Outside Temp: 37 F (it was 64 today! I was walking around in a thin short sleeved shirt, with no jacket... I bet that tomorrow, I'll need snow boots!)
What I cooked today:
Pork chops: I picked up a 'pork loin' on sale this week, then I realized I have no idea what to do with it. So I asked my resident cooking expert (Patrick's mom), and she said that yes, I can just slice it up and make boneless pork chops. A little bit of Shake & Bake, and my family was so excited! I only used up half of the loin, so I can do it again in a day or two! Woo hoo!
Update:
So, about 1 1/2 years ago, while we were still in that other place, I learned about coupons. I'm not psycho about them, but I do keep track of them and watch a couple blogs that let me know the best price for things.
When I was first starting out, I realized that I never had to pay full price for toothpaste. Sometimes, I could get it for free. Just wait for the sale to match the coupon price, and voila, free toothpaste. And, when you are first starting something new and exciting, you kind of go overboard.
Within the first 2 months, I probably had 15 boxes of toothpaste. At this point, I decided that even if the toothpaste was free, I wouldn't buy it. The first few months, it was hard. I mean, who can pass up free? But, I realized when we were packing to move, that I had a box entirely devoted to free or almost free 'personal care' products. Shampoo, conditioner, soap, body wash, razors, shave gel, and lots and lots of toothpaste.
So, you can imagine my surprise when the kids let me know on Friday that we were out of toothpaste. I said, grab a new box from the pile. To which I was informed that there was no stash. No more toothpaste.
I guess with 6 people regularly brushing their teeth, every day and every night, you actually use up toothpaste. Not to mention that my kids are not exactly precise with their toothpaste usage. More than once, I have had to clean up globs of toothpaste on the sink or the faucet or the mirror (don't ask).
So, then comes the moment I'd been dreading since we got here. We are out of toothpaste, and I have to drive into town on a day I'm not scheduled to drive into town, just to get a $3 box of toothpaste. I was able to get 2 extra days of toothpaste out of the 'almost' empty tube, but it was imperative that we got toothpaste this weekend.
As always, I can come up with something to get while there. I picked up Ryan's meds, got more milk and cheese, canned tomatoes were on sale, and, oh, those little 3M hooks so I can hang things without putting holes in the walls (it's still not our house, I don't want to damage the walls), so the trip wasn't a waste of gas money.
The worst part was that I didn't have the coupon to match the sale price on toothpaste. I did get a $3 back on a $4 tube of Crest Complete, so that helped. And the Aquafresh was on sale 2/$3, so $1.50 isn't bad. But, now I have to add toothpaste back on my list of 'If it's on sale, buy it'. That list is the reason I have 13 boxes of cereal, and a case of kidney beans, and about 14 little bottles of vinegar, and about 11 bottles of shampoo and conditioner.
But, on the bright side, I now know that my family uses up about 12 tubes of toothpaste in a year, or about 2 tube per person per year. Allen is 14, Connor is 11, Katie is 10, Ryan is 8, which would come out to about 4 years for Allen, 7 for Connor, 8 for Katie and 10 for Ryan, which is 58 tubes plus 40 for Patrick and I, which is 98 tubes.
If I collect 100 tubes of toothpaste, we will go through them all before Ryan is 18. So, perhaps I can start buying toothpaste after all!
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