Saving Money Rocks!

I am sure that most of us would agree with that statement, but often we get too caught up with day to day activities to spend the time it might take to find the best value. Or maybe it's impatience. For me it's a little of both. I am a DOer. Once I make my mind up that I want something I have a hard time waiting. However, Patience is a virtue and I am slowly but surely learning to be patient, scope out the deals, research the store circulars, look for coupons and coupon codes and save money doing it.

Since I starting couponing and looking for better deals I have not come upon even one area of my life that I cannot find a coupon or sale or some tip to save money. I have heard every excuse in the book for not couponing from people. The best are "Coupons usually only get you $0.25 off, you are just not saving that much money", and "You probably don't save as much money as your time is worth", and of course the best, "I just don't have time to coupon." This week I blog with the intention of busting all those myths in a 3 part series.

Part 1:

My Mom has always taught me the value of money and used the old adage "A penny saved is a penny earned." One penny saved here, a penny there, really can add up over time. The same principle applies to coupons. If you clip coupons and watch store circulars then you can save a quarter on 10 different items plus the savings from shopping sales and before you know it you have saved upwards of $5 on one trip to the grocery store. Over a month that adds up to more than $20 and over the course of a year that is over $240, and that is a conservative figure. I know that I save much more than that with one trip to the grocery store. When you add in all the other places I can save with couponing the savings really becomes tangible.

Here’s an example of some random things that I saved money on this month. This is not at all a complete list.

Season Passes to the Amusement Park: found an online coupon code that saved $15 per pass. That brought our family cost down from $400 to $325 for a total savings of $75

Reservations for a Hotel: shopped the discount sites for the best deal and found a 4 star hotel that normally cost about $150 a night and booked our room for $68 for the night. That’s more than 50% in savings.

Father’s Day Gifts: Took advantage of the great deals at Restaurant.com for gift certificates and gift cards. Used their online discount code as well and bought $55 worth of gift certificates for only $6.50 (savings of $48.50.)

Free Pizza: I entered a contest on the Coupondivas.com site and won coupons for 2 free Red Baron pizzas. That’s about $8 in savings.

Movies: chose the discount theatre on their special discount day. Their already discounted prices of $2 a person is $0.75 a person and then we took advantage of their Movie Meal pack and each kid had Popcorn and a drink for only $2.50 each. That totals $3.25 a person for the movie, popcorn and a drink as opposed to the standard movie ticket which is between $5 and $10 depending on theatre, time of day, age of movie goers and does not include refreshments. That’s a savings between $21.25-46.50 not including refreshments for my family of five.
Random coupons found this month in various places:

• Coupon for a prescription we use that saved us $20 on our regular co-pay of $30
• Coupon for a fast food place that gave us a price of $3.99 a combo up to 4 people no matter what combo they chose.
• Coupon for a local hair salon and got my son’s hair cut for $5.99 versus the regular price of $8.99


In total that is more than $250 in savings in June. That is the conservative figures for savings and that doesn’t even include my savings on groceries and or household supplies. It really does add up!

I love this letter written by another local Pastor to our Pastor, Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation church.  We (the Elevators) had the honor of hearing Pastor Martin preach this weekend. Great Service! Here's the link to the letter, it's definitely a must read. - http://pastorjonathanmartin.com/uncategorized/letter-to-steven-furtick

I love CouponDivas!

I use the coupondivas website and youtube videos all the time when I want a great explanation of how to save or how to coupon at a particular store.  This particular video is really cute. She's giving you another great tip on finding coupons in the CVS store. Recently I won some coupons on the site for FREE Red Baron pizzas! She also has free printable coupons on the website. You really should check out Kitty's site at http://coupondivas.com//   Check it out!

Teach me how to give Grace

I was recently in a position where I was becoming bitter and unforgiving with someone that had in the past been a good friend.  I found myself feeling slighted, unappreciated, and even judgemental about the mistakes that person had recently made.  I felt like my feelings and actions were justified because of that person's mistakes.
Then another friend simply pointed out that I seemed too quick to be offended by anything and everything that happened even when it probably wasn't intended that way in the first place. I started praying about the situation and this is what I realized.
God gives us grace no matter what our mistakes. He died on the cross for our every sin, giving us Grace and Mercy for even the crimes we have yet to commit. I realized that only our own actions and guilt hold us back because he's given us a never-ending Grace and forgiveness and that I must strive to be more like him. I must learn to give Grace to others and love them through their mistakes. Grace is not earned or rewarded for good behavior. In fact it is given in spite of bad behavior. So this weeks prayer I am praying is for the Lord to teach me how to give Grace to others and show them how to be more like Jesus.

Your Thoughts Define Me

May we call on our Father Lord in Heaven to find out who we are instead of looking to this messed up, twisted world to tell us who we are.

Taken from this blog:
http://jonathanhelser.blogspot.com/2010/05/your-thoughts-define-me.html

"Without any words she ran and stopped in front of me wearing the new dress she had picked out. This was one of those moments when time also seemed to stop in front of me. As she stood still and time stood still, I realized it was one of the greatest moments I would ever have as a Father. She was waiting to be defined by my voice. Her little heart was like clay waiting on my thoughts to shape her. So with everything inside me I looked deep inside her and said "Haven you look more beautiful right now that you have in your whole life."

Everyday for the next week Haven would put on her new dress and come find me. No matter what I was doing she would pause before me and wait for my voice to tell her again that she was beautiful. It was like her little heart was saying over and over to me "do it again daddy.... tell me who I am."

Identity is discovered through the voice we listen to. We have all been created to be defined by a Fathers voice. Every girl is made to hear those words, "You are beautiful" and every boy is designed to hear the words "well done." My words over Haven are but a shadow of the radiant thoughts that the Father in heaven has for her. Until we each have an encounter with our Father in heaven like my daughter had with me, we will spend our lives broken in search of our identity.

The Father is sitting in His favorite chair, just waiting on us to burst into his presence and say "Daddy, do it again, tell me who I am." "

What a week!

This last week of school for the kids is turning into a very hectic one.  Exams, Poetry Showcases, field days etc, all are keeping us busy. Now to add to things we've had a death in the family. My Great Aunt lost her battle with cancer and has left us. We will be traveling this week for the memorial as soon as the kids get through school. It's been a long day and I just expect more of the same as the week wears on. Keep the family in your prayers as we get through this week. I may not post much with all we have going on but will try to get back to it as soon as I can.

It's Thursday already!

This week has went by really fast. I guess it's due to the extended weekend with the holiday. Can't wait for this weekend to hang out with the family!

It's rained all week so it's been wet and we've had storms every night. But on a positive note my garden is growing like weeds. It won't be long and I'll have more produce then I know what to do with. I picked my first two strawberries this morning and I've already gotten a couple servings of green beans and spinach recently. Can't wait for all my tomatoes to come in!

I've been updating Angel's blog recently as well. I realized that she had been too busy to update since December so I am trying to keep up with things until school lets out. Then she should have the time to keep up with it herself at least over the summer.

Recently I have been feeling the pull to get more organized and focused. There are so many things I would like to do with my life and things I'd like to accomplish. I think at 34 it is time that I quit waiting on it to happen to me and I get out there and make it happen. So I will likely be posting on topics like organization, and goals, along with my normal posts about my family and Angel's accomplishments. One of the things I want to really start getting more focused on is Angel's charity organization, Angel of Melody, so you will hear about that too. And of course I still have plans to post on gardening and saving money with coupons. So all these plans should keep me busy posting for a while! See you soon!