Thank goodness for family

I have been so blessed to have married into such a great family....who also just so happens to have great taste! If it weren't for Matt's parents and grandparents I am absolutely sure we would have NO furniture. Well except for the two desks in our office. I tallied up the score of what we have in our apartment and out of all the furniture those are the only two pieces we have actually purchased ourselves.  Our couch, our recliner, our entertainment center, our dining room table and chairs, our dresser, etc. etc. You get the point. All of it has been so kindly donated to us. We actually didn't even have a bed frame until recently, not that we were complaining, at least we had a bed to sleep in, but Matt's Gma recently got one she didn't like as much as she thought so we are now the proud owners! I must say, it goes well with the stars I had hung up before and now provides a little bit more distance from us and their pointy edges. More then once I woke up at night after hanging them, scared that if an earthquake hit those little star daggers would take out one of my eyes. So not only is our new bed frame decorative and functional, but it also adds protection. I think it's safe to say if it weren't for Matt's generous family we would be living in an apartment decorated like this....

May 20th 08, 07, 06

This last Tuesday was our official 2 year anniversary, but the weekend before it Matt surprised me by taking me to my favorite place....the zoo! And better yet, the San Diego Zoo! We left at 7 a.m. and it took us almost three hours to get there. There were 5, yes, 5 different accidents on the freeway all interspersed along the way. I guess if I was like Grandpa Howell, I would have had my camera out and ready to take pictures of all them! We finally made it and saw all the usual sights the zoo had to see, yep you guessed it there were tigers, lions and bears...oh my. Then my so romantical husband (one of his many wonderful traits) took me to Mission Beach in San Diego, which just so happens to be the same place he took me when I drove down with a friend to visit him in 2005.  My friend was visiting her family and I was head over heels for this guy I had just met two weeks prior and had been talking on the phone to nonstop, so I hitched a ride down with her and Matt took two days off of work to play with me. He took me to Disneyland one day, and Mission beach the second day, both times driving over 2 hours in California traffic to come pick me up and drop me off each time. Now if that isn't true love I don't know what is! It was fun going back there and reminiscing about that day and how we were so twitterpated and nervous all at the same time around each other and here we are married two years now and I still get that butterfly feeling when I think about the man I married!  We went for dinner after the beach at a Thai place in the Gas Lamp District and sat outside on the patio. It was such a great day!!  This is the third May 20th we have celebrated together now and many more to come!

May 20th 2007, I planned our 1 year anniversary which was a nights stay at a hotel down in Anaheim and then we went to Disneyland the next day.  What better place to celebrate then the Happiest Place on Earth? I actually planned our first anniversary because I wasn't sure if Matt would remember to do something and I was afraid if he didn't I would be super disappointed so rather then that happen I just decided to take matters into my own hands! Come to find out, he had a clever plan all along to take me to Disneyland and I just hadn't trusted his romantic abilities! We worked out a deal now where we alternate years of being in charge of the anniversaries that way we can both plan surprises for each other. 

May 20th 2006, we spent the day in Calabasas with all our friends and family.   The weather was perfect, the sun had come out after days of rain and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.  We got married around noon outside by a waterfall, then had the reception indoors and had a tasty lunch, or so I have been told that is was tasty, we were so excited and visiting with everyone that we forgot to eat! We left around 5, went back to my apartment which from then on was 'our apartment' where we changed and grabbed our suitcases to head off on our honeymoon to Hawaii. But first we were staying in a hotel down by the airport for the night, which was where my brother Ben and his wife Chantal were staying too. They had come down from Arizona and it was also their one year anniversary (they got married May 21 the year before) We drove down to L.A. with them and by the time we got there we were all starving so we had a celebratory dinner altogether at a restaurant by our hotels. Matt and I didn't get in for the night until after 11 and were so exhausted! It had been a crazy, whirlwind, exciting, and also the happiest day of our lives. 

PG-13

This is the message that Matt had awaiting him as he opened up the fridge this morning. I had found these alphabet magnets at the dollar store (what a steal!) a month ago and had been super excited for their debut this morning!

Two years ago today, May 20th, we were married in Calabasas, California at approximately 12:00 p.m. I have more to write about this wonderful day and also the wonderful man I married, but it will have to wait to be written until after my Anatomy class tonight.  I also have to blog about the anniversary surprise day Matt had planned for me this last Saturday which was a blast and very romantical. Speaking of romantic, hehehe,  I had to spice up the message on the fridge so below the one above it also said.......

                                     

Ode to My Madre

My mom is the best

She is better then the rest

She didn't throw me away

When I was a colic-y bebe

And as if that weren't enough

She put up with lots of other stuff

Like my pre-teen crying, whining phase

That sadly lasted more than a few days

And then when I thought I was too old, 

to have to do what I was told.

She still loved me anyway

And didn't try to sell me on Ebay.

My mom cooked all kinds of yummy dishes

That exceeded all her kids wishes

Like that time on April Fools

when she broke all the dinner rules

And gave us a plate of 'frozen' peas

And she laughed at all our pleas

Until we came to see

that they were really candies!

My mom is fun and silly

And reminds of a calle lily

(cuz she is really pretty.)

 

Another thing I like to remember

is going shopping in September

Always right before school would start

We'd go shopping all day (for the most part)

I got to be with my mom all alone

(Before we both had a cellular phone.)

After my school supplies were complete,

She would always take me out to eat!

You might not know this about my mom

Cuz she's almost always very calm,

But she runs a rental business from home

Even came up with the idea on her own.

She is the smartest woman I know,

I can't help but think 'whoa' 

When I think of all that she had done,

Raising a boy, two girls and another son.

She recently got her bachelors degree,

I think all of her kids would have to agree

That she's the best mom we have ever had

One day when I'm a mom, and Matt's a dad.

I hope I can be just like Michelle Marie,

Whose the best mom I guarantee!

So thanks mom for being so great,

I hope your kindness is a genetic trait. 

I had to put this poem on display,

Because I wanted something to convey

Out of all the mothers in the U.S. of A.

I hope you have a wonderful Mothers Day!

Don't believe us?

So in light of the earlier post and how unbelievable is sounds, I thought I would put some hard evidence on here of our grocery game gala each week.  Here is part of the breakdown of what we just purchased at Ralphs:

3 packs of Venus razors for me

8 count pack of paper towels

2 gallons of milk

2 boxes of cereal

2 boxes of Quaker granola bars

1 Maybelline mascara 

1 Maybelline foundation 

1 pack of Crest floss

1 Purell hand sanitizer

Avocaodos

2 bags of salad

2 packs of cheese, Provolone and Meunster

2 big bags of lunchmeat, Turkey and Ham

3 small Ben and Jerry's icecreams (mmmmmm our weakness)

3 cans of Bertolli pasta sauces

And it goes on and on, but that gives you an idea. So what might this shopping fest have cost us? Well...

Our total bill was: $188.34.  Yikes! 

We paid: $61.21!!!

(If you can't read that it says Verified Total Savings: $127. 13!!)

You know it's good when the cashier says "woah". So there you have it. The Grocery game works! Read the post below if you want to save oodles of money like we just did :)

The Grocery Game

 

This will probably be my longest blog to date, but read on dear friends because I'm blogging about this for you, you'll be glad you read it I promise!

 I LOVE grocery shopping and always have, but living on my own and my own budget made me realize I couldn't just throw whatever I wanted to in my cart like I used to when I would go grocery shopping with my mom (you always wondered how those Lucky Charms got in there, didn't you mom?) When Matt and I were first married there was a three month period where I wasn't working and money was tighter than usual, so it was disheartening to spend $60 bucks a week at the grocery store and only get enough food to last barely a week! I usually walked out of the store with 4 bags which basically meant we were paying on average $20 a bag.  I have a feeling that almost everyone these days is disgusted with how much food costs and how much it keeps going up, but the funny thing is we haven't noticed the price change because of HOW we grocery shop now, which leads me to........

telling you about The Grocery Game!  The brief history behind it is that it was started by a lady who cut coupons religiously and started noticing trends at the grocery store she shopped at of what items go on sale and when, so combined with her coupons she was able to get things for ridiculously cheap. She then created a website where you can get a list each week (personalized for whatever store you do your shopping at) of what is going to be on sale and what coupons to combine the sales with. Let me preface this by saying we have kept track starting in January of how much we have saved so far this year.......a grand total of $1800! I'm not kidding, and that's just for the two of us. You can imagine how much you can save when you have children too.  I'm not gonna lie, it does take time, you have to be consistent on cutting out coupons but the results are so worth it! We get the Sunday paper every week, spend an hour cutting out all the coupons and have a file folder we then seperate them into under categories like Bread, Cans, Meat, Personal, etc. The idea is that you buy things when they are on sale even though you may not need them right then, but you stock up on them in cupboards so that when you do need it you already have it and you don't have to pay full price for it. Since we started we haven't paid more than $1.50 for cereal, deoderant, toothpaste, bodywash, toothbrushes..... and often we only pay .50 for some of those things! I'm to the point where I don't know what we ever did before! I used to dread having to buy bodywash or toothpaste because you were guaranteed to spend three or four bucks for them even at Wal-Mart. I would never in a million years think of buying them at the grocery store because they were always so much more money, but not when they are on sale combined with coupons!

 To get the list you do have to pay $10 every eight weeks, but that is a drop in the bucket compared to how much you save using this service. Plus for a just $1 you can try it out for four weeks which is what we did at first.  Before we started doing the Grocery Game by the end of the weeks our cupboards were borderline empty and wouldn't have anything to scrap up a meal with come Friday, but now our cupboards are stuffed and I can just open them and put a meal together with what's in there already.  We still spend about $60 bucks a week, but usually save anywhere between $80-$125 so you can imagine how many bags that is! I would say we have TRIPLED the amount we come home with compared to before. It's the highlight of our week going grocery shopping together and seeing how much we can save!  If you decided to try it here are some of my tips:

1. Some people I have told about the game say "well I don't want to buy something I don't like or want to eat, just because it's on sale." Well, here is my answer to that....Don't buy it then! ) Just because pop tarts or other calorie-laden, sugar coated, chemically enhanced junk is on sale doesn't mean you have to buy it. There are plenty of times we have looked at the list and some of these things are on there because they are on sale, but we just don't get them. You can still eat healthy and save money. 

2. Write expiration dates on the stuff you start stockpiling such as cereal and even toothpaste. We got to the point where we had so much that some would expire before we had a chance to even open them!

3. I definitely recommend getting a file folder to organize your coupons. We had several trial-and-error tests with ours and finally found the best system for us is to seperate them into categories (snacks, cans, etc.) and in each category have the coupons in order of expiration date. We also like to go beyond what is on the list each week and look for the items in the store that correspond with the coupon that is about to expire and sometimes use those.  We have increased our saving that way too. But we didn't start doing that until a couple months after we started the game, it took us a while to get used to it, but now we are old pro's! 

This is our cupboard right now and this isn't even how full it used to be. We had to start using what we had because we were running of room!

This is a shot of what personal supplies we have stocked up on, but the pic doesn't do it justice. There are 8 toothpastes in there, 3 Degree deoderants stacked in front of each other, 3 bodywashes, not to mention the 4 shampoos, 4 conditioners, 5 toothbrushes, and 3 girl deoderants that are underneath our sink in the bathroom that weren't able to be in this photo op.  

Here is a pic of our cereals. Don't worry this isn't really how we store them, I pulled them out of the cupboard and did my best to arrange this beautiful breakfast pyramid just for you. This is no where near what we had two months ago, but like I said we had to start eating them before they expired!

I hope that this helps you as much as it has helped us. With the price of gas going up and groceries too, I don't know where we would be without doing this. (Probably would be super skinny by now I suppose, from lack of food :) Go to the website at www.thegrocerygame.com and get started! What are you waiting for! And if you're really nice, you can put down that we recommended it to you (if you get three people to start it, you get eight weeks free) It will ask you for our email which is: tenthecaterpillar@hotmail.com

I know our friends and family live all over the map so here is a list of what states and stores the grocery game is offered in: 

ALABAMA - Publix, Kroger, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way, Ingles, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
ALASKA- Carrs/Safeway, Rite Aid
ARIZONA - Frys, Smith's, Safeway, Albertsons, CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart, Whole Foods, Walgreens
ARKANSAS - Dillons, Kroger, Walgreens, CVS
CALIFORNIA - Vons, Pavilions, Ralphs, Safeway, Pic 'N Save, Stater Bros., CVS, Rite Aid, Walmart ,Whole Foods, Walgreens
COLORADO - King Soopers, City Market, Albertsons, Safeway, Rite Aid, Walgreens
CONNECTICUT - Shoprite, Stop & Shop, CVS, A&P, Shaw's, Rite Aid, Walgreens
DC - Giant, Super G, CVS, A&P, Rite Aid
DELAWARE - Shoprite, Food Lion, Bloom, Giant, Super G, CVS, A&P, Rite Aid, Pathmark
FLORIDA - Food Lion, Bloom, Harris Teeter, Publix, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
GEORGIA - Food Lion, Bloom, Harris Teeter, Kroger, Publix, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way (Thrifty Way in selected cities) Ingles, CVS, Bi-Lo, Rite Aid, Walgreens
HAWAII - Safeway
IDAHO - Smith's, Albertsons, Rite Aid,Walgreens
ILLINOIS - Jewel, Kroger, Meijer, Schnucks, HyVee, CVS, Cub Foods, Walgreens
INDIANA - Jewel, Kroger, Meijer, Schnucks, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
IOWA - Schnucks, HyVee, Walgreens, CVS
KANSAS - Dillons, HyVee, CVS , Price Chopper, Walgreens
KENTUCKY - Food Lion, Bloom, Meijer, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way (only in Leitchfield, Glasgow, Barbourville, Manchester, Jackson, and Hazard), Kroger, Kroger (Delta Region), CVS, Rite Aid , Walgreens
LOUISIANA - Kroger (selected cities), Winn Dixie, Thrift Way (Baton Rouge, New Orleans, and other selected cities), Albertsons, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
MAINE - CVS Drug (groceries too!) Shaw's/Star, Rite Aid, Walgreens
MARYLAND - Food Lion, Bloom, Giant and Super G (At present this list does NOT serve Giant of Carlisle Stores that operate in the following Maryland cities: Cumberland, Eldersburg, Hagerstown, La Vale, and Rising Sun) Giant Eagle, CVS, Superfresh, Rite Aid, Walgreens
MASSACHUSETTS - Stop & Shop, CVS, Shaw's/Star, Rite Aid, Walgreens
MICHIGAN - Kroger , Meijer, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
MINNESOTA - HyVee, CVS, Cub Foods, Walgreens
MISSISSIPPI - Winn Dixie, Thrift Way (selected cities), Schnucks, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Walgreens
MISSOURI - Dillons, Gerbes, Kroger, Schnucks, Hyvee, CVS, Price Chopper, Walgreens
MONTANA - Smith's, Albertsons, Walgreens, CVS
NEBRASKA - Baker's, Safeway, HyVee, Walgreens, CVS
NEVADA - Smith's, Vons, Safeway, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
NEW HAMPSHIRE - Stop & Shop, CVS, Shaw's/Star, Rite Aid, Walgreens
NEW JERSEY - Shoprite, Stop & Shop, Giant, Super G, CVS, A&P and Superfresh, Rite Aid, Pathmark, Walgreens
NEW MEXICO - Smith's, Albertsons, Safeway, Walgreens, CVS
NEW YORK - Shoprite, Stop & Shop, CVS, A&P, Waldbaum's, Rite Aid, Pathmark, Walgreens
NORTH CAROLINA - Food Lion, Bloom, Harris Teeter, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way (Thrifty Way in selected cities), Ingles, Kroger, CVS, Bi-Lo, Lowes, Rite Aid, Walgreens
NORTH DAKOTA - Albertsons, Walgreens, CVS
OHIO - Meijer, Kroger, Giant Eagle, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
OKLAHOMA - CVS, Walgreens
OREGON - Albertsons, Safeway, Rite Aid, Walgreens
PENNSYLVANIA - Food Lion, Bloom, Shoprite, Giant Eagle, CVS, Superfresh, Rite Aid, Pathmark, Walgreens
RHODE ISLAND - Stop & Shop, CVS, Shaw's/Star, Rite Aid, Walgreens
SOUTH CAROLINA - Food Lion, Bloom, Harris Teeter, Kroger, Publix, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way, Ingles, CVS, Bi-Lo, Lowes, Rite Aid, Walgreens
SOUTH DAKOTA - Albertsons, Safeway, HyVee, Walgreens
TENNESSEE - Food Lion, Bloom, Harris Teeter, Publix, Winn Dixie, Thrift Way, Schnucks , Kroger, Kroger - Delta Region, Ingles, Bi-Lo, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
TEXAS - HEB, Kroger, Randalls, Tom Thumb, Albertsons (for Albertsons: all areas except for the panhandle from Amarillo to Midland/Odessa), CVS, Walmart Supercenters (in select areas), Walgreens
UTAH - Smith's, Albertsons, Rite Aid, Walgreens
VERMONT - CVS Drug (groceries too!), Walgreens (groceries too!), Shaw's/Star, Rite Aid
VIRGINIA - Food Lion, Bloom, Harris Teeter, Giant, Super G (At present this list does NOT serve Giant of Carlisle Stores that operate in the following Virginia cities: Front Royal and Winchester) Winn Dixie, Thrift Way (Winn Dixie and Thrift Way lists may only serve these cities: Bedford, Hurt, Clarksville, South Hill, Emporia, Franklin, Gloucester), Ingles, Kroger, CVS, Superfresh, Lowes, Rite Aid, Walgreens
WASHINGTON - Albertsons, Safeway, Rite Aid, Walgreens
WEST VIRGINIA - Food Lion, Bloom, Kroger (Selected cities are served-enter your zip code in the site, to see if our Kroger list is for you), Giant Eagle, CVS, Rite Aid, Walgreens
WISCONSIN - Jewel, Cub Foods, Walgreens, CVS
WYOMING - King Soopers, Smith's, Albertsons, Safeway, Rite Aid, Walgreens