Since I've been home with the kids, which has been two weeks now, I have started doing two new things. One thing I've been doing is tracking our expenses, i.e., how much we spend on food every month, gas, miscellaneous items. I'm amazed at how much we've already spent on food, even though we're only halfway through the month. We hardly ever eat out, and I'm not buying steaks at the grocery store! I'm trying to get an idea of how much we spend so that we can set up a realistic budget. We may be eating saltines and potted meat for the rest of the month at the rate we're going! I would be interested to know if you guys have a food budget and if so, how do you save money every month on food. I know the coupon games are all the rage these days, but some of these people I see spend 20 hours a week searching for these deals. I don't have that kind of time! But if you know of a simple way to "coupon", please share your ideas with me!
The second new thing I've started doing is making Peyton help out more around the house. We, of course, want to teach our kids to be responsible, hard working individuals who take pride in keeping the household clean and running efficiently. She puts liners in the trash cans, takes the clothes out of the dryer and folds the washcloths, empties the silverware(except for the knives) from the dishwasher, cleans up her toys several times a day, puts condiments in the fridge after we've had a meal, and cleans up the table after we eat. Again, I would love to hear your ideas of age appropriate chores your kids do at home. And do you implement any type of reward system? I'm just curious.
Thanks for sharing with me! The internet is such a great tool for new ideas...
Niagara Falls (with kids!)
4 years ago
4 comments:
Hey Joy! I read your post about chores and then scrolled down Google Reader to another blog I follow (Passionate Homemaking) and found her post today to address the exact questions you raised...hope this helps! http://www.passionatehomemaking.com/2011/09/chore-charts-for-little-ones.html
Blessings,
Laura Bramlett
New Orleans is hard b/c there aren't a ton of good sales and food is expensive, but watch the sale flyers every week. Winndixie usually has at least one good meat sale a week and sometimes the 10for10 are a good deal. stock up on the meat when it's on sale, that way you have it and don't have to buy it full price. go to this website http://www.southernsavers.com/learn/ and print off the "buy price list" and that will give you an idea of what prices you should try to shoot for when you're stocking up on items
Thanks for the tips! Laura, thanks for the website to read. I don't want to over burden my children, but at the same I want to teach them to be responsible. I'll have to check it out. And Jenny, you are right about New Orleans not having good sales. I hear about all these people going to Aldi, and double coupons at Kroger, but we don't have any of those stores here! Just WD and Rouses. I'll have to try that website out. Thanks! :)
Hey, Joy! I also read Passionate Homemaking, hope that helps. As far as groceries go, I coupon some. I get two newspapers for $10 each Sunday. Around here, you have to go with delivery to be certain you will actually get the coupons. Because I don't spend insane hours with couponing, I haven't done anything like spend $10 and get $100 worth of groceries, but I am able to stock up on some things for really cheap when they go on sale. Do you have Publix in NO? I know it's terribly expensive, but by watching the sales and using coupons, I actually do much better there than at Wal-Mart on most things. We still get applesauce and medicine at Wal-Mart, but we just stock up once a month. We go through a lot of applesauce at our house with four kiddos! We use the cash envelope method for groceries, so when we're out, we're out! It does force me to make sure I'm using everything that's in our freezer and pantry before spending money unwisely.
We've so got to talk!
Laur
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