50% off!

Value Village And Bargains

Anyone else like shopping there like I do? I had to head there today because my twins have a 2nd grade musical on Wednesday night, and my son needed some brown pants.

Despite the fact that I LOVE shopping at Gymboree and The Children's Place, I can't pass up shopping at stores like Value Village and Goodwill. Though the Goodwill here kind of sucks, so I just go to Value Village. I noticed a sign that said all the blue tags were a whopping... $.99!!!! Hooray!!!!!

My son's brown pants were still $4.99, but I did find him a pair of denim shorts for .99 cents. My two older daughters got some too, but they didn't fit my middle daughter, so the oldest got them all. My youngest found herself a pair of hot pink Cowboy boots that she adores, and those were only 4.99, and I also got her a few Gymboree pieces for quite cheap as well.

I spent $30, but got the following:

1 pair boys pants
1 pair boys shorts
1 pair toddler girls cowboy boots
1 toddler girl jacket
1 toddler girl dress
1 pair toddler girl jeans
1 pair girls shorts
2 girls skorts

So 9 items for $30 isn't too bad, I think.

I also found out that Value Village has $.99 cent Mondays. I never knew this, so it was quite a surprise. Thursday through Sunday, they sell a certain color tag for 50% off, and then the left overs from that sale get sold for $.99 cents on Monday. I'm going to head back next Monday to see what else I can find. My middle daughter needs some shorts for the summer, so I will be sure to look for her. I don't mind paying a little more than $.99 cents though, I was just excited to see them for that price.

I plan to go on the 25th as well because Value Village will have 50% off everything!!

Grocery Budget Update

I am so sorry, I completely forgot to update my Grocery Budget post for this month! Oops!

I've been tracking my grocery purchases for the last couple months, seeing what the kids and I have been eating, and trying to see if we can cut back at all. You can read last month's post here. Last month, from mid February to mid March, I spent about $750.00. We had a few birthdays to buy for, my husband was home, and we had other company come and visit. So our grocery spending was a LOT!

From mid March to mid April, I spent the same. Yikes! I really thought that we could cut out a lot of stuff. I've been buying healthier food, lots more produce and fruit now that it is getting warmer. I did include one Domino's Pizza delivery for $17.49 which was weeks ago. There was no other eating out.

My husband and I have come to the realization that we can't cut back anymore. Things here are so expensive! WA state just costs a fortune for everything. We have 4 kids who eat a lot, and one dog and two cats to provide for as well. We go through loads of produce, milk, and bread. I've cut it down as much as I can, and we use left overs as much as possible.

That being said, I won't be doing the grocery budget tracking anymore. I feel like it is kind of pointless to track what I am spending if it lands up being the same each month.

In other news, I am doing great on the Fat Smash Diet! I had a rough day on Saturday. My blood sugar was really low, and I had a headache almost all day. We figured out that I needed electrolytes, so I ran out to Target and got myself some Powerade ZERO. It has helped a ton! I also started taking a multi vitamin, and that has also helped a lot. I feel 100% better now that I have added those two things back into my diet.

I have had a few week moments where I just want to go out and pig out on Peanut M&Ms and Pizza, but then I realize I'll just screw myself up. I can have subway on Thursday, and when my husband comes home in a week, I can indulge just a little (I will be taking care to stay true to phase 2 as much as possible though).

I'm on day 7 now and I have finally noticed a change in my body. My belly has gone down/shrunk somewhat, and I have lost 9 pounds!!!! Only 21 more to go till July 16th! I'm very proud of myself!

Carnivals and an Update

First off, a big thank you to my friend Mama Bear over at GottaLittleSpaceToFill for including my post An Iron Chef, I am not in this weeks edition of the Make It From Scratch Carnival.


In other news, I have decided to stop tracking my clothes spending. You'll see on my side bar that I track what I spend on clothing for the kids each month. Perhaps it is only me, but I don't want people to know what I spend, because some might think I spend too much, etc etc. I'm just about done shopping for the summer anyway, just need to get the kids some more shorts and a pair of sandals. My kids have just gone through some major growth spurts, and even when I thought I was done, I had to buy more because the beasts grew yet again. Our middle daughter has outgrown pants that I bought her in January. They now look like flood water pants on her. So anyway, I will be deleting that shortly.

In regards to the grocery budget, I have been keeping track of all grocery and household needs purchases each month, for two months. I go from the middle of one month to the middle of the other. This will be my last month tracking. I've become aware of what I spend our money on, and I think the budget tracking with that is done. I just don't see the need for it anymore. I'll have a post about that coming up in the next week, and tell you all about my mid march to mid April purchases.

Watch for a grocery post soon!!

Where Is That Grocery Money Going?

I was thinking about this while I talked to MamaBear, who says that for their family of 3, she spends over $400 a month on groceries.

That led me to ponder where exactly my grocery money is going. What do we spend it on?

A couple days ago I wrote about the last month's grocery purchases. We spent a total of $758.51 for a whole month, including replenishing all the cleaning supplies, all our toiletries, all our pet care needs (that runs close to $100 a month alone sometimes), and groceries. That was an exception though, because we had two birthdays to buy for, my husband was home for a week, and my mom came to visit for a few days as well, so that obviously added money onto my bill.

The other day I spent $229 at Wal Mart for two weeks worth of meals for me and the kids, including some pet supplies, toilet paper, toothpaste, shampoo/cond. for everyone, and jet dry. I then went to Safeway to purchase a few more items that were on sale for super cheap. I got 5 two liters of various Pepsi products for only $.75 each, 5 bags of mixed salad for $.75 each, a box of Popsicles (24count) for desert for only $3, two gallons of milk for $3.98 total (I don't buy milk at Wal Mart), and 10 boxes of cereal for $1.50 each. I spent about $30. Granted, I don't normally buy 10 boxes of cereal, but these were cheap and they were small boxes too, so I have some room to store them. I did buy some candy for the kids' Easter baskets, and had to replenish my reusable bags, because I forgot them at home.

I guess I am wondering how I can do it for relatively cheap (seriously, I am not counting last month, it was really odd) for a family of 5-6 (depending on when my husband is home), but others can't. I don't even use coupons!! Couponing here is not really an option because the coupons are all for products I don't use, considering I buy mostly store brands. And Wal Mart is pretty cheap already for groceries. Is it because you don't want to? Can you not find good deals? How big are your families? Do you cook gourmet and fancy foods? Do you not use left overs? Please don't take offense, I am just really curious as to how other families do this. Enlighten me! I bet that there are families that can do it for even cheaper, I'd love to learn how!

I like to cook hearty food, yet simple. I really think that helps keep our grocery costs down, as does using left overs. A family favorite of ours is Roast beef. Roast in itself is expensive, but if you can find a large roast on sale, you can make it last for 3 meals if you try hard enough. I bought a 5lb roast a few weeks back, and the kids and I had roast beef one night, stew the next, and then I froze the last hunk of beef and made stew last week. 3 meals for $11, divided by 5 people..basically 11 divided by 15 = $.73 per person per meal. Plus I had enough left over for me to have stew one day for lunch.

If anyone wants to comment, I'd love to hear what you have to say. How do you make your grocery money stretch, and what do you spend it on?


**** Just wanted to add, while I was at Target this afternoon (we had two birthday parties to shop for), I found a GREAT deal on cereal. I know I just bought a bunch for the kids, but this is for me. Selected Quaker products were on sale for $2.50 each, and if you bought 5 products, you got a $5 gift card. So I bought $12.50 worth of cereal (Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cinnamon flavor), and then was able to use my $5 gift card as well. I got the cereal for only $1.50 a box!!!! ****

February Shopping Summary

Well, my grand total for the month of February was *drum roll please* $175.97.

That total DOES include the two t-shirts I bought for the Thing 1 and Thing 2 costumes, the other tights/t-neck my daughter needed for a performance, and does NOT include some returns I did from my online Old Navy order. So, if I take all those away, I am left with $138.93, which is not too bad! It is more than I like to spend, but also seeing that my husband ok'd the Old Navy order, then I say I did pretty well. If you want to take it even further than that, then my total would be just 86.99 if I took off the old navy order, and anything needed for school.

The jeans I bought for 4.99 were paid for with my pay pal money, which I had earned with blogging money. The tops I bought at the Gymboree outlet, I paid for with cash I had saved up in my wallet and that my hubby had given me.

All in all, I don't think I did too bad at all. I just realized I did forget to add a couple goodwill purchases to my tracker, namely yesterday's for the denim dress, and a value village trip for shorts for the boy. I didn't count those though in the total because they were needed items. Everything that was not necessarily needed RIGHT NOW was included in the 86.99.

Right now I am doing another one for groceries, just to see how much I am actually spending on food and toiletries/household items for ONE month. I am keeping all my receipts in an envelope and will tally on March 17th. As of today I have 17 more days to count. I am not trying to cut back on anything for the month, I just want to see where our money is going. This includes ALL grocery items, toiletries, pet food and supplies, cleaning items. I am pretty sure I am well over what I thought I was at, so if i am correct, I am going to try pare it down the following month (April 18-May 18).

I think I liked doing the spending tracker, and I'll be doing it for clothes again this month!

****

Just wanted to add that NONE of this was put on a credit card. I used my debit card or cash for each purchase!