Recipe Book Review

I also have been perusing the book The $5 Dollar Dinner Mom Cookbook by Erin Chase (another blogger turned author $5 Dollar Dinners.com). I started out just looking for some new recipes that wouldn’t call for outrageous ingredients that 99% of the time, seem to be out of season and that are also affordable. Affordability is a must for my cooking because trust you me my family can eat!

Yes the recipes are fab and super affordable. The author even itemizes the prices of each ingredient in the recipes to show how it adds up. Most of the recipes also have extra frugal tips located at the bottoms of the pages.

What really rattled my noggin the most while reading was the idea of stockpiling. I have been over the course of the last 2 months been stockpiling my bathroom necessities and paper goods but I had not gotten very far in the food department. I just didn’t realize that so many foods could be frozen, it’s amazing!

This book has given me new inspiration and with it the undying lust for a freezer to hide in my basement! With tax refunds approaching my dreams of another appliance in my home looks to be coming true shortly! YAY! If you have any freezer recommendations let me know.

Now I feel compelled to visit the library again to find books on freezer cooking!

Frugal Book Review

This week during my visit to the library for storytime I picked up the book Suddenly Frugal: How to Live Happier & Healthier for Less by Leah Ingram. The title really caught my eye. I am always looking for ideas on how to make my life more frugal! So bring on the suggestions Leah!

Well as it turns out the book is the result of another bloggers quest to share her ideas with the world. Suddenlyfrugal.com is still an active site, if you would like to go straight to the source but I liked the layout of the book. Each chapter shows different ways you can save money in your life. Many of the suggestions I have already been introduced to in my search for penny pinching ideas, like making my own cleaning agents and the benefits of composting for your garden. Even so, there were so many ideas in this book it makes it worth reading. And to tip the scales even further in favor, each chapter ends with the dollar amount the ideas would save if implemented. If seeing a four or five digit number in savings doesn’t get your heart racing I don’t know what will.

Check it out and see how much you could save your family!

FYSF!!!

It's Feed Your Stash Friday again! Yay!!

Check out the Cloth Diaper Blog to enter to win.

Free Marcal @ Giant Eagle

This Sundays paper had coupons for $2.00 off Marcal Small Steps toilet paper and $1.00 off another Marcal Small Steps product.

Giant Eagle has the 4pk toilet paper, 2 roll paper towels and the napkins on sale for 2/$4. When I stopped in they also had the tissues boxes on sale for $1. So with those two coupons you could score a free pack of TP and a free box of tissues. YAY for saving money and the environment!

Free Things To Do

Cleveland Museum of Art
Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun 10:00–5:00
Wed, Fri 10:00–9:00
Closed Mondays

Lake Erie Nature & Science Center
Mon – Sun 10am until 5pm.
Closed major holidays
Your donations to our Owl Collection Box are encouraged and greatly appreciated.

Westlake Porter Public Library’s annual book sale Wednesday, Feb. 3, through Sunday, Feb. 7. Call 440-871-2600 or go to www.westlakelibrary.org.

Rocky River Nature Center
Rocky River Reservation
Birds of Prey Weekend
Saturday & Sunday, February 6 & 7
http://www.clemetparks.com/events/birdsofprey.asp

Rockefeller Park Greenhouse
open daily, including weekends and holidays, from 10:00am to 4:00pm.

Rink at Wade Oval
RINK HOURS OF OPERATION
Through March 21
Fridays & Saturdays, Noon-7:00 p.m.
Sundays, Noon-5:00 p.m.

Feed Your Stash Friday!

Check out this weeks Feed Your Stash Friday Giveaway!

Slow Week

My son was sick all week so I opted to keep him in the house instead of taking him out in this brr chilly weather. I didn't do any shopping this week to share. I'll make up for it on Sunday don't you worry.

Since we were in the house all week I had some extra time to make some baby food for Pierce. Some things I do on the spot (bananas and avocados especially), because its not hard to just peel one and give it to him.



This week I made him a batch of sweet potatoes, and let me tell you he loves his sweet potatoes! I had bought some a while ago for .88 a pound and just stored them in the pantry. Just bake (or microwave your choice) and smush. He likes his food pretty chunky now so smushing is all thats needed, but the last time I made a batch I used the little chopper/processor I have to make it smooth.

Then stick your mush into an ice cube tray and poof!! You have frozen babyfood cubes. Just move the cubes to ziplc freezer bag when they are done so you can keep track of them and don't accidentally add them to a drink later on! (Unless you are making berry cubes for smoothies! I love when ideas come to me in the middle of another thought)

It's awesome how easy it is and cheap! The best part of me though is knowing that there are no added sugars. He sure doesn't need it yet.

I have kept a few of those little plastic containers the Gerber food comes in to reuse for when we go out. Just pop in a cube or two and we are all set to go.

For more ideas on possible baby food recipes check out www.wholesomebabyfood.com. They have some great recipes and guidelines on what foods you should give at what ages.

Diaper Junction Deal!

Diaper Junction is currently giving away a Free Fuzzi Bunz gift pack valued at $47.95 with a $75 purchase using coupon code FFBAGP. At $75 you also qualify for free shipping!

Or you can use the link below to get $5 off a $50 purchase!

Sorry they won't stack :(

Use code AFL550 to save $5 off $50 at Diaper Junction.

Monday Morning Storytime

Went to my local library this morning for my little one's weekly storytime (noticing my avid library use yet?). He may not get as much as I hope out of the stories and rhymes but he gets such a kick out of watching the other kids crawl and walk around and it gives me a nice hour to talk to other parents. I even picked up some bilingual childrens songs to listen in the car ride home. Oh and did I mention that all of this is FREE!

Sorry but I have to keep throwing that out there...I want the best for my kid as I am sure all of you do too, so I looked into all of these educational places to take him. Frankly the library was just a no brainer. I mean really have you seen the prices on some of these child learning centers!

Okay enough ranting on the costs of childrearing for today, but seriously (if you don't already) take a look at all the free programming at your local library. They have things for all ages: stroytimes, line dancing, computer classes, etc.

Library

Welcome to your local library! The place where you can get the lastest books, CD's, and DVD's for free. Yes, I said FREE!

Ok there are those skeptics who say that the library never has what you want when you go. Well did you know that you can log into the libraries website and request things to be sent to your local branch and be held there for you to pick up. You may not know this but there are others out there that do, take it from an insider (in my previous life I was employed with the Lorain Public Library).

The library even gets movies on the same Tuesday release date the stores get them, but the secret is that people can put them on hold about 2 months before they come out. So those new movies circulate from hold to hold before making it to the shelf. So to maximize the benefits of this system you just need to log in and request everything you might want to watch. For the sake of saving the money in rental fees, you just need to be flexible on what movie you watch at any given time, (they don't always come when you expect). It's a sacrifice I am willing to make considering rental fees, and OMG movies ticket prices are outrageous these days.

So find your local library website:

Cuyahoga County Library
Cleveland Public Library
Rocky River Public Library
Avon Lake Public Library

(Most of the other library systems are connected to Cleveland PL so just use thier link, if you need help let me know)

Request away!

Now if you would prefer to call you can usually get the information desk to request up to 5 titles a day. Keep in mind though, you can typically only put 50 titles on request at a time. Haha yup 50!

Now get busy supporting your local library!

Printables

Now that you have your paper, don't forget to supplement them with printable coupons:

coupons.com
smartsource.com
redplum.com

I also love to check hotcouponworld if I am looking for a specific item on my list. You can search every coupon available but I like to limit it specifically to printables.

Kristin over at Couponing to Disney has developed a list of printables by product if you would prefer to searh that way.

Don't forget to google the companies websites of the brands you use the most. You can definitely find some awesome coupons that way. For example I have recently hit up every baby food company imaginable since my little guy just started solids and I wanted to supplement the baby food I make. For the item not in season right now it's just more cost efficient. That is a post or another day though!

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

Don't forget to pick up the Sunday paper. I have always gone to my local Apple's grocery store because they give you a free paper on Sundays when you purchase $10 worth of groceries. Over the holidays I didn't always make it up to the store on Sunday, or when I did it was later in the day when they were all out of papers.

So I jumped on the Plain Dealer's website and signed up to have the newspaper delivered. (they have a deal running for new delivery for 12 weeks for $1.29 for the Sunday and Wednesday papers and since the PD just went up to $2 on Sundays...this is a much better deal)

Today is my first delivery day, but I recently read somewhere (sorry can't remember where) that you should purchase the same amout of papers that you have members in your family so you can properl stockpile. I may go pick up another paper or two at the store, since I need to grab a few things anyway.

Need to know how to match these wonderful money makers up with this weeks deals?

I am not going to re-invent the wheel on this one...so here is my favorite match-up site for the drugstores:





Jenny on Southern Savers is located, yes you guessed it down south! So don't look at her grocery store deals unless you want to get super jealous, but she has some awesome info about CVS, Rite Aid and Walgreens. You can jus click on the items and print out a shopping list straight from the site, with the proper coupons for each item listed!

The Frugal Map by Bargain Briana

I have been readng other deal divas blogs for some time now and could never find one that was relavant to my location so I began this one. To look for other bloggers in your area check out what Briana over at Bargain Briana came up with:

The Frugal Map | ©BargainBriana.com | Designed by 4unate Design | Submit Your Blog

Now you might ask why my blog is not listed? Well to answer you...the criteria states that your blog must be 3 months old and Couponing in Cleveland is just getting rolling. Don't you worry though when the 3 months has passed I will submit this page of ramblings!

Coupons straight your email!

Many of our local stores will email updates and coupons straight to you so you don't have to spend hours searching the internet. Register for these if you haven't already, its well worth it!

CVS
Rite Aid
Walgreens
Giant Eagle
Apple's
Kmart

My little Pooper is saving me money!

Okay I know the blog title is couponing but I have been on a "going green" kick lately and the biggest thing I have done (which coincidentally is also saving me big bucks) is cloth diapering my 6 month old son.

We started using Flips after much research on my part and a great sale over at Diaper Junction. I am a huge fan and surprisingly my hubby is on board with it too. Although I can't seem to convince him to rinse any before throwing them in the washer.

Anywho... the Cloth Diaper Blog has an awesome giveaway program. Every friday they give away a different cloth diapering freebie which they call Feed Your Stash Friday!

Check it out!