Medicine Cabinet Confliction

If you have been reading around here for a while you know that my girls are very blessed, but they have not always had it easy. Our oldest is almost 6 and had open heart surgery last winter. Our youngest is 2 and a half and at 7 weeks was in the hospital for viral meningitis, shortly after that she was diagnosed with hip dysplasia that required Pavlik harness treatment, and a year ago this past November had a cyst removed from her mouth. Our medicine cabinet is well stocked, and my preferred children's pain and fever medication has been Tylenol.

My husband subscribes to Bloomburg Business week, and he brought home the issue from March 31, 2011 where the feature story is Johnson and Johnson's Quality Catastrophe and their Recall Rap Sheet.

After reading the article I feel shocked! When my children were born I used many Johnson and Johnson products, thinking they were a trusted name, and yes, I would cite the Tylenol recall of the 1980's to support my claim that they had a culture of quality and care for consumers within their company. But now I just don't know what to think, and I seriously doubt I will be buying Johnson and Johnson products when they return to the market of another alternative is available.

Unfortunately I don't know of an alternative for Children's Benedryl!

What are your thoughts on this?

And why do you think this story did not get more play in the media because it seems like a huge deal when you connect all the dots like this?

To Do Status Report

Remember that long list of items to get done that I posted before my break? Well, I thought I should report in on how I did - keeping in mind that there were snow days in there! So anything that required being out of the house was scrapped.

But here is the list with updates in italics.

• Finishing the Christmas Tree Decorations (total of 16) Finished!
  
• Finishing the furoshiki (qty 15) and fabric ribbons (as many as needed) added this year The furoshiki are finished and the ribbons are being done as needed....
  
• Finishing the hanging towels for gifts (qty 20) Finished!
  
• Finishing a baby blanket for a church baby shower (along with 2 dozen cinnamon buns, and a dozen for my family because I would never take something without giving them some first). Finished!
  
• Making fabric ribbons and a coffee cake for the Church Ladies Decorating Brunch Finished and I had a great time!
  
• Decorate our home - we put the tree up, the Advent wreath out, and the books out Thanksgiving weekend, the rest follows in the next week or two. Finished!
  
• Finalize my Amazon Christmas order and place it. Finished, delivered, and mostly wrapped.
  
• Make a quick trip to my favorite toy store for Christmas and Birthday gifts. Not done due to bad weather.
  
• Make a quick trip to Target for a couple small Christmas items (and then I am done shopping!) Canceled - I came up with a better idea that will let me just finish up with a quick mall trip that my husband has to make anyways, but we did not make it to the mall due to the bad weather.
  
• Christmas cards and newsletter done (which will be a feat because I have not started), but this can linger into mid December if need be. Oops - totally forgot about this with all the snow to play in.
  
• Start wrapping and preparing to ship stuff! In progress and will be done in earnest once I make those last two trips and finish 2 more hand knit dish cloths...which I did not mention in the original list...., but I think I am making around 10ish with 2 more to go.
  

Keeping in mind that I like to be done as much as possible before December 1, in a perfect and ideal world where nothing mucks with my plans! Actually, I like to be done the mall, but can deal with little boutique stores and online if needed.

Oh, and I have most of my Christmas baking to still do, including 2 dozen cinnamon buns for gifts.

How are your Christmas preparations going?

Marie Madeline Studios Cyber Monday Sale

I just took advantage of the great sale over at Marie Madeline Studios for today!

I ordered Indigo Denim to make each girl a pair of Tessa bloomers and also ordered turquoise bandanna to make each girl an Emerson Skirt. I realize that they have tons of pink, so should have something different.

Yes, I am making them both the same, they love to match, and it is most often Miss Pear requesting the match!

I am NOT an affiliate for Marie Madeline Studios I just really, really love them. Their fabrics are an excellent quality, and their customer service is even better. I have actually had them call me when I included a question about a match in my order and they recommended a different fabric! They are that good.

That is really the only sale I took advantage of today - did you find any deals?

New Shopping Strategy Part 2

Some of the best advice I ever received for being a good home manager was to run my home like a business, but with a lot more love! After being raised in the business world in my family's business, attending business school, and working in the world of supply chain management for 5 years I find this advice very practical! I take the tools I used in supply purchasing and planning and apply them to my home management practices!

Last week I talked about the importance of a strategy, my new shopping strategy, and focused on groceries. But with no CVS in sight, Babies R Us and Target being much further away, and no double coupons I have had to rethink how we purchase toiletries, medicines, diapers, and other household things. So this week is part 2 focusing on my shopping strategy for all household and toiletry purchases.

When we lived in Southern CA, before I smartened up, I would just go to Target 4-6 times a year and buy what we needed. While this was certainly cheaper than the grocery store or drug store, I could do better, which I eventually worked hard on. At our last home in Southern CA we had exceedingly close 2 CVS drug stores, Babies R Us stores, and 2 Target stores, so popping in to each whenever there was a good sale on one or two things was no big deal, no extra time, and always on the way to somewhere. So I was a bit sloppy in my planning, I just popped in when there was a good sale! But it worked.

That will not be the case anymore!

Babies R Us and Target are far enough away to be their own special trip!

Time for a new plan. Here it is:

One thing I have learned is that if Costco has a coupon on something it makes it very hard to beat their price. So I am looking through their coupons carefully and buying what I can and what we need. Also, gone are the days of cheap and free toothpaste as our dentists have said we need certain things in our toothpaste...sigh.

I am watching the Walgreens flier to see what is available there, but to be honest it is not great yet as I am missing weeks of coupons. (Even though it is on the way to most things).

And we try to pick up at the grocery store whatever we see that we use and is a good price.

This is working great for everything but diapers and wipes!

When Jen commented about diapers last week too I figured it was worth talking about!

In Southern CA the best deal I could find on Pampers diapers was usually if I bought the big box at Babies R Us with a box of wipes and used their $7 off coupon and manufacturers coupons. Due to sensitive skin we stick to Pampers (we tried others, it was not fun). Recently we discovered Costco sensitive wipes which were a great price and we can use! This made the Babies R Us deal not so great any more. After some research I found the Diapers.com price to be the best for us, especially considering they take coupons (via mail), have ecoupons, and free shipping over $50. This ends up not only being a good price, but it saves me a trip (remember the 1 car thing) and saves me time. For me it is an all around good thing! Not to say that I will not keep my eyes pealed for a good deal, but my options are more limited, and the Target sales have been more limited too!

If you want to try Diapers.com, you can use my code KRIS3192 to get $10 off your first order of $49 or more, which is also where the free shipping starts. (I will get a credit too, I think $5)

These may not be the most rock bottom cheap methods of doing things but my strategies maintain an important balance of saving money, saving time, maintaining the quality my family wants, and meeting my family's needs. Those were the key factors in making our decisions for our shopping strategy, and also a big part of my stocking plan...but that is a conversation for next week!

Is this a series you are interested in? What would you like to see covered? (Clearly we take requests!)

Series:
Part 1: New Shopping Strategy

New Shopping Strategy

Some of the best advice I ever received for being a good home manager was to run my home like a business, but with a lot more love! After being raised in the business world in my family's business, attending business school, and working in the world of supply chain management for 5 years I find this advice very practical! I take the tools I used in supply purchasing and planning and apply them to my home management practices!

One thing I found helpful in business was that there was always a plan, always a strategy, always a standard procedure in place. Often in business, especially in supplychain there is a "stocking strategy" or a plan for getting material into your stock room either at the raw materials level or at the finished goods level.

I would not say I was deliberate in creating a stocking plan or grocery strategy in Southern California, but my shopping always followed a monthly pattern:

• 1 monthly Costco trip - it replaced the grocery store that week.
• Weekly Henry's trip, occasionally skipping a week if we were stocked up.
• 2 grocery store trips a month (once was always canceled because of Costco, and it seemed like once a month the sales were mediocre and I could not be bothered!)
• CVS - as sales or extrabuck rolling dictated, but usually twice a month.
• Target as required - about once a month
  

Since moving we have been rethinking our grocery shopping strategy, and being much more deliberate in our planning of a strategy. There were a couple key reasons for this:

1. There is no Henry's Marketplace up here - that was my go-to store for produce and bulk spices, rice, beans, coconut and other assorted bulk baking things at excellent prices. Also where I would look for healthier and organic stuff.
2. They don't double coupons up here.
3. We want to eat an increasingly healthier diet, and are especially motivated by the girls health issues this past winter. (not that we eat a lot of junk now, we just want to do better.)
   
4. We were encouraged in our efforts to seek out more organic produce by our pediatrician who was talking about a new study that determined just how much pesticides build up in children's bodies! She said to go organic on fruits and veggies as much as we could afford, and that it was more important than worrying about hormones in meat and dairy!
   
5. We do not want to increase our grocery budget, not even to stock our pantry.
   

Now, these are our reasons, and if your strategy and philosophy is different, there is no reason we have to agree.

In addition to this we would like to carry a well stocked freezer and pantry at all times to deal more effectively with the ups and downs of life and to make what could be an emergency a minor inconvenience! This will also make life with one car easier.

So here is the strategy I am working too.

1. I signed up for a CSA that can adapt our box so we do not get peanuts or potatoes. We are currently getting the standard box every second week, but if this is not enough we will go to the family sized box every second week. Our CSA is organic, cheaper than buying produce at the store, a better quality and flavor than the store, will allow us to adjust the contents of our box each week, and will allow us to order extra. Plus the pick up is only a small detour on my husband's way home from work, and right next to a popular family area. Perfect for us!

2. After checking out the stores I found the one I like the best. So the plan is to cherry pick the sales there each week unless there is a screaming deal somewhere else. It seems like they have the best prices overall and on sale items, and with 2 children and 1 car we prefer to not be making multiple stops at grocery stores each week.

3. Continue to use Costco for dairy, bananas, baking supplies and a lot of meat. I know I can get a better price on meat if I shop the sales, but have had such terrible experiences with quality when I do that it is rarely worth it when the girls prefer to be herbivores and we are trying to coax them more along the continuum towards the carnivore so they at least eat some meat without coaxing and bribery. This will probably result in going every 2 weeks-ish for milk, but that will also mean I don't have to do a gargantuan shop once a month, and I can be very disciplined to stick to my list!

4. Utilize online sources. We like some stuff from Tropical Traditions, and they often have a couple screaming deals, but the prices are often undermined by their shipping, so we took advantage of the offer they had of ground shipping for $5. I needed to order something and by doing this even saved on our first order. Now I can cherry-pick the sales there. We also are checking out a few other things like Shelf Reliance for longer term pantry storage items that are a great quality and we like to use anyways, and Prairie Hill Grain for organic beans and the like. It is also on my list to check into Azure Standard and see if they have a regular run into our neighborhood. More and more I am finding that the shipping costs are no long driving up the prices, but you do have to be careful.

5. Watch for excellent deals at Walgreens as we go right past them to get almost everywhere.

What is great for us is that we can do this without upping our grocery and household items budget! I have been able to hold our grocery budget at the same level for about 4 years now. I find that by having a strategy I actually save money by not running all over the place as if I am in a new store or one I rarely go to I am more likely to impulse shop or pick up extras than if it is the store I am at all the time. I know, I am weird that way, but this saves us money and helps me stay disciplined.

What is your shopping strategy? How do you determine where to shop? Are you finding you are able to hold your grocery budget firm or is it creeping up?

Is this a series you are interested in? What would you like to see covered?

What do you think?

A couple I hardly know are getting married in our church, and the church women are having a shower for her. They are not done registering yet, and what they have registered for is either outside my budget ($25) or I just cannot bring myself to select as it is so boringly practical (not cute practical or fun practical, think wire shoe rack).

To say my shopping creativity is strained would be an understatement.

So do you have any ideas? What would you get? Should I just give up and find out who is doing the group gift and give them money?

I Love Pasta

We LOVE pasta around here, it is a family favorite...you can tell if you look at my pantry, I believe there are close to 20 packages there at the moment....So I am always on the look out for a deal on pasta and good coupons!!!

If you are too, check out It Pays To Eat Pasta giveaway to win groceries, and even if you don't win you can still print off $1 of 2 Ronzoni coupons which make it a great deal at Target even at their regular price!

ChristianBook.com Coupon Codes

If you have been reading here for any amount of time you pretty much know I LOVE books, and love getting a deal, and if there is a coupon to sweeten that deal, even better! You also know that I love Christianbook.com Home because their prices are always great!

I just placed an order with them and used one of 2 coupon codes that I have for them and it occurred to me that I had neglected to share them with you!

So here they are:
289109CE gets you 10% off your order of $35 or more until 9/8
289018AADYGW gets you free shipping on your order of $35 or more until 10/31

Unfortunately you cannot use (combine) both codes on one order, and you can only use each code once.

As always, I would appreciate it if you would click through my links if you are ordering. If you click through my link anything you put in your cart and order during that session sends me a credit.

CVS Pampers Deal

Usually we don't list the deals here, afterall, there are many who do it so well we don't need me chiming in!

But!

There is such a good deal on Pampers at CVS this week, I had to make an exception. Especially with the Long's stores becoming CVS so more of you hopefully have access to this!

The deal is buy a jumbo pack of diapers for $8.99 and get $5 in Extrabucks back! So net price of $3.99. Plus the P and G coupons were in the Sunday paper and they had a $1 off coupon in there. The limit is 3.

The catch is that it is not advertised in the fliers, only here.

The second catch is that my store did not know about it when I made a run on Sunday to pick up a prescription I needed that day but forgot to pick up on Saturday with all the chaos of company leaving. So the manager had to call about the deal etc. etc. etc.

Hat tip to Money Saving Mom - if you are not reading her for the deals, I recommend you check her out!

Free Book Money

As a family just starting on the road of homeschooling we have quickly realized that feeding our daughter's voracious appetite for books is hard...even with the library. So I was thrilled when we discovered Swag Bucks. As you search the internet with their site you accumulate points, or swag bucks, which you can cash in for rewards such as Amazon.com gift cards. I have to admit, I was skeptical - afterall, just because you can get points and gift cards does not mean it will not take forever and a day, and who knows how good the search engine is!

Well, the search engine is powered by Google. Who I usually use.

In the month and a half we have have been using Swagbucks we have requested 2 $5 Amazon gift cards. You can get an Amazon gift card with 45 points, and with the amount I search it is not that hard!

There are other prizes, but to be honest, I saw book money and stopped right there.

So if you have voracious readers in your house, or just love Amazon.com, can I recommend Swagbucks to you? We have loved it!

Oh, and if you do decide to try it can you click through this post so we benefit too? I would recommend them regardless, but extra points is always nice!

Attention Costco Shoppers

We continued our trend of running errands while Mr. Pear is away on business and we have the car all day, and this morning's trip was to Costco.

While shopping I was surprised to realize that the Costco coupons have become much better - less electronics and more food items or household items. I also have figured out that if it is at Costco with a coupon it matches or beats the best sale at the grocery stores. But two things shocked me today. One was the price for 2 gallons of no-fat milk at $3.19...for 2...at the height of the milk price escalation I was lucky to pay that for 1 (if it was on a tremendous sale)! What shocked me secondly was that they have master coupons now so if you have one from the book you automatically get them all if you have purchased those items! You don't need to clip them all! Yup, that's what excited me to day - a fabulous deal on milk and super coupons. I am SO easy to please.

This week I have also learned that if you want to save money, just stay home. As soon as you go out it just seems like you spend money...or at least I do. I had a list of errands to run as long as my arm, and while usually these are spread out, I ran them all at once so I have a bit of sticker shock.

Saving on Meat

The weather has turned cooler here in Southern California, ushering in our version of winter. Okay, so the rest of the country would call it fall, but we take what we can get, and this is the time of year I break out those favorite winter recipes, like stew. I have been keeping my eye out for a good price on stew meat lately, and the best price I had found was about $5 a pound. Needless to say I passed on that!

This past weekend I was grocery shopping and made a point of perusing the entire meat section, and found a top of the line brand roast marked down for $1.99 a pound. That is pretty much as good as it gets on beef around here, so I scooped one up. (I was tempted to grab 2, but was determined to keep to my budget! Even the best sale is a bad sale if it does not work in your budget)

And what do I plan to do with my roast? Cut it up for stew of course! That really is all stew meat is, except it is usually the lesser cuts of meat.

I was chatting with my favorite check out lady who loves to see her customers save money, and she agreed this was the way to go, and then she said something very interesting to me. She said that at her store (a Pavilions) the family cuts of meat are selling well, so they are not being marked down as much. But the premium brands of beef are being selling poorly, so that is where to look for a deal.

Of course I could not keep this tip for myself! Hope this helps someone else!

$4 Games

The front of the Target flier in the weekend's papers advertised $4 games for the preschool age set. As I have one of those I figured it would be worth checking out, and was it ever a gold mine! They had the classics like Memory (assorted varieties) and Chutes and Ladders on, but also the newer ones like the Lady Bug game and the Cranium ones.

So if you have little guys on your shopping list, it is actually worth checking out, and it is not a Black Friday thing, so you could still go today or tomorrow!

Oh, and shhh, don't tell Miss Pear what she is getting for Christmas.....

Free Shipping at Land's End

Thank you for everyone who gave me such great ideas on Modest Girls Dresses. I am checking them all out.

Miss Pear's grandma just ordered one from Land's End for a Christmas gift, with free shipping.

If you are needing something from Land's End they have free shipping this week with:

Promotion Code: Frost
PIN: 00006126

Modest Girl's Dresses?

I have been looking for some new dresses for Miss Pear - size 4 or 4T kind of depending on the cut. I cannot find pretty dresses that are modest that are not outrageously priced! (Last modest pretty one I saw was about a$80! I think not!) They are all cut well above the knee and/or are so ugly that I could not possibly put that on my girl!

There are no reasonable thrift shops or consignment shops around here to help out, and dress hand me downs seem to be very scarce, plus Miss Pear is very tall.

And yes, I had hoped to sew some dresses so that I could add a longer skirt, but with being so sick during my pregnancy that did not happen, so now I am a bit behind...in everything.

Where do you find pretty, modest, inexpensive girl's dresses? Both for church and everyday.

Any help would be very appreciated!

Is it just me or just here?

About a year ago I quit buying pork chops. We liked them, but the price was getting higher, and the meat was getting progressively tougher. If I cooked it until the pink just left, we had shoe leather, if I stopped before that, my family would not eat it. Lately I found a great recipe for pork chops, and tried again. Same problem.

Is this just a problem out here in California, or is pork just getting leaner everywhere and therefore tougher.

I have to confess, with the price of meat being what it is, I think I am done with pork chops. Am I the only one?

Are pork roasts just as bad?

Taming the Stash

So we had our 2 week ob appointment this morning (which went well) and it used up all my energy, so I had lunch upstairs to save my trip back down stairs for supper. While eating my lunch today I was reading through Bloglines and I came across this post from Coupon Cravings about controlling your shopping when your stash is huge - and actually looking at it to see how big it is!

I think we do pretty well at controlling our stash. I follow a few simple rules.

1. All household items that are not the one in use go in the garage in the old bookcase. All like items are stacked together. (So all the laundry soap is together so I know that I have 3 or 4 bottles there!)
2. All like pantry items are stored together with assigned places in the kitchen, overflow of canned or bottled items in a smaller bookcase in the garage, cereal and the like on top of the cupboard so that mice don't invade our garage and help themselves.
   
3. All medicine and toiletry items are stored under the bathroom sink in our bathroom.
4. All baby extras, except for diapers and wipes are stored in the girls' bathroom.
5. All diapers are stored in the appropriate girl's closet, all wipes are stored in Baby Pear's closet except for a back up package in Miss Pear's (who only wears diapers at night).
6. Once we have more than a 6 month stash I only buy that item if it is free, a money maker, or I have to roll CVS Extrabucks this week and that item is on special.
7. Pass on what we accumulate too much of. We have friends who are youth pastors and friends who are older and taking care of their parents who need a little help, and they are always happy to take whatever we have extra of. So if my stash gets out of control I ALWAYS have a home for it...that is not mine!

While I am not in full deal mode shopping at the moment, we did decide to try and keep our CVS ECB's going as they are good for a month, and Mr. Pear is very adept at shopping there (plus gatorade for flu season, toilet paper and kleenex is all on special this week). But unless there is a fabulous deal, or the ECB's are going to expire this week (like some are), I have not been worrying about it too much. This is a season to make my stash work for me, and enjoy the benefits of that hard work of creating it, not a season to be trying to build it up. Although I must say, a well stocked pantry has been such a blessing to us!

Well stocked and managed pantry most certainly has worked for me! Check out the other WFMW tips at Shanon's!

How do you manage your stash and keep limits on yourself so that you are not overwhelmed?

Money related changes

This past weekend there were a couple articles in the local papers in Southern California that caught me by surprise. One said that economists were claiming that they have not seen these kinds of spending shifts since the 70's and another said that marketing gurus were wondering which of these changes would stick. A final article that caught my attention said that groceries in my region of the country had gone up 8.5% quarter over quarter.

So all that being said, I got to thinking.

First off, I am SO grateful that the Lord prompted me to begin shopping with coupons and sales over a year ago. It left me nicely stocked up and better prepared to deal with these increases. We have yet to increase our grocery/household budget, and all the diapers I have bought in anticipation of baby's arrival have fit into that budget (3 jumbo packs of NB, 5 jumbo packs of size 1, and 2 x 192 count boxes of size 1-2, all Pampers, plus wipes). I say this and note that my household goods are well stocked, except for toilet paper which I am watching for a sale on, and that my pantry is relatively well stocked. My freezer needs a bit of help, but I have not been to Costco yet this month for grocery shopping. (And I don't feel the need to do a huge freezer stock up before baby arrives as my MIL will be here to help, and will take over kitchen duties, when she leaves our church will bring meals every second day for two weeks, and then my mom will be here.)

Will I take a small break from CVS and my multiple store shopping for a month or two when baby arrives? Probably, but I am guessing that on most household items I could go well into November without making a purchase at this point, something I have been working hard on. The only exceptions I see are toilet paper, Kleenex, and possibly dishwasher detergent, but they are on my watch list for the rest of July and August.

The changes we have made in the past year and half in our spending habits have included:

• a set grocery budget each month, and stick to it!
  
• getting all our household (except diapers) to fit in there each month in addition to our groceries
  
• rigorously shopping sales and combining coupons (including CVS)
  
• doing without if it is not on sale (within reason, I will still always buy milk!)
• doing without in general on some items that were not as essential as we thought
• making all our own baked goods (except for when we are sick and need a little help, but I still try to have a stash in our freezer)
• not "stretching" when we bought our new home - we bought what we could afford.
• praying more diligently about our finances
• planting a garden of what we use the most and trying to learn about canning (I am hoping to learn how to make pickles this year!)
• being cautious in how we use our water etc, including collection the water that would just go down the sink when waiting for hot water for dishes - I give our fruit trees extra water this way!
  
• really focusing on using what we have rather than needing new or just running out and buying what strikes my fancy because we have the money.
• making better use of our leftovers and focusing on what we are throwing out so that we know where we are being wasteful.
• sharing and borrowing non-consumable goods with my neighbor rather than buying our own.
  

All this said, I don't believe that any of these changes are ones that are going to die. I think all these changes are here to stay because as the Lord makes more room in our budget there are things we want to do with our money - pay off our house (our only debt), save for retirement, save for our children's education, maybe get a second car eventually (yes, we may very well be the only family in Southern California to live with one vehicle). There are better things to do with our money that just frivolously spend it!

However, we did not need experts to tell us to make these changes, we were already making them when all the talking heads started expounding on the changes we should all make!

Unfortunately I see lots of families in our area who do not have any interest in making these kinds of changes. They just make do now trusting that the markets will recover and they will be able to pay of the debt they are racking up now, if their rebate check is already gone.

So do I think that these changes are lasting for us? Definitely!
Do I think that the majority of people will stick to the changes they are making now? Probably not, especially in Southern California.

What big changes have you made in your spending habits? Do you think they will be permanent changes?

Do you think people will stick to these new spending habits overall, or just a few of us?

For great Frugal Friday ideas, head on over to Crystal's!

Pictures, Pictures Everywhere...

...and not a print in sight.

Can you please help me out? I am so frustrated!

We started using snapfish when Miss Pear was born three years ago - we ordered our birth announcements from them. They came great! We were trilled.

That year we ordered our Christmas cards from them - they had to be reshipped twice as they were just shipped in flimsy paper envelopes like you mail cards in, and kept getting damaged.

The next Christmas we sent regular cards because frankly I just could not face the whole mess. Somewhere in there I again ordered prints and it was not great.

Last Christmas we again sent snapfish cards, and it was okay.

I just placed a large order for 69 prints of assorted sizes two weeks ago, and approximately 23 are missing when the order arrived today. I called, and they are reissuing the order, I think. I could not understand the customer service person, and I don't think they could understand me.

So while I like the prices, it is not worth it to me if it takes me over a month to get my order. Plus I am trying to find a place to do birth announcements in the fall.

So can you help me out? What service to you use for printing digital pictures and ordering picture cards? Are you happy with them? Do they play nice with Macs?

Sharing From My Stockpile

Every once in a while there is a need, and I am always happy when I can meet that need with items from my stock pile (from coupon clipping at grocery stores and CVS).

The last two weeks of this month our church will be collecting toothbrushes for refugees in Uganda. Believe it or not, this is a big need there! I had not thought how hard it would be to meet back hygiene needs in such conditions! And as I looked in my toiletries stockpile I have a nice selection to share - but have two more weeks to find some more good sales!

Even though Miss Pear is not always aware of why we do things, I have bundled the toothbrushes with a rubber band so that she will be able to be the one to put them in the collection box. I think it is a concrete way to show her how we share what we have however we can.

Of course, I still end up with more free stuff that we can use (I never thought I would hear myself say that), so I keep a box in the garage of stuff that is more than we can use, or good stuff, but not great for us (we all have weird hair that requires specific shampoo), so I am always slowly filling a box, and there are numerous families we can share it with. One family is a widow with grown children, two of her daughters are married to pastors and one of her sons is still in college, plus they aways know people who need stuff, so I love to drop off a box at their house when we are nearby.

The reason I share this is to encourage you to not only be diligent is handling your family resources as well as possible, but also to encourage you to share your bounty when you can! It is always extremely appreciated, and it will be stuff that has fit into your grocery budget that you have probably picked up free at CVS! :-)