Baseball season is in full swing. That means choosing between eating supper at 4:30 (sometimes 4:00) or 9:00. (Or, if you’re a teenage boy, the answer is, obviously, both.)
Sometimes eating on the go is just a must. Using my handy snacks for trips list has helped, but I’m planning to add to my bag of tricks this year! If you have a favorite tip for eating meals on the go (and avoiding fast food or dropping $20 at the concession stand), let me know in the comments!
This week I finally met one of our yearly goals and bought chicks! I’m not counting this as a way we saved money, because as of right now we’ve paid a chunk of money to get “free” eggs! But as they grow, we plan to free range them and feed them scraps from the kitchen whenever possible.
We had chickens a few years ago, and it’s so much fun to watch them bicker over their favorite scraps! If you want a half hour of good entertainment, give a flock of chickens the rinds from your watermelon and watch the entire thing disappear.
The 5 Ways We’ve Saved Money This Week
One of the best things we did while paying off credit card debt was start this Friday tradition of reflecting on five of the ways we saved money that week.
If you love money saving tips, don’t forget to grab your copy of the book! 500 Ways to Save Money: Build a Cash Jackpot for the Best Things In Life.
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Target
I don’t shop at Target a lot any more. When I go to this store these days, I have completely lost the desire to spend $100 every time.
I know!!
It’s so easy to get caught up in buying a little of this and that, and before you know it, you’ve spent three times more than you meant to. But the #yearofno retrained my brain when it comes to spending.
When I stop at Target, now I look for clearance deals on groceries. I’ve found boxes of oatmeal packets for $1 or less!
When I checkout, I always use my Red Card. What??? Me, using a credit card?
Nope.
Did you know that Target has a Red Card that is a debit card? It hooks right up to your checking account. You’ll save 5% on every purchase you make just by using that card. It’s not much, but at least it will cover a good chunk of your sales tax!
And think about it…if the government thinks it’s worthwhile to collect “just” 7% (or whatever it is in your area) of every purchase you make, shouldn’t you be taking steps to save that kind of money, too?
Skipped the Drive Thru
Here’s a great #yearofno story for you! One night life was especially busy, and I decided that realistically, we didn’t have time to eat. So we would just grab some $1 burgers from McDonalds after our game.
But as I pulled into their parking lot, we could see right away that the line was forever long! So my 8 year old said, “Why don’t we just go home and zap a hot dog or something?”
I turned to her and said, “That sounds like a brilliant idea!”
So home we went, and the kids enjoyed the treat of a bowl of cereal for supper. Some nights, a free for all is the best you can manage when it comes to making a meal!
Water Bottles
We have several kids that suffer from migraines, which is just no fun. But that means I buy a lot of sports drinks!
This year I decided that enough was enough. Water should work well for keeping those headaches at bay. So I bought some $6 plastic water bottles from Dick’s Sporting Goods. We’ll save the Gatorade for when headaches actually start.
The only problem is that they seem to drink the water down much more quickly than the Gatorade. So I’ll probably take my bigger cooler (like this one) along for refills.
Homeschooling
As a mom of 5 kids in a Christian family, sometimes I think it’s more weird to people that I DON’T homeschool. 🙂 But next year, we are strongly considering pulling one of our kids for a year of homeschooling.
I was lucky that the Midwest Homeschooling Conference wasn’t too far from home, so I decided to attend and learn more about it!
After all of the talks I attended, I’m impressed by what I learned. Not that I ever thought homeschooling was a bad thing, but there are far more layers to it than I could have imagined!
Like most things, you can pour money into it, or you can find more frugal ways to learn. I’ve been able to find a few books on classical education from our library, so I’ll be spending quite a bit of time reading up on this topic!
Be sure to leave me your best tips for affording homeschool in the comments! (Please!!)
Flowers
I didn’t touch my flower beds at all for two years, so you can imagine how shabby they’re looking now! Aldi has bags of assorted flower bulbs for just $1.29 right now! The bag of mystery red bulbs seems like it could put a nice pop of color into the yard. I can’t wait to see what springs up!
Those are the 5 ways we saved money this week!
Tune in again next week to see if we’ve survived a steady diet of either 9 games in a week…or constant snow outs! (What a crazy year for weather!)
Hey, do you have a money saving plan for your family? If not, here’s how to get started.
How did you save this week?
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
Used book sales (or curriculum swaps and sales) are a big part of my success homeschooling on the cheap, as we get out from under a huge educational loan debt. Here are some of my tips for scoring big during book sale season: http://bookishfamily.blogspot.com/2018/04/best-tips-for-used-book-sales.html
Good luck with your homeschooling decision and plans!
Just want you to know that I am on my 5th debt sheet for the year and it is only the 4th month. So I am paying off debt like wildfire. My kids loved french bread, Make two huge loaves in the morning , add a jar of peanut butter and a cube of butter along with a couple of knives. Then throw in apples, bananas. I used to take this to school for drama practices. Also a large batch of home made rolls with butter and peanut butter. I would also make a moist sturdy cake. Take the whole pan and cut wedges. Bundt cakes travel well. Other mothers were dropping off Mc Donalds and there kids were eating my bread.
One word. Library.
Learn all that it offers, and use it well.
I find a lot of homeschool curriculum used on ebay. Then I resell it on eBay when we’re finished with it and use the money to buy some of next year’s books. Also, check used book stores right after the end of the school year for bargains, I’ve found a lot of good stuff and even found curriculum to sell to help pay for supplies. Good luck, you really don’t have to spend a lot of money to homeschool.
I love Target! I’ve started to buy pretty much all of my clothes from there (I used to go to Nike mostly). The quality is good, and prices are pretty cheap.