No matter where I live, there’s always one drawer that’s devoted to the coupons. I’ll note one exception: that was when I decided I was done with coupons and would never clip another one. What, you may be asking, could possibly send me so far over the edge that saving money seemed more trouble than it was worth?
Enter exhibit A. The coupon drawer. (You know you have one, too. Admit it. It will make you feel better.)
Oh, sure, I’ve tried those little pouches with a slot for all the dairy and all the frozen and all the meats and all the beverages. But the fact of the matter is, I still had no clue what coupons I possessed. Just because all dairy was in one slot, that cute little coupon organizer wasn’t helping my cause at all. And nine times out of 10, by the time I found that coupon that had been hiding from me, it was expired. Trust me. It’s easy to develop a hate-hate relationship with coupons.
Well, people, I’ve outdone myself on this one. I’ve come up with the B.E.S.T possible way to organize (one of the) biggest messes in my kitchen. A three-ring binder with clear business card or baseball card sheet protectors! (For those of you who’ve been utilizing this method for years, is it too much to ask you to give me a little moment in the sun, here?!?)
Time to check out my masterpiece! Can you stand it? Each little coupon gets its own spot, and is placed into a broad category:
- Produce
- Dairy
- Canned and packaged goods
- Meats
- Snacks
- Drinks
- Dairy
- Bakery
- Deli
- Cleaning products
- Personal hygiene
- Paper products
- Office supplies
This brainchild actually came from my friend Summer, so credit where credit is due. But I decided to take it to a whole new level. I’ve also inserted some full-sheet size protectors in the back to house take-out menus, and another protector to keep rebate offers, sales receipts and UPC codes.
But wait! There’s more! (This is where I wish we had a video blog here on Coffee Break…) You know those little pockets on the inside of the binder? Guess what goes in there? That’s right! Your SHOPPING LIST!
I am a genius I tell you. (Whatever. It’s Monday. Let’s just roll with it.) Total cost? $4.80 – $3.88 for the sheet protectors and .92 cents for the el-cheapo binder (find ‘em everywhere that offers a wide selection of school supplies – better yet, use an empty binder you already have on hand). Cost to regain my shopping sanity? Priceless, of course.
And while we’re on a roll, I thought I’d also give you my Coupon Commandments. Do with them as you will.
- If you see a coupon for a product you don’t like, don’t bother clipping it. Saving money on it will probably not make you like it anymore than you did before.
- If a coupon is for an item you usually don’t purchase, think long and hard before clipping and allowing it to take up space.
- Instead of clipping every coupon, refer to your new binder for coupons you already have. That way you won’t be stuck with seven coupons for bleach that all expire at the same time.
- If a coupon for toothpaste expires in a month and you just bought a case of toothpaste, chances are you aren’t going to use that coupon before it expires. So why waste time and space?
- Pay attention to out-dates on existing coupons as you clip. While you may want more than one coupon for certain products, if you can’t use more than one by the time it expires, don’t bother with it.
- If you use generic brands, and have a coupon for the name brand, make sure the coupon will actually save you more money versus buying the generic you always use.
Whew! Who can stand all this fun mixed in with a little bit of common sense? Now all I have to do is figure out how to put a cute little cover on this white binder! But that’s another post, entirely.
-Liz Follow @lizrants
Nothing says summer like a delicious bowl of homemade ice cream. At our house we usually stick with strawberry or some variation of vanilla with a mix-in. Last week we decided to be adventurous and lighten things up with Pomegranate Sherbet. It was super delicious and super easy.
Ingredients: (makes 6 cups)
- 3 cups pomegranate juice (I used Old Orchard Pomegranate Cherry)
- pinch salt
- 1 cup heavy cream
- juice of 2 limes
Directions:
Mix pomegranate juice, cream, salt, and lime juice.
Freeze in an ice cream maker according to your manufactures instructions. When your ice maker shuts off the sherbert will soft and fluffy and not quite frozen. Just put it in the freezer to firm completely.
That’s it! Easy peasy pomegranate freezy.
~Kate
Enjoy your yummy treat!
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If you’re house is anything like mine, back to school means a new pair of shoes. It’s tradition, I guess. Fresh start to the school year, fresh shoes to walk into the new classroom. Something like that, anyway. Suffice to say, someone in our house got a new pair of shoes, yesterday. Hint: It wasn’t me.
Now, while I know there’s nothing out of the ordinary about new shoes, I do find my child’s reaction something of an anomaly. I guess the story goes back to Christmas, when Santa brought Colton a pair of shoes. (That Santa is just full of exciting surprises, isn’t he?!?) Anywho. Colton fell in love with them. Why? That’s anyone’s guess. Let’s just say when we set out to get shoes, his quest was simple: to find the exact same shoe, preferably in a larger size. But in his way of thinking, he’d have bought a smaller pair, scrunched his foot into it, suffered through a poor fit and liked it for no other reason than to have that pair of shoes again.
He liked these shoes so much that even after he’d worn them out to the point of big toes sticking out, he insisted on wearing them if he was playing at home. When I finally banned the shoes from wear, he refused to throw them away. So I figured we’d better find that shoe again. I figured the best bet would be to return to the shoe store from which they came. (How do I know where they came from, you ask? I called Santa! Come on!)
After making a mad dash to the kids’ shoes, we scoured the shelves. Then it happened. The gods of shoes shined down on us not once but twice. We’d not only found his shoes, we’d even found the size he needed. (I love it when a good plan comes together.) Little did I know my child’s plan went further than simply finding the shoes.
Once we got home, he located the old shoes, put them beside his new shoes and compared every detail.
“Look at this. The new shoes aren’t as tall as the old shoes.”
“What are you talking about? Of course they are.”
“No they aren’t Mom. See how the top of this one isn’t as tall as the other one?”
“No. Not really.”
“Get a ruler. I’ll show you.”
May I just say that my child is a stickler for detail – there was a whopping 1/8-inch difference in height between the old and new shoes. Who could’ve predicted that such a height differential would be an earth-shattering event?
“We can take them back,” I offered. “I say, if the shoe fits, wear it!”
“I really do love them, Mom. But it sure would be nice if these were as tall as the old ones.”
Rest assured that the next time we buy a pair of shoes, I will be hiding the ruler. I’m just sayin’.
-Liz Follow @lizrants
Oh man, I really need a vacation from my vacation. More precisely, a vacation after my vacation. I should probably tell you that I spend nine looong months of the year impatiently waiting for the warm, delicious, relaxing, rejuvenating too short three months of summer. No homework for the kids (or the mom, come on ladies, you know exactly what I mean), no strict bedtimes, the water park just calling our names, beckoning us to frolic and play.
Without going on too much of a whining streak, let me just say that this was the summer that wasn’t, which quickly turned into the vacation that wasn’t.
So, here’s the whine. Feel free to skip it if you’d like. (Haha. Just kidding. Don’t skip it. It’s stuff you need to know.)
You see, I became a mother-in-law this summer, which means I became the mother of the bride, which means every waking moment (and many not-so-waking moments) were spent preparing for the big day, which in reality means crossing off those first six weeks of summer. (Don’t get me wrong, I loved almost every one of those minutes getting ready for the wedding and wouldn’t trade them for anything…but, they did use up half of the summer.)
And then as soon as the wedding was over, the next week and a half was spent helping my second oldest daughter gather all of her earthly belongings and loading them tetris-style into a U-haul to make the big move to Arizona to begin her first job as an English teacher. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, her move coincided with our vacation to Las Vegas, which is a mere two hour drive from her destination of Kingman, AZ.
On the plus side, her U-haul didn’t get abducted during a week of hanging out in the condo parking lot in the city of sin. On the minus side, most of the vacation was spent house hunting, car shopping, driving, U-haul unloading, and worrying. On the double minus side, I had to leave my daughter behind in Arizona
It was in this state of mind that we headed home from our so-called vacation. About two hours into the drive on I-15, we entered Virgin Gorge, the hot, beautiful, hot, winding hot stretch between Mesquite, NV. and St. George, UT. Did I mention that it’s hot?
Halfway through the gorge our radiator cracked. Not good, but also not the end of the world. We figured we’d just pull off the road and call our auto protection service and have them send a tow. What we didn’t count on was that there was no cell service and it was HOT! 115 degrees hot, with nary a spec of shade. So I did what any desperate mom would do, I climbed to the top of a ridge, held my phone up to the heavens with a prayer in my heart and successfully texted my daughter with instructions to call our auto service to send us a tow.
And then we waited…and waited…and waited, and nothing happened. No tow truck appeared to rescue us. Why? Because our stupid dumb auto service representative (and his stupid dumb supervisor) couldn’t figure out how to over-ride the stupid dumb computer program to send a tow across the state line to an area without a zip code. We were six miles from the state line! Only six miles, people! How hard could it be? My daughter, whom I had texted, was on the phone with a representative for over an hour pleading our case and…nothing, nada, zilch. No tow truck.
An hour in 115 degrees.
I made the climb again and luckily for us a truck driver headed in the other direction saw me at the top of the ridge, waving my cell phone around like a mad woman. He honked at me and gave me a thumbs up, which I hoped meant that he planned on sending someone to the rescue.
And then we waited again. And waited some more. I don’t know if you’ve ever spent an hour and a half in 115 degrees with the the sun beating down on you (hopefully you haven’t), but let me tell you we felt like we were not far from possible heat stroke.
Then a miraculous thing happened. All of the sudden in the cloudless blue sky, a little gray rain cloud appeared right above our car and rained on us. Call it luck. Call it coincidence. Call it happenstance. Call it good karma. Call it divine intervention (my personal choice). Call it whatever you want, but there it was, one glorious little cloud raining on us, cooling us down. Giving us hope.
And then a kind-hearted Highway Patrolman came to our assistance, hooked tow ropes to our car and pulled us the six miles to the Utah border so the stupid dumb auto service could send a tow.
Thank heavens for little gray rainclouds. Literally. Thank you. And for alert truckers and a kind-hearted patrolman.
And to the auto protection service I say, “May you rot in the 115 degree heat in Virgin Gorge. Well, maybe not rot, exactly, but at least spend a few tortuous hours stuck there with no one to save the day.”
~Kate
P.S. I’m headed out to frolic and play. Maybe you should too.
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We’re at T-minus 3 days until the first day of school in our neck of the woods. Which means it’s time once again, to review the dreaded school supply list. Time to start going to bed a little earlier, maybe do a little last-minute studying, time to wish we’d done more over the summer break. Sigh… Time to ask probing questions, like:
- Are Ticonderoga really the best pencils? (Turns out that yes, they are. And much to my child’s chagrin, mechanical pencils are still off-limits.)
- Does our county actually have a large enough stock to supply each child with one large bottle of hand sanitizer?
- Will this be the year we discover whether or not demerits are issued if we buy a 48-count box of crayons instead of the 96-count box?
- Is the request for a set of ear buds just a lead up to the near future, when the school list includes a nice laptop computer?
- Do we really have what it takes to make it through fourth grade while maintaining our sanity as a family?
- Would home-schooling really drive me that crazy?
As it turns out, some of these questions will be answered tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ll be doing my nails while I wait to see how the back-to-school shopping trip goes. Because my dad, in a gutsy show of courage, offered to take my son and my nephew shopping. I say, “never look a gift horse in the mouth”. And why bother telling Dad beforehand that while my nephew’s list has a whopping five items on it, my son’s list has 21 items. That’s right – 21 (twenty-one) items. And that’s just the list from the fourth grade in general. The individual teacher lists have yet to surface.
So maybe it’s time to tweak this year’s back-to-school questions, in honor of my dad’s unflinching bravery:
- Was his offer to supply shop a knee-jerk reaction? Or did he really think this one through?
- Will he be able to maintain his own sanity more than 45 minutes in?
- Will he tell stories of walking five miles to school, uphill both ways, in three feet of snow?
- Will he still be speaking to any of us after this male-bonding adventure?
I have the strangest feeling that my second set of questions will be much easier to answer than the first. I’m just sayin’.
-Liz Follow @lizrants
This week’s recipe is inspired by my daughter’s favorite IHOP breakfast, Cinnamon Roll French Toast. I figured there must be some easy and yummy way to duplicate it and voila…here it is!
Easy Cinnamon Roll French Toast
Ingredients:
1 tube jumbo size cinnamon rolls
(Bake according to package directions – don’t frost)
3 large eggs
2 Tbsp milk
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Directions:
Slice baked and cooled cinnamon rolls in half lengthwise; set aside.
Crack eggs into a large bowl and add milk, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix well.
Dip both sides of each cinnamon roll half in the egg batter.
Spray skillet with nonstick cooking spray; place over medium-high heat. Brown the cinnamon roll halves in the skillet, turning once.
Serve with maple syrup, jam or powdered sugar.
Makes 5 servings.
Enjoy! If you like this recipe, then check out out new cookbook…
In the Kitchen with Liz and Kate: Practically Painless Recipes
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So here’s the thing. Poor Kate is stuck somewhere out west, on her way back from vacation – car trouble. Unfortunately, she’s had very little phone service, and of course no way to post. She is safe, though, and had checked into a hotel for the night, somewhere between vacation and home. So hopefully she’ll be back tomorrow. I have no excuses, though – except for a whirlwind storm, heavy rains and accompanying power outages.
Anywho, I thought you all might enjoy seeing the morning skies here in the Bluegrass as a major thunderstorm approached. I’ve seen a lot of weird looking skies in my day, but I’ve never seen the sky look like it did this morning. I wasn’t alone in those thoughts, evidenced by the number of people outside taking photographs as I drove home after taking Colton to hockey camp. And judging by the look of Chris Bailey, my favorite weather dude’s Twitter page, the storm was as big as, oh, I don’t know… UK’s basketball team winning the NCAA championship.
To that end, I thought I’d share some of what Kentuckians saw and the explanation from Chris. The first is from CJ Crumrine:
Here’s Peachybug’s view:
This is probably my favorite, from JonBoy:
Or maybe this one from Billcaine:
Here’s what Chris Bailey had to say about the eerie Kentucky skies this morning:
Lots of questions about the type of clouds in all the pics. It’s a shelf cloud that can form on a gust front just ahead of a line of storms.
Well, that was easy enough! It sounds so simple and well, run of the mill. “Just a shelf cloud, people. Keep moving. Nothing to see, here.” I guess we were all thinking we’d seen something no one had ever see before – or ever would again. Lucky little weather spotters, we’d hoped, with an eye for the wildest looking skies, not to mention an eye for photography. Oh well, at least we’re easily impressed…
-Liz
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Ever have one of those days where you wake up and wonder what’s wrong with people? I have those mornings more than I care to admit. Today is no exception.
As you probably know, hacking is apparently all the rage these days. From Wiki-Leaks to Sony to Mastercard, it would appear no one is safe from the hackers and their misguided quest to create chaos. Not even road signs.
Enter this story, which, much to my chagrin, played out just a few miles from my humble abode:
Then I came across this headline:Police: Man Tries Steal Cop’s Car, Blames ‘Batman’
And there’s the story of the dad who slept in the passenger seat while his 8-year-old cruised at a cool 70 mph down the highway. That’s rich, huh?
Taking the cake, though, was a headline questioning whether or not Hollywood had run out of new ideas, based on the plethora of remakes coming out (think “The Flintstones”, “Red Dawn” and “Footloose”).
Note to Hollywood: It’s a wild, crazy world out there. Ya may want to check it out. Just sayin’.
-Liz Follow @lizrants
I am away on vacation this week…woohoo!yeehaw! While I’m away I’ve left a few of my favorite summertime posts for you this week. Enjoy! ~Kate
I have survived yet another family vacation. My family (minus one kid, plus 2 friends – for a grand total of 10 people) spent a glorious week in southern California. We had a blast spending 3 days at Disneyland, 2 days at the beach, and we even spent a day enlightening our minds at the Getty Museum.
One of the highlights of every family vacation is adding to our family quote book. Perhaps this is where I should warn you that the collective sense of humor of my family is a little off center, bizarre, random, quirky…well, you get the point, we find odd things funny.
A few years ago we realized we say some pretty wacky things while vacationing together. We started jotting them down so we would remember them. We continued it the next year, and the next, and now it’s become one of our favorite parts of vacation. The key to our vacation quotes is that they are all ridiculous and taken completely out of context. The more ridiculous the better.
So without further ado, here are some of our favorite 2010 vacation quotes…
"Not now! I'm burying a young girl."
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"Disneyland is no fun unless there's projectile vomiting."
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"We'll melon-ball their eyes out."
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"I laughed myself into an asthma attack."
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"Will you jump on my back like a 12 year-old Japanese gymnast?"
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"They made me stay as collateral."
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"I'm so dehydrated my spit is like silly putty."
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Yes I know we’re a bit nutty, but hey, we have a lot of fun. Maybe you’d like to start a family vacation quote book also? Give a try, it’s more fun than a barrel of monkeys, I promise.
Check out last year’s quotes - On the News a Family Dies
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Last weekend, my daughter headed to North Carolina with her future in-laws (Lee and Cheryl) to welcome home our Marine, Adam, who has been serving in Afghanistan for more than seven months. There were months that went fairly quickly in retrospect, but some days seemed to take a year to get through. So I’m sure it comes as no surprise that Hannah was more than a little anxious to make the trip.
As is typical with my daughter, she arrived in North Carolina making quite the grand entrance. I should’ve seen it coming I guess. The first sign that she was off to a rocky start came before she’d gotten out of the county: she’d forgotten the “welcome home” sign that she’d worked on so diligently. So she’d just have to hope Adam could pick her out in a crowd.
The night of Hannah’s arrival in North Carolina, she somehow managed to fall off the hotel room bed and wedge herself between the bed and the wall. Thankfully Lee and Cheryl were there to pull her out of the predicament. How she got there to begin with is anyone’s guess. And quite frankly, we’re probably better off not knowing the details…
All seemed well on Sunday, though. Until my phone rang about 6:30 p.m.
“Whatcha doing, Mother?”
“Um… nothing… what are you doing?”
“Um, well, I just got out of the emergency room.”
I’m sure you all know that in that moment, my head went wild with possible scenarios. Jelly fish? Sting Rays? Shark bite?!?!?! No. She’d been too calm for that one.
“I passed out,” she offered before I could start rattling off my theories.
They’d just left the beach after a day of fun and sun and made it as far as the outside shower area when Cheryl felt Hannah grab her shoulder. As Cheryl turned around, Hannah hit the wooden boards hard and fast, face down and out cold. Heat exhaustion.
Enter the stretcher, a neck brace and joy ride in the ambulance. I’m tellin’ ya, no one knows how to kick off a vacation quite like my daughter, huh?
Now awake and regaining her senses, she felt a tug on her hair, where the EMT was attempting to pull something out of her hair.
“You have a bird feather in your hair,” she told Hannah, who laughed and replied that she’d actually paid someone to put it there. (True story – and just for the record, dear reader and friend Niki says it’s a ring-tail lemur. You be the judge.)
She arrived at the emergency room in her swim suit (as did Cheryl and Lee) leaving enough sand along the trail for a decent castle. Some vital-sign testing, blood drawing and three hours later, she left the ER with orders to drink more water (who knew? right?). A lucky little soul she was that the fall didn’t knock out every tooth in the front of her braces-straightened pearly whites. That would’ve been a real sight for Adam’s homecoming…
Nevertheless, she’d (hopefully) reached No. 3 in the rule of threes. And about 9:15 p.m. Monday night, the moment she, Cheryl and Lee had impatiently waited on for months came, as Marine Lcpl. Adam H. arrived back home on U.S. soil. All was right in the world for my baby girl. Of course, they still have almost a week left in North Carolina, though. Let’s just hope Ms. Entertainment has done enough for one vacation.
-Liz
Follow @lizrants