February Grocery Challenge Wrap Up - Made It!

Happy to say I stayed under budget this month. I rewarded myself by buying myself some chocolate bars. This however may not have been a great idea. The "side effect" of sticking to a budget this month has been that I've not purchased a lot of junk food and, therefore, we've all eaten better and I'm slowly losing weight. Here's the last couple days...

Sunday Feb. 26th
No spending.
Made venison chili for dinner.

Monday Feb. 27th
No spending.
Left overs for dinner.

Tuesday Feb 28th
Ran through Aldi and picked up a dozen eggs for $0.88 and a 3lb bag of mandarin oranges for $1.99. I'll get 0.50 back for the eggs from Checkout 51.

Next stop was Kroger. There were some new digital coupons that showed up over the weekend for $1 off 2 16-oz Kroger peanut butter jars, available to use 5 times in a single transaction. Just so happens that their peanut butter is on sale for $1 until tomorrow. Woohoo!!
Also picked up a few freebies and Mega Sale items, then treated myself to the chocolate bars I've been eyeballing all month (seriously). They had had the new Hershey's cookie layer bars as a Free Friday download earlier in the month and I really liked it. They are $1 each and I had $1 off 2 coupons. I also wanted to try the new Milka Oreo cookie chocolate bars. They are 0.79 and I had a 0.55 insert coupon that came out over the weekend, plus Checkout 51 is giving back 0.55, so essentially more than free after the Checkout 51 money back. Ended up with...

10 16-oz jars of Kroger peanut butter @ 1.00 each sale price (regularly 1.29)
1 Milka Oreo candy bar @ 0.79
1 jar Ragu pasta sauce @ 1.79 (Mega Sale item)
1 box Cascadian Farms granola cereal @ 2.99 (Mega Sale item)
2 16-oz boxes Ronzoni veggie pasta spaghetti @ 0.99 each (Mega Sale item)
1 can Kroger refrigerated crescent rolls @ 1.39 (Mega Sale item)
1 16-oz box Creamette macaroni @ 0.99 (Mega Sale item)
4.49 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts @ 7.95
1 Chobani Flip yogurt @ 1.25
8 Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch bars @ 1.00 each
subtotal 37.13
- 3.00 (Mega Sale Buy 6 items instant discount)
- 5 (1.00 off 2 Kroger PB digital coupon)
- 0.55 (Milka Oreo insert coupon)
- 1.29 (free Ragu Kroger coupon)
- 2.49 (free Cascadian Farms cereal Kroger coupon)
- 0.50 (off 2 Ronzoni pasta Kroger digital coupon)
- 0.50 (Kroger refrigerated crescent rolls digital coupon)
- 1.25 (Chobani yogurt Free Friday download coupon)
- 4 (1.00 off 2 Hershey's Cookie Layer Crunch insert coupons)
18.55
+0.62 tax on all the candy bars
19.17

Total for everything today $22.04

I'm donating 2 jars of peanut butter, the Ragu and the Ronzoni noodles.

This is what I ended up for my February donations...

$19.59 for everything in the photo

3 bottles Suave shampoo
3 bottles Suave conditioner
6 bottles Herbal Essences shampoo
6 bottles Herbal Essences conditioner
4 bottles Vaseline lotion
3 boxes 10-ct Kroger instant oatmneal
4 Speed Stick deodorants
3 Axe deodorants
2 16-oz jars Kroger peanut butter
1 jar Ragu
2 16-oz boxes Ronzoni veggie spaghetti noodles
3 boxes 80-ct Up and Up bandaids

Total regular shelf price was $103.58 so I saved over 81% combining sales, store promotions and coupons.

I ended up having to move the Ocean Spray grapefruit juice to my grocery spending cause my husband saw it sitting in my donation pile and said he wanted it to drink for himself.

I also had to move one of the Axe deodorants to my grocery budget too cause my daughter grabbed one. I had had the HBA donation stash stored on a shelf in her bathroom... until I realized she was going to help herself. She already had two other deodorants partially used in her room so when I asked why she took the Axe, she said she wanted to see what it was like. Arghhh! After that, the donation stash got moved to the basement.

This is one of the problems I run into with couponing and stockpiling. I've found that if I get a bunch of similar things... shampoo, cereal, etc... in different scents or flavors, the kids want to open or try one of everything "to see what it's like." Needless to say, it makes me crazy to find 4 different opened boxes of cereal or shampoo... and so I hide stuff. Does anyone else have this problem?

All in all, I'm happy with how the month went. I've stocked up on laundry detergent, paper towels, coffee, shampoo, conditioner, and peanut butter. I stayed under budget and I think we ate better too since I was able to meal plan more. That being said, I've decided to continue my challenge through the first 21 days of March. Taking the last week of March off because we will be on Spring Break. Budget for the first 21 days of March will be $150. I want to show that this is a sustainable budget and not just a one time thing.

February Grocery Spending: $199.24
February Donation Spending: $19.59

Training Log 2/19/17 - 2/25/17 - First World Problem of the Week

My first world problem of the week...

I got my April work schedule this week, and I saw it. Carmel Marathon weekend, blank. I didn't ask for the weekend off but I had it off. I'm scheduled to work the weekend before on Easter Sunday and the weekend after which is Derby Marathon weekend, but Carmel Marathon weekend was blank.

My brain started racing. Could I do it? Could I be marathon ready in 9 weeks? The distance was not an issue but if I was going to run a spring marathon, I wanted a Boston qualifying time.

Buoyed by my weekend 10K, I started typing in my 10K time in all the race prediction calculators. It would be close. My current 10K time put me at anywhere between 3:53 and 4:00. It would be very close. But... I reasoned... I have 9 weeks. 9 weeks to improve and build a distance base. Just maybe...

Never mind that my longest run to date was 10 miles. Distance has never been an issue for me. It's the pace. Surely I could get two or three 20-milers in over the next couple weeks, then hit a quick taper...

That was my thinking going into the week.

Sunday 2/19 - Rest. Walked around the mall some with my daughter to loosen up my legs after Saturday's race.

Monday 2/20 - 3 miles on the county road. It was HOT! Almost 70 degrees in February. I didn't feel like running as I was tired from working overnight but it was a beautiful day and I felt like I should get a couple miles in.

Tuesday 2/21 - 6 miles on the hamster track. The temperature was still very nice but it was gray and overcast out and I didn't feel like fighting traffic out on the road so I ran indoors. I didn't really feel like running but once I got started it actually turned into a very good run.

Wednesday 2/22 - 13 miles. I had it in my head that I was going to run 15 miles today.

I missed Run Club on Tuesday because I went to watch my daughter cheer at Center Grove's last away game of the season. I decided to try and combine the speed workout with a long run. Speed work was 2 mile warm up, then 400 x 2, 800 x 2, 1200, 800 x 2, and 400 x 2 with a 400 jog in between each interval. This accounted for the first 8 miles of my run.

I think I would have been fine if I had just stopped there. However, since I had in my head that I was going to run 15 miles, I was running north on the Monon from the Y. Had I run 7.5 miles north, I would have had no choice but to run 15 to get back. Instead though, I turned around shortly after 6 miles because I was still doing the interval portion of the workout then and I didn't feel like sprinting over the overpass on 146th St. After 12 miles, I was just DONE. Like ready to walk back to the Y done. I did run all the way back though, then went south a little ways on the trail to make it 13 even.

Well that did it. After that run I decided I was NOT going to run the Carmel Marathon. 6-10 miles have been enjoyable to me. This was not. I don't want to run 3-4 hours at a time once a week and that would be what I'd have to do to prep for Carmel. Plus, the 500 Festival half is 2 weeks after Carmel. I've run a crappy race at the 500 Festival the last couple times I've done it because I'm always coming off a marathon. I'd really like to train for a half marathon this year. To get a PR on the 500 Festival course would be awesome as this is the race I've run since childhood. That would be the new plan. Once I decided that, I was at peace again.

New spring plan... train for a half PR. I could also run some more road races and work on dropping my 5K and 10K times. If I continued to race over the summer and build some miles I could consider a fall marathon. I also realized that if I ran a fall marathon BQ attempt, that would be for Boston 2019. In 2019 I would be 50 years old on race day. If the BQ standards don't change this year that buys me 5 more minutes and I am convinced I still have faster times in me still.

That's the new plan. Problem solved.

Thursday 2/23 - Rest. I woke up feeling like I'd been run over by a truck.

Friday 2/24 - 1 mile. It was a gorgeous day. 70 degrees. Not kidding! Except, just as I was ready to go out for my run, it started storming... with lightening. Run got moved to the hamster track. Then I felt terrible. Legs were like lead and I was sweating like crazy just 2 laps in. I went for a mile and threw in the towel. Thought I'd try the stationary bike instead. That was no better. Made it a mile then called it a day.

Saturday 2/25 - 7 miles. Remember 70 degrees yesterday? Well, it was snowing this morning. No shit! Went to the hamster track and felt great, like I could run miles and miles. It was a good run.

30 miles this week and a new running plan for the year.

February Grocery Challenge Days 24 and 25 - Last Weekend of the Month

Friday Feb. 24th
No spending.
Made way too much food for dinner... fried walleye, homemade pizzas, fried pickles (don't ask!)

Saturday Feb. 25th
Spent this morning finishing up some deals at Meijer. I waited until today to shop since they are having a Friday-Saturday sale plus they have an mPerks coupon for 10% off general merchandise so shopped today and got my weekend newspapers there.

My daughter has been asking for some grab-and-go items that she can bring to school for breakfast. I tried making different kinds of muffins but ended up having to throw away half the last batch of apple oatmeal muffins because they didn't eat them fast enough. I finally folded today and bought some pre-packaged food. Since we're trying to eat healthier and most pre-packaged food really is full of sugar, my goal was to find things with less than 10 grams of sugar per serving and a relatively high amount of protein. Meijer had Nature Valley items Buy One, Get One Free today so I ended up getting nut bars and granola cups.

Also in their Friday-Saturday sale was Old El Paso enchilada sauce. It's normally $1.49 but was on sale for $0.88, then I had coupons printed from the Old El Paso website for $1 off 3, making them $0.55 each.

Here's what I ended up with...

4 weekend newspapers @ 1.50 each
4 boxes Nature Valley nut bars @ 2.99 each
2 boxes Nature Valley granola cups @ 3.29 each
6 cans Old El Paso enchilada sauce @ 0.88 each
5 32-oz bottles Powerade @ 0.58 each (also part of the Fri-Sat sale)
2 Evol frozen breakfast sandwiches @ 1.50 each
5 cans Maxwell House coffee @ 2.99 each
1 loaf Aunt Millie's Whole Grain bread @ 1.25
subtotal 51.92
- 0.60 (10% off general merchandise mPerks)
- 6.00 (mPerks reward from previous purchases)
- 5.00 (Buy 5 instant discount on Maxwell House)
- 2.99 (buy one, get one free Nature Valley nut bars)
- 2.99 (buy one, get one free Nature Valley nut bars)
- 3.29 (buy one, get one free Nature Valley granola cups)
- 2 (1.00 off 3 Old El Paso coupons)
- 2 (0.50 off 2 Nature Valley coupons)
- 5 (0.75 off Maxwell House coupons)
- 2 (1.00 Evol coupons)
22.30
+0.16 tax
22.46 total paid

The current mPerks reward I am working on is "Earn $6 when you spend $300." The beauty of the mPerks earned rewards is that you get credit for your total spending BEFORE any discounts. Today I got credit for spending $51.92 even though $29.62 of that was covered by coupons, store specials and previously earned mPerks rewards.

Paid $22.46

Breakfast sandwiches were already in the freezer!

Hopefully I won't have to go to the store again until Tuesday. I haven't shopped the Kroger Mega Sale at all the last 2 weeks and they have a couple good deals but nothing I absolutely need. I do, however, want to get chicken breasts there as they are 1.77/lb this week so if I make it to Tuesday without any spending I may buy some fun stuff with what I have left in the budget.

February Grocery Spending: $177.81
February Donation Spending: $18.94

February Grocery Challenge Days 16-23... Staying the Course

I've done a pretty good job staying out of the store the last couple days due to a combination of not needing anything, working, running, and attending kid's activities. In other words, I was too busy to shop! Not a bad thing...

Thursday Feb, 16th
No spending.
Made chicken enchiladas for dinner.

Friday Feb, 17th
No spending.
Made venison stew in the crockpot for dinner. I had to work in the evening so this way the family could eat whenever they got home.

Saturday Feb. 18th
No spending.
There were no coupon inserts in the weekend paper this week so I didn't buy any papers. I ran a 10K in the morning and was starving by the time I got home. I really didn't want to cook so I was thinking about putting a frozen pizza in the oven when I got home. I was actually overjoyed to find that my daughter had already cooked a frozen pizza by the time I got home.
Days like this are exactly why I have back up frozen pizzas in the freezer!

Sunday Feb. 19th
2 gallons of milk at Aldi for $2.30.
For dinner I pan seared more chicken breasts that I had marinated in a garlic, pepper, onion, soy sauce and sugar combo. Turned out pretty tasty. Had spinach sautéed in sesame oil with a bit of garlic, onion and sesame seeds on the side. Out of chicken now.

Monday Feb. 20th
No spending from the budget.
We had our one restaurant freebie today. Took the family to India Garden for lunch. The kids had the day off for President's Day.

Tuesday Feb. 21st
18.5 lb bag of dog food from Meijer.
$9.99 + $0.70 tax = $10.69 - $5 Meijer coupon (from previous purchases) = $5.69 spent

Pasta with meatballs for dinner.

Steak'n Shake $7.16
I picked up my daughter from cheering at her last away game and she was starving. I didn't feel like making more food at 9:30pm so I buckled and bought her drive-thru.

Wednesday Feb.22nd
No spending.
Turkey burgers for dinner.

Thursday Feb 23rd
I realized that today was the last day of the Kimberly-Clark catalina deal where you could get a $5 coupon off your next purchase at whatever store the catalina printed if you bought $25 of Kimberly-Clark products. Walgreens has a sale on Scott paper towels this week. 6 rolls for $4.99 - $1.00 instant coupon. I am down to my last 2 rolls of paper towels and need some. They also have Cottonelle toilet paper 12 rolls for $4.99 - $1.00 instant coupon. So...

5 6-roll packages of Scott paper towels @ 4.99 each sale price (regularly $6.29)
2 12-roll packages of Cottonelle toilet paper @ 4.99 each sale price (regularly $6.29)
subtotal 34.93
- 7 (1.00 instant coupons)
27.93 (which kept me over the $25 threshold as instant coupons count as store discounts for the catalina)
- 2 (0.55 Scott paper towel coupons from the Kimberly-Clark website)
- 2 (0.55 Cottonelle toilet paper coupons from the Kimberly Clark website)
25.73
+2.45 tax on $34.93
$28.18
-20.00 (redeemed 18,000 Balance Rewards points)
$8.18 paid out of pocket; received $5 Register Reward catalina for my next purchase

Paid $8.18

Next stop was Meijer. Maxwell House coffee cans were on sale for $2.99 with $5 off when you buy 5 participating items. I had a whole stack of $0.75 off Maxwell House coupons because they came out the same weekend I bought 10 newspapers for the Arm & Hammer coupons. I also had 2 days left to spend $9.56 more to get another $6 off your next order mPerks coupon. So...

5 cans of Maxwell House coffee @ 2.99 each sale price (regularly $3.99)
4 Roma tomatoes @ 1.06
subtotal 16.01
- 5.00 instant savings
- 5 (0.75 Maxwell House coupons)
$7.26; earned the $6 off my next order as I got credit for spending $16.01

Paid $7.26

We're having homemade pizzas with turkey sausage, mushrooms, spinach, tomatoes, sweet peppers and cheese for dinner tonight.

5 more days this month! Can I make my goal of staying under $200? I'm planning to buy my newspapers at Meijer on Saturday as they have 10% off general merchandise this weekend. Also planning on stocking up on more coffee and I have to think up some more meals for the rest of the month.


February Grocery Spending: $155.35
February Donation Spending: $18.94

Training Log 2/12/17 - 2/18/17 - Mission Accomplished

Sunday 2/12 - Rest. Like really really rest!

Monday 2/13 - 10 miles. It was the perfect day for a run so I decided to do my first double digit run of the year. 10 nice easy miles on the Monon... except for mile 7. See, after 6 miles, I decided I just HAD to know if I could run mile in 8:00. Given last weeks not-so-satisfying speed session, I didn't want any rude surprises on race day Saturday - like What if I tried to run fast and couldn't? What if I couldn't even run an 8:00 mile? So, mile 7 was my "hot lap" - see if I can run a mile in 8:00.

Sure can! Satisfied, I went back to my easy pace and finished the run.

Tuesday 2/14 - 4 miles. Easy shake out run on the hamster track. Legs felt a bit tired from Monday.

Wednesday 2/15 - 6 miles. I missed run club on Tuesday so I did pretty close to the prescribed workout on my own today. Workout was 2 mile warm up, 3 mile steady state run at 85% with 30 second surges every half mile, then 1 mile cool down. I left out the surges since my legs still felt a wee bit tired and I was worried about wearing my legs out too much before Saturday's race since I don't have a great distance base to work with. It was sunny, but cold and really windy. Ran on the Monon. First mile was really stiff but second was OK. Then the steady state...
Mile 1 - 8:25. My goal had been 8:30 pace and this felt easy. I was trying to run a nice controlled pace.
Mile 2 - 8:26. A bit harder but there was also a lot of "slow and go" moments crossing all the streets in Broadripple and I felt thrown off rhythm.
Mile 3 - 8:23. I worked a lot harder than I wanted to for this one. I was actually barely maintaining an 8:28 pace up until the last 0.15 or so of the split so I was surprised it ended up so fast.
Last mile cool down was fine. I'm a bit worried I had to work so hard for that third steady state mile.

Thursday 2/16 - 1600 meter swim. Felt like I should get another workout in this week but wanted to rest the legs some.

Friday 2/17 - Rest.

Saturday 2/18 - 7 miles. Almost a mile warm up, then the ValenTimes 10K. Met my goal of running under 52:30 by running 50:47.

27 miles this week.

2017 ValenTimes 10K - a Bit of Serendipity

First real road race for me in over a year and it was time to see if I still had some speed.

My main goal for this race was to run faster than 52:30 so I had a time to turn in for the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon seeding. I needed 52:30 to get into a Preferred Start Corral. Maybe it's petty of me to want to get into one of the front corrals. I couldn't help but think this. But I don't want to start in the back... now I just had to prove that I was fast enough.

My work schedule wasn't ideal. I was supposed to work from 5 pm Friday night to 2 am Saturday morning. That makes for a short night when the race is at 9 am on Saturday morning in Seymour, IN. My plan was to drive to Columbus, IN after I got off work in Bloomington and spend the night at my in-laws house. That way at least I'd already be halfway to Seymour in the morning.

So... of course nothing goes as planned. I got a call at 1:45 pm Friday. Seems one of the docs at one of the other hospitals we staff got sick and they had to pull a doctor from Bloomington to cover, and now they needed me in Bloomington at 2:30 pm. Uhhh.... crap. Nothing to do but jump in the shower (I was having a leisurely morning since I was going to be up all night) then start throwing clothes in a bag to take to Columbus. I hadn't even checked the weather for the morning. I thought it was going to be nice but wasn't sure. Ended up throwing in tights, compression shorts, long sleeve shirt, short sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, fleece jacket, socks and another T-shirt in a bag, hoping I didn't forget anything. Put my Garmin on because I didn't want to forget that!

On the road by 2 pm, then it occurs to me... am I working til 2 am? Are they calling anyone else in? Working 12 hours would really suck! Luckily they found another doc to call in so it actually ended up better for me. I managed to get out by 12:30 am. I considered driving back to Greenwood and sleeping in my own bed since I got done earlier than planned but then decided to go ahead and head to Columbus.

Got a pretty decent night's sleep and got to Seymour just after 8 am. Temps were in the mid-40's. Perfect running weather. My Garmin took forever to pick up a satellite but finally did at the end of my warm up run. I figure I went roughly a mile. Then it was race time!

Main goal was 52:30 but my stretch goal was sub-50:00. I actually looked back Thursday night at the blog from last year to see how I had been running at this time last year. I found I had been putting in WAY more miles and running faster overall so running faster today than last year was going to be a real stretch... but you never know!

Plan was to see how long I could hold an 8:00 pace...

Mile 1 - 7:35. Yup, plan went out the window. The 5K and 10K started together. I kept telling myself to let the 5K women go but I just couldn't! It felt comfortable to run with them even though I was telling myself to slow down the entire time.

Mile 2 - 7:55. I settled down a bit. Then the 5K and 10K split and I was on my own.

Mile 3 - 8:25. Still felt good and I told myself I'd be fine if I just held this pace.

Mile 4 - 8:27. Still doing OK.

Mile 5 - 8:49. Pretty much felt like I tanked this mile. I was running into the wind and it started to feel hard. Overall though, I consciously knew I was mentally in a much better place this year at this point in the race than I was last year. I can still DO this!

Mile 6 - 8:32. I could see the school with half a mile to go and knew I had the time I needed. All I had to do was finish strong.

Last 0.2 - 1:04

Official time - 50:47.2 (8:10 pace)

Finished Third Overall in the Women's race, and First in the 40-49 age group.
I was 3 seconds slower than last year. I'll take that! Extremely happy with my race today. Ya... some what if's about mile 5, but it's done and I got the time that I needed.

Jane and me after the awards

Jane won the 40-49 age group in the 5K

Probably should have done a cool down run after the race but I got too busy talking to friends I hadn't seen in a year. It was fun. Plus I won a door prize for five free lunches at the Pewter Hall in Brownstown (road trip anyone?)

Then....

I came home and was greeted with this sad face...

Seems like Belle picked a fight with a raccoon half her size at 4 am this morning. Hubs finally had to shoot the raccoon to break up the fight. Then he realized Belle was spraying blood everywhere. He ended up having to wake J up so she could hold pressure on Belle while he drove her to the 24-hour emergency vet. Belle ended up with 14 stitches in her left ear. Poor puppy! ... and serendipitous for me that I went to Columbus or I wouldn't have slept at all!

February Grocery Challenge Days 11 to 15 - Hoping Valentine's Day Didn't Break the Budget!

Believe it or not, I did not buy any newspapers this weekend. I looked at the coupon insert previews and decided there really weren't any compelling coupons. Of course then I find out that if I had any of the $2 L'oreal coupons from this weekend I could be making money at Meijer but, of well, it's not like I need any hair products this week.

I also didn't take into account Valentine's Day when I was thinking about the budget this month. Hopefully my Valentine's Day spending won't break the budget. My biggest dilemma was where to buy chocolates for my kids. I think the kids still want a box of assorted chocolates on Valentine's Day. I have thousands of Balance Rewards (BR) points at Walgreens so I could've just bought both of them chocolates there with points and not spent any money, however, the chocolates overall were a better deal at Kroger so I saved my BR points and spent money at Kroger.

Speaking of Valentine's Day, I averted my eyes and successfully avoided any Valentine's Day ideas on Pinterest. I was however enticed to go check out a blog post for "How I Feed My Family of 7 on a $85 a Week Budget from Walmart." It's a rather interesting read. Point of the post was that she uses no coupons, freezer meals, or other things but solely meal plans on a budget. I really do believe meal planning is a money saver. It's one of those things I'm working on.

Here's the last couple days...

Saturday Feb. 11th
1 can of beef stock 0.89
2 zucchinis @ 1.18
1 package of 8 Healthy Life whole wheat hamburger buns 2.49
4.82 lbs of boneless skinless chicken breasts 8.63
2 75-oz bottles of Arm & Hammer laundry detergent @ 2.99 each
4 8-oz packages of sliced cheese @ 2.00 each
1 roll Jeannie-O turkey sausage 2.50
3 lb package Jeannie-O ground turkey 5.99
1 red bell pepper 1.00
3 lb bag of onions 1.00
16 oz box of Spring Greens salad mix 2.99 (this was a mark down)
subtotal 40.65
- 2 ($1.00 Arm & Hammer printable from coupons.com)
- 1.00 Jeannie-O turkey sausage (printable from coupons.com)
  37.65
+ 0.42 tax (on Arm & Hammer)
$38.07, paid 11.95 with my gift card balance, then $26.12 out of pocket

Meijer shopping

For dinner I had thawed out some sirloin I had purchased last month for $3.99/lb and made Balsamic Glazed Steak Rolls...

photo from "Picture the Recipe"

recipe HERE

Sunday Feb. 12th
Decided Kroger had the best deal on Valentine's chocolates and bought both kids a 12 oz box of Russell Stover chocolates. They were $9.99, Buy One Get One Free. They were also $9.99 at both CVS and Walgreens too and I had fake money to spend at both of these stores but, come on, it was HALF the price at Kroger! I used my $2 off your next grocery purchase coupon I had gotten a couple days earlier for buying oatmeal so ended up paying $8.55 for both boxes after it was all said and done.

$8.55 for both boxes

Made the Carmelized Onion Balsamic Turkey Burgers again for dinner. Soooo good! And yes, I love balsamic anything.

Monday Feb. 13th
I'm also making chocolate covered strawberries for Valentine's Day and Aldi seemed to have the best prices on strawberries this week. I waited until Monday so they would be fresh for Valentine's Day. While I was there, I also saw that they had now marked down their milk to $1.15 a gallon (and it was still $1.19 at Meijer on Saturday), so I went ahead and picked up another gallon as I always like to have one unopened gallon at home. Aldi shopping...

2 lbs strawberries @ 1.49/lb
1 gallon milk 1.15
16 oz sour cream 0.99 (probably the best everyday price on sour cream)
$5.12

Made chocolate covered strawberries before the kids got home and hid them in the basement refrigerator.

Made two plates of these

Had leftovers for dinner as we had exactly one serving left of the Nuevo Beef, Steak Rolls, a turkey burger, and Roasted Vegetable Chicken Chili.

Also spent $1.00 at Kroger for an Odwalla protein drink after my evening run.

Tuesday Feb. 14th
I wasn't planning on doing any more shopping. I spent the morning making heart shaped shortbread cookies to cover with icing. I went to make the icing and discovered there was no confectioners' sugar in the entire house. I couldn't believe it! How the heck did I run out of confectioners' sugar and not know it? Probably cause I've been on a diet and have hardly baked since before Christmas. I had over 20 lbs of flour, sugar, and brown sugar - plus I found 2 more cans of enchilada sauce - but NO confectioners' sugar! Since I was trying to get everything done before the kids got home again I had to run out to the closest grocery store which is Marsh and pay full rip retail for a bag of confectioners' sugar. Got applesauce that I needed for another recipe while I was there. Ugh. Marsh probably has the highest prices of all the grocery stores. Paid $2.49 for the 32 oz bag of confectioners' sugar that I'd normally pay $0.99 for, plus $2.39 for the applesauce.

Cookies got done though....

Made 3 dozen of these

Lastly, I had a senior moment and couldn't remember where I'd hid the chocolate boxes I got on Sunday but found them 30 minutes before the kids got home. This was their Valentine's Day treat...

The beautiful roses were my gift from my husband

Also cooked up 2.5lbs of chicken and served it with a green bean casserole for dinner. We ate half the chicken. I'll use the rest of it in meals this week.

Wednesday Feb. 15th

No spending.

Made apple oatmeal muffins for the kids to have for breakfast the next couple days and pasta with marinara sauce for dinner.

Looked at the grocery ads for the new sales cycle starting tomorrow. Quite frankly, I feel like I've WAY overspent the last couple of days and (thankfully!) there was nothing super enticing in the new ads. Kroger is having another "Buy 6, Get $3 Off" Mega Sale. The Marsh by my house is actually offering DOUBLE COUPONS. I haven't seen double coupons in years. Normally I'd be super excited but there's nothing I absolutely have to have right now. I may need to pick up more dog food and paper towels before the end of the month. I'll probably go to Meijer if I need something as I still have some earned mPerks coupons I can use there.

So that's it. I'm going to sit on my hands and try to stay out of the store the next couple days and work on my meal planning!

February Grocery Spending: $124.76
February Donation Spending: $18.94

Training Log 2/5/17 - 2/11/17

Sunday 2/5 - Rest... if you want to call it that. Got up at 4:30 am to go to work. Worked in Bloomington all day then drove 2 hours to Carmel to pick G up by 5:30 pm (with two quick pit stops at CVS along the way!) Finally home at 6:30 pm. Not sure what I did with the rest of the night.

Monday 2/6 - No running. Up at 6 am to take G to school, then back down to Bloomington for a Pediatric Advanced Life Support renewal class. Done with that at 3 pm, then dashed home to pick up G and drive her to Carmel. Quite frankly I could hardly keep my eyes open at this point. Forget about even working out. Got home at 10 pm, made J a sandwich, then fell asleep on the couch. Woke up at 2 am to properly put myself to bed.

Tuesday 2/7 - 6 miles. Run club day. Woke up feeling well rested and was actually excited about what the workout might be... then saw that it was mile repeats. Probably one of the workouts I dislike the most because they intimidate me. Workout was 2 mile warm up, then 3 one mile repeats at 10K pace with a 3:00 jog in between, then a 1 mile cool down. After last week's run, I was feeling pretty confident and decided to push the envelope and shoot for times between 8:00 and 8:15. Well... first off, it was cloudy and overcast and my Garmin would NOT pick up a satellite. I spent the first two miles messing with my watch trying to get it to pick something up. It seemed to be tracking my distance but the satellite icon was still red and my pace recorded all over the place from 11:00 to 7:30. After two miles, I reset my watch and took off running, never picking up a satellite.
Mile 1 - 8:30. Ugh. Don't even know if this is right.
Mile 2 - 8:40. Ditto.
Mile 3 - 8:48. Now I'm running as hard as I can and I don't seem to be going any faster.
One mile cool down in 10:55???
Not sure if any of these times were accurate but I felt like I was working super hard during my mile repeats and couldn't believe they weren't any faster; then I basically felt like death afterwards.

Wednesday 2/8 - 30 minutes stationary bike/ level 5 rollers. Totally exhausted all day and then it started snowing in the evening. I really just wanted to lay down on the Y floor and take a nap instead of bike.

Thursday 2/9 - 6 miles. Hamster tracked it cause it was cold wet and snowy outside Wasn't too bad.

Friday 2/10 - 6 miles. Nice easy run on the Monon. Getting a massage in the morning probably helped too. Oh, and it's almost 60 degrees again.

Saturday 2/11 - 6 miles. Hills on my county roads. I considered re-doing Tuesday's run club workout but woke up with heavy legs and just a "flat" feeling so I did hills instead... in shorts and a T-shirt.

I'm afraid to look at next Saturday's weather forecast for my 10K!

24 miles this week.

February Grocery Challenge Days 8 to 10 - Restraint

The best deal that you'll ever do is the one that you don't do.

Think about that.

I've had lots of friends take up couponing over the years. Many of them stop after a couple months, stating that they are actually spend way more money using coupons than they were before coupons. Why might that be? I can tell you exactly why. It's because they use up their whole budget buying all the crazy deals and end up with way more "crazy deal" items then they will ever use, or they buy things that they will never use anyway just because it was a crazy deal.

Seriously. I've had that same dilemma many many times. Slickdeals is one of my favorite deal sites. When you go there you are immediately faced with their "Front Page" deals - the red hot crazy deals. There's closeouts, price mistakes, online coupon codes, hot sales, and all kinds of stuff like that. You start looking at the Front Page deals and suddenly you feel like you might "need" something. Couple summers ago I almost randomly bought a gas grill. Yes, a gas grill. It was a $450 gas grill on closeout at Lowes for $30 and it showed that one of my local stores had some in stock. Suddenly I was thinking maybe I needed a new gas grill. There is nothing wrong with the one I currently own, but heck, it's $30!!! What saved me is that I thought about it for a couple hours. By then they were sold out (yes, if you see a Front Page deal you better act quick. Sometimes it pays to scroll to the last post to see if it's still active cause these deals go fast or else the store's website crashes or something like that - Slickdealers call it the "Slickdeal effect") OK, I digress... Point is, I actually saved myself $30 by not buying something I didn't need. See my point?

Fact is, I love a good deal. I think that's why couponing appeals to me so much. I get to buy stuff, but it's not stuff that will sit around forever and take up space in my house as it's consumable perishable stuff, but I still get the rush of shopping AND it saves me money as an added benefit.

When you first start couponing and working on your stockpile one of the easiest things you can start with are household goods and health and beauty aids (HBAs). Toilet paper, paper towels, toothpaste, shampoo, detergent, etc... all this stuff either has loooong expiration dates or won't expire at all and you will always need them. HBAs are easy. They are always on sale. I can get HBAs for 0.50 or less all day long. You can find a crazy HBA deal Every. Single. Week. Not kidding.

So this has been my dilemma... should I try to find more food donations for the food pantry or do I pick up a whole bunch of sale HBAs this week? I feel like I should be buying food for the food pantry but the place where I drop off clearly lists things like shampoo and detergent as things they need.

Since I bought 10 newspapers this weekend I wanted to make use of all the coupons I got. One of the higher value coupons that came out this week were these...

$4 off 2 Herbal Essences shampoo, conditioner or styling products.

I'm holding onto $40 worth of coupons, $44 if you count the Kroger ecoupon for the same that I have loaded onto my Kroger Plus card...and, Kroger has them on sale for $2.50. Yup, 0.50 a bottle when you buy them two at a time. I could use about 3 bottles of shampoo and 3 bottles of conditioner right now, not 22. Buying 16 extra bottles would cost $8, $8 that I could save by not buying them at all. See what I mean? ...and see why so many couponers overspend. It's the crazy deals that kill the budget.

My solution tonight was to go ahead and buy most of those bottles and donate the extras to the food pantry. That will about max out my donation limit for the month. Conversely, that is also exactly why I have a donation limit. If I didn't, I could easily buy HBAs all month long in the name of donations.


Wednesday Feb. 8th
No spending.

Thursday Feb. 9th
No spending.

Friday Feb. 10th
I suppose I could have waited until tomorrow and to do all my shopping at once but the itch to shop was too bad! I went to Kroger three times...

Trip #1 - I had a massage therapy appointment this morning so I hit the store across the street from my massage therapist and just purchased one bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo and one bottle of Herbal Essences conditioner so I could use my Kroger ecoupon. Sometimes the ecoupons do not play well with other coupons for the same product, even if you have enough items, so I wanted to get the ecoupon off my card. Plus, I picked up my Free Friday download - a Hershey's cookie layer chocolate bar. Paid $1.00 + 0.35 tax.

The cookie layer chocolate bar lasted exactly one hour. I dedicated the first two miles of my run tonight to work it off.

Trip #2 - Kroger next to the Y. Coupon has a "limit 4 identical coupons per transaction" printed on it in RED so I bought 4 sets of shampoo and conditioner. Paid $4.00 + 1.40. The tax is killing me as all $20 worth of product gets taxed.

Trip #3 - the Kroger between the Y and the dance studio. Same transaction as #2.

Krogers #1 and #3 are big enough that I could have gone through the same store 3 times without really being noticed but I didn't have time this morning to do it at the first store and, frankly, I prefer to fly under the radar and not clean the shelf at one store. I drive EVERYWHERE, every single day... and I am lucky enough to pass most of the stores I frequent along the way so I'm really not going out of my way at all to go to different stores.

Total paid: $12.15, $3.15 of which was tax

I'm keeping 6 bottles and donating 12

I have two coupons left over. I could buy one more shampoo and conditioner set to donate and still stay under budget but I think I'll show some restraint and stop where I'm at. That way I'll have some room in case some nearly frees come along.

February Grocery Spending: $79.09
Februaray Donation Spending: $18.94

Meal Planning

Ever rummage through your kitchen looking for ideas for dinner and feel like you're on an episode of "Chopped"? Hmmm... half a bag of carrots, a heel of bread, a package of Ramen noodles, and two hot dogs. Wonder if I can put it all together and pass it off as some kind of Asian fusion minestrone to my family...

One of my goals this year is to meal plan better. Another family goal has been to eat healthier. I know that planning ahead will help us save money and eat healthier. Here's how the planning is going so far this week...

Looking at the grocery ad previews I see that Meijer will have boneless skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.79/lb. That's a pretty good price. $1.49/lb would be better but I cooked the last of my frozen chicken breasts earlier this week so I need a couple more pounds for the coming week. Also on sale in Jennie-O ground turkey. We have been eating more ground turkey lately so those will be the two proteins I'm buying this week.

As far as grocery staples, this is some of what I try to have on hand at all times and what I pay:

Milk - it's like gas. I have to have it and I'll shop around for the best prices each week. Lately I've been benefitting from a price war that my local Meijer store is having with the Aldi store that's right across their parking lot. Aldi's been advertising a gallon of milk for $1.29 so my Meijer dropped their price to $1.19 a gallon. It's location specific though cause the Meijer in Carmel has it priced around $1.59. Usually, Aldi will have the lowest price on milk.

Eggs - again, like milk, it varies. It's been anywhere from 0.69 to 1.29/dozen lately. I try not to pay more than 0.99/dozen.

Dry Pasta - 0.50/lb is great price.

Pasta Sauce - never more than 1.00.

Bread - I used to never pay more than 1.00/loaf. Lately I've been paying more since we're trying to avoid high fructose corn syrup and buy more whole grain products. Still don't want to pay more than 2.00/loaf though.

Boneless skinless chicken breasts - 1.49 to 1.89/lb is good. There are so many things you can do with chicken breasts.

Cheese - less than 1.50 for an 8 oz bag of shredded cheese is good. 1.50 - 2.00 for a bag of cheese slices.

Salad mix - I admit, this is my splurge. I always have a big box of organic prewashed Spring Mix type salad greens in my fridge. I like my salad with arugula, spinach, frisee, chard, radicchio and those types of greens. It's more cost and time effective for me to buy it all pre-mixed and washed. I throw it into omelets, sandwiches, as well as salads.

Lettuce - for my husband who doesn't like my salad greens. 0.99 a head or less. It's also handy for Mexican dishes.

Roma tomatoes - 0.99/lb or less. I like them because they are pretty firm and cut up easily for sandwiches and garnishes.

Canned beans - 0.69/can or less. I have black beans, garbanzo beans, chili beans, and great northern beans for chili, soup, and salads.

Canned tomatoes - 0.68/can or less. For pasta dishes, Mexican dishes, chili.

On Sunday I cooked a couple pounds of chicken breasts. What I do it cut them into fist size chunks and marinate them in Italian salad dressing for at least an hour. After that I sear them in a skillet so just the outsides are cooked (this locks in the juices) and then I bake them at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. After that, they are fine to eat as is, or you can use them for other recipes.

Lunch yesterday was this salad...

It's a handful of salad greens topped with some cut up chicken breast meat, strawberries, and goat cheese with balsamic vinaigrette dressing . Sure to rival any restaurant salad at a fraction of the price! I love goat cheese. I stock up when Kroger runs their crumbled goat cheese tubs on sale for 0.99. If I run out, Aldi has the best every day price for crumbled goat cheese. I eat this salad a LOT!

For a meatless variation (like if I'm eating as a side with a meat already) I use roasted beets. Canned beets work well too. You can also substitute other berries for the strawberries depending on what's on sale. Another favorite combination is strawberries/berries, goat cheese, and pecans or walnuts.

Dinner last night was chicken enchiladas.

So, baked chicken breasts, bag of cheese (1.27 at Meijer last month), sour cream (1.00/tub, from my stockpile), enchilada sauce (I try to stock up when they're on sale for 1.00 at Meijer and usually Old El Paso will have a coupon to go along with it but I ran out of sauce this week; thus I had to buy a can from Meijer yesterday), and the Azteca tortillas I got for 0.24 at Kroger last week.

Basically shred however much chicken you want, throw in some shredded cheese, a couple dollops of sour cream, and enough enchilada sauce to tie it all together but not make it runny.

Pour what's left of your first can of enchilada sauce into the bottom of a pan. Spoon some enchilada filling in the tortillas and roll them up. Place in sauce. Cover it all with your second can of enchilada sauce, then top it with as much shredded cheese as you like. It's super easy, and no, I don't measure anything!

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30. All of your ingredients are already cooked. All you're doing is heating and melting everything together.

Serve with some shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes and sour cream.

Dinner tonight will be Neuvo Chipotle Beef with butternut squash. This has been a family favorite ever since I started making it a couple years ago. I first saw it on the Food Network Challenge when it won the National Beef Cook-Off. You can find the recipe HERE.

I am substituting venison for the beef because I found a ton in the freezer yesterday. Venison is super lean so slow cooking it like this is perfect.

When hubs hunts whatever is in season we tend to always have meat around here!

Ready for the oven

This is the butternut squash I bought yesterday. Basically cut it up to fit into a microwave safe dish, add a little water to the bottom, cover it with plastic wrap, then nuke it until it's cooked. I'll usually start out at 5 minutes and then check it and turn the pieces over or around depending on how it's cooking.

As far as the garnish, I cut up a Roma tomato and an avocado and sprinkled some lime juice over it. All out of cilantro right now and I'm NOT goin back to the store today! Lime juice and lemon juice are also refrigerator staples for me. I get them in the little plastic containers that look like limes and lemons.

Other meals in this week's line up include homemade pizza. I use THIS pizza crust recipe. I like it because you can make the crust ahead of time and stick it in the fridge. We generally do a BBQ chicken pizza with BBQ sauce, shredded cooked chicken breasts, red onions, and cheese. Also do one with a pasta sauce base, cooked ground beef or turkey, mushrooms, bell peppers, and cheese. That will be dinner tomorrow.

I'll definitely be making these Balsamic Carmelized Onion Turkey Burgers...

photo from "The Foodie and the Fix"

recipe HERE

I tried them out on my family last month and they were a huge hit. I'll have to pick up some whole wheat buns and provolone cheese when I get the ground turkey this week.

Another recipe I found last month was for pork potstickers. My kids love the Tai Pei frozen pork potstickers so I had been stocking up when they went on sale for $2 a box and combining them with a 0.50 coupon. THEN... I found THIS recipe. I spent an afternoon last month making several hundred potstickers and freezing them. We haven't bought potstickers since.

Frozen potstickers. I had three bags but we're down to this now.

J likes them pan fried. G and I eat a little healthier version by steaming them for 10 minutes. We blend up a 50/50 mix of soy sauce and rice vinegar to pour over them and they are delish!

Another thing the kids and I have been stuck on lately are fruit smoothies. I've found that basically a 1 - 1.5 cup mix of frozen fruit plus a cup of milk works well. It all started when I found a blueberry-banana-beet smoothie recipe that called for 0.5 cup frozen blueberries, 0.5 cup frozen diced beets, 1/4 a frozen banana, and 8 oz (1 cup) of almond milk. I subbed 2% milk for the almond milk and it turned out fine. I cut up and froze a couple bananas that were going brown and roasted a panful of beets and diced them up.

On the left is my last bag of frozen blueberries (remember THIS POST from June where I froze 20 pints of blueberries). On the right is my bag of frozen diced beets and the smaller bag is my frozen banana chunks.

Other quick meals will be sandwiches. I've been stuck on hummus sandwiches lately. It's whole grain bread spread with hummus on both sides and filled with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers, and red onion. Try it! Actually, when I was in high school there used to be a little restaurant in Broad Ripple called Renee's that I absolutely loved. They had a veggie sandwich there that was the same thing except they used cream cheese instead of hummus. Either way, this is a great sandwich.

The other sandwich option is grilled cheese plus whatever else you want to add. I used some leftover caramelized onions (from the turkey burgers) last week and it was fabulous. You can also try tomatoes or apple slices or bacon. Those are some of my standbys.

Final thing I think I'll do tonight is make a big batch chocolate chip cookie dough to freeze. Since I've been trying to eat healthier and lose weight I haven't baked anything since before Christmas. Can you believe it! Anyhoos, J was having a mini meltdown this afternoon about there not being any cookies in the house. She finally left to go buy some on her own. My scale says I'm making some progress so I suppose I'll indulge the family and make some cookie dough. That way they can have some whenever they want - just bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes.

February Grocery Challenge - Days 3 to 7

First, a correction. Grocery budget this month is $200, not $400. Not sure what I was thinking when I wrote $400.

Friday Feb. 3rd
No spending.

Saturday Feb. 4th
     So... biggest dilemma of the day was how many newspapers to buy and how to pay for them. I know. First world problems.
     I'm almost out of laundry detergent. I knew that there were going to be $1 Arm and Hammer coupons in this weekend's paper and all the stores I frequent were going to have them on sale too. I needed a BUNCH of coupons. I usually buy 4 newspapers every weekend as I usually don't need more than 4 of any coupon. In the rare instance that I do want more of a certain coupon I order them from a clipping service. I use The Coupon Clippers. The Coupon Clippers briefly had the $1 Arm and Hammer coupons available on their site Friday morning but they sold out before I could order them. I knew they would put another batch up over the weekend but if I didn't order them on Friday I was afraid they wouldn't get here in time for me to do the deals I wanted so I gave up the idea of ordering them.
     I checked my Meijer mPerks account on Saturday and found a $5 off $50 Meijer gift card coupon as well as a 10% off general merchandise coupon and several other good coupons that I loaded to my account. I love it when I get the $5 off $50 gift card coupon cause it's basically free money. I decided to start with 4 newspapers at Meijer and see what the print ads actually looked like as well as check the Arm & Hammer price at Meijer.
     First purchase was the $50 Meijer gift card. Spent $45 out of my grocery budget on it. That means all the purchases I make with the gift card won't count against the budget.
     Next, I bought 4 newspapers at $1.50 each plus a can of Bush's beans and a package of Bush's Hummus Made Easy. I got 10% off on all my newspapers. I had an mPerks coupon for a free can of Bush's beans when you buy a package of Bush's Hummus Made Easy. I had a $1 coupon for the Hummus Made Easy. Spent $6.40 off my gift card.
     I went home and looked through the ads.Walgreens and CVS both had 50 oz Arm & Hammer bottles on sale for $2.99, making them $1.99 with the coupon. I had noted at Meijer that they actually had the 150 oz bottles on sale for $6.99, so $5.99 with the coupon, making it essentially the same value as the Walgreens and CVS deals but with less coupons. Meaning, with 4 coupons I could get...

At Meijer: 150 oz (4) = 600 oz for $5.99 (4) = $23.96. $23.96/600 = $0.04/oz
                                                                 OR
At CVS or Walgreens: 50 oz (4) = 200 oz for $1.99 (4) = $7.96. $7.96/200 = $0.04/oz.

     The obvious answer seemed to be to buy my detergent at Meijer and not bother buying more newspapers. HOWEVER, I then saw that CVS was running this deal...

If I bought $30 worth of Arm & Hammer, I'd get a $10 ECB. I already had $15 in ECBs to spend. If I could round up 10 Arm & Hammer coupons I could spend a little less than $5 out of pocket and end up with 500 oz of laundry detergent PLUS get another $10 ECB (more fake CVS money!)

*Side note on CVS deals. Anytime they advertise a deal where you have to "Buy $X, get $Y ECB", you only have to buy 98% of the X amount to get the ECB to print. So for a "Buy $30 " deal you really only have to spend $29.40. So, for the Arm & Hammer, 10 bottles would get me to $29.90 and that would be enough to trigger the $10 ECB.

**Another side note. I decided to buy at CVS this week because I already had ECBs (fake CVS money) to spend there. If you don't have any fake store money Meijer seems to have the best prices hands down. CVS is usually the most expensive place to buy stuff unless you are proficient at rolling their ECB deals. However, if you figure out how to roll your ECBs, you can almost shop there for free.

Now how to get more newspapers without spending more money? I didn't want to spend $1.50 on a newspaper to get the $1 coupon I wanted. There were a couple more coupons in this weeks inserts that I'd use but I really didn't want to spend a whole lot more money. Then I remembered! I still have mPerks shopping coupons (fake Meijer money that I'd earned) to spend! Went back to Meijer and bought 6 more papers. Too bad I didn't buy all 10 at once since the 10% off coupon was a one time use dealie. Used the $8 off your next shopping trip mPerks coupon I had saved and paid $1 off my gift card. If you figured that I'd gotten $5 free from the gift card coupon earlier plus I used $8 of free Meijer money, I ended up getting 10 newspapers for $2. I can live with that!

Meijer shopping - $7.40 total off my giftcard

Went back home and clipped all the coupons I needed for Sunday - the day the new CVS ad breaks.

Sunday Feb. 5th
Here's my CVS shopping. The deals I used were "Buy $30 of Arm & Hammer (or other stuff listed), Get a $10 ECB" and "Buy 2 Speedstick deodorant, Get $3 ECB." The Speedstick deal was limit 2 - meaning you could do the deal twice. If you did it in separate transactions you would get two $3 ECBs. If you bought 4 in one transaction you would get one $6 ECB. This weekend's paper also had Speedstick coupons that were "Buy One, Get One Free, up to $2.99 value." Speedstick was on sale 2 for $5. If you used 2 Speedstick coupons and bought 4 Speedsticks, that meant you would pay $5 and get a $6 ECB; essentially a $1 moneymaker. If the register auto-deducted the Speedstick Coupon for the full $2.99 maximum value (as it often does at my favorite CVS), you would "make" $1.98. Here's how my deals went down...

Transaction #1:
4 Arm & Hammer laundry detergents @ 2.99 each
4 Speedstick deodorants @ 2.50 each
subtotal 21.96
- 4 x ($1 Arm & Hammer coupon)
- 2 x ($2.99 Speedstick coupon - got the max value! YAY!)
-$5 ECB
-$5 ECB
  1.98
+1.19 tax (on $17, probably cost of 4 detergents and 2 Speedstick?)
 $3.17, plus I got a $6 ECB for the Speedstick

Transaction #2 (at the store down the street):
6 Arm & Hammer  laundry detergents @ 2.99 each
subtotal 17.94
- 6 x ($1 Arm & Hammer coupons)
- $5 ECB
- $6 ECB
  0.94
+1.26 tax (on $17.94)
$2.20, plus I the $10 ECB printed

Total paid out of pocket $5.37, $2.45 of which was tax.

Essentially got 500 oz of Arm & Hammer for $2.92, or $0.006/oz + 4 free Speedstick deodorants

+ $10 ECB for later

I'd call that a successful day of shopping!
All the Speedstick is getting donated.

Monday Feb. 6th
No spending.

Tuesday Feb. 7th
     First thing I discovered this morning is that the Arm & Hammer coupons I wanted are now available as a printable. I printed out my max. The Meijer preview ad shows the smaller bottles going on sale on Thursday so I'll probably pick some more up.
     Another word on printables. If you see a coupon you like, PRINT IT. It may not be there when you look again. The manufacturer sets a limit on the number of prints per coupon. Once it's reached the coupon will no longer be available. DiGiorno is a great example. The printable had a longer expiration date than the Sunday insert coupon (which expired 2/6). I printed them back in January knowing they'd go on sale for the Superbowl. These coupons are no longer available (NLA) to print.

     Time to finish up this weeks grocery deals and do some meal planning!

     First thing I had to do was organize my freezer to see how much room I had. Kroger has DiGiorno pizzas on sale for $3.99 which is a good price. I have coupons for "Buy 2, Get 1 Free DiGiorno" which makes them $2.66 each and that's a stock up price. I used to have a stand up freezer but it croaked a couple years ago and I never replaced it. Somedays I really miss it! After organizing the freezer I decided I had room for 6 pizzas.

Kroger shopping...

6 DiGiorno pizzas @ 3.99 each
4 Siggi's yogurt @ 1.00 each
64 oz Ocean Spray Ruby Red grapefruit juice 2.49
1 can Campbell's Well Yes! soup 1.99
subtotal 32.42
- 3.99 DiGiorno (printable from coupons.com)
- 3.99 DiGiorno (printable from coupons.com)
- 1.00 (off 2 Siggis'; printable from Siggi's website)
- 1.00 (off 2 Siggi's; printable from Siggi's website)
- 2.00 (Kroger ecoupon on Ocean Spray grapefruit juice)
- 1.99 (Kroger ecoupon on Well Yes! - it was the Free Friday download)
 18.45
+0.17 tax (I have no idea what was taxed. Grapefruit juice?)
$18.62

Grapefruit juice is being donated. I bought it cause it was a good price.

$18.62

Now on to Meijer...

16 lb bag of cat food @ 9.99
1 gallon of milk @ 1.19
2 15.2 oz boxes Kellogg's Mini Wheats cereal @ 1.99 each
1 8 oz bag Sargento shredded cheese @ 2.00
1 loaf Nature's Harvest whole wheat bread @ 1.67
3 Roma tomatoes @ 0.73
1 pear @ 0.83
5 bananas @ 0.87
1 red onion @ 1.14
1 head of lettuce @ 0.99
1 butternut squash @ 3.18
3 lb bag Honeycrisp apples @ 4.99
4 lb bag oranges @ 2.49
1 bag Welch's frozen fruit @ 2.69
1 can Campbell's Well Yes! soup @ 1.99
1 can enchilada sauce @ 1.19
16 oz package Indiana Kitchen bacon @ 4.79
subtotal 44.71
- 3.00 (mPerks coupon earned from previous purchases)
- 1.50 (mPerks coupon off of $15 produce)
- 0.75 (Sargento cheese; received as Meijer catalina coupon)
- 1.50 (Well Yes! soup; received as Meijer catalina coupon)
- 1.50 (Welch's frozen fruit; coupons.com printable)
- 1.00 (Kellogg's cereal; redeemed Kellogg's Family Rewards points to print)
- 1.00 (Kellogg's cereal; redeemed Kellogg's Family Rewards points to print)
- 4.46 (Indiana Kitchen bacon; free product coupon I got at the State Fair last year)
30.00
+0.65 tax (probably on cat food)
$30.65, paid off the gift card I purchased on 2/4

$30.65 off my giftcard

I thought I was done shopping for the day and then I realized I still needed oatmeal and I really did not want to go back to the store tomorrow. So, ran back to Kroger this evening while G was at dance to do this deal...

It's a mix and match breakfast food deal. Buy 4 of the included items and get a $2 coupon off your next shopping trip. I only needed one container of oatmeal but I figured I'd get 4 total to get the $2 off coupon and donate the other 3.

Paid $6.46 and got a $2 grocery coupon

Three boxes are going to be donated

Hopefully that's all my shopping at least til the new grocery ad comes out!

February Grocery Spending: $75.04

February Donation Spending: $10.84

Perhaps Some New Goals - Training Log 1/29/17 - 2/4/17

So the last time I had a "good" run last year was on November 15th. That night I went to my run club practice and we were told to "just do a nice social run" since most of the group had come off some early November marathons. The week prior our workout had also been a "nice social run" and I had stayed with the fast kids, clocking 8:30 - 9:00 miles for 5 miles, so I figured I'd try running with the fast kids again.

Less than one mile into the "social run" I looked at my watch and we were going 8:10 pace... and speeding up. I quickly decided I was in over my head, asked what the route was, and dropped back in self-preservation mode. I ended up running 8 miles by myself that night. Last one back to the running store. I was quite pleased though. I had averaged 9:04 pace for those 8 miles.

After that, well, LIFE happened. Six plus weeks of being too busy to run, then a smattering of miles here and there in early January. I returned to run club practice on January 17th and struggle bussed through the workout. I also miscalculated my turn around point and ended up running 8 miles instead of 7, barely making it back to the running store before it closed. Seriously... I was doddling along doing my cool down when I suddenly realized the store closed at 7 pm. I was running by myself again and I wasn't sure if anyone knew I was still out on the course. All my outer wear and car keys were in the store's back stockroom. I had visions of getting back and the store being closed. I got back at 6:51 pm. Whew!

Anyhoos... getting back to 9:00 pace for 8 miles seemed like a reasonable goal.

Tuesday (1/31) I went back to run club. Workout was 1-3 mile warm up, 4-5 miles steady state run at 75%-85% effort (15K to marathon pace), 1-2 mile cool down.

My plan was, 1 mile warm up, 4 miles at 9:00 pace, if I felt OK I'd do another mile at this pace, then 1 mile cool down. I wasn't sure I could hold a 9:00 pace for 4 miles but I'd see how I felt. I went out to run it on my own. By now I've figured out the fast kids warm up at about an 8:30 pace. I'm not there yet.

So...

Mile 1 - 9:42. Not too bad. I think I've been running closer to 10:00 - 10:30 for my warm ups so hopefully this isn't too fast.

Mile 2 - 8:48. Feels pretty good. Don't go too fast! Don't go faster than 8:45...

Mile 3 - 8:39. OK, so there were these two women running ahead of me and I thought they were running about my pace so I caught up to them to run with them. Then I saw that they were running about 8:40 pace which was faster than I thought I should be running so I let them go and dropped back. They got to 86th Street and kept going north. I turned around at this point...

Mile 4 - 8:36. ...then it got too dark to see my watch. All I could do is run by perceived effort and see my mile splits when my watch lit up at the mile markers.

Mile 5 - 8:25. Holy....

I still felt good and still felt like I was running at about 75%. I still had more gears if I wanted to speed up. Definitely running another mile. I really had the temptation to put the hammer down and see how fast I could run the next mile. Don't be stupid. Never mind. Continue on...

Mile 6 - 8:33

Mile 7 - 10:00. Cool down.

It wasn't 8 miles but for the 5 steady state miles I ran, I averaged 8:36 pace. Much faster than I'd ever imagined I'd go that night. I guess I should run in the dark more often!

So... some new goals are in order. I finally signed up for some races.

ValenTimes 10K in Seymour on February 18th. I ran it in 50:44 last year and was mad that I'd run slow. I haven't raced since then (meaning, I've run races but not really raced). Quite frankly, I'd be THRILLED with that time this year. Goal this year is to run faster than 52:30.

Why 52:30? That's the time I need to get into a Preferred Start corral at the 500 Festival Mini-Marathon on May 6th. Since I haven't raced in a year I also don't have a time to turn in for the Mini yet. If I don't turn in a time I'll have to run through 10,000+ people to get to the finish line. I did that once before when I hadn't run any races in over a year. I think I started out in Corral P or something like that and it was an incredibly frustrating race running over people for 13 miles. I have no issue with running with 10,000 people, it's if I have to run through them.

Indiana Swim Club Indoor Triathlon on March 5th. I'm taking the plunge, or, more like dipping my toe, into triathloning. 600 yard swim in an indoor pool, followed by an 8 mile ride on a stationary bike, then a 3 mile run on an indoor track. I think I can handle that.

This is how my training went this week (first time I've kept track since mid-November)...

Sunday 1/29 - Rest. Worked all day.

Monday 1/30 - 6 miles on the Monon.

Tuesday 1/31 - 7 miles. Run Club practice on the Monon.

Wednesday 2/1 - Swim 1600 meters at the Y.

Thursday 2/2 - 8 miles on the Monon.

Friday 2/3 - Rest. Worked all day.

Saturday 2/4 - 8 miles at the hamster track.

29 miles this week.