$5 stock up challenge - Baking powder

This past week the stock up challenge was for baking powder. I spent $4.76 on two containers of baking powder. Did you stock up? How much were you able to get for your $5. 

Past weeks:

Sugar

Beans

Rice

Salt

#imabzzagent - Claritin for children review

I was given the samples pictured above to try out with my own children. I am a BzzAgent and was given these samples for free to try. 

I have one child who has some pretty nasty allergy problems come spring time when everything starts blooming. He is my second boy and 7 years old. The poor guy gets itchy eyes and his nose tickles and he coughs and sneezes. It makes me stressed as a mom. I jumped on the chance to try the Claritin with him since it was made specifically for children. I started him on the chewable tablets. For his age/weight he had to take two tablets per day. He only had to take the dose once per day. Easy! I noticed by the second day that he wasn't itching his eyes and wiping his nose so much. 

I ran out of the Claritin that they sent me for free but it worked so well with his allergies that I have bought more since and he is still taking it daily and his symptoms are still greatly relieved. 

Have you tried  Claritin? They have doses for children 2+ years and for adults. 

$5 Stock up challenge - Salt

This week's stock up item was salt. I have quite a bit of plain salt and we like to use Himalayan pink salt for cooking and flavor on our meals. This was probably the most shocking of the items on the list as far as price and finding it at a more reasonable price. I used to buy it at Vitacost at 18 oz for over $5. When I checked out WinCo pricing on the bulk bin of it I found the salt for $1.27 per pound. That is an amazing savings. I went over my $5 again by spending $5.65 but this got me 4.45 pounds of salt. I am super proud of this week. 

Did you stock up on salt this week? 

Past weeks:

Sugar

Beans

Rice

WinCo bulk prices

When I was looking to find good prices on stockpile items for our house I decided to check out WinCo. After reading some places online that their prices were good, I went to the local one to check them out for myself. I wrote down some of the prices for various bulk bin items. Below are the prices per pound locally. How do they compare to yours?

Himalayan pink rock salt 1.27/lb

Long grain white rice .53/lb

lentils brown .78/lb
black turtle beans .99/lb
split green peas .68/lb
great northern beans .94/lb
pinto beans .89/lb
kidney beans 1.19/lb
pink beans 1.05/lb

dutch baking cocoa 4.18/lb
instant nonfat milk 3.68/lb
instant yeast 3.43/lb
baking powder 1.16/lb

demerara raw cane sugar .91/lb
organic cane sugar 1.29/lb
powdered sugar .52/lb
brown sugar .61/lb
granulated sugar .44/lb

whole wheat flour .39/lb
unbleached flour .33/lb

$5 stock up challenge - Sugar

This week the stock up challenge was for sugar. I went to WinCo again and used the bulk bins. I was able to buy regular sugar, brown sugar and powdered sugar. 

I once again went over my $5 by spending $5.86. I cant even blame this on my husband this time. I was the one who did all of the scooping. I managed to get a decent amount of sugars for the money though. I really never thought I would learn much more on how to save money but this challenge has shown me that buying in bulk from the right store can save me even more than I was saving already. 

Are you doing the $5 stock up challenge? How much sugar did you get for your money? 

Past weeks:

Beans

Rice

$5 stock up challenge - beans

This week's challenge was for beans. We chose to stock up on kidney beans and split peas. Below is a picture of how I store my beans in the pantry. I use the canning jars. They have several uses in our house, including this one.

We got over 3 pounds of kidney beans and almost 2 pounds of split peas. As you can see by the receipt below we went over by a little bit but are still proud of what we were able to stock up on this week. 

Are you doing this challenge? What did you stock up on this week?

Here are my past weeks:

Week 1 - Rice

House plants

We used to be a military family and before we moved here we were stationed in England. Before we came back we had to find homes for our house plants that we had been given by nice neighbors. For the past year we have been living here and I have been trying to figure out how to get some new ones. I kept looking at the plants when we would go to the grocery store but couldn't convince myself to buy one because of the cost. 

Over the past year I have been trying to get some house plants but not pay out a bunch of money. I have one that I have from a clipping from my sister in law's house. I have another that the owner of the business I work for was giving away.  I have a Christmas cactus that I begged my husband to buy me for Christmas that was on sale at a local discount store. 

All of the plants in the picture above are now new residents in our home thanks to a generous person on Craigslist. I placed an ad about a week or two ago asking if anybody had any house plant cuttings that I could have to try to spruce up my house. A couple days ago a nice person emailed me and said they didn't have clippings but had some actual plants that I could come and pick up. I didn't know what to expect since I was really hoping for any kind of plant that I could add to my house. I never expected this much generosity. I didn't use the fact that I was low income or any other excuse when asking for some clippings, I simply stated that I was looking for some to add a little green to my house figuring that a clipping from someone's plant would be fun to try to grow. All of these plants came in some nice pots as well. 

I am so very thankful for the generosity of the person from Craigslist. 

Bleach deal at Target 3/30-03/5

This week only you can get bleach for $1 a bottle. This is almost half price. The ad says limit 3 per customer and that they will not give a rain check so if you need some bleach hurry over and get some. 

I was able to get 3 of the lavender scented bleach. All three of them came with $1 off coupons for another laundry product. The coupon has a pretty far out date so I am thinking I may be able to score another deal with them later. 

$5 a week stock up - rice

I read the Little House Living blog quite often. She has proposed a stock up challenge using only $5 a week. I usually have a pretty decent pantry of items but thought that limiting myself to only $5 dollars and using her list of stock up items, done the way my family eats, could prove to be fun. 

I am going to follow the list she put out and buy things that we would normally buy but look for the best deal that week and see how far I can stretch my $5. 

This week is rice. We use quite a bit of white rice and only a little bit of brown rice so I decided to stick with white rice for this week. I did some research and found that WinCo Foods looked to have the best price for an amount that would be close to $5. The long grain white rice is $.53/lb. Below is a picture of the rice and my receipt to show how much I paid.  

We went over a little bit but still got close to the $5 mark. We got just over 10 pounds of rice for $5.39. I think this price ends up being better than anywhere else but I am going to have to do a little more research on that. 

Head on over to Little House Living and join her challenge. I am so excited to see what everyone is able to do with their $5. 

I also got a chance to check out some of the other prices in the WinCo Foods bulk bin section and I am certain this challenge is going to end up saving me some money in the long run. 

Cheap treats- donuts

We love treats in our house as much as the next person. We don't have a lot to spend on treats though so they are usually homemade with basic baking ingredients or occasionally we can find them super cheap somewhere. These Entenmann's donuts are usually $3-4 a box. Our Oroweat bakery outlet gets these donuts in for $1 a box. These are a great treat for our family. I do not buy them very often because they have high fructose corn syrup in them but once every month or two we will get a couple boxes.

The Oroweat bakery outlet also gets great breads, buns, pitas, and bagels. We buy our whole wheat breads here at $1 per loaf when we haven't managed to bake our own at home. 

Have you ever been to a bakery outlet? What was your favorite thing there? 

Enter to win- Fender Guitar

Head over to Musicians Friend to enter their guitar giveaway. They are having a Fender 60th Anniversary giveaway. They are giving away a fabulous guitar this week. I would love to win this for my son's birthday in July.

Good luck to everybody that enters!

Swagbucks

I have been using Swagbucks for a few years now. It takes a few minutes (or as much time as you would like) each day to answer a question or do a search and you earn points. Those points can be redeemed for gift cards and prizes. I use my points to get $5 Amazon gift cards. It isn't much but I will take free gift cards for the little bit of work I put in to earn them. I can earn about one $5 Amazon gift card every month or two. Have you ever tried Swagbucks?  

Today is their 6th birthday! 

Iherb deals

There are some great deals on Iherb today! If you have never shopped with them in the past you can use my referral link and save $5 or $10 off your first order.

Free toothpaste sample

Stevia for $1

Organic coffee for $1 (expires soon)

And you can check out the Specials page to find more great deals. 

Fred Meyer - Extra 70% off Clearance

I was able to get my daughter a jacket today to grow into. This is part of how we save money on clothes. This week Fred Meyer is having an extra 70% off their clearance clothing. 

It is a great brand name and only $11.99 plus tax.

(please don't mind the wrong date on the pictures they were taken today)

Bath and Body Works Deal - Today only

Today I got a Bath and Body Works foaming soap and a hand sanitizer for $1.97 total. I had a coupon for buy anything and get a free hand soap. I picked the cheapest thing I could find with the hand sanitizer. I love the smell of Bath and Body Works stuff but it is expensive so this worked out to be a great deal for me. They also gave me a coupon for 20% off my purchase that is good in March. I probably wont use it but I thought it was cool. Head on over to Queenbeecoupons to find the coupon. This coupon is good for today only. (please don't mind the wrong date on my picture :( I just took it today)

Welcome

I am a 30 something year old mom to 4 wonderful children. I am married to a fabulous man since 2005. I started out my adult life rough then had the comfort of being a stay at home mom for several years and now we are back to living a really tight life. I am just trying to keep my head up every day and make sure that we have our basic needs met while trying to keep a few of our wants met too.

At the moment we have about $31,000 in debt from credit cards and vehicle payments that we are going to work at getting rid of so that we can buy a house. We would really love to have a mini farm but for now a house where we can have a decent garden and a few chickens is our goal.

I am a Hairstylist by trade. I have been licensed since 1999. I worked for 6.5 years in a salon before I was put on bed rest with my second child. We decided that I would be a stay at home mom for a while after that. It made the most sense to stay home since at the time my husband was in the military and deploying. I was at home until August 2013 because my husband got kicked out of the military. I am now working again and my husband is going to school full time to change careers. He is able to go to school for free because of the GI Bill that he earned while being in the military.

We believe that even though we are poor and things may be tight at times we should try to live and enjoy all of life. We have a fabulous family , a roof over our heads, and food in our bellies. We are truly blessed.

I will discuss things on this blog about how we are doing paying off our debt and the process of buying a house. I will share ways that we save money while still getting things we want or need. I will share deals that I find to help with budgets as well.