Come Together Now...

Contributing Artists: Aaron Shust, Alathea, Echoing Angels, Everlife, The Katinas, Lee Greenwood, Mandisa, Megan Garrett of Casting Crowns, Matthew West, , Michael Tait, Natalie Grant, Nicole C. Mullen, Phil Stacey, Point of Grace, Selah, Steven Curtis Chapman, TobyMac, Travis Cottrell, Wynonna, Vince Gill, and many others.

Coupons, Coupons, everywhere!

So I have joined the club, got on the ban wagon, I am a coupon clipper! I’m not very good at it yet. But I am the most organized bad coupon clipper there is! For Christmas my cousin Karina gave me a coupon binder and my AR/OC self just loves it!

When I first started I was using this mini accordion file type thing and well it’s no wonder it wasn’t helping us on our shopping trips! Even though I had it divided up into categories and the like I would spend forever looking though the thing at the store trying to find a certain coupon that I knew I had but couldn’t remember the specifics that had to happen in order to use it (was it a $1.00 off if I bought 2 or was it 3?)

Now I use this…tada!

Here’s a list of things you need to make your own real quick before I get into the specifics:

• A 3 ring binder (some prefer one that is enclosed so that coupons don’t fall out. If for some reason you will swinging around your binder... maybe when rejoicing from all the savings your going to be getting)
• Baseball Card Holder Pages
• Dividers (number will depend on how many categories you decide you need. I have 20)
• Zipper Pouch (I keep my pen, pencil, scrap paper and calculator in this)

So I have a 1 ½ inch 3 ring binder that has two pockets on both the inside front cover and the inside back cover. In the front pockets I keep all the coupons that I need to file and in the other front pocket I keep the sales ads I need (target, CVS, Publix) for that week.  In the back pockets I keep extra baseball card sheets.

Behind my zipper pouch comes all my different categories. I have 20 different categories as follows: (the notes beside each categories is what I have put to give me clues about what I put in each category –there is more variety in the actual sections)

Gift Cards

Reward Cards

Restaurants

Retail Stores

Dry Goods – Cereals, Bread, Crackers, Rice

Pre-Made Foods – Soups, Tacos, Dinner Kits

Condiments & Sauces – Ketchup, Mayo, Barbecue

Baking Items – Spices, Boxed Mixes

Meats – Deli Section, Meat Department

Frozen Items – Entrees, Veggies, Desserts

Dairy- Cheese, Yogurt, Cookies (slicen’bake)

Beverages – Juices, Cokes, Ect

Paper Goods – TP, Paper Towels, Plates

Cleaning Supplies – Swifters, Dawn, Laundry

Personal Care – Shampoo, Razors, Lotions

Medicines – Alive, Claritin, Band-Aids

Misc. – Batteries, Candles, Ect.

Pet Care – Food, Treats, Stores

Store Coupon Policies

 

 

 

Recommendations: 

• It is helpful in some of these categories if there is a page devoted to a certain item. Like in personal care I have a page for me and a page for John. Or in dry goods there is a page for cereals, one for breads, and so forth. If you have a divider (category) for every little thing the binder will just be filled with a bunch of dividers and only one page and two coupons behind it. Space it too important! 
• Get good dividers! Make sure that you can see them- you want them to stick out over the baseball pages. I have also found it helpful for my dividers to have pockets on them. That way before I get to the store I can go through my binder and place the coupons I want to use in the pocket of that category and can look at them as I need to but then I still have all the rest laid out in the pages in case I run across a great sale that wasn’t advertised.
• Make your own categories. These are just the ones that work for us. Every family has different needs.

What I think:

• It’s a lot easier to find coupons! Period! Especially for unadvertised deals.
• Once you get it the way you like it (categories and what not) it’s easy to put your coupons in each week. You do have to make sure they are trimmed well to fit in the slots but I think that it’s totally worth the extra time that takes. 
• It’s easy to see when coupons expired and to then pull them out. 
• Everything is in one place – coupons, calculator, scissors, pens, paper

Happy Couponing!! Wait till you see my shopping bag! Your going to want one too! But that's another blog for another day! 

That Kind of Girl...

So I really think that I need this blog! There is just so much going on in mine and John’s little world that I need an outlet. Which is so ironic because I really don’t have time to commit to this blog. Based on my past postings you never would have guessed that though huh?

Sure I only work from 8:30am till 1:30pm M-F at the preschool. Most think that’s a pretty cush job, all I do is go “play” everyday right? I mean how hard could that be? It’s not… I love my teaching job!  But it’s not just playing! At three there are many skills that I have to make sure my class masters before they go to Pre-K. And they have all these sub- categories that are enough to drive you batty. There are  the skills that the Pre-K teachers want them to have (you know the social and I can sit still the whole circle time type skills), the skills that the parents want them to have (like reading and writing novels- just kidding…well kinda of), and then there are the skills that well, to survive at an  elementary school they have to master (like opening their own juice box at lunch type skills). Pre-K teachers  are all… your kiddos need to know to cut using the scissors the write way ( thumb goes up and then we cut, cut, cut), glue control, following multi-step directions, shapes, colors, numbers and those are just the easy one’s to track. I also have to pay attention and track artistic expression, eye-and coordination, their cognitive learning process, compassion and respect for others, self expression, object recognition, problem solving, social interaction. And then all the stuff their parents are really worried about letter recognition, pre math skills, and writing. (Which by the way did you know that they change the style they teach handwriting with every couple of years. Oh do me a favor please when you start to teach your child how to write their name don’t teach them in all capital letters! It’s one of the hardest writing habits to break! ) By the time those kiddos leave my room at the end of the day my head is spinning from trying to remember if I documented everything just right and if Johnny so and so used his scissors with his right hand or left hand, and if Suzzy so and so held the pencil the right way so that I can chart that when I get home. When I get home well there are also the 10-14 hours a week I spend at home making lesson plans, cutting out things for art, making early literacy activities for circle time. Make calendars, newsletters and other notes that need to go home to parents. Keeping up with all my certifications-only 18 more classes to go
(which translates in to 18 hours). And then there is my Thirty-One business which I totally adore!!!! But it too has little tasks that if you don’t stay on top of they can really blow up! Like the hostess coaching, recruiting appointments, packing my bags for shows and the like.  I think I am spending like 20 hours a week or more on that because I am trying to promote to Senior Director. My goal is to be able to stay home once John and I are blessed with a little one. I am well on my way to that goal…I just turned in my taxes and I actually made a little money this year! I’m not in the hole! Whoo-Hoo!  There is also the normal stuff like laundry, cleaning and cooking … I mean microwaving (Ha!). Finding time to spend with John and Tank Marie too is no easy task either.

But back to my original point. It seems to me like I have lost myself somewhere in all this busyness. I feel like I have become just the preschool teacher, just the Thirty-One consultant, and just the wife. But I am more then that. I am the lover of photography, the doer of crafts & random projects, the avid reader who needs new books because she has read everything on all four bookshelves twice, and most recently I am the coupon diva of the Halfmann huddle. I am also the mission minded, Jesus freak that made me well me. Most of you would never have known all that because you only seen me in one of these capacities at a time. Somewhere along the way I must have decided that while I am an almost scary multitasker that none of these things should ever be combined. That they have to remain in the separate boxes and can only come out at their pre-scheduled time. But what good is that?

So anyways I have decided that this blog is the place where they can all combine and meet as one. It may not be perfect but it should be interesting to say the least! And while we are on the topic let’s just go ahead and throw this out there too… I’m not perfect. Nor will I ever be!

I’m just the Jesus Freak, devoted wife, preschool teacher, Thirty-One consultant, photo loving, wannabe crafter, coupon clipper, 3am reader, who sees life as a mission field, kinda of gal.
 

Cuteness

Making some changes again....eventually I will quit making it pretty and actually write, post pictures, videos and the like. Until then enjoy the cuteness!!

You Can Sing All You Want To.....

But Worship Is More Than A Song