"Coupon Meals"

My friend Rachael and I have challenged ourselves to put meals together using ingredients that came from the coupon deals that we have accumulated. I have been doing it all week but forgot to take pictures... Until last night... I made the main dish in my crockpot. I broiled 4 hamburger patties that I got from Omaha Steaks for about $1, then cut them up. I put them in the crockpot with 3 cans worth of homemade cream soup that I used progresso soup broth to make. I added some chopped onion, salt and pepper and sprinkled a little parsley on top and cooked it all on low for 8 hours. When done, I mixed it with some noodles and served it with peas, peaches and biscuits. It was very good! It tasted like beef strogonoff.

My other challenge to myself is to use my crockpot for a week, except for Thanksgiving. So tonight, I am making lentil soup in the crockpot with pumpkin dinner rolls. Hopefully, I remember to take a picture! :)

Walgreens Deal

Some deals just need to be posted. Here is what I got from Walgreen's today. I spent $0.03 plus tax bringing it to $1.23 which I put on the gift card that I got for transferring a prescription. Sweet deal! I just happened to need almonds for my Thanksgiving menu. Check out http://www.hotcouponworld.com/ for all sorts of good information and deal ideas.

Budget calculations so far

Here is what I have spent on groceries so far this month.

Budget money spent: $154.42
Gift Cards: $82.47
Savings according to the receipts: $560.61

I was able to transfer some prescriptions to Walgreens for gift cards and I got one from the auto center for stopping by. They sent me an invitation with a gift card incentive... :)

I also have a gift card from Kmart that the manager sent to me to remedy a bad situation. He really did a good job at making me want to continue shopping there. The gift card was a bonus.

I am going to put together an excel spreadsheet that will track this kind of stuff for me. So I will have actual numbers for the whole month posted in the first week of the following month.

Making Progress

The picture is just so cute, I had to put it in. She was so tired, she didn't even wait for me to put her to bed.

We had our first board meeting on Saturday. It went very well. We now have a plan for the next steps for our ministry. We have a lot of administrative things to do before we can start fundraising, but I enjoy this kind of work.

We are hopefully going to have a laptop donated to us that we can use for our "portable" needs. So, now we are on the lookout for a regular computer and printer and all of the other things that any other business office would need. So if any of you in the Kitsap Peninsula have any of these items that you are wanting to get rid of, please leave me a comment. All donations are tax-deductible as well.

One of the next items on our agenda is building a website. I will still keep my blog going though. I will link it to the website. So be on the lookout for it! We hope to get it up and running by the first of the year.

I hope all of you have a great week!

Marie

"God Whispers"

"God Whispers" are the little things that happen that could only come from the Lord. Well, I have a God Whisper to share. We just got tax-exempt status last week. Yesterday, a lady from United Way called to have me fax her a copy of my tax-exempt status letter because someone wants to designate their financial donation to go to our ministry. Just so you know, it can take up to 8 months to get approved by the IRS. So I am claiming this as a God Whisper that 3 days after we received the letter, United Way calls to get a copy of it!

Too awesome for words!

Tax Exempt Status Update

We received our tax-exempt status letter today! YAY ! I am so excited that I really don't know what to do with myself! We have our first board meeting on the 15th of this month, so we will discuss direction then. Between now and then, I must get a good schedule going at home since I have one in preschool now and the other stays home with me. So, I ask for prayers for the Lord's guidance on getting a good schedule that enables me to properly care for my children and my home as well as make progress with this wonderful new ministry.

I am so thankful that I got a handle on the couponing way of shopping before we started in on the ministry. Now, it doesn't take as long to find the good deals. My stockpile is well established as well so there is less need to do any major shopping anyway.

I hope everyone has a great rest of the day and a great weekend!

Marie

Double Coupon Days at Kmart

I happened to go into Kmart this morning for a coupon to use at Target and saw the sign that today was the last day for double couponing up to $2.00. I was actually quite upset because I had called 2 weeks ago to see if they were participating and they told me no. So, this evening, I went back loaded with all of my coupons and this is what I got:

2 Almay eyeliners, 2 Almay mascaras, 2 Almay eyeshadows, 1 Almay concealer, 3 bags of lifesavers and 3 packets of Tuna. I spent $3.01 plus tax which came to $4.25.

Today was the last day for this but they have done this twice now within a few months so keep your eyes open for the next one. As a side note, Kmart often has manufacturers coupons hanging around. So it might be good practice to pop in there every so often anyway.