It's a bird, It's a plane, No It's an antenna!

So, back in December my husband and I made a New Years Resolution to complete one large project each month.  Our January task was to disconnect our cable and bring our phone and Internet bills down. Not everything worked out as planned.

 We hooked up our Roku mid December to make sure we could live with it. This is a streaming box and we pay under $20  a month for Netflix and Hulu Plus.  We disconnected the cable and I brought the cable boxes back to Comcast mid January. My husband hooked up the antenna, but after many hours of frustration. He was putting up the antenna and dropped a clip (important piece) in the snow. We searched for over an hour and finally asked a neighbor boy if we could use his metal detector to find it. No luck. I then emailed the company who makes the mounting kit to see if I could buy another and they were so kind, Or they thought we were so pathetic and they sent us 2 free ones (just in case). So he finally mounted the antenna and we found out we get 17 local channels. Check out this photo- NO CABLE BOX!  YIPPEE!  Just our tiny little Roku, our dvd player and our radio- for surround sound.

Now here is where things got tricky. We were hoping to change to Verizon for our Internet and phone but my husband was concerned about email accounts. We have had the same ones for about 10 years and he did not want the hassle of contacting everyone we know and every company we have accounts linked to these addresses. So we decided to keep the Internet with comcast which will be $60 a month (highway robbery) and to get an extra cell phone on our family plan for 9.99 a month. We will be using it as our home phone.   Our original plan was to pay $75 for TV, phone and Internet and we only got it to $90 but we are still saving $70 per month.

So on to the next project for February. My daughter wanted to change her bedroom around so we will be giving her room a makeover. Stay tuned for that update.

Thanks for following along with me
Maura

A Shopper's High? No a Savers High!

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As you may or may not know. I am a semi- extreme couponer. I say semi because I don't want you to think I am as crazy as some couponers you may have seen on tv. I am a normal married mom of two who decided (after meeting with our financial planner a few years ago) that I needed to get my spending in hand. He actually looked at our spending and noticed that a large chunk was being spent at target and grocery stores.  I felt a little embarrassed and a little mad. I decided from that moment on I was going to cut back and find a way to spend less without missing out. So two years later I now thrive on saving money. That same high others get from buying things, I get from saving.

I used to be a regular couponer who would cut a few coupons from the Sunday paper each week and go to the store to buy our weekly groceries and household items. Now I actually take the time to plan a monthly menu based on the items I have in my pantry and freezer . Each week I check my menu and make my shopping list based on what I need to complete meals.  I also buy any stockpile items (items on a really great sale with coupons to match that I can buy and put away in my pantry) I also buy my fruits and vegis based on what is on sale that week.  I have cut my grocery bill from $150 a week to $90  a week (this includes my health and beauty supplies and cleaning supplies).  One week I may go a little over, then the next a little under but $90 is about average for our family of four.

The deals have been a little slim over the past couple months but this week was a jackpot week.  A local grocery store had many staple items like pasta, sauce, peanut butter, canned tomatoes, and cereal on sale with a Catalina. ( a coupon good on your next order -OYNO) If you bought $20 worth of participating items you got a coupon for 10 OYNO.  I actually had my husband do this deal and then I went shopping with a friend and did another transaction.  I am planning on making one more trip this week. So this week I went a little over budget.  I will be spending $120 but I will have 30$ to use next week on meats or fruits and vegis.  I told my husband I was having a Shoppers High and he said "That would make a great blog post". Hence the title of this one.

Oh I should also tell you we completed January's Resolution Project. I will post soon about that!


Have a great Day
Maura