FAQ Friday:Illness

The most common thing I see is "We spent more because we're ill" be it on medication, food, drink, or whatever.

Though I haven't been asked this question, I thought it could be brought up as a good one to ask. I realize that the conventional cold season has ended. However, in this house, we are all currently nailed hard with colds.

First of all, medications: we buy generic. The only time we buy name brand is when I can combine a sale with coupon to make it cheaper to get name brand than to get generic. We also try to keep them on hand, so that we don't suddenly have to buy $20 in medicine all at once. It doesn't mentally sting so bad than.

Honestly, Target is one of my favorite places for generics. Their up and up brand carries a fabulous price with quality product. Their infant ibuprofen is almost half the price of Motrin, and it's essentially the same darned thing. Same with other generic medications. If you're not sure, feel free to look at active ingredients and compare.

Something that we do that my husband grumbles about...


I buy both of these products (in generic). He constantly tries to tell me that there is absolutely no difference. Yet, to me there is one. Nyquil makes me drowsy, dayquil doesn't. So to get through a day with a toddler-I must have dayquil because I certainly can't be falling asleep.


This is another product I keep stocked in my house. Again, we usually do generic, but sometimes I can get a B1G1 coupon from Pedialyte and than I will get that because they usually have more flavors. Once, I was even able to get a coupon at the same time from Target and combine them to get 2 for less than Target's brand of pedialyte. I never crack these jugs unless our daughter is very ill. If she's still drinking nicely, I won't crack a pedialyte.

Now, I also must note as to why I insist on rotating flavors. Remember when we were children and cough syrup was almost always grape? Now I can't do most grape flavored things because they remind me of being ill. So, I'm very careful of that for our daughter.


We have also been known to take leftover chicken and make chicken noodle soup from scratch, but that, I believe is another post!

What does your family to to keep the cost of being ill down?

FAQ Friday: Kitchen Tools

It's time for FAQ Friday! I love doing Fridays for this reason.

Again, I have little questions to work from, so I'm going to use one that has been in my mind for a long time to blog about.

What kitchen tools do you spend a little more on?

I honestly feel that almost any tool is worth buying nicer quality. Often when I need a new tool, I will shop around and evaluate quality vs price. There are many tools out there, and many competitive brands. Do I buy Martha Stewart's brand? Walmart's Mainstays, KitchenAid, Pampered Chef...? Often times I evaluate each tool individually.
Recently, I decided that a food chopper would make my life easier and would be worth the cost vs use. I looked at many different brands. Many of them seemed...cheap. They may have been a bit cheaper financially, but they were also cheaply made.
In December, I hosted a Pampered Chef show. I like some of their stuff, however some of it is definitely overpriced. I promise, I do not have enough in the budget for their almost $500 knife set! However, a few of their lower priced items are definitely worth it...and I feel, well...pampered using them.
My grandma booked a show off of me, giving me the benefit of being able to purchase one of that month's hostess specials. I purchased their food chopper at 60% off! I believe it was about $12. Their chopper has a guarantee on it, which I love.

I have tools in my kitchen that may have cost me more however, they save me time, or physical pain. I think that's worth a few more dollars.

FAQ Friday

I haven't had many questions for followers yet, so I am going to start off this new routine with a question that my Mom asks me...a lot.

How do you make weekly menus and remain flexible?

Yes, we make weekly menus. It is absolutely a fabulous tip I picked up at one point for saving money. I use the sales to make menus off of and it avoids many things in my home. The biggest thing? The 4 pm argument of "What's for dinner?" You know the one, when you suddenly start thinking, "Mmmm, dinner is getting near time, what shall we have?" Than you realize that everything is frozen, or needed started in the crock pot hours ago. My Mom is ever famous for this.

First off, I watched our patterns in life. We typically do our shopping on Thursdays. That was the day that my husband got paid while working for his last job. When we are living pay check to pay check, this is often how it must be done. This told me I had to have my grocery list for the coming week by Thursday.

Next, on Sundays, I would go through the ads. There are 3 main local stores that I check and shop. I check all of these ads and see who has the most and the best deals.

I than take my menu planning magnet (I found it at Micheals in the dollar section, it's awesome. One side lists the days of the week, each with their own square, than about 1/3 of each page is space for a shopping list), if we have any activities or plans for that week, I write them in. This allows me to plan what I make around what is going on. Say we have an activity starting at 630, than we usually need to eat before, and I'm probably not going to want to make something labor intensive. So, I write EACH activity on the menu planner.

I than think of the type of meal I want for each and every day. If we have a daytime activity where we'll return home tired but in time for dinner, than I'll usually put a crock pot meal in for that day. The point is, I work around a lot of things. I don't plan my meals and than work around them.

On that note, how we are able to keep to it is to STAY flexible. I'm not kidding! If Mom invites us over for dinner, we go and we reschedule that night's meal. Depending on what it is is when I push it out to. If it's something that doesn't involve many perishable ingredients, it may get pushed out further.

If the day doesn't go as planned and we're exhausted come dinner time, we look forward on the meal plan and flop a day or two to make it work, rather than calling Domino's.

I won't lie, it also helps that my husband doesn't let me give into random pizza cravings and call Dominos. But if it weren't for my meal planning, every day would be stressful.

I also choose not to plan breakfast and dinner. I like some choice each day and those aren't so hard. Besides, this is when my husband gets a chance to eat his leftovers.

Do you have a question for me? Ask away, than watch for it on FAQ Fridays!