Another Free Thing!

   I think we officially started our budget on Friday. I was going to try for No Spending on Food in May, but that fell through as of yesterday when I wanted to check out the Save-A-Lot store closer to work. I did a bunch of math to figure out if the 24 pack of toilet paper, which was on the sale that ended last night, was cheaper than buying six of the 4 packs for 89 cents, also factoring in the total number of square feet. Turns out it was exactly the same price per option, down to the penny! I got the big pack so I would have less to carry. Save-A-Lot and Aldi are both able to give lower prices because they exclude the use of bags. Well, Save-A-Lot will let you buy bags, but usually I just bring a big cloth bag, however, I forgot to bring one for this trip. And right now I will put two in my car for next time because I know if I don't do it now, I will forget again later! (I only had one Ronald McDonald bag available- which we also got for free in Michigan! The other reusable bags from Walmart are full of Christmas decorations.)

   Since I didn't have any bags for the grocery store yesterday, I saw that a girl at work had an empty Publix bag from her lunch purchase, and she let me have that before our shift ended. I used that to hold the smaller items and just figured I'd put the bigger stuff straight into the car. But then a wonderfully kind woman who was bagging her groceries off to the side next to me, handed me an extra paper bag that she had and didn't need. I thanked her twice and she wished me a good day! I like how such a small gesture like that can make a big difference, especially when we're on a budget. Everything seems an extra generous blessing and my heart melts for the kindness of society.

   I've been keeping track of the free food I have been able to get at work recently, but I do not rely on it and still pack a full lunch box. I tend to pack more food than I end up eating at work since I stay busier and am not sitting around watching Netflix like I do on most of my days off. Anyway, two of the ladies at work are currently on a low-carb diet, which is putting me on a high-carb diet (ha!) since they have been fine donating their sides of yummy bread to me! Since last week I have been given parts of three big veggie and cheese omelets, Cuban bread, two slices of toast from Zaxby's, two pickle spears, and a Hawaiian roll. Yesterday Alex gave me more than half of her pineapple pastry and another lady from work ordered pizza for our shift, so I had two slices of that. There is a diabetic woman on our shift who has to eat a banana each day, but doesn't like bananas that much, so she always gives me the other half! I laughed yesterday saying, "This is the healthiest thing I have eaten all day!", but also had some of a green fruit juice that I got from Trader Joe's before the budget started.

   One thing I like better about Save-A-Lot is that you can use the carts like normal. At Aldi you have to "rent" the carts for a quarter, even though it gives you the quarter back at the end. I've been confused about how that works or sometimes I don't remember to bring a cloth bag and a quarter, so I only get enough groceries that I can carry. Aldi is closer to our house and more "on the way" while I'm driving home. Save-A-Lot was about 10 minutes out of the way, but I hadn't shopped there since I still lived at home. I do like that their set up is like a regular grocery store with signs saying what is in each aisle, although Aldi has non-grocery items for sale as well.
    I once saw a Publix receipt vs a Walmart receipt, where the person bought all the same stuff (25 name brand items), and it showed that the Walmart was $27 cheaper! Even my friend Lindsey bought groceries at Walmart for the first time two or three years ago and texted me about how surprised she was with the price difference. However, if Publix has something BOGO, then that is usually a better deal. Unfortunately, I feel like sometimes Michael and I end up buying BOGO stuff that we don't really need, just "because it's a great deal", like Ben & Jerry's ice cream. For two of those yesterday I still paid $5.19 (the expensive regular price of one), but if I was on an extreme budget, I would stick to the Dollar Tree pints, or not buy ice cream at all, especially if I was also trying to make better food choices. I feel like I need to go on some of these budget challenges, just to write about them. Plus it would not hurt my body to stop eating ice cream for a few weeks and drink more water instead! Even if I just do it for my best friend, Alana, who is always so sweet to read every blog post! ;)
  At Save-A-Lot I spent $21.02 on the 24 pack of toilet paper, a bag of 14 small red gala apples, three mix-in yogurts, two cheapy frozen pizzas, a bigger chicken/rice/beans frozen meal, a half gallon of ice cream, and two double packs of baby foods for Emma. Even that still seems expensive.. Maybe I left something out? I already threw away the receipt though. On my way home Michael asked me to stop and get him some fried chicken from Publix. As I walked in I flipped through the weekly ad and what was in the BOGO sale? What else than Ben & Jerry's ice cream. I only got two because Aldi has really good brownie and cookie dough pint and I'd rather get that flavor there for half the price! Plus again, I need to not get so much ice cream anymore (for a while- you know, once all the current stuff is gone)..
  Other free things- since CVS linked all of our medicine purchases to our rewards cards, we sometimes get those "cash coupons" for a few dollars. I was so excited to get one the other day for $10! I always walk around the store, like a little kid who saved up their allowance, but since I'm not in a healthy mode and I saw that Easter candy was on sale, I used half of the cash credit for that and also bought a toothbrush! I do often get tooth brushes from Dollar Tree (they even have double packs!), but there was nothing else I saw that I wanted to spend the cash credit on and didn't want to get ten dollars worth of Easter themed candy. I have a little more self control than that, ha! Although, I was wondering what I would have bought instead of candy if I was in health mode. Last time I bought pump soap because we needed more and another time I used the cash coupon to buy fancy sounding face wash because I didn't want to try it for the full price.

  I also have $23 in free frozen yogurt Groupons that my mom gave me about a year and a half ago. By now they are definitely expired, however, as it states on the paper, "the amount paid for this voucher never expires".
   Another free thing I was so happy to receive (via email) was that our Happily/ Date Box subscription extended as an anniversary gift from Michael's older brother and his wife! I don't know if she knew that I "invested" (Michael's favorite word) in a 3-month subscription so we could have dates at home, which area arranged by a company and then mailed to us once a month. So now we have a 6 month subscription. We loved the first one (making ice cream from scratch and a game called, "I Bet I Know You Better"), and we have had the second one delivered to us, but we haven't done it yet. That one is about plants that comes with the little buckets to hand and herb seeds to watch grow over the weeks. I had plants at one point in our first official apartment together, and I am loving my mom's strawberry and blackberry plants, which makes me want to grow some of our own in the back yard! She said she got the blackberry plant on clearance two years ago and recently it has started growing the fruit. Our yard has a lot more dirt than soil, but our flowers have been growing like crazy since they were planted last summer!

   Another cool thing, that is not so much about budgets, but is a cool story ~ About 14 years ago, I made a friend in a group on MySpace. As MySpace's popularity fizzled out, we became penpals instead, writing to each other probably 10x per year, then a little less as we started having kids and getting busier with our lives. We always stayed in touch through Facebook and Instagram, and texted often the past couple of years. As we live so far apart (she lives in Wisconsin), we were finally able to meet last weekend because she brought her older daughter, Nova, to Orlando so they could go to Disney! Originally I was thinking it was 12 years ago, but because of the detail of starting to use Facebook in 2006 instead of MySpace, Jenn and I had to become friends at least a year before that. She was so sweet and paid for our breakfast too, so I paid the tip with cash. It was so crazy to finally meet a really good friend I have had for so long. Nova carried around her bag of goodies ~ leaves, rocks, and acorns that she found while walking around outside. The little cow I'm holding is a Wisconsin souvenir that sweet Nova picked out for Emma.

   Just a few more notes before ending this post ~ I do really want to do the "Healthy on a Budget, 2019 Version" compared to the last one that was almost 3 years ago, back in Fall 2016 when I was trying to distract myself with fun stuff because I was getting so stressed out about not being pregnant again yet after my miscarriage, even though I was following my ovulation apps and we were doing it on the "right" (highest chance) days. Plus I need to get back to eating better. I made a really great "Soul Cycle vs Sugar Cycle" list that I taped to the pantry door, about all the pros of eating well and the cons of not eating well. But lately, after getting tired of the salads that were my favorite for a couple months, the only thing in my brain is, "Pizza and ice cream are so yummy!" But my birthday is in less than 3 weeks now (20 days til I'm 32!) and just over 3 weeks until Emma's 2nd birthday party, and I want to look "slim and trim" for all the pictures. My dad told me one day that I looked that way ~ around my 23rd birthday I think when Michael, Alana and I met some other friends (Mia, Sharanya, Tonia, Travis, and Sarah) at a lake in Gainesville. I believe I was 110 pounds then ~ June 2010 during Full Sail, but got back down to 105 by the of end July when we went tubing for Tonia's birthday. But I don't want to go into too much detail about that or I will feel the need to post pictures from those days... too late! ;)

   Last few pictures: I have had those carrots and the hummus so long I should probably throw them out, but they miiight still be good and I want to eat up everything we have. The little container is leftover toppings from Taco Bell nachos. I warmed it up and scooped it onto the greenest lettuce leaves. It was actually really good and I will probably make my own (refried beans, beef, and cheese- tomatoes and sour cream optional, but it had that in there too so it was extra creamy)! The pizza below is my current favorite one from Publix: Organic Roasted Vegetables by Monteli, and I added extra parmesan cheese that we had. I'll use left over parmesan packets from Olive Garden for the other two pizzas I got on sale recently. Also shown is one of the pickle spears that I got from a girl at work last week. I ate it on Monday. Pickles are good!

   I love how little Sasha asks for by using her eyes. She just wants to play outside in the backyard (and then be inside for 3 minutes, and then go outside again for 10 minutes) and she loves laying under blankets. She has been so good about not getting on the bed like she used to, now that we have the new mattress and clean bedsheets. I put a blanket on the floor by my side of the bed and she lays on that in the mornings that I'm home. & Emma shines so bright that even the sun has to wear sunglasses! :D