Busy, Busy, and more Busy

My friends I am incredibly sorry I haven't been blogging much. Our life is so full and busy with the kids being older I just have no time to sit down and actually think!!

We have the normal Church activities on Sundays and Wednesday Bible studies.

Our boys have ball games 2-3 days a week. As a matter of fact our oldest son's team are going into the Championships!! GO TIGERS!

We have also been trying to spend time with my parents. My mom lives only 5 minutes away so I can basically see her whenever our schedules meet. My dad, however, lives 45 minutes away and has a wacky work schedule so we have to make plans for seeing him and my little brother.

We have also been trying to do some fun things with the kids.

We took them to Young's Dairy up above Yellow Springs, Oh last week. It was so much fun. We played putt putt golf, hit balls in the batting cages and ate some of the most awesome ice cream ever.

We also do free things like hiking, going to parks, and fishing.

AND last but not least we have a yearly pass for my family +2  to the Columbus Zoo so on hubby's days off (because I hate driving around Columbus) we can take them to the zoo.

Oh and we plan on going to some Chillicothe Paint's baseball games :)

See...we are always doing something.

So when we are at home we are usually cleaning, doing laundry, eating and sleeping.

So my apologies for not being an active blogger.

However, today I wanted to share with you some of my favorite things from this past week.

1. My favorite lotion: Beautiful Day from Bath and Body works. I got it as a Christmas gift and it smells so good. I also use Johnson and Johnson's Honey Apple lotion.

2. Favorite food this week has been eggs. I eat eggs nearly every morning for breakfast.

3. Favorite drink this week: Sweet tea and water

4. Favorite past time: honestly, watching movies. I bet I have watched 10-15 movies this week.

5. What I should have done more of: Reading my Bible and Crochet.

6. Favorite song this week: Blessings by Laura Story

7. Favorite tv show: It's always Criminal Minds.

8. Favorite memory of this past week: Listening to my dad sing

9. Favorite sight this week: Baby tomatoes on my plants!!!!

10. Most used app: Facebook.

Ok so that is 10 very random things. So now I am going to get off of the electronics and crochet a bit.

Ball games start in a few hours and all my housework is done so I think I deserve it!!

Until I write again

Be Blessed

Erin

Coupons and Food Stamps: A financial update.

My friends if you have been following my blog for any length of time you know about my family's financial situation. For those of you who may be new to my blog I will give you a quick rundown.

We moved up here from Florida when child #3 was only a couple months old. While we lived in Florida we didn't have any financial troubles at all. We could go shopping every week and not bat an eye. All of our bills were paid, we had food, we were stable.

We decided a long time ago when my oldest child was very little I would be a stay at home mom. I did work off and on for a while. I did the fast food thing, I worked at a bank. BUT during that time my child was in daycare and seemed to get sick every other week. Each time she got sick I had to take her to the doctor and it would be upper respiratory or ear infections. I'd get her well and then boom as soon as she went back to daycare she was sick again. So we decided then that it would be best if I just stayed at home with our kids.

Fast forward to when we moved here to Ohio. My hubby got a job right away and quit a couple months later. He just couldn't deal with the politics that ran rampant in that place. Then he got another job pretty fast which decided to move to Mexico and permanently lay off their employees. A couple months went by and he got another job that closed its doors for good. Then he worked at a place that used materials he later found out he was allergic to.

As you can see we had a lot of hard times. We ended up getting public assistance as medicaid and food stamps because we just could not feed our kids. 

Luckily, my the last two jobs my hubby has had were long term jobs. One was at a factory and his current job is as a manager at a home improvement store. Once we moved into our new house (which we are buying) we decided we needed to get our finances in order. So over the past 5-6 years we have been taking steps to building our credit, making sure we paid our bills on time, and trying our best to save money.

This whole time we have had public assistance which helped us focus on other things because we knew our food was covered.

Now several years ago I learned how to coupon. I did this as a hobby because I really wanted a stockpile (which I still don't have). However, I kept with it because I was doubling or tripling the amount of food I was getting with our food stamps.

I can proudly say we have finally reached our goal of becoming self-sufficient and not relying on public assistance any longer. We have our own health insurance through my husband's company and with the use of coupons, we have been able to get off of food stamps. I have around $200 dollars a month that I allot for groceries and household needs. I use coupons and bulk stores to get our family's needs for the least amount of money.

On top of my normal coupon routine I am also keeping a notebook with the prices from around 7 stores of our most commonly used items. That way I know I am always getting a great price for the things my family needs. I know this sounds like a lot of work BUT since I am a stay at home mom, I have made couponing and getting the best prices for the items we need as my outside job. This is just one way I can contribute to my family financially.

My friends, that is all I can write for now. I have loads of things to get done today. We don't have any ball games to go to today so I have a full day I can catch up on my house duties which have doubled since the kiddos have been out for summer vacation.

Until we meet again,

Be Blessed

Erin