A Small Victory Is A Victory Nonetheless

It seems that many girls today cringe at the thought of Home Economics - being expected to cook, clean, and maintain a comfortable home environment is entirely unappealing, even foreign to some. Just get a high-paying job and hire someone else to do all of those menial tasks, right? Well, I absolutely ADORE managing my house, and I'm particularly intrigued by the idea of my home as an economic entity. It produces, and it consumes. It imports and exports goods and services. It saves and spends. Hubs is the King, and I am the Queen - together we keep our little kingdom running smoothly.

Even though I work full-time, my priorities (and the majority of my thoughts!) are centered around life at home: God, The Hubster, The Home, and The Fam. It takes practice to balance everything and represent the way I choose to live in a favorable manner (Hel-lo. I'm a first-born. I do it well or I don't do it at all ;-). I also know I don't have the time/skills to do it alone. One of my daily reads is Money Saving Mom, a couponing, sale-shopping, budgeting, and freebie blog by a girl who lives in hometown. This is especially nice for me, because I know that I have access to exactly the same coupons, stores, and sales that she does. While I'm not nearly as hard-core in my methods, I do appreciate Crystal's finely-tuned bargain-hunting skills and her desire to be a good steward of all she has been given.

Following her lead in this post, I ran to Target last Thursday after work. Armed with 17 coupons fresh from my printer, I buzzed through the store snagging 2 boxes of Kashi cereal, 2 boxes of Kashi cereal bars, 4 boxes of Eggo Bakeshop breakfast novelties (I can't call it "food" - I just CAN'T), 6 mini-cups of Edy's ice cream, and 2 flavored CoffeeMate creamers. And I only spent $6!

Of course, the 17-year-old behind the counter gave me more than one smirk/eye-roll combo, but I did give her fair warning about the number of coupons I had & she didn't turn me away when she had the chance. She did take her sweet time reading the fine print, as if to suggest what I was doing was somehow illegal. But it wasn't. It's not my fault Target has a coupon for $1 off ice cream cups that they sell for $1.19! Honestly, I don't have time to match store sales with store coupons and manufacturer's coupons...but some people do. And to them, I (and the Hubs!) say "Thank You!"

Side Note: My inner 6-year-old tried one of the Eggo strawberry & cream cheese atrocities the next morning, and I was sick ALL DAY. Turns out my mom was right all along when she refused to feed us that stuff. Anyhow, now Hubs has it all to himself - and he's on furlough, so I don't have to worry about it interfering with his job performance. And I still claim victory paying $6 for $35 worth of groceries. It's win-win.