My New Favorite Store.... Aldi

I was turned onto Aldi by one of my friends, Sarah who writes Frugal Five. We were talking about grocery shopping and she told me about this new store that moved into the area about 45 minutes from where we live. I hadn't and when I heard how much she saved, I knew I HAD to go.

This last trip was wonderful and I want to tell you about! I was able to buy two large family packs of chicken, two racks of ribs, one large pork tenderloin, cereal, two bags of baked veggie chips, a box of crackers, a package of peppers, two packages of mushrooms, a package of tomatoes, a pack of strawberries, a bag of pears, two yogurts, and 8 baby food pouches (there may have been a few more items but I can't remember them) all for under $95.00!


With the items in my pantry, this should keep us feed with breakfast, lunch and dinner for two weeks. We may need to do a very small trip for milk, eggs, some more fresh fruit (Little Bean loves his fresh fruit) and formula. But the big ticket items are purchased and if they aren't prepped, they will be tomorrow.


If you've never been to Aldi there are some things you should know. Aldi is a very unique shopping experience because you have to use a quarter to get your cart, bring your own bags and then bag your own items. Even though it's a tiny bit of extra work for me, I'll do it for the savings anytime and honestly, its not really that much work. Besides, how many times have you been in a grocery store and the cashier throws/tosses your apples/bananas/peaches/tomatoes into that little side basket or sets something heavy on top of them. Maybe it's the control freak in me, but I'd rather bag it myself instead of let someone else mishandle my food.


 Another thing to know about Aldi before shopping there is they do NOT accept coupons. This was a huge shock for me, I love my coupons and enjoy being able to see the amount saved on the bottom of a receipt. Even though I love my coupons, I will not deny how much I save going to Aldi. Besides, I can still use my coupons on things like formula, diapers, etc.


I am so grateful that I have been able to find a store where I can get items in larger quantities cheaper. If you haven't been able to check Aldi out and you have one near you, I highly recommend it. If you don't have an Aldi near you, check to see if you have a discount supermarket near you. It takes a little getting used to, but I can't say enough good things about how much I've saved.

Freezing Them Apples

 We went apple picking two weekends ago and came home with a TON of apples. We had so much fun and we got a lot of bang for our buck. For $20 we got a great family experience and a bushel of apples. The boys started eating them before I could weigh them to try and compare the orchard price to the store price, but I think I paid less per pound than the store.

After not having time for the last few weeks, tonight I was able to freeze some of them. As some of you know, when you freeze apples they turn a brown color. So, I figured I'd do a Pinterest (which I love) search to find out what method to use to freeze them so they don't turn brown.

Well, as you can imagine pages and pages of pins came up. So, I read a few and found that the two most common methods were soaking the apples in cold water with either lemon juice or salt. All the pages I read claimed each way was the best way. Being me I decided to try both.

While getting the apples peeled Little Bean helped by biting into as many of the apples as possible. At one point he was double fisting two apples; taking a bite out of one and then the other. He managed to get his teeth into at least 10 of the apples. Most of them were only a bite, so, they still made it into the bags. but this little apple was a bit to devoured to cut up into slices.

Lemon Juice Method:

I filled the bowl with cold water and added 4 squirts of lemon juice. Then I cut up and added the apples. The posts I read said to rinse the apples, but didn't say if the apples should towel dried to remove some of the excess water. Since I didn't know which would be better, to pat them dry or put them in wet, I did both.

Salt Method:

I put enough salt to lightly cover the bottom of the bowl and then added cold water. I swirled the water with my hand to get the salt fully dissolved. Then I added the apples and completely submerged them. Now just like with the lemon juice method, none of the posts I found talked about drying the apples. So, again, I did two bags; 1-pat dried and 1- wet.

I know I seem pre-occupied with towel drying the apples but I've seen apples frozen before and they tend to give off a lot of liquid. I'm hoping that it's not a problem but wanted to try both to see which way works better.


I labeled each of the bags with the date and which soaking they were and if they were dried or not. Then I popped them into the freezer. I'll give updates on how they are faring in the freezer and then if the soaking affects the taste once I cook with them.

Wax Fire Starters out of all

Here in New England we need to get ready for winter. For everyone that means something a little different. To us it means: putting the garden up, getting the wood stacked, putting away all the gardening ornaments and items that are out, winterizing the house with storm window and plastic on the windows to help keep the cold out, completing any repairs that need to be done. We also check the flash lights to make sure they are working, buy batteries for all the flash lights, check the shovels, start the snow blower to make sure it's working properly and this year make fire starters.

Last year we used newspaper as a fire start, but this year we want to use wax egg cartons. For a number of reasons, one being it is better for our wood stove/chimney because it wax eggs will leave less residue. I've been saving up my egg cartons all summer and the carton collection may have gotten a little out of hand.



Making fire starter can be a great activity to do with your kids, but will require adult assistance and supervision. All the items you need are regular household items that you can re-purpose. I decided to make up a batch, I had just enough lint to make 24 or 2 egg cartons worth.

1 metal can ( I use a coffee can)
Egg cartons
Dryer lint
Newspaper (Tmall pieces that I use as a "wick". This isn't needed but it's my preference.)
Wax (I use paraffin, but you can use old crayons or candles. I just didn't have any lying around this time to use)





If you're using the newspaper for wicks you'll want to rip up little pieces (shown left) and place them in the middle of the lint (shown right). Peanut is only 11 months old and he helped get the paper ready.







Now you're ready start:

Step 1:

Place lint and newspaper in all the egg cups. You want to do this first so it's ready as soon as the wax is melted.

Step 2:

Put your metal can inside a pot to melt the wax. DO NOT melt the wax in another pot that you want to keep. Melting the wax will leave a residue that ruins the pot. The pot should be big enough that the can will not touch the sides of the pot.

Step 3:

Pour or spoon the wax into each cup. Make sure the egg cartons are set on something, like a piece of cardboard because there is the chance that the wax will leak through. I put the egg cartons on top of an old pizza box that I had left over.

Step 4:

Let the wax cool and harden. Once cool and hardened you can either set the cartons aside to rip one off as needed or rip them all off at once and put them in a storage container.

8 Easy Frugal Ideas

Hubby and I have come to the realization money being tight is about to get tighter. Little Bean is about to start a structured daycare at the end of October. Up until now, he's been going to a wonderful at home daycare three days a week. Hubby has been taking him the other two days because he works an alternative schedule. So, it will add $90/week more to our budget, or a total of $360 per month. That is more than our car payment!

Little Bean will be headed there five days a week, it's the cheapest option. To have him for a set number of days is $55/day and unfortunately, we need him to go at least 4 days a week, which would equal out to $220 per week.

So, we're going to start living as frugally as possible and we have one month to get our butts in gear. In addition to getting a solid budget done, we'll also be looking for ways to cut back and save money.

The below ideas are things that won't make a huge difference, but little things add up. Make sure to do both big ticket items and little ticket items.

8 Easy Frugal Ideas

1. Pack a lunch
      Think about it, every time you eat lunch it's about $8.00. $8.00 x 5 days per week = $40.00. $40.00 x 4 weeks per month = $160.00. For me, $160.00 is my student loan payment.

2. Meal Plan
      When meal planning you need to plan your breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. If you don't, you'll find yourself frustrated with the "lack" of stuff in the house for you to eat. You'll need to look at each recipe to make sure you either have all the ingredients or that they are on your grocery list. It will take a little longer in the store, but you won't be spending those extra few dollars on things you want every time you run in to pick up the ingredients for that nights dinner.

3. Don't eat out
       When you eat out you spend the same amount of money on one meal as you could on 3-4 homemade meals, not including left overs. So, meal plan!

4. Dryer Sheets- to use or not to use....
       Dryer sheets are to keep your clothes from getting stat-icky in the dryer. During the summer months here in New England, I don't use them. Our summer is mild and wet enough that they aren't needed. However, in the winter they are definitely needed because everything gets incredibly dry. But you don't need to use the whole sheet. When I buy a box, I cut the sheets into thirds. It's not as time consuming as it sounds, you're not cutting each sheet individually. Just grab a chunk of them and cut them up all at once, and they don't have to be perfectly the same size. Wing it and get it done quickly, don't spend more then 5 minutes cutting them up... I mean seriously, it's not that big a deal. Then stuff them all back in the box you pulled them out of, they aren't like a playpen or pop-up tent, they will fit easily back in the package they came from.

5. Washing Laundry
     When you do a load of laundry DON'T forget it! If you forget it for too long, you have to re-wash it because it gets a funky smell. When you have to re-wash a whole load, you are using the water, soap and electricity to re-wash those clothes.

6. Clothes Line
      If you live in a climate where you can hang your clothes out to dry, do it! The dryer uses a lot of power to heat up, so, if you can dry a bunch of clothes without it, go for it!

7. Compost and Recycle
     Compost-  Some will tell you to do it because it's good for the planet. Well, it's also good for your wallet. If you compost you won't have to buy fertilizer, just spread some compost down.
      Recycle- Also recycle, think about all the jars, bottles, plastic jugs, cardboard boxes, card board tubes, etc we get rid of. If we take all of that out of our trash bag, for free! We have less bags of trash, and if you pay per bag (like my parents) that can be a savings of $10 per bag to bring it to the dump and that's not even counting the cost of the trash bags themselves.

8. Turn off lights
      I know, it's so simple it sounds stupid. Yet you wouldn't believe the number of times I've passed the basement doorway to see the lights are on. There are 10 light bulbs on that one switch! That can add to the electric bill quickly.

These aren't ideas that will put tons of money into your pocket, but they are ways to help you trim your budget. Everyone has to start somewhere, so, start with the little things you can quickly and easily take control of.

Taking on too much

After my last few posts I started feeling incredibly overwhelmed between work and personal life. I started to pull away and fell behind in work and life. I started to let the house work fall behind and was struggling at work. I took stock of myself and what I was doing and realized, I was completely overextending myself. 

I decided it was time  to get everything in order piece by piece. I started with work because work pays my bills. I kept doing the bare minimum house work to keep the dishes done, meals made and laundry done. I have been able to bring myself within a week of getting completely ahead at work. 

Now that I'm within a week of my goal, I'm setting goals for my personal life. There are projects that I have been procrastinating on and putting things off. We've been in the house a year and most of our awesome basement is still packed with boxes. The back room that up until recently I was using as an office has extra items piled in it. 

I found that was one of the reasons I was not concentrating. I was mentally distracted by all the clutter and that the room was very dark. I moved to a brighter room, which I completely cleaned out of almost everything and did a thorough clean. Since, I have been productive at work and able to catch up. 

As this is the last week I will be working extra at work, I won't be attempting to accomplish much with the way of housework, except the bare minimum I'm already doing. Friday will be my last day of working overtime. So, Saturday will be my first day of kicking butt and cleaning out, organizing and getting my house in order. 

I am going to do one room at a time and will clean and organize it over a 1-3 day period, depending on the size. The last project will be the basement, because it's so big and is not an area of the house that is used a lot. My goal is to have the house and all of the outdoor projects we need to finish before winter done by October 21 because that is when we are having Peanut's first birthday party. 

I'm not sure which room I'm going to start with, but I'll post an update once I do. 

Garden Fail

So, with doing this blog I need to be completely honest because life isn't always sunshine, roses and success.

In the spring we were all about doing a garden, we had the garden plotted out with what we were planting and plans to expand it.  We were going to try to preserve our harvest to eat during the winter. Well....... as you can see below, the garden didn't happen.

Between our son, my husband's alternative work schedule and me having to work a lot of overtime, the garden didn't come through. I did do a few tomato plants in buckets on our back deck. Sadly even the tomatoes did poorly and were devoured by slugs. So, overall, this year I feel like a garden failure.

But we have decided to make sure that our plans are ready to go for next year. We'll be preparing the gardens within the next month for next year. They have gotten overgrown this year from disuse. We'll rota-til it, spread some compost/fertilizer and cover it.  We're also going to prepare to expand it for next year.

I'll keep you updated about our progress of getting it ready. 

Ugh- another Reboot

Well, so my last foray into the blogging world went airy. I stopped writing because at the end of the day I was usually too exhausted or I was doing things, like dishes, laundry or putting in extra hours at work.

It seemed I just didn't have an extra minute, and when I did I usually spent it doing things like taking a shower. I never believed people when they said that having an infant was a full time gig and would take all your time. I (mistakenly) thought, hey infants sleep a lot, I'll have plenty of time to get things done. Well, that's the biggest load of crap ever, infants, even when sleeping, monopolize every second of every day.

Now, for those that easily get their hackles raised when kids are discussed; I love my son more than anything in the world. I wouldn't trade a single minute with him for anything else. I just didn't realize (like many first time parents) how much life will really change once you finally get your amazing bundle of joy.

We also fell off the budget wagon again, so, we're trying to get back on it. To start off, we're taking a long look at our spending and itemizing our purchases. My husband and I each have a credit card that we use, we do not use our debit cards and rarely use or have cash on us. So, it's pretty easy. We're going to be tracking them the old fashioned way, with a spreadsheet. It's a little more time consuming, but won't cost us anything but our time.

I'll be posting screen shots of these to show how I'm tracking everything. I'm also going to be trying different ways to make supplement income. We'll see how I do, so far I haven't been super successful.