I got big Thanksgiving dinner savings with coupons

We got some big Thanksgiving dinner savings this year. Thanks to store sales and coupons, I have dinner for both Thanksgiving and Christmas in the bag. Having this off our shoulders leaves room in the budget for some fun holiday activities and it gives me time to do some of them.

Our yearly menu is pretty much the same. We have turkey, ham, dressing, mashed potatoes, corn casserole, green beans, dessert and rolls. Hubby insists on the almost mandatory cranberry sauce so I pick that up too. I also like to add a head of lettuce for salad. 

Ingles and Bi-Lo had some really good sales over the past couple of weeks. There were some really snazzy grocery coupons both online and in the newspapers. Combining these with sale ads from Ingles and BiLo really made the difference.

Here's how we racked up the savings:
I found a Butterball coupon online for $3.00 off when combined with other items. The items happened to be among my regular grocery purchases, were on sale and I coupons for each. Plus, I have a mail-in rebate for five $1.00 off coupons on Butterball products to send in. Bi-Lo also had BOGO on canned veggies, bacon and rolls. And yes, I had more coupons for each of these.

I next steered the car toward Ingles (also on my regular errand route). At this store I was able to pick up BOGO chicken stock, gravy packets and other odds and ends that were on sale. I had coupons for nearly every item purchased here.

The end result is that we have both holiday meals, purchased and in the freezer/cabinets. We did it for less than the regular price of one meal. Combining the coupons with the sale items is definitely the way to go.

Keeping organized and alert is the key. Newspapers and online sites like grocerycouponcart.com helps. Manufacturers sites also often have coupons. Sorting through the sites and clipping the coupons takes me about an hour a week. For my family, the time is well spent.

Cooking from scratch saves money

I'm continually being surprised at how cooking from scratch saves money. Don't worry. There's no danger of me  becoming Betty Crocker or Paula Deen. I'm not that into kitchen DIY. My goal is is to save a few bucks here an there.

For dinner tonight we had turkey and dumplings. It didn't take but a minute to toss the frozen Christmas turkey into a pan, add water and turn up the heat. Just as the seasonings were being added I realized that we forgot to hit the grocery store for canned biscuits. No problem, I'd just grab the box of Bisquick and go from there. Oops. We are out of that too.

Thank goodness for online recipes. A few keystrokes brought up tons of recipes for homemade dumplings. The dumpling recipe I choose was almost identical to the Bisquick recipe and didn't take any longer to make. It's amazing what a little flour, water and shortening will do.

The dumplings turned out great! But, it got me to thinking about the cost. Even without the BOGO, a bag of flour is about one-third of the cost of the mix. Even with the price of shortening, the homemade version is still less expensive than the boxed mix or the biscuit dough.

I've always heard that you learn something new everyday. I learned how to make homemade dumplings and found out that it's more cost effective. Getting a BOGO lesson seems kind of fitting for someone trying to save money. I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Burglary without renters insurance can increase debt

My daughter just found out about burglary expenses the hard way. Without insurance she has no hope of being able to cover the cost of her belongings. Like a lot of other people a renters insurance assessment is something that she 'never got around to'.

I didn't think about the amount of extra expenses involved with a burgulary. Fortunately, they have a great landlord who came over to secure the building. This was one of the first things that happened. Then there is the losses themselves.

They understandably didn't want to spend the night in their home and were fortunate enough to have compassionate friends. Then there is the gas that Hubby and I expended getting to them the next day and more gas to make the route of pawn shops. (We used ours to help Daughter and Future Son-in-Law save a few bucks.

None of the pawn shops had any of their things. Without renters insurance I don't expect them to get the items back. It especiallly hurts that it happened right here at Christmas. But, then I guess that's the peak time for a burgulary to happen.

Hubby and I have been broken into before we ever had anything of value. Today's kids are different than we were when we were students. They own computers, cameras, iPods and all sorts of electronic gadgets. To replace any of these is expensive but when added together the replacement costs easily outstrip any student budget.

My daughter is lucking that Hubby and I can help her out right now. It was only a few months ago that our help might not have been available. This experience has been debt building and a very hard lesson on the importance of having renters insurance. Although we tried to tell her, our daughter learned an expensive lesson a little too late. Hopefully our other daughter is paying attention.