Frugal Living - Cereal Bowls

On a recent shopping trip, and one of the rare occasions my husband was able to go with us, he talked me into buying these cereal bowls at market basket.

 These lovely bowls only cost 69 cents a piece.  We bought 4, 2 for each child.  Now that the kids are eating more cereal they are great for a number of reasons.  First, they eliminate the need for straws.  The kids love to drink the milk out of their bowls.  To save on mess and frustration on the kids part we were using straws.  Now we no longer need the straws and it reduces our waste even more.  Second, it also reduces mess and spilling which makes this Mommy very happy.  Every little thing adds up.     :-)

Trucking Kids - Toddler Fun

This week my oldest is off to day camp.  Buddy has never really been away from Princess, so he's feeling a little lost.  To help him, I've been trying to plan special activities that he and I can do together.  I found some ideas on Pinterest (you can find us there as Truck Driving At a Family Level) that we tried this morning.

We have really been working on Buddy's speech development.  He was on the lower end of the charts, but in the last few weeks his speech has just exploded.  So we took out some chalk and drew circles in a circle on the pavement.  I started with three colors because I didn't want him to get to overwhelmed.

 He really enjoyed this and got in with the coloring.  He liked to color the blue in the yellow circle, so we did some color matching.  I told him he was coloring with blue and asked if he could find the blue circle.  He loved this.  So we did it with the other colors.

Once the circles were drawn.  We hopped around the circle and I would say the names of the colors he stepped on.  He loved practicing hopping and would practice saying hop with each one.

Because of the heat we couldn't stay outside that long, so we took a juice break.  The night before I took some of his cars and froze them into an ice block using my glass loaf pan.  So I ran hot water over the sides until the ice block fell out.  Then I set him up in the tub for some water play.

He had so much fun doing this.  We poured warm water over the ice block until his cars came free.  Then he just sat there for about another half hour pouring the water from the warm water bucket to the cold water bucket and back again. 

Staples Trip

Today we went to Staples for a few things.  Here is what we got.

I wanted to make sure I got my printer ink so I could print out any coupons I might be able to use for tomorrow's shopping trip.  Here is how it worked out:

Printer Ink: 49.99
RoseArt 24 pack of colored pencils for $2
Then Staples was running a deal this week that as long as you bought $5 worth of things the following would be 1 cent (limit of 2 like items per purchase)
2 packs of staples arrowhead cap erasers 1 cent each
2 packs of BIC Roundstick ball point pens 1 cent each (for the truck)
2 packs of 100 count staples 3x5 index cards 1 cent each
There was also a $5 off of a purchase of $30 or more coupon this week in the Staples flier. 
Total cost: $47.05 - less than the cost of the ink so I got 7 things for free.

Frugal Living - Saving Money Raising Kids

The best piece of advice anyone ever gave me when we started having kids was not to get rid of anything until I had something permanent done that would prevent me from having any more children.  I stored everything in the vacuum sealed bags inside of tubs until the next child came.  There was really very little that was worn out and needed to be thrown away.

Another way we saved money was buying things that would grow with the child.  We have the 3-in-1 car seats for both our children.  Our highchair converts to a booster seat.  We bought our crib to convert into a bed, but due to fire damage we won't be converting it.  There are many many products that convert into the next stage that the child will need.  For the most part they cost roughly the same as the one stage or considerably less than it would cost to buy each product designed for the individual stage.

Now that we will not be having any more children, we consign the things that the kids outgrow.  The consignment shops in the area around us prefer name brand clothing only, so my grandmother helps in this area.  We give her all the stain free clothes, toys, and baby equipment as the kids outgrow it  and she takes them to the store for us.  We then take the money made and reinvest it in things the kids need.  

We also never say no to hand-me-downs.  The neutral clothes my daughter outgrew are passed down to my son.  It helps that she has a wide variety of interests (such as Thomas the Train).  If someone offers me clothes for the kids, I gladly accept the sizes they will be going into.  I then go through them and pass on what I will not use, usually to Good Will.


Another way that we have saved money is cutting back on the waste at dinner time.  We give the children smaller portions of things at meal time, even if its something we know that they generally like.  They know that they can have seconds or even thirds if they really need it, but this keeps us from wasting as much food.  If they are trying a new food we may put as small a portion as a bite on their plate, just enough to give it a try.  The same goes for foods we know they don't care for.  If they are surprised and find they do like the food, then they can have more.

Trucker Kids - Learning Colors

 I love activities that I can level easily for both my children ("Princess" is 4 years old and "Buddy" is almost 2).  We read the book Mouse Paint last night.

 It's a simple book about mixing colors.  You can purchase this book here.  With Buddy we are mainly working on building his vocabulary and learning his colors.  Princess knows her colors and about mixing colors so we focused on what primary and secondary colors are this time.

Following the book we made 3 sandwich bags of whipped cream (we used whipped cream so they could eat it after).  We added red food coloring to one bag, yellow to another, and blue to the next.

Then the kids mixed their bags.

Resulting in:

 Buddy was especially interested in adding the drops of food coloring himself.  Princess and I talked about how these colors cannot be made from another color, making them the primary colors.
Next in the story the mice then step in different colored puddles and mix the colors.  We added the puddle color to each bag.  So yellow was added to the red bag, blue to the yellow bag, and red to the blue bag.  Each time we reinforced the color name for Buddy.  Then they mixed again.

We then reinforced the resulting color names with Buddy and talked to Princess about how these colors were made using primary colors and are called secondary colors.

At the end they dumped all the whipped cream into a bowl, made brown, and had a yummy treat.

Frugal Living - Saving in the Kitchen

Creating a Flexible Weekly Meal Plan: We create our meal plan around the sales of the week or what we already have in the freezer from previous sales.  In our meal plan we also include left over nights as needed.  When planning the meals I make sure I rotate out the things that we already have, creating less waste.

Recycling:  In our area mixed recycling is free.  We can recycle just about everything, which has cut our waste in half.  We also have a garbage disposal which helps reduce the amount of food waste we have, something that can also be accomplished by composting.  Great for the environment and it decreases the number of trash bags we use!

Buying in Bulk: Buying in bulk is great for the things that are used frequently.  However, not all things are cheaper when buying at a store such as Sams, so you have to know your prices.  I typically buy most of my cleaning supplies and trash bags , as well as the sliced cheese for the kids, feminine products, shampoo for the kids, bread, bagels, kielbasa, chips, soda, ketchup, barbeque sauce, olive oil and vegetable oil in bulk.  I also buy my milk at Sams because it runs less expensive than the grocery stores.

Reducing the Use of Paper/Wipes:  One of my favorite things to clean the kids up with was baby wipes.  They are very quick and efficient, but they are also very expensive.  To help reduce costs I bought an inexpensive pack of 6 washcloths at Target (I chose a dark color so stains would be less visible).  This has really extended how long a pack of wipes last, decreased the waste, and saved us a lot of money.  We also use dishrags to wipe down the table after a meal.  Now that we are using more and more napkins, I am planning on looking into the cost of switching to cloth napkins as well.

Finishing What's In the Bottle:  We make sure that we get as much out of the bottles of salad dressing, mayonnaise,  ketchup, etc. as possible.  Even if that requires the use of a spatula.  It may save only pennies per bottle, but that adds up significantly over the year.

The Trucker Kids - Fun on a Rainy Day

When we went to the library last week we found Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss.

With all the rain we have been having lately it was perfect.  First we read the story, then we made oobleck.

We started out with one cup of cornstarch and about 4 drops of green food coloring.  Then we added 1/2 a cup of water and began to mix.  We added water until it was the right consistency (not completely solid, but not so liquidy it loses its form when you play with it.

My 4 year old, who I will call Princess in this blog, loved it!  The first round she played with it for an hour and a half.  Of course, we used a smock and put a cookie sheet under the container of oobleck just to help contain the mess.  But the oobleck overall was very easy to clean up.

Princess was fascinated by the fact that it was "hard as a rock" and then the rock would "melt."

We then sealed the ziploc container and put it away.  When we brought it back out to play with we just added a little more water and it was good to go.  Next time I would put it in the refrigerator though, because it starts to go bad fairly quickly.

I love projects like this for a rainy day.  Projects where the kids can get messy, but the mess is some what contained.  Projects where Mommy can get some cleaning done (in this case some dishes and wiping down the stove and counters) and it keeps the kids busy.  I still take breaks to play with Princess and we talk the whole time I'm cleaning.  Definitely helps make things that much easier for this Trucker's wife.

 Interested in doing this with your kids?   Click here to obtain your own copy of this hard to find book.