Ebb & Flow

Oh, Internet, how I love and hate you so.

I can get lost spending far too many hours discovering great things to blog about, then blogging about them, then participating in social media...

When there are other things I would honestly rather be doing.

So here we are again, at a bit of a fork in the road. Before I pour another minute into this blog I have to once again evaluate my time.

If you are a subscriber, thanks for your patience with me. I think I'll take at least until the end of the month to be certain of my answer on whether or not to keep pouring time into this.

To get caught up

SO, I want to get caught up. On laundry, grocery shopping, and preplanning my blog posts. :P

And sleep. Oh the sleep. For some reason Isaac hasn't been sleeping well for the past few nights which makes getting up at 4:30ish extra painful.

It's worth it, though. There are many things on my want it list and only through persevering one little step at a time will I obtain them.

G'night!

Shopping Online

Did you know... that just about any time you buy something online, you can accrue cash back? Sites like ShopAtHome and Ebates give you cash back at just about any site you can think of (not Amazon, unfortunately) just for clicking through their sites to place your order.

So let's say I want to buy a couple tops and a pair of jeans from Old Navy. I know what size etc I want, so instead of going to the store, I just go through a cash back site and place my order. Now I'll get cash back from my purchase. Imagine if you compile that with online coupon codes and a credit card with a rewards program and it gets sweeter and sweeter!

Until midnight tonight (9/27), you can get your 2012 Entertainment book for $17.50 after cash back. Yes, you'll pay $35. But, you'll get $17.50 back. And if you are new to ShopAtHome, you will also get a $5 signup bonus. And if you sign up through my link, I get some credit as well. :)

See? Isn't technology FUN?

Get yourself to sleep!

This is my clever riff off a little internet pop culture.

If you really want to know, Google Samuel L. Jackson children's book. I'm not linking up to it on my blog because I try to keep it squeaky clean over here. ;)

Seriously, do yourself a favor and get to bed at a reasonable hour. Maybe you can't bring yourself to do it every night (I can't). But give yourself the gift of a good night's sleep every once in a while.

The Facebook status updates will still be there in the morning, there is Hulu for whatever TV show you might be missing, and no one is reading YOUR email after 9pm so why not save that for tomorrow, too?

And along those same lines, nobody is reading this blog post until tomorrow so I say good night. ;)

Crafternoon & The Grove

Saturday highlights...

• "Crafternoon" (in the morning with the lovely lady behind A Snail's Life)
• Bridesmaid dress shopping at The Grove
• Crepes at The French Crepe company (my favorite)
• Spotted Kevin Conolly (of Entourage, I love living so close to LA)
• Got sticker-shocked at a $1,000 necklace in Nordstrom
• Ikea (to pick up more containers for operation Organize my Pantry)
• Starbucks (for much-needed catch-up time with Lori)
• Watched Doctor Who (the season is almost over *tear*)

Holistic Fitness

When I first started boot camp, I was strictly focused on diet and exercise. In particular, I was focused on diet and exercise to lose weight.

Now that I am on my third (and probably last... insert sad face here) session of boot camp, I am focused on not only my physical fitness, but my mental and spiritual health as well. It is a good shift.

To that end, I am attempting to get up as early if not earlier as I was when I had a nursing baby to attend to before I got out the door in order to spend some time in prayer and reading my Bible. I am starting to take some steps to work on my mental health as well.

The truth is, I want desperately to lose weight - to get to a goal weight and size that I have never reached before. But more than that, I want to be happy and healthy. I know I am at my best when I am healthy:physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

You might just hear a few bits from me about spirituality here, although this blog is not "about" spirituality. I see these strides towards fitness as ultimately saving time, because, let's face it, it takes a lot more time to fix broken relationships and tend to consequences of neglecting health than it does to maintain it.

Where are you on this map? How healthy do you feel? What do you do to maintain your mental & spiritual well-being?

You DO have time to coupon

I made $1.50 buying this water:

I have so much empathy for people who are struggling to make ends meet. Why? Because I have been there. I have to work really hard to keep us from being there. We live paycheck to paycheck. We have credit card debt. We have student loan debt. We now have a car payment, despite our best efforts to avoid that.

Thankfully we make enough money to pay our bills, and when we do have an emergency we have a unique emergency fund that usually has enough to cover it, and if that fails, there's credit (which I hate to fall back on but it happens). I've never had to add water to milk to make it last, or let a bill go unpaid, or been unable to keep food in the fridge and gas in the car. I feel blessed in that regard.

All that to say, it's still hard for us. I want to get out of debt, not get caught up in more of it. I have changed my spending habits. We have changed our spending habits as a couple. The PayPal budget thing is working out pretty well for us so far. I refuse to pay more than $0.17 per diaper (up from $0.11 when he was in size 2-3).

I think part of why we stretch the shoestring so far is creativity. I just completed a few mystery shops (online, didn't even have to leave my house!). I keep an eye (somewhat) on a few deal and moneysaving blogs for really good deals on things I buy anyway. Sometimes, if I can MAKE money buying something, I'll get it even if it's not a product I need or want.

Which is why today I stopped at Vons and picked up 6 bottles of sparkling water. I made $1.50 buying these. Well, after tax and CRV I made $0.49 buying these. While I was there I picked up a 2.75 pound package of boneless skinless chicken breast for $5. This will make 5 meals for my family. It could make more if we weren't such carnivores.

All I did to make the Vons deal work was print 6 copies of a coupon from the internet. Yes, I had to use three computers to do that. Yes, I am an exceptional nerd in that I have 3 computers pretty much ready to print at any given moment. But if you wanted to do the same deal, I am sure you could get a friend or coworker to print the coupons for you. Just be creative. You'd be surprised how far that gets you with your budgeting dilemmas.