A Frugal Life

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

I've moved!!!

Hey Everyone! I'm so excited. I got my domain name! And I moved my blog to Wordpress! Please move your bookmarks to

www.afrugallife.org

And come and visit me right away!!

Monday, November 30, 2009

Frugal Food: The Leftovers

(Photo by xybermatthew: Under Creative Commons License)

Wondering how long you can keep those leftovers? If you are a frugalista like me, you probably bought more turkey than you needed, more fixins? Perhaps even two turkeys! How can you resist at the wonderful holiday prices? If I had an extra large freezer, I would stock my freezer for months with the rock bottom holiday deals. Alas, I only have a tiny apartment freezer.

If you did stock up and you want to know how long you can keep those goodies check out this link from Holidayfoodsaftey.org.

The Turkey

The gist of it is that you can keep fresh Turkey 1-2 days in the fridge and up to 9 months in the freezer.

But you'll want to check out the link for all of the other holiday goodies you can also freeze, eggs, casseroles, gravy, stufffing, etc...

What kind of yummies do you have leftover?

Menu Plan Monday: Back on the bandwagon... 11-30-2009

Sunday: We had Taqueria. Yum!

Monday: Tomato Soup with Tuna Sandwiches

Tuesday: Chicken Tacos

Wednesday: Meatballs in Gravy, Mashed Potatoes and Broccoli

Thursday: Tuna Casserole

Friday: BBQ Marinated Ribs cooked in the Crockpot

Saturday: Olive Garden!

Don't forget to enter my Giveaway for a Couponizer!

Product Review: Etsy Knits

Ok, I will admit this is not really a product review but a shameless plug for my friend. I am too biased to give a good review. However, this tiny little Etsy shop has some items "knitted with love" by my best friend Sharon.

I love her stuff, I have a blanket, a bear, several knit caps and and a scarf and they've all remained beautiful through the test of time. She has these cute little horses in the shop now and some of her great blankets. Check out her shop so she'll be encouraged to post more items!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Blog Giveaway: The Couponizer

Free Couponizer Giveaway!

Ok, Here is your chance. I just did a review of this product and the company was nice enough to send me an extra one to giveaway from my readers. Check out the review here!

Enter between now and December 15th. I will choose a winner based on a ramdom number generator on December 16th. The Couponizer will be mailed out Saturday December 19th as long as I receive the winners information by then.

You can enter any of the following ways.

1. Leave a comment and let me know you would like to win. Be sure that I have a way to contact you via email if it dosn't come up automatically through blogger. (Main Entry)

2. Optional - Follow me publically through Google. Leave a comment letting me know you are following. (2 additional optional entries)

3. Optional - Follow me on twitter. Leave a comment letting me know you are following with your twitter name. (2 additional optional entries)

4. Optional - Add me to your blog roll. Leave a comment with a link to your blog. (3 additional optional entries)

5. Optional - Post about this giveaway on your blog. Leave a comment with a link to your blog post. (5 additional optional entries)

Creative Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

I really loved this post by blogger, Heart of Wisdom.
I just made a shopping list based on it. Scrumptious Cheese Sandwiches.

Grilled Cheese has always been a weekend Go-To inexpensive lunch for us. The ideas on this site make the prospect even more yummy!

Creative Grilled Cheese Sandwiches

Product Review: The Couponizer

This is a review that’s a bit overdue. With the holidays and all, I’ve been enjoying my Couponizer for 6 weeks of grocery shopping before I found the time to sit down and write this.

I’ve used numerous coupon organizing systems over the years. The most recent (before the Couponizer) was the binder system. I made my own binder with a zipper school binder and plastic sleeve protectors to hold each weeks coupons, un-cut and organized by the week. I thought this was a pretty good system, because I saved time cutting coupons and I only cut out the ones I needed for the week.

The Couponizer system is definitely much more convenient then this system and better than previous accordion type file system I’ve used.

For $19.95 you get:

(List of items taken from the Couponizer website and confirmed with what I received in my package)

• The Couponizer® – 8" x 5¼" booklet with 18 grocery coupon pockets, 4 generic coupon pockets, 3 gift card/shopper loyalty sleeves, shopping pockets
• Shopping List – 20 page tear off list pad with cardboard backing
• CoupStacker – Pre-sorting mat color coded to match the system pockets
• CoupTracker – 15 page spiral bound list pad with cardboard backing
• Scissors – blunt tip
• Carrying Bag – clear vinyl zippered bag

The first thing I did was open everything up and get it ready. I was really impressed with the size and the pocket organization. There are pockets for things you might not think of such as Entertainment, a space for your shopping list, you savings lists and receipts. There are two pockets in the front, one for the coupons you are going to use on your current shopping trip and a pocket next to it to move coupons to when you have the item in your cart for check out. These have been invaluable organization tools for me as I have a tendency to throw coupons I’m ready to use in the top of my purse and sometimes I lose them or forget to use them on the way through the store.

The initial set-up of my Couponizer took about a bit of time. I had several weeks of un-cut coupons so I would cut a batch, organizer them on the coupon mat and then pop them in the correct slots. Then start with another batch. The coupon mat made the sorting extremely easy and once they were sorted the mat is in the same order as the slots in the book so you just flip through the book and pop them right in. The following weeks cutting and sorting was much faster.

The are many advantages to The Couponizer over previous systems that I’ve used.

First off all, my savings has gone from 15-20% per shopping trip, to 40-69%! Yep, last week I was up to 69% savings using coupons and sales. I never would have done there without the organization of my Couponizer.

I’ve been able to acquire and use many more coupons then I did with my old system. With the binder system, I didn’t have any way to store the misc. coupons I got in the mail and from the store. And once I did store them, I wasn’t able to have them easily on hand. My Couponizer fits in my purse so I’ve been able to take it everywhere and take advantage of clearance prices and sales I didn’t know about.

The organization of the book is excellent. I never have trouble figuring out where to put a coupon or trouble finding it after I’ve sorted it.

The binder comes with a plastic zipper case that fits the binder, a small pair of scissors (included) and misc. papers such as shopping lists and stray coupons that need to be filed.

I would definitely recommend this both for personal use and a gift! At $19.95, you can’t beat the price. I saved more than that in my first shopping trip using the Couponizer.

The company was nice enough to send me an extra Couponizer to give away to my readers. Watch my posts today for a giveaway contest!

Sponsorship Disclaimer:
This is not a paid review. However, the company was kind enough to provide me a free review copy of the product. Thanks!

(I apologize for the terrible pictures below. They were taken in very bad lighting with my camera phone)