First, let me apologize for being so sporatic online latley. Work is SLAMMED and that is good for the bottom line, but that leaves lunch hours a thing of the past for just a bit. Hopefully all will calm down within the next few months and I’ll be back to annoying you all with Christmas posts

My favorite part of being a working mom is

HOLIDAY WEEKENDS!

Do you all have plans for the long weekend?

My weekend is going to look like all other weekends for the near future.

Football, Football, Football!

However, I am excited about having that extra morning to sleep in. and drink my coffee hot from the pot, not cold in the car

International Bacon Day Festival!

9 To 5 Frugal was contacted and asked to let all of you know that on Sept 4 from 10am-5pm Kevin Gillespie a “Top Chef” Finalist, will be hosting the International Bacon Day Festival at the Blue Ash Recreation Center.

This family and furry friendly festival hosted by Beggin’ Brand Dog Snacks will feature live music, activities for the whole family (including the four legged furry members) cooking demonstrations (featuring bacon of course and other pork products) and an attempt to break the Guinnes World Record for “loudest group bark”.

Make sure you bring  your fur baby in their best costume for the bacon-inspired costume contest as well as a bacon maze and bacon race.

For more information about this event, please visit Beggin’ Bacon Bash.

Disclaimer: in exchange for alerting everyone to this event, I was offered two coupons for a free bag of Beggin’ Strips. My pooch Smokey thanks you!

Today’s deal is $25 for a Football Ticket to UC vs Oklahoma and Two UC Mens Basketball Tickets.  (Regular price would be $82 for that package)

I suspect there are a lot of UC fans out there who are going to gobble up this deal, so you might want to HURRY over and get yours!

Chipotle

My favorite fast food joint Chipotle is adding a kids menu to their already fantastic regular menu.

To celebrate this fact, from August 22-Sept 12, you can visit any Cincinnati area Chipotle (I would ask your store if you are in another area and see if they are going to participate) and receive a free kids meal with the purchase of any burrito bowl, tacos, or salad.

Thanks Family Friendly Cincinnati for this great deal!

This is a great deal for all of the back to school shopping, Christmas Shopping hint hint, etc.

The Fine Print:
* Expires 11/20/10. Limit 1 per person. Valid in-store at US and Canada Stores Only. Not valid on online purchases, previous purchases, GAP Outlet, GAP Factory, or GAP Generations. See site for more details.

Some days I would love to sleep in until *gasp* 9:00 am.

Today is one of those days.

I’m tired from running around every day to football practice and then catching up on chores every night until 11pm.

The weather is gorgeous out. I would LOVE to stay home, throw open the windows and sit on my back porch with a hot cup of coffee and a good book.

My peach tree is in full bloom.

Check these babies out…

They need picked RIGHT NOW!

In my past life (stay at home life) I used to can peaches.

They taste like HEAVEN.

I know I can’t do it this year. No matter how badly I want to.

I drive past that tree every morning on my way out to work and sigh and wish I could stay home and can peaches.

Then one of the kids will poke the other one in the backseat, or yell, or say “I’m bored” or some other obnoxious thing and I will remember….

I’M SO GLAD I’M A WORKING MOM~

I always seem to get in the mood for freebies (or is it that  I finally catch up on personal stuff from the weekend’s sporting events?)

Today only, Free french Fries at Penn Station. Details here.

Cincinnati Museum Center is offering FREE 2010 membership for anyone who purchases their 2011 membership before 8/31/2010.

Use the code FREE2010 when you checkout and you will receive the remainder of 2010 free with your purchase of a 2011 museum pass.  Expires 8/31.

Cheetos Free Mighty Zingers FREE SAMPLE

Sample of truly-life lotion bar. Read midway down this page. You need to send them an email to request the sample.

Today only! Rent one get one free at Blockbuster. Use code: G218C3. Expires 8/18.

Free 9 month subscription to Sailing World Magazine.

Free Sample of Wood Aged Whiskey Yes Please…

Deals!

Mr. Food has a new Free Ebook “Lets Get Grilling”  

Dollar General:

If you are a dollar general shopper, you can now receive email alerts for sales and coupons.

US National Parks are offering FREE admission all weekend 8/14-15.

See details here.

Free Lunch Tote from Earthfare if you participate in their Healthy Lunch Challenge.

Origins are offering a free Mini Facial in store only from 8/12-8/15. Details are here.

Free Bic Easy Glide Ink pen. (They are giving away 1000 pens daily.)

National Geographic Magazine is offering a Free Big Book of Fun for the kiddos.

This is an 7 page printable book with games and puzzles for kids. However, there are instructions online that explain how to get the larger 80 page book for free.

Happy Birthdya Dora!

Dora the Explorer is turning 10. Walmart is offering a huge Dora Birthday Celebration on Aug 14 in store only. Details here.

The owner of this site, Emily, puts out SUCH CUTE ideas!

Check out this simple, but adorable idea!

How sweet is that? A plate turned into a chalkboard.

Check out her complete, detailed instructions .

If you have some free time, you should peruse her archived ideas. Especially if you are looking for good ideas for a more crafty read frugal Holiday.

All creative ideas, photographs, etc are the property of Not so Idle Hands. I am in no way affiliated with Emily, I just think she is a very talented lady and I am grateful she shares her talents with the rest of us.

Here is part two in our Series for Rosie

Rosie says:

“One of my problems is that I don’t have a clue what a good price is on something. I have a deep freeze so, in theory, I should be able to buy on sale and freeze it for later uses.

But what’s a good sale?”

It takes time!

Rosie, the honest answer is that it just takes time and paying attention to figure out what the best prices are.

When I first started on this frugal journey, I thought I knew what a good price was for many items. Turns out I was WAY off.

What finally opened my eyes was my dear friends at Frugal Families.

Frugal Families is a website dedicated to helping families live more frugally. They have an online forum that I joined when I first became a SAHM and my income was cut in half. Without the FF members, I am not sure I would have learned the skills that I needed to be able to afford to stay at home. I would have likely ended up going back to work much faster than I wanted to.  All of my frugal ideas I credit to the lovely ladies at FF’s.

Price Sheet:

What helped me figure out if something was a good sale price, is a price sheet.

Price Sheet’s are a list of the items you buy frequently. The cost for the item, best sales price you have seen so far and  the unit price (cost divided by quantity 1.50/32 oz=.046 unit price)

Unit price is important because it is the “true cost” of the item.

For example, if you have two jugs of laundry detergent for sale at the store. Jug A is on sale for 9.99 and has 62 oz in it. Your unit price is .16. If you have Jug B on sale for 6.99 but it only has 32 oz in it the unit price is .21. Now if I were wandering in the store, just looking at these two jugs, I would assume the cheaper one was the better deal. But actually the more expensive one is the better deal. The more expensive one will last you longer. Make sense?

Making a price sheet takes time and is a pain.

But if you take the time to do it, you will begin to see the savings.

I have been frugaling/couponing for for 9 years now. At this point, my price sheet is imprinted in my head, but it probably took me a full year before I had most of the prices committed to memory.

Printable’s:

Frugal Families has a nice free printable price sheet that you can use. scroll to the middle of the page.

Give it a try. I think even just writing the prices down for a few weeks, you will begin to commit them to memory.

My good prices:

I have certain prices in my head that I simply WILL NOT PAY MORE THAN for certain items.

Some of my drop dead prices are:

Eggs .69 a dozen (Aldi)

Milk 2.99 a carton (organic milk in the carton at Kroger)

Most Dairy products I buy from Aldi. You generally can’t beat their prices.

Chicken 3lb frozen breasts 5.99 (Kroger sale and Aldi sale)

Whole chicken .69 a lb (Aldi)

Ground turkey I really like to get for 2.50 a lb, but that doesn’t happen often. When it does I STOCK UP!

Ground Beef 2.50 a lb (organic beef at local meat market)

Flank Steak 5.99lb (Kroger)

Rump Roast 3.50 lb (Kroger usually in the middle of winter)

Pork Chops 1.89lb (I actually buy the loin when they go on sale for 1.89 and ask the butcher to cut them into chops, then I can freeze them in individual meals 4-5 per freezer bag)

What are your drop dead prices?

Anyone got any other tips for our dear friend Rosie?

So Rosie, just for you… with all of my apologies!

Rosie says:

“I hate coupon clipping. I feel like it is time-consuming and I end up forgetting them. Or I fall into their trickery and buy something I don’t need.”

I have a theory on coupons.

I totally agree with ya Rosie! Most of the time I think they are a waste of time and paper.

That said, I DO use coupons.

I just don’t have much time to sift through the ad’s each week, match them up to the coupons from the newspaper, and then plan meals around those items. I have a job and kids for crying out loud!

Basically what I do is, grab the coupons from the Sunday newspaper. I cut ONLY the ones I KNOW I will use and the rest I toss.

Wanna try the coupons?

However, if you want to try the mega couponing that you read about online where folks clip coupons and buy $150 worth of groceries for something paltry like $15 or something (yes, I know that there are MANY folks out there that do this successfully, I’m not one of them) then give this website a try.

The Grocery Game

The Grocery Game is a website that links the current grocery coupons to each week’s store sale flier. They make a pretty list of the item on sale/which coupon to use/ final price after coupon. You can go down the list, click which items you want to add to your personal list, and then print only the items you want to buy. Grab the coupons from your Sunday flier and be on your way. (Don’t bother to clip them until you know you are going to use them)

The list is nice because she keeps track of the sales from a statistics standpoint. In other words, she will let you know that this is the LOWEST price available on that item for a good while.

We probably all know that the stores run certain items on sale seasonally. Terri alerts you that the time to really stock up is NOW.

Her list is good for all over the US, not just here locally. See the details here.

The cost is reasonable too. It is only $10 for an 8 week period. That fee only covers one store. If you choose to add a second grocery or drug store, then the cost is only another $5. So if you want a weekly list for Kroger and CVS, the cost would be $15 every 8 weeks.

The owner Terri is offering a free 4 week trial period.

I used this service for about a year and really enjoyed it. Unfortunately work got so crazy that I let the membership lapse. I think I’m going to sign up for the 4 week trial again and see if I like it.

If you opt to sign up for the trail, put my email in as a reference (you might just win me 12 weeks for free). Use the email jen at 925 frugal dot com.

This post is getting way too long. I am going to break it up into two parts. Look for Part 2 tomorrow!