Icy Cold and Coupon Mania . . .

BBBRRRRRR! It's cold this morning. Wind Chill ridiculous in the single digits cold. For my yankee friends and family, I know you are saying 'so what?', but for Texas this is major, bone chilling cold. I am not a big fan. Of course, I am not a huge fan of 110 degree days in the summer either so my hubby says I am generally not happy about the weather at all and extremely hard to please. Maybe so. I would be super happy living in a place that stayed in the 60-80 degree range most of the time, but then again I don't know anyone who actually does and I would be lonely without friends and family surrounding me so I guess I am stuck here. Sigh.

This brutal cold front has left us with a couple of issues to deal with in the Barrow house. First, my little kids don't seem to care that walking outside is like plunging into a vat of ice water, they just want to play outside. There is snow on the trampoline, mom, we HAVE to go outside. Keeping them inside is a challenge an that's exactly where I want to be, inside.

Second, Scott's heater is out in the truck. Well, actually it isn't the heater, it's some residual problem with the radiator leaking into the car that has something to do with an installation problem from when we spent $4K (yes, really) this summer to rebuild the engine in his Dodge. It was a sort of joint decision to make this repair instead of scrapping the Dodge and buying a new vehicle. I was on the scrapping side of the discussion, but Scott really loves his truck. And truthfully, we haven't had a car payment in 4 years. It's really nice and it has saved our butts during the tough times we've had. Neither one of us is really anxious to add that expense to our budget again anytime soon, even though we know it's eventually inevitable (except that the car payment will be for something fabulous I will eventually drive since Scott has promised to drive his truck forever after spending that kind of money on the thing). So, the radiator is fine as long as Scott doesn't run his heater which is not a problem in Texas for about 10 months of the year (at least for him, me - I'd be freezing and begging for it to be fixed, but he's a strong manly-man and says he can handle it). When the cold front was announced, I asked him again what the repair estimate was on the truck. I cringed at the answer, but was willing to make the adjustments in our budget. No, Scott said, it can wait. It's only a few more weeks until March and I won't notice. A sidenote - his toughing this out is making it much easier to live with the 'squeak' in my van when I turn the steering wheel. Evidently, this is a clock spring that would cost $400 before labor to replace and doesn't affect the actual function of the steering wheel. Let it squeak, baby.

So, Scotty is toughing out the ridiculous cold in his truck for his 20-30 minute commute every morning which brings us to our 3rd issue with the cold - Tyler. Tyler usually rides his bike 3 blocks to a neighborhood school and then waits for a bus that takes him across town to his Magnet school. He's been complaining lately that it's getting really difficult during the winter months to get this done. He's not complaining about the temperatures, but wearing his big bulky winter coat, coupled with an overstuffed back-pack (thanks to the massive class required binder, 4 spirals and the school issued Netbook and case that he must tote back and forth every day) while trying to keep lunch bag in hand (doesn't fit in the backpack for previously mentioned reasons) and keep the bike lock wrapped around the handle-bars while riding (also doesn't fit . . .) is all making him topple over occasionally on the way to school and back. He would rather walk home. Scott can drop him at the neighborhood school enroute to work without messing up his traffic patterns.

Yesterday, Scott offered to let Tyler wait for the bus in the truck instead of getting out and waiting on the school steps, but Tyler turned him down. Today, I told him it wasn't an option. He didn't see the point since there isn't heat in the truck, but I convinced him that even without a heater, it would still be better than getting struck with the strong winds that were going to make it feel like it was 9 degrees outside. I might have even made some vague, smiling references to frost-bite and hypothermia to my alarmist child. Anything to keep him from catching pneumonia this week. Don't judge me, I'm just making it work. :)

I would have been completely satisfied to not walk outside my front door all week to avoid the cold front, but that isn't how managing a family of five works. Really, when Scooter slept in yesterday and I was faced with waking him up to get out the door, I seriously contemplated NOT going to my first MOPS meeting of the year. A few misguided conversations with a couple of these women in December (crazy women telling me how 2 children was the perfect number, gag) had left me wondering if I even WANTED to go back. I'm definitely the oldest member of the group, and there's only one other mom who has a school-aged child (1st grader) so I have been feeling slightly out of place. Except that our ASSIGNED mentor mom has been consistently absent most meetings. And there are two moms in the group who keep asking for my advice about raising boys. And, I've been praying about it. The thing about asking God for guidance is that you are usually going to get it. God was almost screaming at me to GO, GO, GO. So, I went. I always say, I have enough disobedience in my day to day life, disobeying a direct order from my Lord seems a bit much. :) I think God is turning me into a pseudo-mentor-mom for my group, and yesterday I was mistaken twice for the group leader. NOT my intention, but oh well - play the hand you are dealt.

I had major mixed feelings, but I made myself look half-way pretty and got my kids bundled up and out the door. Bbrrr. I settled into my seat and prepared myself for boredom. So far, the speakers we've had this year have really not been great. No major impact on this life here. I am looking forward to the meeting in February entitled 'Parenting the Strong-Willed Child and Handling Sibling Rivalry' for obvious reasons. It was probably my main motivator in paying spring dues at all. Yesterday's meeting was 'Tips for Saving Money'. Okay, I'm listening. But, honestly, I was expecting a discourse on sewing your own clothes and finding side jobs and budgeting for college. WRONG! The speaker had me hooked before she took the stage because she sat at our table to eat her brunch and she was extremely engaging and fun. Natalie Reid was her name. Anyway, she's one of those 'Coupon' people. You know the complete nuts who spend all their time clipping coupons and finding all the deals to pay next to nothing for goodies and then stockpile them. (Not a hoarder, I am assured, she donates all the free items she gets that she doesn't need).

Okay, I'm hooked, I admit it. I loooove a bargain. I love to save money. Anything I don't spend on groceries or clothes or whatever else, is money that goes towards my family's financial goals and financial future. I've done a pretty good job of slimming our grocery budget by about 40% by letting go of a lot of brand names, knowing where the best prices are and being willing to shop at multiple stores to get what we need. I usually see it as a huge part of my role as stay-at-home mom, finding ways to save money. I spent an entire day on the phone in December with insurance agents and saved our family $1K for 2011 in premiums without sacrificing (and in one case, improving) our coverage. Technically, that's the equivalent of almost 3 months of work-pay that I used to bring home after paying for gas and day care. Couple that with the $1K I saved on Black Friday and I have basically saved what I would have brought home in 6 months for 2 days worth of work. If you throw in the grocery savings for the past 9 months - I am probably 'making' money for our family by NOT working. Plus I am providing my family with an unmeasurable amount of security by just being here with my kids. At least, that's how Scott and I see things and that's why our family works.

Anyway - despite all my efforts to save money, I have previously not been too successful with the coupon thing. I would look at a coupon for $.25 off of Cheerios and think that I was saving more by buying the identical, off-brand version at Walmart. Couponing is hard work and not always worth the effort. Or so I thought.

Let me sidetrack for a moment and tell you about an experience I had when Riley was a baby and Scooter a toddler. Two kids in diapers and it was killing my weekly grocery budget. I got an email from a cousin in WI with all these instructions for Walgreens. You had to get the weekly circular and then some other in-store monthly coupon thing. You would buy 3 packages of Walgreens brand diapers (completely acceptable if you are not in the newborn stage which is about the only time that brand matters) and use these 2 coupons for the diapers. You would pay $4-something at the register and get a $5 Register Rewards coupon at check out (basically $5 to use on anything else at a future date). They were essentially paying you $.30 per package to walk out of the store with their diapers. It was friggin amazing. I loved it. I drove around to 4 or 5 different Walgreens and did this deal. I had 12 or 15 packages of diapers and I got paid to have them. I didn't have to buy diapers for a while, which was nice. I didn't pay for them, which was better. I was completely empowered! This was the coolest experience ever. How could I do it again? I never found out - until yesterday.

Wow! The deals are out there and there are about 50 websites by moms who go and figure these deals out and pass them on to you. And now, thanks to technology, you can load them in your Google Reader and just hit 'Next Item' while you browse through them. There are a few catches, like you have to save the weekly circulars in a file because sometimes to get the free or almost free savings you need a coupon from 2 months ago and well, you have to have the time to read through all the stuff! However, there are apps that enable you to see your Google Reader on your smart phone so you could cycle through the stuff in the car pool line or the doctor's office waiting room if you were so inclined. There are even apps now that load extra coupons to your phone and can be scanned at register directly from your phone. You can also now load extra coupons directly to your rewards card for grocery stores and still use them with other hard copy store coupons and manufacturer coupons. Technology is amazing and I wish I had known before that you could use both the store and manufacturer coupons together - I thought it was an either/or kind of thing.

Some other things I did NOT know about coupons that you might find interesting and have changed the game for me:

1 - When you clip the coupon, you don't use it right away. ???? Right? Turns out it's the first wave of the manufacturer's campaign. You are supposed to wait it out a week or two because the second wave is that they are going to put the items on sale. You use the coupon 2-3 weeks later when the item goes on sale and get double or more savings.

2 - All the major grocery stores double and triple coupons every single day. This I really didn't know. Use your rewards card at check out and any coupon $.39 and below gets automatically tripled while $.40 to $1.00 get doubled - every day! So that quarter savings I discarded on the cheerios was in fact $.75 and if I had waited 2 weeks it would have been $.50 off on sale so I could have had the box for half off and saved over Walmart anyway.

3 - Every product is on about a 3 month cycle for pricing so if you are really industrious, you can track pricing on your most purchased items and figure out when they have the lowest price. Use your coupons then for your maximum savings and stock up so you don't have to buy them again for 3 months.

4 - I never got the front page of the store ads - I just brushed them aside while I was looking for coupons. Turns out, these are some great deals. They are called 'loss leaders'. They are the items that your store has decided to take a loss on in order to get you through the door. So, this is where you should shop for meat and produce deals and should determine what's on your menu for the week.

I think all this stuff is going to up my game. I am going to turn my 40% grocery savings into 50-75% if I can. I already spent hours yesterday loading websites into my Reader and scanning the deals that I can't get yet because I don't have the paper sections. Grumble, sigh. However, I am getting the feel for it and I did sign up for several cool giveaways and sweepstakes entries. I created a new hotmail account just for all this crud so I don't get overwhelmed with spam in my regular life. And I am going to make a side trip to Target where I will be getting 2 Reach toothbrushes for $.10 total as well as dental floss for free. I also am going to Walgreens to get some granola bars for a quarter. Places I would shop anyway and things I need regardless.

It was worth the trip out the door in the cold. If I can save $1000 more this year in groceries then it will be worth my time saving some paper and clipping some coupons. Now, if I can just get my sorry butt out of my cozy warm pj's and slippers and out the door, I can actually MAKE some money at one of my side jobs today too. But, it's really cold out there . . .

Thanks and God Bless!