Inbetween booty

I popped out today to do some in between shopping, you know, after one holiday and before the next.  Just enough to get through.  These week-end holidays have my nice little routine all discombobulated!  The bonus is that the Dollar General Market is having another $5 off coupon this Saturday, Jan. 1st.  They seem to do this every other week, for one day only, always a Sat. and never before a holiday.  That $5 off takes care of sale tax on $50 worth of food!  Anyway . . . I just wanted to brag on a major mark-down find I found today at the Bi-Rite.  I snagged their last three bags of fresh cranberries at less than half price!  I don't know about where you are, but here they reached $2.50 a bag - I know!  So we only had one bag for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas.  These I will freeze for next year (they are good in the freezer for up to a year) when they might just be $3 a bag, geesh.  I got a couple of other good finds as well.  I just want to remind everyone in these tight times to always look for reduced items.  Most major stores mark perishables and discontinued items to half price and keep them in a special location.  There are even stores that cater to discontinued items, down here they are called grocery outlet stores or united grocery outlets (u-go's).  You can often times even find organic items at these stores.  I do the bulk of my shopping with reduced food and at our Dollar General Market.  I save on gas as out local Wal-marts and other chains are over 20 miles away.   I haven't grocery shopped at a Wal-mart in over a year, except to pick up some extras while camping.  However I will go to our 'uptown' Kroger to get hard to find specialty items such as aluminum -free baking powder and egg replacement powder.

While we are on the subject of being frugal, I want to pass along a little tibbet of wisdom I gleaned and have made my mantra: Never buy anything new if you don't have too.  That has sure helped us live on one income so I can be a SAHM whom homeschools and raised godly children.  I mean if you bed sheet rips . . . sew it.  Paying  $15 for a large bag of clothing (works out to about  $.80 for 20 pieces) is much better for growing kids than $10 an item at the chain store.  You get the picture.  Take back your lives and your cash and stop being lemmings with a heard mentality for the consumer company's who make cheap items so that you will have to keep purchasing new every 4-6 months!  And above all else, let God take care of you.  Pray to Him, give all glory to Him and put all your faith in Him.  He needs your help far less often than you suppose.  Look to Matthew 6:19-34. 

Ok, enough, off my soap box (recycled don't ya know) now.  LOL  Blessings, Beth Ann