IKEA Visit on President's Day

 

While building my IKEA storage cabinets, I needed a level.  I'm really starting to love my iPhone....

We had a great visit to my favorite furniture store, complete with the boy and the girl making their rounds in Smaland.  You should have seen hubby, the biscuit and I work the store and get all the stuff on our shopping list for the hour that we had.  Oh, and we all got to eat at the restaurant for free since we spent over $100 on our cabinets.  We love IKEA, especially when school is out!  Not too shabby....

Review & Giveaway: Zarbee's All-Natural Children's Cough Syrup

Mothers of little ones know all too well the struggle of soothing kids with coughs and colds.  Fortunately, there is an option available for preschoolers called Zarbee's All-Natural Children's Cough Syrup. 

We had the chance to personally try out this product and it has three significant advantages:

• You can safely give this syrup to babies that are 12 months old.  Most manufacturers recommend using their product if the child is older than two years of age.
• The ingredients are all-natural, based on a proprietary mix of honey, vitamins and immunity boosters.  You can feel confident that this is a safe remedy to try out which will not react with other medicines.
• It is available at larger pharmacies and retailers, such as Walgreen's, Wegmann's and Weis.

The syrup is fairly thick so it may be better to use a dosing syringe for little ones.  We tried the grape flavor and while it is a little tart, there is no chemical taste and it was easy going down.

The big question is, does it work?  I can definitely give a resounding thumbs up.  My six year old woke up complaining of a sore throat one morning, so I gave him the syrup.  It was a bit sour for him (he might prefer the cherry flavor, over the grape), but Zarbee's soothed his throat immediately.  He went to school and didn't complain once about a sore throat again.

My little 17month old eyed the medicine and since he had a little cough, I decided to try it with him as well.  The grape was a bit tart for his taste, but using a syringe, I was able to slow down the amount that he swallowed and it did provide relief.

The Frugal Writer loves to save money, so I'm pleased to tell you that you can get a $1 off coupon right from the Zarbee's website.

My results are unscientific at best, but you can have a shot at trying this remedy out for yourself with my Free Giveaway of a 4oz bottle.

Here's how to enter:

1. Like Zarbee's on Facebook
2. Like The Frugal Writer on Facebook
3. Follow The Frugal Writer on Twitter
4. Add your link using the Mister Linky widget below and leave a comment here confirming actions 1-3 and and why you'd like a sample of Zarbee's.  
5. Send an email with your email or contact information to mar4jc at verizon dot net

The winner, chosen at random, will be picked and announced on (giveaway extended!) Monday, February 28th, here, on Twitter and on Facebook.
Best wishes!

Disclaimer:  I was not paid for this product and only received a sample to provide this review.

Quick Tips: Fast Cooking in the Kitchen

Here are some fast cooking tips that you can use right when you are in the thick of attempting to get dinner done.

1. When pressed for time, cut whatever you are cooking into smaller pieces.  Meats, potatoes, etc, cook much faster when the pieces are small.  This is the reason why stir fry foods cook so fast.

2. Ground meat always makes a great meal fast.  Even if it's frozen, you can still quickly brown it while cooking pasta for a quick, filling meal in about a half hour.

3.  Still in a rush?  Use a lid to cook foods faster and retain moisture.  This saves time and energy because the lid traps heat that continues to help cook the covered food.

4. Need to thicken something that came out too watery?  Just add a bit of flour or cornstarch.  This will absorb extra fluid and can give a dish a nice, creamy texture.

If you want more cooking inspiration, check out my Ten Fast and Easy Cooking Tips.

Frugal Families: Slash Your Grocery Bill with Coupon Mom

My mother is the queen of coupon clipping.  She would even get extra copies of the coupon inserts, scour the circulars for savings and combine coupons, store sales and double and triple coupons to get huge deals on her groceries and toiletries.  This all took a Herculean effort.  While she did save a tidy sum each week and got a boatload of stuff for free, this approach is not for the faint of heart.  Nowadays, another coupon clipping guru has developed an amazing online tool that gets you the savings you want with a lot less work.  Allow me to introduce you to the Coupon Mom.

Coupon Mom is a great way to maximize your savings while reducing the effort spent clipping those coupons.  I call this targeted coupon shopping.  You can visit her website to get the specifics, but here is a quick summary of how it works:

1. Save your coupon inserts and write the date of it on the front in marker.  There are three companies that provide these inserts each week:  Redplum, Procter & Gamble (P&G), and Smartsource.  Just keep doing this each week and find a nice place for your coupon insert stack.
2. Peruse the couponmom website to get the week’s deals by store and state.
3. Select the deals you want and you can email the list to yourself.
4. The deals will list the specific coupon to use by date and coupon insert.  You simply gather the appropriate insert, and find and clip the coupons you want.

In fine frugal fashion, CouponMom.com is free and is paid for by advertising.  They maintain a database of coupons by date and match the store sales with current, unexpired coupons.  With Coupon Mom, you only clip the coupons you want and you reap bigger savings by using the coupons when the products are on sale.

Still skeptical?  Being an Industrial Engineer by trade, I conducted a personal test to assess the viability of this project.  My time study revealed the following:  It took less than 5 minutes to browse through the site and generate a list of the deals I liked for 3 stores (Giant, Walgreen’s and CVS).  In fact, I did it on my smartphone while watching TV.  Once I printed out my emailed list, it took me 10 minutes to go through the coupon inserts and find the coupons I wanted for one store.

With the kiddies in bed, I proceeded to my test store, Giant, that night with my banana, water bottle, CouponMom list and coupons in hand.   I scanned the aisles and was able to get most of the items I wanted and check out in 30 minutes.  Things were definitely much faster without the kids.  I was able to find the sale products and match them with my coupons without too much trouble.

Here are my stats for this quick trip:  I bought 19 items, which retailed for $70.98.  I ended up paying $38.69, just a little more than half the price.  Most of these items are loss leaders, or the items that are on sale that week, such as the buy one get one free pork chops and the 10 for $10 specials.  However, I was also able to use 3 coupons in order to get shampoo for $0.89, a free box of bandages, and four large boxes of brand name cereal for $1.75 each.

The end result: for an extra 15 minutes worth of work, I saved $5 in coupons.  That’s like earning $20 an hour!  I also saved time preselecting the items I wanted for sale without having to bother scouring over the circular and comparing prices.  CouponMom makes coupon clipping worth the effort.

This article appeared originally as a blog post for the Frugal Families blog on Chesapeake Family in October 2010.

Starting an Allowance

I always envisioned starting an allowance for my little guy when he turned eight.  This was not a magic number, but I figured he’d be reading, doing math and prepared to handle an allowance.  When he entered First Grade, he would ask for a dollar here and a dollar there for the latest thing at the School Store that his other buddies were buying.  It became clear that an allowance would enable him to have “purchasing power” without him henpecking me for days on end.  I decided to accelerate my allowance plan two years early.

I started with a low dollar amount, $2 every week, and explained to him that just like his father; he would get paid on Friday, after school.  He loved the idea and the best thing is that he never badgers me for money anymore.  The monetary amount is small enough that he really has to save in order to buy a big ticket item.

Establishing an allowance has really allowed my son to have choices, learn about budgeting and experiment with money in a safe environment.  For more tips on starting an allowance for money savvy kids, check out my article in my Mothering Matters column on Patch.

Our Christmas 2010 Memories

Naked potty training..... Saltines.... Two trips to Patient First... The poor boy dry heaving every hour :(. Twittering... Melted fake thin mints..... Making truffles... The lunar eclipse... Abuela Mati visits... We all camp out at home except for my jaunts to the stores and doctor... Sturgeon Train Garden with the Witts... Getting our Christmas tree and "family portrait"... Operation Cookie Drop.. A new primary doctor??  Raccoon eyes...  Another one down for the count...  passing the "bowl"... Biscuit tosses his cookies...  Zhu zhu pets and Mario Galaxy... sandwiches for Christmas dinner...  Late Christmas Cards and a salvaged visit to see family for New Year's instead.  Whew....

Shop for Groceries to Save on Gas

If you shop at Giant, there is a way you can save on gas without trying too hard. Just shop. That’s it. Seriously. It wasn’t too long ago that ridiculously fluctuating gas prices sent many of us online to find competitive gas prices. A membership to BJ’s boasts a pretty competitive price for gas too. But this little deal can rival discount gas prices, and you can use it at any Shell station in the Maryland Giant shopping area.

Here’s how it works: For every $100 spent at Giant, you can save ten cents per gallon of gas at any Shell station. If you spend $300 in a month, that results in saving thirty cents per gallon! That’s as good as what I can get at BJ’s! The points do expire and last only 30 days, but you can track your points on the Giant Food website after registering your Giant Card.

Getting to the savings may not be initially obvious. To use the discount at the Shell station, look for the “Use Giant Card” prompt BEFORE you pay for the gas. You will have a chance to scan your Giant Card or enter your phone number. After this, you can then pay for your gas using your credit or debit card. If you swipe your card for payment first, you will not have a chance to apply the Giant discount. (Yes, I’ve actually cancelled a gas transaction or two if I’ve forgotten the Giant Card prompt). If there are Giant savings, the pump will show the gas savings after you have prepaid for the gas.

To maximize your savings, use Coupon Mom to find coupons get the best deals at Giant. Giant will also have coupons in their circulars for gas friendly items and even more gas savings. In one shopping trip, I only spent $50 dollars, but managed to get 300 gas points because of the coupon in the circular that week.

I have even checked my savings totals on Giant website using my smartphone to see if it would be worth the trip to BJ’s instead. On weeks when I have a lot of savings, I fill up the tank. For weeks when my savings points are low, I pump less gas. Now you can save money at the grocery store and getting there too.

Maribel Ibrahim always has her eyes open for easy savings. Subscribe to this feed or follow her on Twitter @TheFrugalWriter to find great deals around town.