Carrots and potatoes and onions - Oh My!

So I've been gettin' crafty at cutting the budget over the past while. Not only are we gearing up to live off of parental leave (55% salary) for a few months, but following that, living on a missionary salary. I take joy in finding where we can cut the budget and, for the time being, stuffing the 'extra' away.

A few friends of mine are into couponing, with one of them being an extreme coupon-er. Although I don't think I'll ever reach 'extreme' in this department, I sure have learned to browse flyers, use coupons wherever possible, and watch for traps.

My favourite coupons are the ones you order online and they snail mail them to you. I love getting mail! Even if it is just coupons. Plus, I'm hesitant to start using up expensive computer ink trying to save money.  If you're curious as to where you can go online to get free coupons in the mail, here's my favourite two sites:

save.ca
websaver.ca

I've used a pseudo name for myself on those sites to see how much junk mail I'd get because of them (knowing anything else that came in under that name was from a 'sale' of my information... Surprisingly, I haven't received anything yet and it's been a few months).

For us, coupons have made purchasing name-brand high end stuff the cost of no name, which is great because sometimes the brands just work better.  For example - We don't have a fancy dishwasher and, as such, cheap detergent often leads to re-washing or hand washing, and just pure frustration. I was running pre-rinses and post rinses and all sorts of anti-green things to try and save my sanity using average detergent. Then came coupons for Cascade Platinum pucks. These puppies are expensive. Not only does the bag cost more, but it actually has fewer in it (18) compared to the other Cascade bags (24), which means they cost way more per load. With coupons in hand, I take note when these pucks are on sale at a local grocer and stock up. Surprisingly, they are often on sale at Provigo. Between the coupons and the discount price, they are about the same price as the no name detergent but work A HECK of a lot better. Less water use, less frustration, far more sanity. I love it. Plus it makes me feel smart.

Aside from couponing, I now watch the flyers and plan meals accordingly. Circling, cutting, note taking... Yes, we now need to go to a few different stores for food (which I always kind of thought negated any kind of savings) but we don't go out of our way to do it. Sale prices are good for the week (Thurs-Wed), so there's usually some time during the week that we are already going by each. And if not, we skip it. No big deal.

This week's specials? Carrots, potatoes and onions were on mega sale at Super C. Maybe this won't excite any of you, but I was THRILLED with 10 pounds of potatoes for $1.79, 10 pounds of onions for $2.98, and 10 pounds of carrots for $2.98. People, that's 30 pounds of produce for $7.75.

Now, you're right, there's only two adults, one toddler, and not a lot of storage in this house. So when I get awesome deals like this, we share. We have friends in the neighbourhood with two boys around Jay's age and are into saving moola too. We swap, borrow, and share stuff. We don't keep track of who has given the other what.. We just simply share. Having a car allows us to get to deals and places they can't (they are bus-travellers) and they have parents who frequent Costco and enjoy giving them gigantic boxes of stuff (which they can't finish in good time either). Today we brought them pounds and pounds of produce, tonight she's dropping off a bunch of disposable diapers so I don't have to buy a pack for when Jonathan is in someone else's care during his brother's arrival. It works and I love it.

As for this week's challenge - See if we can use up the rest of the produce in time to grab another round by Wednesday. Tonight's dinner was stew. Mashed potatoes, carrot soup, and epicure potato wedges are also on the menu for this week... Have any other ideas for me for potatoes, carrots and onions?