Building a Children's Library on a Budget

One of the things Peanut simply loves is her books. She will sit down and go through the pages, intensely studying the pictures and interacting with the different elements on the page. We have made it a nightly ritual to begin reading 2 or 3 books to her before she goes to bed, and she loves walking over to her bookshelf and picking out which book to read. She tends to want to read the same books over and over, and although it does get a bit repetitive, it is so wonderful to watch her enjoyment over it that we continue to read them to her.

From the beginning, it has been important to us to have plenty of children's books on hand to provide opportunity for learning as well as to help cultivate the love of reading in our children. However, collecting a large assortment of children's books can be quite pricey. Have you ever gone inside a bookstore and looked for a cheap children's book? Unless you dig hard in the bargain bin, you likely won't find one for less than $5-8. Baby board books cost even more due to the durable construction.

The following places are wonderful sources of discounted or cheap children's books that we always take advantage of:

Library Book Sales

This is perhaps the best place to find children's books for next to nothing! While I was pregnant with Peanut, we went to a local library book sale. We were able to fill a grocery bag full of books for just $4. Although they might have some wear, a lot of them are still in great condition or can be mended with a little elbow grease. Some of Peanut's favorite books came from this sale, and I love that because we did not pay much for them there is no worry over the terrible abuse they have and will continue to experience in the hands of a busy toddler.

Garage Sales

This is the second best place to find children's books. During garage sale season, keep your eyes open for board books in particular, as they can be hard to find. Baby and toddler books are not as common either, so just be on the lookout and you will likely find some great deals. Collecting books for when children are older is a great thing to begin as well. Usually, books at garage sales run anywhere from 10 to 50 cents. I have never seen a children's book priced any higher than that!

Family and Friends

Another great source of children's books is family and friends. Ask around and there are bound to be plenty of people willing to pass on books no longer read or in use. For birthdays and holidays, consider asking for books instead of toys. This is a wonderful way to get quality new books for your child too.

Library

Although we do enjoy building our own children's library, nothing beats the real library for fresh, new books when those you own have been read to death. Be warned, however, not to let them become overdue, or you will quickly defeat the purpose of reading for free. We try not to check out more than 3 children's books at a time so that they are not as likely to become lost and are easier to keep track of. Renewing favorite books online is a great way to get more use out of them as well. Do take care to ensure these books do not get damaged as well, since they do not belong to you and you will be charged if they become severely ripped or abused. I try to only get board books for playtime and then the paper-paged books are kept out of reach until I can read them with my daughter.

Do you have a favorite place to buy children's books? Share in the comments below!

October Menu Plan

It's that time of the month again! A new month means a new menu! The theme for this month is hearty soups, stews and roasts to keep us warm while we wait to turn on the heat. Oh, and all are budget friendly of course, with the average dinner providing leftovers for lunch! For breakfast, baked oatmeal, pumpkin and apple muffins will appear and for dessert, we'll have fresh pumpkin pie and other seasonal treats.

Click here to view our October Dinner Menu.

This is the 3rd month we have begun using monthly menu plans, and I am amazed at how well it is working for us! I would definitely not be able to keep our grocery budget as low as it is without a menu plan. Planning out meals for the entire month allows me to take advantage of sales I otherwise would have overlooked. Although we are still working out the kinks with our lowered grocery budget, I know that the number one way to succeed with it is by using monthly menu plans. I have tried weekly and biweekly menu-planning, but nothing has worked as well as monthly plans have.

This month I will also be working on continuing to freeze meals and foods in preparation for the new baby. I also would like to try my hand at canning some grape jelly since grapes are so cheap right now. 

What foods are you looking forward to cooking/baking in October? Share in the comments below!

Weekly CVS and Walgreens Savings

Today I went to Walgreens and CVS to pick up a few of their sale items and also to use my RR and rain-check. Below is what I got (apologies for the bad photo- I used my phone!):

CVS:

1 Carefree Liner @ $1.00, -0.50/1 coupon

1 Skintimate Shave Gel @ $1.99, -1.50/1 coupon

1 Schick Razor w/ 16 AA batteries (clearance) $3.25

= $4.68

Earned $1.00 ECB

Walgreens:

3 Nice Tomato Sauces @ $0.25 each

1 Domino Sugar @ $2.49 -0.50/1 coupon

1 Finish Gel Pack @ $3.99, -0.75/1 coupon

-$5 RR

=$1.76 (I forgot to use my domino sugar coupon- and no, I can't believe it!)

Earned $1.50 RR

I spent just over $6 for all those items, and I got $2.50 back to use for next week. I really didn't even know I had the $5 RR, so that was like free money to me! And the battery find was too good to pass up, especially since we are out of AAs.

Have you found any good deals lately?

Monthly Menu Plans

Last month, I decided to start doing a monthly menu plan on the advice of The Grocery Shrink (By the way, f you haven't read her ebook or blog, I encourage you to check it out!). Not only has this been much easier than I originally thought, it has made my days and weeks less stressful and allowed us to save a bunch of money by avoiding eating out due to my not knowing what to make for dinner.

I was able to quickly fill in all the meals by assigning each day of the week a theme. Here are some of my themes:

• Mondays: Soup Night
• Tuesday: Big Meat Night
• Wednesday: Group Meal Night
• Thursday: Crock-Pot Night
• Friday: Homemade Pizza Night
• Saturday: Grilling Out Night (Until summer ends that is)
• Sunday: Easy/Leftover/Freezer Meal Night

You can view our family's September Menu Plan here.

Monthly menu-planning makes it easier to take advantage of early sales for meals later in the month, and it actually reduces the time spent shopping. Less money is wasted on impulse buys and more money is saved or allocated for stockpiling the pantry.

I am loving this new method of menu planning! Of course, life often gets in the way of seeing this plan completely to fruition, but having an idea of what to do has helped so much!

How do you menu plan?

14 Months of Breastfeeding

Today marks the 14th month anniversary of breastfeeding my daughter. It's a wonderful day.

If you would have told me I would make it this far back when she was a wee little newborn, I probably would have laughed! I never thought I would be able to stick with something so challenging and so life-altering for so long. I never would have thought I had the strength to endure low-supply issues, growth spurts, bottle rejections and night nursing every 2 hours for 9 months straight. But God has seen me through it all, giving me the strength I didn't know I had, as well as blessing me with those little moments of pure bliss while nursing that encouraged me to stick with it even when it was hard.

Breastfeeding my baby is the most accomplished thing I have ever done. I am so proud of myself, because I know many other mothers struggle and are not able to make it nearly as long as I did. I count myself blessed to have had this experience. I feel more empowered as a woman, wife and momma. I was able to provide the sole nutrition for my baby for the first nine months, giving her the precious gift of mother's breastmilk that will continue to positively affect her entire life. And I'm thoroughly convinced, that I if I can do it, anyone can!

Although I have made it this far, this will probably be the last day I nurse my daughter. She is moving on, and my supply has vanished in order to properly provide for our new growing baby. I was able to continue to nurse the first 5 months of this pregnancy, something I never thought I would or could do as well. But now the time has come, and I will be enjoying this break before another baby comes along and changes my life in new, wonderful ways.

First Summer Harvest

Today we worked on weeding our flower beds and tearing up the spent vegetable plants in the veggie garden. After some further research, we decided it would be ok to harvest what we could from it, as long as the veggie is thoroughly washed and cooked (our cat has used it as her litterbox). After harvesting a small roma tomato as well as a large yellow squash, we decided to go ahead and stake the poor tomatoes who were struggling to hold themselves up!

First harvest of August:

Successfully staked tomato plants: (note: we used existing pieces of wood laying around in the garage, so the cost of staking 8 plants was completely FREE)

Lovely La Roma tomatoes:

Nicely growing Better Boys:

Staked tomato patch from front:

Bell pepper who was previously suffocating under all the unstaked tomato vines:

Now, least you think our garden is all up and running, please take a moment and view the other side. A weedy mess indeed. The far right bed we actually completely ripped out, where the 2 squash plants previously resided. It was just not going well (lots of cat poo), and we need to restore that soil anyway. The middle bed is a project for another day, but you can see one lonely tomato plant staked in the middle. I'm not entirely sure that one will survive amongst all the grasses attempting to take over, but we'll see.

And here is our brush/compost pile after all the weeding today. You can see the remains of several ill-fated broccoli and lettuce plants:

Peanut Goes Camping

Recently, we took Peanut camping with her aunt and uncle who live far far away in Virginia. We decided to meet halfway in Pennsylvania, at Laurel Hill State Park (which was gorgeous BTW!).

Peanut walking along the beachy lake with Daddy C:

Peanut splashing in the water! This girl loves to swim!

She also went on her first bike ride with Daddy C and I! Here she is in her seat! She kept saying "weee!" all throughout the ride! So cute!

We went hiking to a dam and could not resist cooling off in the water below! Peanut practically dived right in, getting soaked in the process!

All 3 of us hiking! Peanut is busy look at the water in the background, haha.

We had a great trip spending time relaxing at the campsite and catching up with family. Peanut did not sleep the best the first night (we arrived at the site very late), and the second night it had started raining around dinnertime, turning our campsite into a mudsite, unsuitable for a walking toddler! So we got an emergency hotel room and let Peanut stay up late! It all turned out for the best, and next time, we'll know to take the weather seriously when it calls for a chance of rain (or at least have a backup plan arranged). Peanut thought the hotel room was so much fun though! Of course, this girl thinks everything is fun.

I can't wait for our next camping adventure, although next time it will likely be somewhere a bit closer so we don't arrive so late and also free of rain!

Do you enjoy camping? How often do you go?