I ordered my Girl Scout cookies a long time ago. I’m pretty sure they said I would have my cookies delivered around Valentine’s Day. I’m really looking forward to getting the cookies. This year I ordered by Thin Mints and Samoas. I actually found a recipe online for a similar Samoa cookie. If my cookies don’t come soon I might be tempted to make up a batch of the copycat Samoa cookies.
Cutest Puppy Ever Stole My Heart
While walking through the mall today, I stopped by the pet store. I normally go in just to look at all of the animals. Today I saw the cutest puppy ever. It was a baby golden retriever with the prettiest little brown eyes you could ever see. This little guy smiled at me and I just had to hold him. Puppy dog eyes get me every time.
I played with him for about 20 minutes before I realized I was getting really attached… almost too attached. I had the store clerk put him back even though I could have played with him for hours. He looked soo sad when he left my arms and headed back to the little cage he was in. It broke my heart to see him stare back at me as though he was saying, “Why don’t you want me?”
I really wanted to take him home, but I couldn’t bring myself to make a purchase like that without the entire family with me. Well, that and I don’t really want to have to deal with dog fur on everything we own.
How I Plan to Save Money This Year
This year I really need to work on saving some money. I started using a new website to track all of my spending. It shows me exactly where all of our money is going. I was a little shocked to see how much money we really spend going out to eat or on fast food. I’m setting a budget for everything. I know we can’t cut everything off cold turkey so I’m going to have us do a step down method for our spending habits.
Right now we spend about $500 a month of groceries. I would like to get that down closer to $300 or less but I know we need to work towards that. To start I’m setting a budget of $400 a month or roughly $100 a week on groceries. I think we can manage to cut back by $25 a week to start with easily, especially if I really work to use up what we have in our pantry. The following month I’ll move it to $75 a week. If we do really well with that I might even be able to move it down a little further but I’m not going to go crazy.
We’re taking a closer look at television and cable services along with movie rentals. We purchased a few pay per view movies on demand this month. This is really silly considering we pay almost $20 a month for Netflix, we just need to send back our current DVD to get the next one on our list. My husband and I are thinking about turning off our cable television because just about everything we watch is available online and we do have Netflix. We pay about $100 a month for cable so that’s more money we could save every month.
I know groceries and entertainment aren’t the only way we can save but at least it’s a start. I was able to easily identify these ways to save and will do some digging into other ways to save that I might not be soo obvious to me.
Clearance on Snowflake Chocolate
Hello, my name is Suzi, and I’m a chocoholic! Chocolate is one of my weaknesses. I can’t help myself when I see chocolate, I just have to have it.
I was walking through the aisles of my grocery store and came to the clearance section. On the table was a huge stack of dark chocolate morsels in the shape of snowflakes. They were marked down more than 50% just because they were deemed “holiday.” I have no problem buying and eating chocolate in any shape, as long as it tastes good.
Gift Shopping
Sometimes I hate shopping for Christmas gifts. It’s the crowds that bother me. I don’t like walking into a store and being surrounded by a million people. It drives me nuts when I can’t move my cart through an isle without having to wait for someone to move theirs.
This year I’m finishing up my holiday shopping online. I love the ease and conveninece of being able to shop at any time, day or night in the comfort of my own home. And, I don’t even have to get dressed up to leave the house. I did my shopping in my pajamas! I got some great deals on Amazon and didn’t have to pay tax. I love that part too! I even saved on the shipping since everything I bought was eligible for the free Super Saver Shipping. I love Amazon for that reason.
I’ve finished just about all of my shopping and an rest easily. Now I just have to worry about wrapping everything.
Imagination Time
The kids were watching a science program on the public access channel and were enjoying all of the experiments they saw. My oldest asked me if I could get her a lab coat like the one the scientist was wearing in the program. She said she wanted to play science lab. I told I would see what I could find for her.
I looked around online and found a few options on http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/. I think she would like a coat no matter what size it is. I might just order one for myself and use it as a model to make one that will fit her and then we could both play science lab together. Her imagination is really vivid and I know she’ll come up with some wild concoctions to experiment with while she wears her fancy scientist lab coat. I bet if I got her some safety goggles she would really be thrilled.
I suppose I’ll make a science lab kit for her for a Christmas present. The lab coat will be the best part of it all. I’m excited to see everything put together now. Our imagination time is going to be filled with lots of new science adventures.
Food Drive
I went grocery shopping tonight with my husband. I sat in one of those motorized shopping carts and pointed to what I wanted him to get. While we were there we purchased a bunch of food to donate to our local food drive. There was really large bin out in front of the store when we walked in that reminded us to give back. I know not everyone is as fortunate as we are. We always try to give back and help our community out whenever we can.
Black Friday Sales
Black Friday. You either love it or you hate it. I was hoping to get out this year to do some last minute shopping for some amazing deals but I’m not sure I’ll be able to compete with the crowds. I would like to get a portable DVD player for the car when we take trips. One player for each of the kids would be ideal but I’ll settle for one. I’d also like to get a television for the guest bedroom. Maybe I can convince my husband to go out and brave the crowds for me this year.
Christmas Shopping
Yes… I’m already thinking about Christmas Shopping this year. I hate having to wait until the last minute to get everything and feel completely rushed. I’m going to go hit some sales this weekend. My goal is to shop for one person each day. We’re only doing the kids and our siblings this year.
I think it might even be a fun idea to have all of us do a gift exchange between the grown ups. Maybe if we all put our name in the pool and set a limit of oh maybe $75 we could each get something really nice. Oh I think I’ll work on that. I know there are random number generators. I can have everyone fill out their information and mail it to me in an envelope with a number written on it. I can then use the number generator to help me match people up. I’ll have to work out a way to make sure no on gets him or herself though. I guess that’s something I’ll bring up at dinner tonight.
Cake Shop To Be?
My sister has been baking a lot of cakes as of late. It seems like every week she’s putting together another three tiered something or other. A lot of people have even suggested she open her own business. She has an amazing talent and she seems to really enjoy baking and crafting delicious and beautiful desserts. I told her that she should really start taking people’s suggestions and begin looking into a location to open up shop.
One of the first things she’ll have to get are Bakery display cases. Once she sets out a few cakes on those displays orders will be rolling in. She already has a pretty big word of mouth clientele but having a few cakes on display would definitely boost her business.
I told her to check out Tiger Chef. They have a huge variety of restaurant supplies and everything she would need for the bakery and store. All of the prices are really reasonable as well. She won’t have to fork over tons of money to continue gathering equipment for the business using this company.
I know her focus is decorating and baking cakes but, I wonder if I can convince her to add in cookies and cupcakes too. Cupcakes don’t seem like that far of a stretch. I mean after all, they are nothing more than miniature cakes. Cookies on the other hand, are a little different. But I ask, who doesn’t love a good cookie every now and then? Then again, maybe she should start with what she knows and expand from there.