Food Stuff

Last year (wow, that seems like forever ago!) my mom, Mike's mom, and Mike's sister, and I took a road trip to Shipshewana.  We had one purpose of this trip: eating and shopping!  Our first stop was at Rise and Roll Bakery for some delicious breakfast treats.  I got a fabulous cinnamon roll :)  I of course, had to bring some goodies back home. 

Peach Butter....oh so very very yummy!!!

Dried Cataloupe...I wanted to try something different.  This was delicious!

Our next stop was at E&S Sales.  Oh. My. Word.  This was totally my kind of store.  Aisles upon aisles of fun foods, some I'd never seen before.  We spent a lot of time in this store.  My mom and I filled an entire shopping cart of fun items, and the prices are awesome!  Here are some fun things I bought:

Christmas Tree shaped pretzels.  I dipped these in white chocolate and covered them in sprinkles for Christmas for my youth group girls.

This is the product I was most excited about...dehydrated marshmallow bits, like the ones in hot chocolate packets.  I love to eat these plain, but I've made a few recipes with them too.  Keep your eye out on my food blog for them...soon!

Dried Pineapple...I love dried pineapple!

Yeast donut mix...so delicious!

 

 

Peanut butter filled pretzels.  They're such a delicious snack!

Mike will tell you that I always snatch a few marshmallows from his bowl of Lucky Charms.  I found this bag of marshmallows and I bought them so I don't have to steal his any more!

Bacon cheese.  Enough said!

Friend Makin' Monday: Holiday Shopping

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving weekend!  I'll try to post about ours later this week, along with the continuation of my November Thankfulness list!  But now it's time for a quick Friend Makin' Monday post...

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Do you like to shop? Usually!

Have you started shopping for Christmas gifts yet? Yes!  I have about 75% of my shopping done and wrapped!
Did you shop on Black Friday? If so, what did you buy? I did!  We got up at 3 am on Friday to head to Menard's.  Our big purchases were a dog bed, dog toys, work lights for our basement, and some Christmas gifts.  Totally worth the savings and the atmosphere was so fun!
List a few of your favorite stores. Target, Kohls, Peter's Gourmet Outlet
What is the last thing you purchased for yourself (food and drinks excluded?) A candle.
Do you prefer to shop in-store or online? Both!  I love the convenience of shopping online but I like to be able to try on clothing in stores.
If you could purchase one thing that you don’t need at all for yourself today, what would it be? Probably some kind of workout equipment...
Does your significant other shop with you? Do they love it/hate it? Sometimes...Mike rarely comes grocery shopping with me, but he'll go other places with me.  Typically he doesn't complain unless I add in extra stops, but there are definitely things he'd rather be doing.
Do you shop at thrift stores? Occasionally.

When you’re holiday shopping, do you make lists? Yes!  I'm totally a list person!  It's the only way I can keep everything straight!

Good deals!

I realized it's been a long time since I last talked about couponing and great deals!  Honestly, that's mostly because I haven't gotten that many great deals lately.  I don't know if it's the lack of coupons (a few weeks ago there were no coupon fliers in the paper!) or the lack of good sales.  Due to both, I haven't done much stockpiling and we've just been buying what we need for the week, mostly fruits, vegetables, lunch items, and milk.  But this week was finally a good coupon week!  I went to Meijer last night and got all this:

$100.74 worth of groceries for $57.65!!!  I saved 43%...not bad, but not by best trip either.

Some of the "highlights" of this shopping trip:

-Kraft Pasta Salad: 67 cents/box

-Super Pretzels: 81 cents/box

-24 pack Mountain Dew: $4 (plus deposit, so $12.80 of my cost was for pop!)

-Oscar Mayer lunch combos: 48 cents

Have you gotten any good deals lately?

Friend Makin' Mondays: The Grocery Store

It's Monday!  The weekend is over, with its highs (setting a new PR) and lows (car is in the shop again)...details later.  Mondays are Friend Makin' Mondays, of course!  Visit Kenz to play along!

FMM: The Grocery Store

1. Do you make a list when you go grocery shopping? Do you stick to it?  I always make a list.  I stick to it for the most part which saves me a lot of money.  But sometimes I see things I forgot to put on the list, or that sound good, or that's on sale...and it somehow ends up in my cart!

2. Do you buy more groceries when you're hungry?   Not really...I don't usually grocery shop when I'm hungry.

3. Coupons. Use 'em?  All the time!  I never rarely buy anything that I don't have a coupon for or isn't on sale!

4. Have you ever complained to the manager of your grocery store?  Never.

5. Do you like to buy groceries at huge chain stores like Wal-Mart and Target? Or do you shop exclusively at food stores?  I do most of my grocery shopping at Meijer, after coupons and sales their prices are basically unbeatable.  I do get a lot from Aldi, and I sometimes shop at Family Fare (I try not to because they are so expensive!)

6. How much time do you spend reading labels in the grocery store?  I don't read labels...

7. Do you push your own grocery cart to the car and return it? All the time.  I hate when people don't!

8. What is the one food item you always buy at the grocery store that you must have in the kitchen? Fruit and yogurt.

9. Do you enjoy grocery shopping? I actually do.  It's like a game or a challenge for me when I use coupons, so I really enjoy it!

10. How often do you shop for groceries? I shop once a week, usually Friday afternoons right after I get out of work. 

What a steal!

See all this? 1 pair of shorts, 3 camis, 1 tank top, 3 fitted t-shirts, and 2 (kinda 1/2 length sleeve) shirts. All at Kohls. They had amazing deals today, plus if I put my purchase on my Kohl's card, I got an additional 15% off. Sorry, this is not a commercial for Kohl's, they don't know who I am, but I am just so excited about my purchases!!! So with all those amazing deals, guess how much I spent? $100? Yeah, that would sound about right...but no, I'm better than that! I got all this, 10 items, for a mere $52.16!!! Plus, I got $10 Kohl's cash back, so it was pretty much like spending $42.16! And...I saved...(drumroll please)...$106.79!!! Yeah, I like Kohl's :)

New Shoes :)

Remember this dress? My aunt surprised me with it when I was in Ohio over spring break. Well, you can't wear flip flops (my usual spring/summer footwear) with this kind of dress!











I had to get some other things yesterday, so I decided to go shopping after school.










It doesn't hurt to look, so I thought I'd just go to Target and see if they had any cute shoes. I found these!








They were on sale for a really good price. And they look good with my dress. And I can wear them with lots of my other clothes!!!








"Cinderella is living proof that a pair of shoes can change your life."
I always thought that quote was cute :)

Mixing the seasons....

I went shopping today...for Christmas presents!!! I always start early, and I am doing something different for gifts this year and needed started earlier than normal. I went to this fantastic dollar store, Keegstra's. If you've never been there, you gotta go! They have everything! You can even get Avon products, 20 pack boxes of Christmas cards, scrapbooking supplies etc there for only $1. Then I went to Meijer. And ran into triple trouble. I saw Mari, Cheri, and Terri as I was walking in. Mari took a picture for her blog. :) So at Meijer I bought items to make the following Fall goodies....









Gourmet caramel apples

















Caramel, milk chocolate, and white chocolate covered



































I bought this at the dollar store. All you have to do is add water and the mix magically rises into brownies. I gagged and had to spit it out when I ate it, but my mom said they weren't that bad, just extremely chocolately.













Chocolate filled crescent rolls

On a more exciting note...

If any of you are in need of some winter clothing...now is the time to go shopping!!! My mom and I went shopping yesterday afternoon. I needed to get some sweaters and long sleeved shirts and I invited her along (so she could pay of course!) So we went to Kohl's, because they always have good sales. I picked out a bunch of new sweaters and stuff, and then I asked my mom why she didn't have anything...so then we had to go into the women's section "just to look" :) We ended up leaving with 4 new shirts and a pair of jeans for her, and I got 7 shirts/sweaters! If nothing had been on sale (we wouldn't have bought it then...), we would have spent $280.89, but instead we got all that for only $105.21!!!!!