Shoppings and Month End

So after September's budget upset, October has proved to be a much better month. Most successful, actually! To recap, having learned a lot of the fun rules of this shopping game I've been playing, my next goal has been to start the harder task of seriously reducing our monthly budget (food, toiletries, cleaning supplies, eating out, etc. There are still some things that I have a seperate allotment for [clothes, dog related stuff, and such], but our basic month to month expenses are all counted in that total).

I've shrunk our monthly budget down to $60 a week. While I would ultimately like to get my total down a little bit from there, I honestly don't know how much more that will be possible because of the price of all of the fun and far more expensive gluten free products for which I see few deals. Regardless, I've shrunk our budget down by over $100, so that's good. I'm going to leave it at $60 a week for now and see how it goes for a few months before making further budgetary slashes.

Admittedly, not having the option of eating out that much is really helping matters (sad but true...and I'm actually beginning to cringe a lot at the price of eating out...). As is the fact that I seem to finally be getting into a really good rhythym of menu planning. Even on the weeks where I plan a menu and then end up not following it some days, it's still helping me to focus a lot more on really thinking through what we have, planning out ahead of time (setting meat out to thaw before getting home from work), and those sorts of things.

Now, for the sake of full disclosure, I will admit I went over my budget by $10.00 and so had to pull that $10.00 from the gas budget; however, as our gas prices went down to (prepare yourself.........) $1.98 this week (screams of shock, doors slamming as people run to pack their bags and move here...), I think we'll survive.

So, why the $10.00 extra dollars? Well, here's the story.

I started this week with $55.43 left to spend for the month. Having determined the week's budget and checked to see what essentials we were running low on, we went to WalMart/Aldi's and picked up the basics for a grand total of $36.29 (that included stocking up on a couple of items which were on a really good sale).

Walgreens not really having much to interest me this week, the only other place I hit was CVS. They did have a couple of really good deals:

• Laundry Detergent on sale for $5.99 B1G1 plus with a $1.00 coupon = $4.99 (making my total about $0.07 a load).
• Bic razor was on sale for $4.99. I had a $2.00 off coupon and received $4.00 back in ECBs. Talk about getting your money's worth!

CVS is also running a really good deal on medical related stuff this week. Basically, spend $20 get $10 back in ECBs. Well, I didn't need a whole lot; however, Chris has wanted to try this disgusting sounding thing out called a Neti Pot (it's supposed to help with clearing your nose out, click here to see a rather disturbing demonstration! He has horrible allergy and sinus problems, so if it works, great. But I still say it looks disgusting.), and there were some eye drops that I needed. I figured this would be a good and relatively inexpensive way to let him try out the nose pot.

So, the Netti pot cost $11 and the eye drops were $9.00 (name brand) minus a $2.00 coupon that happened to be on the pot (love those) and a $3.00 coupon for the solution, I totaled $15.00 with $10.00 back in ECBs.

Now, I also had a $10/$50 coupon that I got for CVS last week (they've been doing a lot of the $/$$ coupons lately - love them!), so I decided this would be a good chance to buy the popcorn maker I really have wanted to get. Since all regular microwave popcorn seems to be covered in things I really need to avoid and buying organic microwave popcorn is ridiculously expensive, buying a popcorn maker to just air pop my own seems the cheapest solution (yes, I could do it even cheaper on a stove with oil, but I prefer the taste of air-popped). So, I snagged my popcorn maker.

End result, my total was $55.98. Minus $18.00 in coupons and $9.00 in ECBs, I spent $28.98 oop thus going over my budget by $10.00 (but getting back $15 in ECBs). $10 for a good pocorn maker - an acceptable price!

And I'm feeling pretty confident about being able to really make this whole smaller budget concept work!

My Points - online money maker

Since June, I've been playing with a new way to earn some easy money online. It's called MyPoints. What you can do through MyPoints is earn points that eventually earn you gift cards to places. No money out of your pocket (unless you so choose) and yet you get money back! How?

Well, there's basically three ways to get points:

1. MyPoints sends you emails daily (about 5 or so a day), you open them, read the ad, and click through at the bottom (for the paranoid - as in myself - I checked this out before signing up and couldn't find any reports of virus problems or anything like that). You don't have to sign up for anything and it automatically credits you 5 points per email. Now, if you should decide to follow through on the offered ad, then you can earn more points. There's been a couple of free offers that I signed up for out of curiosity, but nothing else.

NOTE: I would highly recommend you open up a junk mail account if you decide to try this - particularly if you actually take up some of the offers. I've heard that if you don't ever sign up for anything, the junk mail isn't too bad...but I wouldn't trust it!

2. You can shop online at tons of stores through MyPoints. And every dollar you spend at the store, you get points for. For example, I bought a book the other day through MyPoints. The book cost me $8.00 and I earned 16 MyPoints. Not an amazing amount, but hey, every bit counts!

There are other sites that I'm also looking into that do a similar thing; however, I went with MyPoints first as it really is one of the least complicated (at least thus far - more reports on other sites to come).

3. I believe there is a credit card you can sign up for with MyPoints and earn points for all your purchases through the credit card. Please note, I have not signed up for this card (I'm very loyal to my American Express!) and really can't attest to anything about this angle of MyPoints.

[Also (just have to say this!), I highly recommend that you do not sign up for any kind of credit card unless you know you can handle a credit card. While Chris and I do put just about everything on our cards, our bill also gets completely paid off every month (we use the card to build up frequent flyer miles - very important in my world!). I know of too many people who cannot handle the freedom of a credit card and wind up getting into debt by its existance (and yes, I do speak of personal - if minorish - experience in this matter). OK, off my soap box!]

So, since June, I've earned 2649 points. This was with no work on my part other than clicking through emails. I've received a $10 Borders gift card back for 1400 of those points and am close to being able to get another gift card (there are tons of options and price ranges for what is available - just depends on how patient you are in letting the points build up!).

I went ahead and got the Borders card just to check out if this works, and it seems to be just fine! Next time I'm going to try to save up points for longer and get a higher gift card. I've considered using this as a resource for buying gifts for people or buying household stuff that we need/want but don't necessarily always have extra money for (like new sheets or towels or pillows...you get the idea!). Or just on whatever. It's still up in the research phase.

Any ways, if you're looking for a money idea, I highly recommend this one.

Oh, and do me a favor (pretty, pretty, please)...if you're thinking of signing up, leave me a message (don't worry I won't post it) here with your name and email address. I can then refer you through my MyPoints account. For every person I refer who signs up with MyPoints I earn 250 points! So help me out folks! Share the MyPoints!

Cream of Soups (Gluten Free)

Since I've started this whole gluten free diet I've learned a lot about food. Actually reading the ingredients of prepackaged food has become a rather disturbing experience to me as I'm discovering not just how much gluten there is in everything but how much garbage is in the food we - as a Western society - eat. When I'm reading a label and realize I don't know what half of the words are, there's a problem!

However, we are also a pre-packaged society. Recipes tend to call for things like 1 can of cream of chicken soup or other such ingredients. And since these ingredients tend to be full of nasty glutenies, I'm faced with the problem of - how do I make this for myself?


And so here is the answer to at least one of those conundrums: cream of soups!


Now, I will say, my only issue with this recipe (and it's variations) is that the soup does come out a bit more watery than a store-bought can of creamed soup does. Just be forewarned. Also, please note, that while I have made the cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soups, I have yet to make the others. So if they're disgusting - I apologize!


Mix the following. These can be stored in an airtight container and used as needed. This mix makes the equivalent of about 8 or 9 cans of soup:



1 cup non-instant dry milk or nondairy substitute
1 cup white rice flour
2 tbsp dried minced onions
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp salt
3 tbsp GF powdered chicken or vegetable soup base (note: I've found that Herb-Ox is a great GF bullion that seems to be readily accessible from regular grocery stores. Very fresh tasting and no MSG).



Cream of Chicken soup:

Blend 3 to 4 tbsp (depending on how thick you want the soup) of soup base with 1/4 cup cold water. Add 1 cup hot or cold water (or chicken stock) and cook, stirring, until the soup thickens.


Cream of Mushroom Soup:

Follow the instructions for Cream of Chicken soup but use the liquid from one 4-oz can of mushroom bits and pieces as part of the water (reserving the mushrooms). After the soup thickens you can add the mushrooms.



Cream of Tomato Soup:
Follow the instructions for Cream of Chicken soup but use one 5.5 oz can of V-8 juice as part of the liquid.



Cheese Soup or Sauce:

Follow the instructions for Cream of Chicken soup but use 1/4 cup creamed soup base. Add 1/4 cup extra water. Stir in 1/2 to 2/3 cup grated cheddar cheese before removing from the stove.



Shrimp Soup or Sauce: (this is the one I'm a little concerned about!)

Follow the instructions for Cream of Chicken soup but use one 8oz bottle clam juice plus the 1/4 cup water, and add one 41/2 oz can broken shrimp (drained) or 1/2 cup cut-up, cooked shrimp before removing from the stove.


Tasty Cream Sauce:

Melt 1 tbsp butter in small saucepan and ad 1 tsp chopped chives or 2 thinly sliced green onions before putting in the soup base. Add 11/4 cups hot water and cook as directed for Cream of Chicken Soup.


To Use in a Casserole:

If the casserole calls for canned soup and is to be baked over 1 hour, just tumble the Creamed Soup Mix with the ingredients and pour on 11/4 to 11/2 cups hot water. What you're supposed to do if it calls for less than 1 hour, not a clue!