Mar 22, 2010

Get a 4GB flash drive for $2.75 at Staples (through tomorrow 3/23)

There's an amazing deal on a 4GB Sandisk flash drive at Staples through tomorrow. The flash drive is on sale for $14.99 this week, and it's eligible for a $10 Staples gift card rebate. But if you use this 15% off coupon that expires tomorrow, then you pay only $12.74 + tax, and still get the $10 gift card.

I just submitted my rebate information, and the gift card appears to be a true store gift card with no expiration date. That means the gift card will be perfect for the back to school deals that are only a few months away.

(Hat tip: Common Sense with Money)

Ways to Make & Save Money: Grocery shop with coupons

Every Monday, I share a way to make and/or save money, as I strive to achieve my New Year's Resolution of banking a large sum of money by year's end. You can read the rest of the series here.

This tip will seem overly obvious to regular readers, but it's a big one and worth repeating. Last year at this time, I was still doing the vast majority of my grocery shopping at Trader Joe's. It was a routine that I began during the 2003 grocery worker's strike, when I discovered that I love Trader Joe's. It's like they were made for me, with their large stock of organic and hormone/antibiotic-free products. Their everyday prices are far and away better than mainstream markets like Ralphs and Vons.

But.

There's always a "but," isn't there?

I discovered the joy of massive coupon use in 2008 when I began playing The Drugstore Game. Last spring, I discovered the joy of carrying over the coupon use to markets like Ralphs and Vons/Pavilions. It really hit home in April, when Vons and Pavilions (which are part of the Safeway family of stores) had their Living Well promotion. When you bought $30 worth of qualifying products, you got a $10 Catalina coupon to use on your next order. And the deal rolled, so that you could pay with the $10 Catalina and get another $10 Catalina if you bought $30 of qualifying products. The promotion went on for several weeks, and I made multiple trips to the store each week because I was getting napkins for 33 cents per package (which was way below my target price), garbage bags for my target price of 6.6 cents per bag, and Huggies wipes refills for $3.

The Living Well promotion opened my eyes to the great deals to be had at the major markets. Since then, I've regularly shopped at Ralphs, Vons and Pavilions, and increasingly bought more of my groceries there. And I've discovered that sometimes I can get cheaper prices at the major markets than elsewhere.

For instance, sometime this past fall, Vons lowered the price on their store brand gallons of organic milk to $5.49. I'm not sure how long it took me to realize that I was paying 50 cents more at Trader Joe's, but needless to say, I started buying my weekly two gallons at Vons or Pavilions. But half-gallons are 10 cents cheaper at Trader Joe's ($3.29 vs. $3.39). Of course, you have to keep an eye on the prices, because Vons raised the price to $5.99 a couple of months ago, but right now they're on sale through the beginning of April for $5.49 again.

Another example is Challenge butter – last year, I discovered that it's RBST-free, just like the butter I'd been buying at Trader Joe's. And by combining sales and coupons, I've been able to buy Challenge butter for less than I would have paid at Trader Joe's.

It's these kinds of discoveries that I want to keep my eyes open for in 2010 to maximize our grocery dollars. Right now, we spend about 40% less than we did a year ago. I won't compromise the quality of food we eat, but I'm convinced that with some astute grocery shopping and meal planning, I can reduce that number to 50% or more.

Mar 18, 2010

Apple Sauce Easter Craft & Apple Sauce Pie Recipe from Musselman's

My kids love Musselman's apple sauce, so I readily accepted when Musselman's offered to send me some applesauce for a craft as well as to eat. I was curious about the craft, which turned out to be for Bunny Place Cards that uses apple sauce in a very non-traditional way. Here's the "recipe":

What you'll need:
1/2 cup Musselman's Apple Sauce
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons cinnamon (one 2.37 oz bottle)
glitter (optional)
white craft glue (optional)
waxed paper
bunny (or other Easter shape) cookie cutter
paint pens/glitter glue pens

Instructions
1. Stir together apple sauce and 1/2 cup cinnamon until the dough becomes soft. Knead the dough with your hands for several minutes until it holds together and is completely incorporated. If desired, add glitter while kneading for extra sparkle, and craft glue for extra strength. If the dough is too wet, add 1 tablespoon of flour and knead until the flour is completely incorporated.

2. Shape the dough into a disk and place it on a sheet of waxed paper. Place a sheet of waxed paper over the dough and roll it out to 3/4 inch thick. Use the cookie cutter to cut out bunnies or other shapes.

3. Sprinkle remaining 2 tablespoons of cinnamon on a cookie sheet and place bunnies on the sheet. Bake at 200 degrees for approximately two hours, turning bunnies periodically so they dry evenly and the edges don't curl. Brush of the excess cinnamon and air dry the bunnies overnight on cooling racks before decorating.

4. Once the bunnies are completely dry, write each guest's name with a paint or glitter glue pen and use them as place cards. You can add extra embellishments with acrylic paint, ribbons and/or fabric.

Note that these place cards are not edible.

If you're looking for something edible, I highly recommend Musselman's Apple Raisin Crumb Pie. I've adapted the recipe as follows:

Apple Sauce Raisin Crumb Pie
Serves 8

2 cups Musselman's Natural Apple Sauce
2/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
3 tablespoons butter
1 cup raisins
4 eggs
1/2 cup quick cooking oats
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons butter, cut into small pieces
1 9-inch unbaked pie shell with high fluted edge

1. Combine the apple sauce and brown sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat. Add 3 tablespoons butter and stir until melted. Stir in the raisins. Set aside and cool to room temperature.

2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

3. In a small mixing bowl, beat the eggs and add to the apple sauce mixture. Pour the apple sauce mixture into the pie shell. Bake for 20 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, blend the oats, sugar, cinnamon and butter until crumbly. Remove the pie from the oven and sprinkle the mixture evenly over the top. Bake the pie for another 25 minutes, or until the top and crust are golden brown.

This pie was a huge hit at my house. I reduced the sugar from the original recipe because I thought it was a little sweet. The mixture was a tad loose, so I might add another egg the next time.

Musselman's has some printable coupons on their web site, including $1/2 42-48 oz. Apple Sauce.

Disclosure: Musselman's sent me the supplies to make the bunny place cards, but the boys and I haven't gotten to them yet and I'm not sure when we'll have time. All opinions expressed in this post are my own.

Mar 16, 2010

Ways To Make & Save Money #11: Communicate With Your Family

You can read the rest of the Ways to Make & Save Money series here.

I totally believe it when I hear that financial issues can cause huge problems in family relationships because I know firsthand how important money is. One thing that helps our family tremendously is good communication about finances and goals.

Right now, it’s just Marc and me who make most of the decisions. We are really on the same page when it comes to our financial goals, and we agree on living frugally, limiting spending, and saving as much as possible. Plus, I appreciate how supportive he is of all the work I do to keep our grocery and household spending down – most weeks, he takes the boys to swim class alone so I can go grocery shopping by myself. (It’s funny how easy it is to hit five or six stores if I’m alone and how hard it is to do more than two if I’ve got the kids.) In turn, he appreciates how hard I work at saving us money while maintaining our lifestyle.

Even though our kids are young, we take advantage of opportunities to talk with them about money. Just yesterday, the boys asked for Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, which I haven’t bought recently because I haven’t been able to find it for 50 cents or less (note: that’s my target price on cereal). Of course, there’s a ton of cereal in the house, and other breakfast foods too, but not that specific variety.

I sat down and explained that we don’t have any Cinnamon Toast Crunch right now because I haven’t found any good sales. But I got an adorable plea to "Please, can you buy it anyway?" So I responded, "Sure, I can buy expensive cereal, but I won’t be able to buy you toys. Would you rather have a new toy or Cinnamon Toast Crunch?"

I could almost see the computations in their head as they processed the question. And then came the answer: "A new toy." Alex said it first, but Tyler said it too, and in a way that made it clear he wasn’t just parroting his older brother.

Here’s another example of why communication is important: I buy lots of things, but if Marc can’t find them when he needs them, he’s liable to go out and buy more stuff at a much higher price (and with good reason!). So we have designated places in the house for our stockpile – toiletries are in a closet, separated by category; paper goods are in a hall closet, although I recently stockpiled so much that there’s also a tower on the landing of the stairs; light bulbs are in the garage, etc. I also let him know what food is in the fridge/freezer/pantry, because he’s so polite and cautious about not eating anything that I might have plans for.

Of course, we talk about the big picture too – a lot. While we don’t plan regular meetings to discuss our family finances, I keep him in the loop on how we’re doing on spending, saving and any changes I think we should be making. On the rare occasion that we don’t see exactly eye-to-eye, we compromise.

The best part of all this communication is that everyone is happy, because we all know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. And that gets us to our goals all the faster.

Mar 15, 2010

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken

I had some organic chicken thighs in the freezer, so I adapted this recipe from this Slow Cooker Honey Garlic Chicken recipe. Despite the reviews saying the meat came out dry, I found the recipe to be pretty forgiving, and the sauce thickened beautifully when I added the cornstarch. In fact, I will probably halve the cornstarch next time so the sauce is a little more runny.

Slow Cooker Teriyaki Chicken
Serves 4 to 6

nonstick cooking spray
1 1/2 lbs boneless skinless chicken thighs
1 20 oz. can crushed pineapple in juice
1/4 cup honey
3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
3 tablespoons ketchup
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 cup finely minced onion or 1 tablespoon onion powder
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 cup cold water

1. Spray the inside of the crock with nonstick cooking spray. Add the thighs to the crock.

2. Drain the pineapple, reserving the juice. Cover the pineapple and store in refrigerator.

3. In a small bowl, combine the pineapple juice, honey, soy sauce, ketchup, garlic and onion. Pour the mixture over the chicken. Cover and cook on low for 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

4. Before serving, combine the cornstarch and water in a small bowl and stir until the cornstarch has completely dissolved. Pour the cornstarch into the crock and stir to combine. Add the reserved pineapple and heat through. Serve with rice.

Mar 12, 2010

An Artisan Bread Update That’s Way Overdue

It’s been over two months since I made my first loaf of artisan bread using the method described in my favorite cookbook of all time, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.It’s the best Christmas gift ever, and I get giddy when I try something new and it works.

Earlier this week, I made fresh pita! I used the olive oil bread recipe in the book, and it was so much fun. It was like magic, rolling out the dough into 1/8-inch thick circles, popping them into the toaster oven, and watching them puff up! I couldn’t believe it actually worked. They tasted just okay, not spectacular, but I’m definitely going to try again. Did I mention it was like magic? (Read the authors' instructions.)

Also, the brioche dough makes fabulous cinnamon raisin bread. I love that the brioche dough can be frozen in one-pound balls, so I can make cinnamon raisin bread almost any time. It’s one of the kids’ most favorite things to eat, and it’s incredibly easy. Here’s the recipe for their brioche dough and cinnamon swirl bread. (I just added a couple handfuls of raisins to the latter.)

If you haven’t gotten the book yet, the authors posted their Master Recipe recently. You may want to watch this video, which shows how to shape a loaf.

These pizza rolls are now a lunch box staple, and I always have some in my freezer. The boys’ preschool will warm these up for lunch, but I’m trying to think of how I can make them portable for kindergarten. Maybe a shallow, wide-mouth thermos.

Lastly, but definitely not least, I’ve come to love the refrigerator rise, which is a working mom’s best trick. Shape the dough in the morning on parchment paper, cover with plastic wrap, and leave it in the fridge. When you get home, preheat the oven, and bake as normal. Fresh bread really is the bomb!

Disclosure: I'm an Amazon affiliate, so any purchase you make after entering Amazon through a link on Chief Family Officer supports this site at no additional cost to you. Thank you!

Mar 8, 2010

Ways to Make & Save Money #10: Enter Blog Giveaways & Instant Win Sweepstakes

You can read the rest of the Ways to Make & Save Money series here.

Entering blog giveaways is not a surefire way to bring in money or keep from spending money.

But.

I am one of those people who rarely wins anything. And yet, the odds in blog giveaways are so decent that I have won quite a few times – useful, wonderful things too, like a $50 Safeway gift card from Moneywise Moms, a $30 Walmart gift card from Common Sense with Money, Snapfish prints from Bargain Briana, and so on. All of these prizes are things that I can use to save my family money by using them to buy things that I would have bought anyway.

Example: I won a $50 Walmart gift card from Frugal Upstate and spent it on a new trashcan (our kitchen trashcan broke that morning), a bat and tee (we just started with T-ball), and food items. I ended up spending less than $2 on things that I would have had to spend $50 on. Even taking income tax into consideration, I come out way ahead.

I win much less frequently when I play instant win sweepstakes, but I have won – things like an iTunes gift card and a Starbucks gift card. Again, these are things that I can use to save my family money.

I spend less than 15 minutes a day entering giveaways and sweepstakes. They're pretty mindless activities, so I can do them when I'm tired, stressed, or distracted with something else (on hold on the phone, for example).

My favorite source for finding out about "winnable" sweeps is Freebies 4 Mom. About once a week, she'll list the current sweepstakes that have the best odds. If there's a prize I'd like to win, I add the sweeps to my list.

My favorite source for finding giveaways is Prizey. I subscribe to their RSS feed, which unfortunately is just a headline feed, rather than a full feed. They force you to click through to their site to get the link to the giveaway, but the headline at least lets me narrow down the field to only those giveaways that I want to enter.

One thing about giveaways and sweeps: I don't drive myself crazy over them. If a blog giveaway's entry requirements are too demanding, I simply close the window. If I'm too busy to find 10 minutes to enter anything, that's fine – my day goes on. However, if I have a few minutes of time to kill, entering giveaways and sweepstakes is a great way to use the time. It just might save me some money!

Mar 4, 2010

Update on my New Year's Resolution: End of February

Back in January, I shared my financial resolution for this year, which is to save a crazy amount of money to create a large cash cushion. I promised a monthly update, so here it is: we've saved 13.9% of our goal so far.

Last month, that number stood at 3% and I was rather disappointed. However, in calculating this month's numbers, I realized that I was off, and that we actually saved just over 5% last month. Since I was quite disappointed last month, it was nice, albeit also embarrassing, to spot that error this month.

One thing I did this month was reduce the extra principal we put towards our mortgage and redirect that money into savings, which added another 2% of our savings goal. California's economic situation is so dire right now that hoarding cash and building up savings seems much more important than paying off the mortgage faster - even though that is something I would very much like to do. We plan on sticking with this new plan indefinitely.

Just like last month, we did many things to help us get closer to our savings goal. I really do all of the things I recommend in my Ways to Make & Save Money series, and I've been tweaking some of those things to better suit our savings style, like snowflaking extra money into the savings account by depositing rebate checks into an account that's not at the bank where we keep most of our money. Since that means the snowflaked money gets nowhere near the checking account, it stays in savings permanently.

Another thing I've been doing is taking a closer look at our spending, and especially at what I spend on groceries and household items (there isn't much wiggle room left in our budget!). Our spending on food is higher than most families in part because I buy organic milk, organic/antibiotic and hormone-free meat, RBST-free cheese and yogurt, and organic produce. These items are not cheap - a gallon of organic milk is $5.49 on sale, and I usually need 2 gallons a week, plus another 1/2 gallon at $3.29-$3.49 to leave at the .boys' preschool. I'm not obsessive about organic products, but we can afford them and I don't see any reason to put extra chemicals in my boys' bodies if I don't have to.

However, I'm now working harder than ever to keep my grocery and household spending down. I'm chasing more deals at the drugstores and grocery stores. I'm making more trips to different stores, and thinking harder about where my money is going. My price book has more entries than ever before, and my target prices keep going down. My goal is to get my monthly spending down while still getting these high quality foods for my family, by buying them on sale and stockpiling when possible.

One thing I'm worried about now is that we may need to buy a new oven, since my small oven died last month. We're getting along for the moment with the big oven and toaster oven, but the big oven emitted a funny smell the last time I used it and we're hoping that it was just because it hasn't been much. (While I greatly appreciate all of the part-finding suggestions, we've concluded that we don't have the skills or confidence to do our own repair, so the cost of the labor wouldn't be worth fixing the oven.) I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we won't have to spend $1000 or (likely) more on the kitchen anytime soon.

Because I'm hoping that our progress in March will be as good as our progress in February!

Mar 2, 2010

Healthier Yet Still Easy Creamed Spinach

A couple of months ago, I posted a recipe for Easy Creamed Spinach. The spinach was delicious, but it called for 1 1/2 cups of cream and 4 tablespoons of butter and made my arteries hurt. It was so easy and delicious, though, that I wanted to add it to my regular rotation of side dishes. Here’s my healthier version, which has only 1/2 cup of heavy cream and 1 tablespoon of butter. It’s not quite as luscious as the original version, but it’s so much healthier. Plus, it’s still easy, so it won’t distract you from cooking the rest of the meal.

Healthy & Easy Creamed Spinach
Serves 4

1 pound frozen chopped spinach
2/3 cup chicken broth
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste

1. In a medium saucepan over medium low heat, combine the spinach (still frozen is okay), chicken broth and garlic. Cover and cook for 15 minutes, or until spinach is tender, stirring occasionally to make sure the spinach doesn’t burn.

2. Uncover and stir in the butter, then the cream. Add salt and pepper to taste. Simmer 5 to 10 minutes, or until thick, stirring occasionally. Serve hot.

Mar 1, 2010

Ways to Make & Save Money #9: Sell on Amazon Marketplace

You can read the rest of the Ways to Make & Save Money series here.

I love selling my used items on Amazon, because it's like having an online garage sale. I've written before about selling at Amazon Marketplace, so I won't go into details here. Instead, I'll direct you to my previous series on selling at Amazon, and these updates.

Until now, I've always priced my items to sell on Amazon, so I would list even a "new" or "like new" item at the lowest price, even if the same item from another seller at the same price was only in "good" or "acceptable" condition. My rationale was that I'd rather just get the item out of my house.

But now I'm willing to hold onto my things a little longer in the hope of getting a little more money, so I'm listing items at a price that matches comparable items. I always include a detailed description so prospective buyers know that I've examined the item and they know exactly what they're getting. When I'm the buyer, I know that sort of thing makes a difference to me, so I'm hoping it'll sway a buyer who's deciding between sellers to choose my item instead.

I'm still only going to sell items that will net a decent profit after shipping costs. If the profit is too small, I'd rather save my time and donate the item for the tax deduction instead.