Extreme Couponing

Move over Real Housewives of Everywhere, I have a new series linked obsession. Actually it's a bit sad, but I am hooked.

Extreme Couponing. 

It's pathetic and embarrassing and I love it.

If you have not yet had the pleasure, the show basically follows an "Extreme Couponer" as they prepare and execute a massive shopping trip armed with a folder or box crate full of neatly clipped and itemised coupons. The aim of the game is to get as much as they can, for very little out of pocket expense. It doesn't really go into how these people are able to amass such large numbers of coupons, although some have been known to climb into recyling waste bins...

You also get to see their personal "stock pile" of free or heavily discounted items lining the walls of their homes. Paper towel seems to be a popular item, as is deodarant, sports drinks, tooth paste and cereal. Obviously items with a long shelf life are the most desirable.

But its the suspense of the checkout that really has me sucked in, the whole process is rife with potential hiccups.

Did they count out exactly 700 toothbrushes?

Will all of their coupons scan correctly?

Is the checkout chick going to lose her shit at having to spend 3 hours serving 1 anxious, hyperventilating tightarse?

Edge of your seat stuff I tell you.

I find myself cheering for the reductions and marvelling at the savings. 

How on earth do they do it? 

How did they just buy $1,000 worth of groceries and the store owes them money?

What the hell are they going to do with 94 packets of croutons? 

Most importantly, why don't we have couponing in Australia? 

I think I would be good at it. I have couponing nerd written all over me. Nothing gets me more excited than a spreadsheet of promised savings. I have even put one together to track our spending before. Not to mention the meticulously labeled and ordered folders that you need to keep it all organised.

Yep, I was made for couponing. Get me in there!

As much as the show amuses me, if I let myself think about it too long it actually is a little bit depressing. I think it's great that families are able to recover from financial hardship using this system, but I can't help but worry about the sheer compulsive consumerism of a 16 year old boy proudly displaying his shelf of feminine hygiene products that he just had to get because they were free. The same kid that complained he had to go 5 weeks without couponing because his inconsiderate bastard family took him to Mexico for a holiday. 

And I don't care how good the sale was, I cannot see a reason why I would need a 50 year supply of the same crappy roll on deodarant sitting in my garage. Variety is the spice of life people!

Still, it kinda leaves our 2 Helga loaves for $6 for dead doesn't it?

Newborns vs Toddlers - A Day At The Shops

When Skye was a newborn, the very idea of leaving the house with her terrified me. The first time I had to take her to visit the baby clinic nurse I was so anxious I packed the triple checked nappy bag and pram into the car the night before, and had my mum, who lives an hour away, come with me to make sure I didn't bugger up the whole car seat/pram biz on my first solo outing. I freaked out about nap and feed times clashing with appointments, stressed about whether there would be a parents room available if Skye needed a feed, and dreaded what I would do if she had a nappy explosion in the car.

As she got older, I began to realise just how straight-forward a trip out with a newborn actually is when compared to taking a toddler along as your shopping buddy. Not to mention the nappy bag overflowing with snacks and toys and dead flowers pinched from some beautifully landscaped display home.

To demonstrate my point I have put together a little timeline of a simple trip to a Shopping Centre requiring me to get some pyjamas / sleeping suits and some milk.

Going out with a newborn

Pack nappy bag.

Make sure you have twice as many nappies as you would think reasonable for a 3 hour trip, I like to run with about 8. You will also need wipes, disposable nappy bags, a full change of clothes with warm and cold weather options, a couple of wraps and if breastfeeding, be sure to check you packed your boobs.

Load baby into car.

Drive to destination listening to all of your favourite rude words songs while baby sleeps peacefully.

                                    

Arrive at your destination, load baby into pram, store nappy bag, enter Shopping Centre.

Baby will most likely want to be fed before you get started so grab a coffee and some kind of cake and find a parent room or quiet spot to feed baby.

Baby will most likely have filled their nappy during the feed so change baby, finish your coffee and head  towards your first shop. 

Purchase Wondersuits and Baby Sleeping Bag.

                                    

     

Realise baby has fallen asleep so take advantage and peruse a couple of other shops, buy yourself a cute pair of shoes then pick up the milk.

Sense baby is beginning to stir and return to car.

Load baby, pram, nappy bag and purchases into the car.

Drive home listening to all of your favourite rude words songs while baby sleeps peacefully.

Arrive home, feed and change baby.

Put baby to bed.

Have a coffee and unpack purchases and give yourself a pat on the back for a successful day out.

Going out with a toddler.

Pack nappy bag.

If toddler is still in nappies, pack as many as you would think reasonable for a 3 hour trip. I like to run with about 3. You will also need wipes, disposable nappy bags, a full change of clothes, a jumper, hat, dummy, blankie, a sandwich, apple, banana, sultanas, drink, muesli bar, le snack, grapes and a mandarin, don't forget the 3 most popular toys of the day including a ride on unicorn and a plastic cash register.

Load toddler and various paraphernalia into the car, it should take about 3 trips.

Drive to destination while fielding questions from your toddler about the rain, cat whiskers and why you have toes. Feed toddler the apple, muesli bar and drink. Sing the incy wincy spider eleventy billion times.

Arrive at your destination, almost crash your car because your toddler has asked you to LOOK AT THIS!!! as you are pulling into your parking space. 

Explain to toddler that daddy cannot get her out of the car because daddy is at work. 

Forcibly remove toddler from car and explain to toddler that she must go into the pram because it is too far to walk.

Forcibly secure toddler into pram, give toddler a sandwich, store nappy bag, find a space for the ride unicorn, enter Shopping Centre.

Toddler will most likely want to play in the play centre before you get started so grab a coffee and some kind of cake and move to the play equipment.

Surrender cake to toddler.

                                     

Toddler will most likely have filled their nappy during this time so go to parents room to change them. 

Head towards your first shop.

Give toddler a box of sultanas.

Purchase pyjamas, 4 pink t shirts, a pair of light up joggers, a plastic lion, a glitter hat and a lollipop. 

Realise toddler has tipped contents of sultanas onto the floor, continue walking. 

Quickly.

Sense toddler is about to crack it, return to the car.

Load toddler, pram, nappy bag, ride on unicorn and purchases into the car.

Drive home listening to your toddler complain that they want to get out.

See your toddler fall asleep as you turn into your street.

                                 

    

Attempt to transfer toddler into the house while still sleeping. Toddler will most likely wake up believing she has slept for 2 hours and does not require any more rest today. 

Attempt to make a coffee and discover you forgot to buy the milk.

Listen to over-tired toddler having a hissy fit because you put the grapes in the green bowl instead of the pink one.

Vow to make all future purchases online.

Preparing for Baby Number 2

It's amazing how much a little experience can change the way you approach things and never is that more true than when you are preparing for the arrival of a new baby. I don't believe that I went overboard when preparing for Skye's arrival, but I would absolutely say that my priorities this time around are very different indeed.

While I was pregnant with Skye, I spent an excessive amount of time scrolling through post after post on Apartment Therapy searching for ideas for the perfect nursery. Probably the only thing that really kept me from going all out (aside from the money factor) was the fact that we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl. It meant that I had to restrain myself when looking at clothing, bedding, toys, wall decorations and all that other fun stuff that has nothing to do with actually having a baby, but was my biggest fixation the first time around.

Prior to Skye's birth I did not even own a single Wondersuit. 

They horrified me.  

I could not think of a more daggy, boring item to dress my gorgeous new baby in than a towelling all-in-one whose design had not changed since before I was born. Besides, Skye was a Summer baby, what the hell would I need a Wondersuit for?

The second day in hospital in arctic frost air conditioning quickly changed my mind and I discovered they had the added bonus of making a newborn far easier to hold, velcro like even. A safety feature that cannot be underestimated when you are a sleep deprived first time parent.

A Massive Impulse Purchase

When you think about impulse purchases its usually something small like a new shirt, or a cute vase or in my case going out to do the groceries and coming home with a new Dyson... 
but a block of land? Surely that's not considered a snap decision purchase, at least not normally.

But that's exactly what happened here about 4 weeks ago.

Babycino's, Fluffy Slippers and Car Strollers - The Essentials Of Car Servicing

This week it was time to get the car serviced. Oh the joy. When you live hundreds of miles (ok, like 20 minutes) from everything, it's just not practical to drop the car off and then try to get back home only to have to try and get back to pick the car up a matter of hours later. Plus, public transport is pretty much non-existent on the Central Coast of NSW, so our best option is to make a day of it at the nearby Westfield Shopping Centre. 


This time I thought I had it all planned out. After too many occasions where I thought I would be nice and tell them I had no particular time I needed the car back thus spending roughly 7 hours pacing up and down the same 5 stores waiting for my magic phone call, I had told them that I required the car back at lunchtime. We would go to the shops for a couple of hours and pick up a couple of things, then head home in time for a nap.


Perfect.


Never going to happen.

5 Reasons Why Retail Drives Me Crazy

I am sure you have noticed by now that I love a bit of shopping, but it may come as a surprise that I hate going to the shops. It’s not just the obviously annoying things like the crowds, the lack of parking, and of course the mission that is getting Skye in and out of the car and convincing her to sit in a stroller while I do my thing. Everyone hates that, so there wouldn’t be much point in my ranting about that would there? Of course not. So instead I have put together the top 5 not so obvious reasons why retail shopping drives me crazy.

Poor Customer Service
OK, so this is probably a pretty common one, but indulge me. Last week I purchased an iron from a rather reputable appliances retailer. I took the advice of the very helpful sales assistant and purchased a mid-range model expecting that it would be more than suitable for my sporadic requirements. Once I got it home and gave it a test run I discovered it did not actually get hot, at all. Iron101 fail. The next day I returned the product wanting to exchange it for a different model and was treated like I was being difficult for doing so. I would have thought that for $90 it was reasonable to expect that the product performed its most basic function. Apparently their customer service department disagrees.

Christmas: Printing and Gifting

Ever since we had Skye I have found getting Christmas gifts for some of our relatives so much easier. Generally Grandparents and Great Grandparents love anything that has a photo of a small child slapped on it and it’s far less weird now that I can use photo’s of my own child. The list of items you can personalise with a picture is amazing, so you are sure to find something that will suit. Last year I gave out personalised calendars and they were a big hit with everyone, this year I hope to do something similar and have also ordered some canvas prints for some of the relatives. The budget and scale of your personalised gifts is also flexible and here I am going to share some of my favourites.

Raiders Of The Lost Wardrobe

Last week I talked about the amount of ‘gifted’ items we have cluttering up the house and how I struggled to get rid of these items despite them taking up space and remaining completely unused. With the holidays approaching and the likelihood of extra guests coming to stay I have felt the need to do a bit of a clean out and this week I am focussing on our built-ins. After a quick assessment of my clothes I was able to throw out a whole garbage bag of ugliness I was never going wear again and there is more to come, but I couldn’t resist the chance to share some of the pieces I pulled from the depths of my wardrobe.

Bye-bye dagginess!

Confessions Of A Magazine Addict

As the title suggests I have a bit of an obsession with glossy lifestyle magazines. I can keep my habit under control for most of the year but come Christmas time I simply cannot say no. The colourful front covers draw me in with promises of bumper gift guides, cheap and chic gifts to make and bake, festive flair tips and how I can decorate like the experts. I want to dive into the pages of these publications and immerse myself in all the shiny freshly painted fabulousness. As I pour over the stockists lists and curse why so many of the stores are rather inconveniently located in Melbourne, I store the images in the ‘one day’ file in my head.

I bought these in the space of 2 days.

Add To Cart–The Online Gamble

I have a bit of a reputation with my friends for having a serious online shopping habit. It started off fairly innocently buying beauty products off strawberrynet.com – which I have since managed to earn the maximum loyalty discount on, and the odd piece of clothing etc off eBay. It swiftly progressed to the buying of new items of clothing, shoes and accessories, stationery, bed linen, floor rugs, vacuume cleaners, makeup, Skye’s bedroom furniture. In fact you name it, I have probably bought it online. It’s not just me though, Luke has a weakness for eBay that saw the first couple of weeks infatuation resulting in the phrase ‘I think I just bought something’ being said over and over again. I quickly taught him how to add things to his watch list to try and overcome this problem. The biggest purchase he has made is a trencher, but mostly he sticks to bike and fishing paraphernalia. Needless to say we are fans of “Add to Cart”.

Fix It Friday–Recipe Folders

Here is the first in hopefully a series of Fix It Friday posts. This week I am focussing on making some adjustments to how I keep my recipes. Earlier this year, I bought this very pretty recipe binder from Typo. Super cute, lots of divider sections, a pocket for loose recipes and takeaway menus and a notepad for writing any special handed down recipes. But as sweet as it looked, it just didn’t work for me.

Switching to Aldi Saved Me $1000 In 3 Months

I tried to resist, I really did. If you had told me at the beginning of this year I would be a regular Aldi shopper I would have told you that you were off your tree. My first grocery shopping experience left me feeling harassed, confused and desperate for a glass of wine – at 10am! It was brutal. I returned home and swore I would never bother putting myself through the chaos again just to save a few dollars. After sharing my experience with you all I received so much encouragement and handy tips that I decided to give it another go. With a little more preparation I could see my naivety in jumping in and assuming I would be able to just suddenly start shopping at Aldi as if it were like switching between Coles and Woolworths. It is a different world filled with unknown brands, haphazard product placement and of course the frantic race to get all your gear back into your trolley at the checkout before it avalanches. But the numbers don’t lie and after some nerdy spread sheet tweaking I discovered that we had spent $1000 less this quarter on groceries than we had the previous one. Winning!

A Month of Meal Planning

In the constant pursuit of saving money on the weekly groceries I have made a number of changes over the last few months such as making a weekly menu plan, cooking in bulk and freezing future meals and on a couple of occasions attempting to convert myself to Aldi, which you can read about here and here. All of these tactics have given us some relief both financially and in time saved so I thought I would take it a step further and try to plan a whole month of meals buying as much as I can in one transaction. I have found a number of great pages that do this as a standard procedure, especially Stay At Home Mum, the secret to living on one wage.

Here is my plan of action for the next 4 weeks:

The No Excuses To-Do List

There are so many little (and big) things around our place that I would love to make improvements to. Some things like the kitchen require big dollars and careful consideration while other things like painting our bedroom and updating some of our decor are fairly inexpensive and straightforward, but can make such a big difference to the overall feel of our house. I have been procrastinating about some pretty minor changes that need to be made so I am hoping that by listing them here I might be more accountable and get on with it already!

 

My $200 Kitchen Make Over

If you are reading this hoping for “wow factor”, or dazzling before and afters done on a teeny budget,  or really any kind of inspiration for updating your own kitchen – sorry, you might be disappointed. If you are reading this to see how a couple of small and inexpensive additions can make a world of difference to your cooking happiness, then you might just be in luck. You may have seen my post recently on my dismay about my kitchen and my conundrum as to whether to spend money on renovations or wait until we buy a bigger house (someday). My kitchen has many faults, some of which require a complete overhaul, but some, like the ones I am talking about today, have such simple solutions I am kicking myself I didn’t do them years ago!

Hooray for Colour!

Ok, so I am no fashion expert and I have no intentions of trying to keep up with likes of Styling You or Fox in Flats but after months of jeans and a thousand variations of grey something I am so excited to see all the bright colours being previewed in the new Spring Fashion Collections. A couple of weeks ago I was most displeased to see that the summer clothes were starting to hit the shelves but as the weather has warmed up nicely I am ready to shed my winter woolies in favour of a little fun.

I blame this handbag really, I was quite happy in my muted tones and heavy boots until I spotted this beauty from Country Road. The colour is so bright and happy and I have long had a love affair with their beautiful bags. I wonder how long it will be before my Aldi savings can pay for one of these baby’s…

Once I saw this I was on the hunt for as much colour as I could find, and it would seem that this season is not going to disappoint. Everywhere right down to the budget friendly Big W is getting in on the action, check out this cute skirt, I am also a little bit in love with the red shoes.

I defy anyone to be cranky whilst wearing a pair of yellow shoes (Wanted Shoes)

Of course some items may not totally fit my current lifestyle, but I still thought this kaftan seen in the latest David Jones catalogue was too special to not mention. What? You think it might be a bit much for hanging the clothes out or ducking down the street for some milk? Yes okay, fair call, but in my head I would totally rock it.

Have you ventured into the new bold colours of summer yet? I would love you to share your favourite new finds.

I Like to Nude It, Nude It

Don’t panic, I’m not going to post any unsavoury photos of myself in the buff. Today I am talking about my nifty little Nude Food Movers lunch box that I use for Skye’s Day Care day. Now I’ll admit, I am a little uneducated when it comes to lunch boxes and the like and I only happened upon these by accident, but it has worked out to be the perfect way to package Skye’s enormous array of lunch and snack options.

Aldi: Reloaded

I feel that the Matrix reference is apt since it’s kind of like entering an alternate world and you have to be able to move like Neo to keep up at the checkouts. Its been a little under a month since my first venture to Aldi and while it still freaks me out a bit, I am starting to come around. I learnt my lesson and have avoided going there on a Thursday when crazy Kill Zone sales begin and I have found the list making facility on their website quite useful in planning and comparing items. I have also had a chance to do some research via Aldi Mum and some very helpful reader responses since my last post and I have felt better prepared on my subsequent visits, to the point where I could almost say I am converted!

 

Happiness Is…

A mummy treating herself to a little budget shopping spree,

Complete with new red shoes

Aldi–The Good, The Bad and The Crazy

Everyone is feeling the squeeze of increased grocery prices and the world of blogging as been abuzz with talk of budgets, meal planning and … Aldi. I have to admit, Aldi has always freaked me out a bit. There doesn’t seem to be much rhyme or reason to some of the product placement and the fact that there is a mini department store running through the middle of it selling a different random theme every week is just weird. I can safely say I have never walked into a shop hoping to buy my milk, bread and an air compressor in one transaction. For many years I have stayed in my Woolworths and Coles comfort zone. I know where things are, I can get all my meat, fruit and veg and baby stuff in one trip and the quality of generic brand products has improved dramatically.