Every few weeks I hit our local produce market and stock up on all kinds of veggies and some fruits. I chop most up into bite size pieces and freeze them for future recipes. I feel very fortunate to have places like this nearby and at such good prices. My brother moved away for a year and both places he lived in that time he said said fruits and veggies were so expensive and they had no good produce markets. He is really happy to be back to get those bargains.

So my husband and I stopped by our market this morning.

Vercchio's

1 bag of green beans
2 bags of bananas
1 bag of jalapeno peppers
1 small bag of garlic
2 bunches of scallions
1 bunch of asparagus
1 bag of oranges
3 bags of carrots
2 bags of celery
1 bag of onions
1 bag of green peppers
1 bag of potatoes
1 thing of ginger

Total $23.25

Then later I stopped by Acme when I found they were having a sale on Edy's. If you go on Acme's website and register your savings card you can get additional savings added to the card. Its called Avenue. Sometimes the extra savings are on top of items already on sale.

Acme

5 Edy's ice creams 3 for $10.00 - $2.00 each on Avenue savings. = $1.33 each!!!!

My limit on the Avenue deal was 5. But if it is still on there in the morning I can go for another trip.

And their sugar was on sale too and we were completely out. I know still not a cheap as it was on Thanksgiving. But that is something I learned the hard way.

3 bags of sugar $1.99 each

Total $12.62.

ShopRite was having what I would call a breakfast sale. Sale on eggs, OJ, bacon and coffee. I have enough coffee on stock, so I decided to stock up on the rest with the money left in the budget.

ShopRite

4 dozen Egglands' Best $1.49 - .35q's = .79 each

4 cartons of orange juice $1.49 each

2 packages of bacon $1.49 each

1 Ocean Spray juice $1.69 - .55q = .69

1 Crab Classic $1.74 - $1.00q = .74

2 Butterball turkey bacon $1.49 - $1.00q = .49 each

1 Colonna parmesan $1.49

6 Colgate toothpastes .99 - $1.00q = FREE

1 Rotisserie chicken $4.99

4 Geno's pizza's .99 each

Total $25.67

Total $61.54, whoops, went over budget quite a little bit. I seem to do much better when I stick to one store only. But I did get plenty of veggies to last us a while.

Tomorrow is my husband's birthday. We make sure, that we make a big deal out of each other's birthdays. So the celebration can last all weekend long.

We go to his mother's house tomorrow for dinner and then on Monday a night out that I put some money aside just for.

So happy birthday to the love of my life. I can't imagine spending my life with anyone else in the world.

We have a couple of nights where one of us isn't home, so the menu is a little more lenient this week.

Monday - General Tso's chicken with white rice

Tuesday - seasoned chicken thighs with noodles and vegetables

Wednesday - Hubby works, so I am having leftover turkey and dumpling soup

Thursday - Getting our taxes done at 6pm, will stop after for pizza slices (in budget)

Friday - Hubby works again, so I will have tuna fish sandwiches on toast

One month down in 2009 and how did I do on my new goals for the year?

1.) Pay off credit cards # 4 and 5. I have paid over $1800 to card #4 and with our tax returns in the next few weeks #4 should be completely gone. And I'm glad cause it has an awful interest rate. #5 will take longer as all this extra money that was coming in is stopping.

2.) Have emergency fund at $1500 by end of year. We are up to $676.56 so far. We are still on track with $50 from each of my checks. When hubby gets back to work full time we will make it $100 each payday.

3.) Buy chest freezer and stock with deals for dinners at home. Mr. Freeze is more than happy and settled in our house. We try to keep him stocked with meats and prepared sauces.

4.) Stop buying certain pre-made products and make them from scratch at home.

Laundry Detergent
Fabric Softener
Household cleaners

I still have alot of these left from my former deals. Probably won't use them up until mid-summer.

Syrup
Pasta Sauce
Meatloaf

I have actually made the syrup several times. We love it and no longer buy pre-made syrup.
We do make homemade pasta sauce on occasion when we have all the ingredients but I still can't resist buying jars when they are real cheap. Meatloaf I plan to try soon. Need to find an awesome recipe.

5.) Clean out the garage and sell unnecessary things. I have actually cleaned a few things in there. But unfortunately my brother is moving back home with my parents due to the lovely economic crisis and I am the only one with a garage. So his stuff will be storing in my garage for while. So I don't see if being empty and clean any time soon.

I also decided to get my spare room organized. For the longest time it was a catch all for leftover furniture, my cats toys and my vacuum cleaner. I needed a place to call my own, do my bills, write my blog, organize my coupons and listen to my music. So you see below my little desk area we created. I was able to get my file cabinet out of my poor husband's office. And once we had this up, I reorganized my file cabinet with folders, labels. Our paperwork is real easy to find now and hubby knows where everything is anything ever happens to me.

Yes you can see my Yoda and Animals dolls. Two of my favorite toys I couldn't part with.

Last week and this week are really starting to rejuvinate me in the CVS deals again. It really does feel like old times when I first started getting good deals. I even met a person in the store doing the deals too and I have never met anymore before who did them.

For those of you who didn't know this before, I am a lucky girl in that my CVS takes expired coupons for a month. So I am able to get more stretch out of some of my coupons, especially the $3.00 off of $15.00 and this time the $4.00 off the razor.

I brought all of my Electrasol coupons I had left, not thinking they would have alot in stock. But ShopRite also had them on sale, so I was just going to get them there if CVS was out. But I was in luck. They had plenty and I left plenty for others.


2 L'Oreal Revitalift cleaner pads $5.99 each
5 Electrasol PowerTabs $2.99 each
1 Gillette Fusion Gamer razor $7.99
1 Excedrin 10 ct $2.49
1 1/2 gallon milk $2.69

Total $40.10

Coupons
(2) $2.00 off any Revitalift face product
(5) $2.50 off any Electrasol product
(1) $4.00 off any Gillette Fusion razor
(1) $1.00 off any Excedrin (CVS CRT)
(1) $3.00 off any purchase of $15.00 or more at CVS

ECB's used $15.00
Total oop $1.71
ECB's earned $16.49

Once again I skipped the other stores on Saturday, this time not to sleep in late but to take two of my cats to the vet for their yearly checkup. What an event that was, but that could be a whole post in itself.

I would say at least one week every month and half my mail carrier doesn't bring me any circulars on Thursday, I have no clue why. So thanks to an angel on HotCouponWorld.com who starting scanning the ShopRite ads each week and posts them by Wednesday, I am able to figure out my deals ahead of time.

Hit ShopRite bright and early Sunday, even though I was up late and got little sleep. I figured it would be crowded with people getting food for the SuperBowl, even though Eagles fans here are bitter they aren't in it.

I try to only pay .99 or under for any cereal after q's. But Life cereal is my favorite cereal in whole world and $1.49 is the best I have found it at yet. So I couldn't resist and got 2 boxes. I had a bowl for breakfast when I got home, YUM.

ShopRite
2 Turkey Hill ice creams $2.74 each
5 Bic Twin Select/Silky Touch razors $1.64 each - $2.00 q's = FREE and I got $1.80 overage
7 Sucrets lozenges $1.49 each - $1.50q's = FREE and got .07 overage
1 Clorox bleach $1.38
4 ShopRite butters packs $1.69 each
20 Dannon Light & Fit yogurts 10 for $3.90 - $1.00 off 10 q's = $2.90 for 10
2 Martinson's coffee $2.49 - $1.00 q's = $1.49
2 Life cereals $1.99 - $1.00 off 2 q's = $1.49 each
1 Smart Balance butter spread $2.49 - .50 q = $1.49
1 dozen eggs $2.69
4 Swanson frozen dinners (for the husband) .99 each
1 pk frozen burritos (again for the man) $2.99
2 - 8pks of pork chops $5.73 and $5.93
1 Perdue oven stuffer roaster $5.35

I also had $7.00 in catalina's from my last trip. So that came off my total.

Total after everything $43.41

Wow, I went under my budget and didn't even think I would. I actually would have gotten more. But I think I will save my $6.00 and change for Wednesday when ShopRite has their price break sale. They have OJ cheap and I am on my last container of it.