Frugal Friday - Email Lists Pay Off!

My frugal tip today has more to do with luck - I think. The Kohls store closest to my house is remodeling and has sent me 4 different $10 coupons good on any purchase over $10 through email. I have had $40 to "shop" with at Kohls - I have bought greeting cards I would normally have bought and a few Father's Day gifts,along with a few new clothing items for myself - I am super excited to have saved that money. So, I guess the moral of the story is to join the email list for stores that you regualrly shop....

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Homemade Granola

I have been wanting to make Granola at home for a while now and I finally found a recipe that I could adjust so it would not have a ton of calories per serving. I adjusted this recipe (which looks delicious, but I could not consume it everyday).

My Version of Cinnamon Crunch Granola

8 Cups Rolled Oats .80

2 T Cinnamon

2 cups flaked Coconut (I used sweetened) .50

1/2 chopped Pecans .75 (guess - I buy a huge bag at Costco)

1 and 1/4 Cups Grape Nuts Cereal - I used Aldi's Nutty Nuggets (.20 - on sale for .89/box)

3/4 C Brown Sugar

1/2 C water

1/4 C Vegetable Oil

1/2 C Apple Juice

2 t vanilla

The brown sugar I buy in a huge bag at Costco, the Apple juice we have tons of and a lot of it was close to free, the veggie oil was close to free on a Buy _ Get _ sale at Jewel - So I am not going to add in the cost of those items.

For 12 cups of granola - or approx 24 - 1/2 Cup Servings, the total is $2.25 - not spectacular for cereal, but for cereal I know what is in it, I think its great!

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Community Sale

Our community has a big sale for just baby/toddler items and I went to the recent annual sale in search of a bouncy seat. We have a bouncy seat, but I found with my daughter it would be super handy to have one on each level of the house - so I wanted to find a nice used one for that purpose! As you can see in the picture above, I found one - it was $10, which is more than I wanted to spend, but it was nice and I figured there would not be too many yard sales in the cold months - since I am due the 7th of March.

Breakdown -

Bouncy Seat - $10

Maternity Shirt - $1

Pair of Children's place jeans for 3yo - $1

Pair of columbia boots for 3yo - $1

Onesies for new baby - .10 ea

Sweater coat for 3yo - $2.00

Sleepers for new baby - .25 ea

Sweatpants for 3yo - .25

I am so glad I decided to buy the bouncy seat used - I not only saved at least $20 on that, I got my daughter a pair of waterproof boots for the winter for $1.00- which are a lot nicer than any boots we would have bought new. Yay for resales!

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I won, I won!

Thank you Malt-o-Meal. Thank you so much! The Fed-Ex man dropped by my house the other day with a tiny envelope. Inside: A letter stating I was a grand prize winner - FREE Malt-o-Meal cereal for a year in the form of 52 Free bag coupons (up to $5.50) - so its the big bags! This will feed our little family breakfast and snacks with some to share for over a year!

Moral of the story: Entering contests really does pay off. I had been skeptical until now, but I will play on. A few short minutes of my time can really pay off.

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Frugal Friday

I often buy pork chops at Costco, which run $12 - $13 a package for 9 -10 big, thick chops. When I get the pork chops home, I cut each chop in half – like I am butter flying it, only I go the whole way. The chops are then the same thickness as the ones I get in the grocery store. I freeze them in 4 chop portions and that is more than enough for our family- plus, it usually gives my husband lunch the next day. The package I just bought from Costco was 12.79 and I got 20 nice size chops. That will feed our family 5 times for a total protein cost per meal of $2.56 - which is much better than our local grocery store’s sale of $1 per chop.


I will take a picture next time, but I was in a hurry when I got home from the store and got them in the freezer ASAP.



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