Have you read the baby blackbird blog? If not run, do not walk, skipping is appropriate to her site. She is a fab-o children's clothing blogging. Such style and she finds the best stuff. I can't wait till Brooks is a little older and out of baby clothes so I can get in on some of these things. Till then I read and drool.
Once a week she has a "Top Shops" segment. It lists some (or all) of the best places in a particular city to shop for kids clothes. And guess who got to represent Philly? Yeah, me, I know the suspense on that was killer.
A couple of weeks ago Brooks and I trekked around our great city and checked out a bunch of haunts, most I knew but two were a great surprise. So check it out and show some love.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
You Inspire Me
After posting about trimming our grocery budget, I got lots of feedback from people. All with ways and ideas on what works for their family. I was so inspired that I have decided to coupon (this is now a verb) in May. One of our local grocery stores double coupons up to $1. Since they don't have a huge organic selection, I will continue shopping at my regular store and then go to the other story once a week. I am going to figure out if A) I'm actually saving money B) the time output is worth the cost savings.
I figure it's going to take a month to really see a difference. As I mentioned before, I don't know if this will really work since we don't buy a lot processed or packaged food, but we do need the essentials, toilet paper, tampons, you know the fun stuff we all like to talk about.
So, my friendly internets, I will do a spreadsheet with the time I spent, what we bought and what we saved, and share at the end of May. I'm actually looking forward to my little adventure.
I figure it's going to take a month to really see a difference. As I mentioned before, I don't know if this will really work since we don't buy a lot processed or packaged food, but we do need the essentials, toilet paper, tampons, you know the fun stuff we all like to talk about.
So, my friendly internets, I will do a spreadsheet with the time I spent, what we bought and what we saved, and share at the end of May. I'm actually looking forward to my little adventure.
What's In Your Bag?
A friend asked me how I manage to get out of the house with two kids in tow, especially for the day. Firstly, I don't carry a diaper bag, unless we are gone all day. If we are gone all day, I take my tote bag AND a diaper bag. So here we go, please disregard all the crap on the table not related to my bag.
When we go out with both babies, especially, we use Flip diapers. They take up so much less room than the usual pocket diapers we usually use. If I have both babies then I would have another cover though.
My clutch contains my cards, money, phone and keys. So much less glamorous than before Brooks. But now it's much more colorful! Also taking a picture of purse contents before leaving helps you make sure you haven't forgotten anything, which I had, critical thing for cloth diaper users a wet bag, and mine is missing.
What does your bag look like?
When we go out with both babies, especially, we use Flip diapers. They take up so much less room than the usual pocket diapers we usually use. If I have both babies then I would have another cover though.My clutch contains my cards, money, phone and keys. So much less glamorous than before Brooks. But now it's much more colorful! Also taking a picture of purse contents before leaving helps you make sure you haven't forgotten anything, which I had, critical thing for cloth diaper users a wet bag, and mine is missing.
What does your bag look like?
Monday, April 25, 2011
Easter
Sorry I haven't been posting regularly, I promise some good ones this week. In the meantime, this is what our Easter was about.
Brooks and Grandaddy time. Taken through our screen door and window screens as to not disturb the moment.
Brooks and Grandaddy time. Taken through our screen door and window screens as to not disturb the moment.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
The Most Awesomest Museum EVER!!!!!
Yes the post title required all caps for "EVER", double yes it needed that many exclamation marks, and yes I know that awesomest is not a correct word.
We took the kids to the Please Touch Museum here in Philly on Tuesday. It really is the grooviest kids museum on the planet. The building, on the outside, looks like any other classical museum. Granite walls, marble floors and some of the most stunning plaster work I've seen outside of Europe. This place reeks of stodgy blue hairs, then you get inside. The main foyer, which is the size of a small ballroom is the ticket area, and the colors are so inviting without distracting from the history of the building.
Once inside you are under the dome and there is a metal hodge podge (technical art term) artist's rendition of the Statue of Liberty's hand and torch. This represents the actual hand and torch that once stood a few yards away during the building's inception as a fundraiser for the rest of Miss Liberty.
I was going to go into detail about all the cool exhibits, but there are too many. Let me just put it to you this way, Brooks, who is 9 months old was laughing and engaged the whole day (sans nap on our back). My cousins were running everywhere, I was exhausted just trying to keep an eye on them. Once we left 2 hour naps were taken by everyone under 30, and those of us over 30 wished we could have done the same. The price tag of $15 per person, no reduction for children is a little steep, but we spent all day there 6 hours total, and it was worth every penney and then some. We're going to ask for a membership for Brooks' birthday *hint hint* John's parents, *nudge nudge*. Oh and finally you can bring your own food, which of course a lot of places don't allow, so if you take crappy overpriced amusement/museum food out of the mix it's not bad.
Oh and after watching two girls run around in a semi controlled environment, my baby rabies has been curbed. Not that it wasn't awesome to see them, but I was so exhausted from keeping track of them I couldn't enjoy myself, or have a conversation with John.
Lady Liberty's "torch" All day long this is what Brooks looked like
Tea with the Mad Hatter and March Hair
The entire day was a "blur"
We took the kids to the Please Touch Museum here in Philly on Tuesday. It really is the grooviest kids museum on the planet. The building, on the outside, looks like any other classical museum. Granite walls, marble floors and some of the most stunning plaster work I've seen outside of Europe. This place reeks of stodgy blue hairs, then you get inside. The main foyer, which is the size of a small ballroom is the ticket area, and the colors are so inviting without distracting from the history of the building.
Once inside you are under the dome and there is a metal hodge podge (technical art term) artist's rendition of the Statue of Liberty's hand and torch. This represents the actual hand and torch that once stood a few yards away during the building's inception as a fundraiser for the rest of Miss Liberty.
I was going to go into detail about all the cool exhibits, but there are too many. Let me just put it to you this way, Brooks, who is 9 months old was laughing and engaged the whole day (sans nap on our back). My cousins were running everywhere, I was exhausted just trying to keep an eye on them. Once we left 2 hour naps were taken by everyone under 30, and those of us over 30 wished we could have done the same. The price tag of $15 per person, no reduction for children is a little steep, but we spent all day there 6 hours total, and it was worth every penney and then some. We're going to ask for a membership for Brooks' birthday *hint hint* John's parents, *nudge nudge*. Oh and finally you can bring your own food, which of course a lot of places don't allow, so if you take crappy overpriced amusement/museum food out of the mix it's not bad.
Oh and after watching two girls run around in a semi controlled environment, my baby rabies has been curbed. Not that it wasn't awesome to see them, but I was so exhausted from keeping track of them I couldn't enjoy myself, or have a conversation with John.
Lady Liberty's "torch" All day long this is what Brooks looked like
Tea with the Mad Hatter and March Hair
The entire day was a "blur"
Where Does the time go?
Sorry that last post was from Monday. I meant to post it yesterday, but time got away from me. I have been updating on twitter, so if you follow me there, you can get a bunch of pictures and see witty comments from my hilarious friends. http://twitter.com/#!/blogfilledlife
Monday, April 18, 2011
Trimming the Grocery Budget
I do envy the coupon people that are out there. The Krazy Koupon Ladies, and Extreme Couponing blow my mind. But it never really worked for us, I admit to not being as dedicated to it as some, but we don't buy processed or prepared foods, with a few exceptions, but as my friend Kayla can attest I don't have ketchup in my house.
When I got laid off after Brooks was born we knew that we had to cut our expenses and since we were spending about $1800 a month on food we knew that was a great and easy (or so we thought) place to start. That amount includes all food and beverages, my morning lattes, John's expensive beer, and of course our daily lunches out.
We had originally wanted to cut the food expenses down to $100 a week, but after 3 weeks we found out that this wasn't possible unless we really wanted a decline in quality. So we bumped that budget up to $125 a week. This line item includes groceries AND eating out. Oy!
It wasn't difficult at first since we were all home all the time, our garden was producing and we were spending very little. Then local fresh fruits and veggies started to dry up with the winter and our food costs increased. So we had to stop eating out almost all together until we figured out how to shop smarter.
One cost cutting measure was to cut back on our quantity of meat. The average adult is supposed to eat 3-6oz of meat at a meal. Most people eat 8-10oz, but at $7.99/lb for steak, if we wanted to eat it we had to cut it back, so we did. We allow ourselves to load up on veggies and grains, (mostly veggies), and a lot of meals will start with a salad. Cutting back for us was really a mind over matter principle. This also allowed for leftovers the next day, so we could enjoy the yumminess twice.
This is about the time we started planning our menus as well. Since we buy organic or grass fed meat it almost never goes on sale, so we can't plan our menus based on sale ads. So we got creative and had pseudo cooking contests to see who could get the price per serving on a meal down the farthest. So far we haven't gotten it under a dollar, but we're getting closer. I'm hoping if our garden yields more this year that we will.
The grocery store that we frequent, Wegmans, also has an iphone app as well as a great online site. This allows us to price shop before we get to the store. This saves me time and money. Because I don't go up and down every aisle I save time, and because I don't go up and down every aisle and buy crap I don't really need, I save money. Soon I want to really get into couponing though, I admit I am a HUGE sucker for a good deal. If I can get our grocery bill down more that means I can buy more standing rib roast or clothes. Umm....duh, sign me up.
Brooks eats what we do, but even if he didn't we would make his food. Not all of his meals are exactly what we eat either, so we had to incorporate his portion into our food bill. I know he's eating about $10 extra worth of food a week, but I don't really notice. I'm doubly grateful for a)not noticing and b) knowing that one day he will be eating $10 more worth of food an hour.
So what do you do to help on your grocery budget?
When I got laid off after Brooks was born we knew that we had to cut our expenses and since we were spending about $1800 a month on food we knew that was a great and easy (or so we thought) place to start. That amount includes all food and beverages, my morning lattes, John's expensive beer, and of course our daily lunches out.
We had originally wanted to cut the food expenses down to $100 a week, but after 3 weeks we found out that this wasn't possible unless we really wanted a decline in quality. So we bumped that budget up to $125 a week. This line item includes groceries AND eating out. Oy!
It wasn't difficult at first since we were all home all the time, our garden was producing and we were spending very little. Then local fresh fruits and veggies started to dry up with the winter and our food costs increased. So we had to stop eating out almost all together until we figured out how to shop smarter.
One cost cutting measure was to cut back on our quantity of meat. The average adult is supposed to eat 3-6oz of meat at a meal. Most people eat 8-10oz, but at $7.99/lb for steak, if we wanted to eat it we had to cut it back, so we did. We allow ourselves to load up on veggies and grains, (mostly veggies), and a lot of meals will start with a salad. Cutting back for us was really a mind over matter principle. This also allowed for leftovers the next day, so we could enjoy the yumminess twice.
This is about the time we started planning our menus as well. Since we buy organic or grass fed meat it almost never goes on sale, so we can't plan our menus based on sale ads. So we got creative and had pseudo cooking contests to see who could get the price per serving on a meal down the farthest. So far we haven't gotten it under a dollar, but we're getting closer. I'm hoping if our garden yields more this year that we will.
The grocery store that we frequent, Wegmans, also has an iphone app as well as a great online site. This allows us to price shop before we get to the store. This saves me time and money. Because I don't go up and down every aisle I save time, and because I don't go up and down every aisle and buy crap I don't really need, I save money. Soon I want to really get into couponing though, I admit I am a HUGE sucker for a good deal. If I can get our grocery bill down more that means I can buy more standing rib roast or clothes. Umm....duh, sign me up.
Brooks eats what we do, but even if he didn't we would make his food. Not all of his meals are exactly what we eat either, so we had to incorporate his portion into our food bill. I know he's eating about $10 extra worth of food a week, but I don't really notice. I'm doubly grateful for a)not noticing and b) knowing that one day he will be eating $10 more worth of food an hour.
So what do you do to help on your grocery budget?
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