When I was little, my parents — like many young Wisconsin families in the early ’80s — struggled financially. They had four children under the age of 6, my dad was running his own painting business as the construction industry collapsed, and my mom was trapped at home in the boondocks without a reliable car. It was a tough time. 

Fortunately for my parents, my dad had attended University Lake School, so my mom knew about their huge annual rummage sale: the Barn Sale. As the area’s largest rummage, the Barn Sale was a great spot to find high-quality items for low prices. My mom kept a running tally throughout the year of items we needed, and she shopped for most of them at the Barn.

One year, money was especially tight. My mom wasn’t sure how she was going to buy the warm winter coats we all needed. She headed to the Barn, and didn’t find anything for us kids. But she did find a pair of pants for herself. She agonized over whether or not to buy them, feeling she should buy something for her kids instead. She ended up buying the pants, but not without a deep sense of guilt.

When she got home and tried them on, she found a crisp $100 bill in the pocket, which was more than enough to buy all of us brand-new winter coats.

The Barn Sale has been an annual event in my family for generations. Now my husband and I are proud parents of our daughter in JK, and we are volunteering during the event for the first time. It’s the least we can do to give back to the school community.

Today’s Barn Sale

These days, the Barn is bigger and better than ever. Like my mom, I keep a running list and shop with focus at the Barn. If you haven’t been before, beware — it’s so big, you can get overwhelmed.

I was able to do my shopping early, and I got:

• 3 pairs of ice skates
• 4 pairs of ballet slippers
• Dozens of dresses, shirts and sweaters for all three girls
• 3 pairs of slippers
• 6 pairs of winter boots
• 3 pairs of rain boots
• 2 umbrellas
• 3 rain coats
• 5 pairs of shoes
• Swimsuit
• Several toys (mostly for birthdays and Christmas)
• Dress-up clothes
• Baking sheets and pans
• Mixing bowls
• Cups, bowls and plates for the girls
• A ricer and potato masher
• Serving spoons
• Cookie cutters
• 2 pairs of boots for my husband
• Several long-sleeved shirts for my husband
• Dog dish

Most of these items are brand-name, high-quality pieces that would cost 10 times what I paid for them. For example, I got two pairs of nearly new L.L. Bean boots for $8.  Each pair normally costs about $40. These wool unicorn slippers from Garnet Hill were $4 — and in perfect shape. They normally cost $42.

Stop by the Barn Sale today through Sunday. Remember to buy a piece of the famous ULS apple crisp — it’s a delicious slice of autumn. If you’re at the Barn on Saturday morning, find me to say hi!

I know a lot of people assume farmers’ markets are summer-only affairs. They believe that July and August are bounty months and once you miss those, oops. It’s over. Too late to enjoy the market.

Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

September and even October are prime months to visit your local farmers’ market. Many fruits and veggies are ripe for the picking in late summer and early fall. So if you haven’t gone to a market yet, now’s the time to do it.

Although we have a garden, the harvest this year hasn’t been as big as we’d hoped. So I reserve about 25% of my grocery budget to buy produce at the farmers’ market. It’s a great way to support local producers and get fresh, healthy food into my family’s diet.

Today I went to the Oconomowoc market with my three girls, and we scored a wonderful variety of fantastic produce — even items that I didn’t know could grow in Wisconsin! Most of what we bought is organic, and much of the rest is low-spray or no-spray produce. The meat is pasture-raised from a local family. 

We bought:

• Jicama (My girls eat this cut up into sticks, like carrots)
• Edamame (We love to boil these and eat them lightly salted. YUM.)
• Broccoli
• Cauliflower
• Onions
• Green onions
• Potatoes
• Red and orange peppers
• Eggplant (My daughter’s choice…guess I’ll make eggplant parmigiana soon)
• Spartan apples (Too bad the cider was sold out)
• Honey sticks
• Raspberries (These didn’t even make it home)
• Green beans
• Tomatoes
• Ground pork and beef
• Carrots

Whew! It was quite the haul this week. I know some of it will last us through next week, when I’ll be out of town and my husband might not have time to go to the market.

I am really looking forward to the next few weeks of farmers’ markets. I will be sad when they stop at the end of October. But until then, I’ll be saving my dollar bills for the farmers at the Saturday market.

The lovely ladies at Hot Coupon World just sent me the email below, and I am pretty stoked. I started using Luvs a few months ago on my 17-month-old daughter. So far, I’m impressed! Hurry, these special coupons will go fast.

The folks at Luvs Diapers got ahold of us last week to let us know that they are going to have a link on their site starting at 12am EST on Tuesday, 9/15 to sign up for a free $5 off coupon for Luvs diapers. 

The coupon will be fulfilled to those who sign up via postal mail.  A high-value diaper coupon is going to be hot. It’s part of Luvs campaign about “Taking a Stand” and in the case with the coupon, it’s taking a stand against high prices at the store.

So if you use diapers, know someone who does, or just need a really great coupon to swap, get in on this tomorrow and get signed up fast at Luvs.com.

Spread the word, and don’t forget to sign up!

My daughter’s 5th birthday is this Wednesday, and we are all excited for the big celebration. I know she will be bombarded with gifts, so I’m trying to inject the spirit of giving — rather than just the glut of receiving — into the day.

With that in mind, I’d like my daughter to donate a birthday gift to another child. Part of my frugal philosophy includes charitable giving, so this fits in perfectly — plus it gets my kids in a charitable mood, something I think is a crucial part of child development.

But I’m having a hard time finding a child/charity to donate a gift to. Most charities cater to Christmas gifts, but it’s a little early for that. I thought about donating a gift to a women’s shelter, where a child might be having a birthday soon and wouldn’t otherwise have a gift. But I don’t know where to start with that, either.

I’m a little stumped, but I know I want my daughter to do something kind for another child this week. And I know my readers will have some great ideas!

Anyone have any suggestions where we could donate a birthday gift (or two)? Or any other ideas to give back at birthday time? Please post a comment to let me know.

Hello again!

It’s been over  a month since I posted anything, and I’m trying to get into the swing of things while we settle into a new school year routine. Please bear with me as I get some posts together. I have a lot of great ideas for the rest of the year. 

As always, if you have any questions or information to share (great deals? a fab new spot to shop? a new plan for fall and winter spending? a success story? somewhere you’d like to improve?), please let me know!

Print this coupon here or visit here. Or enter coupon code AUGUST for online purchases.

Hurry, offer ends tomorrow, Thursday 8/6!

Remember: This is the last week you can redeem the premuims printed on the bottom on your Pick ‘n Save receipts. The redemption period ends August 8, so make sure you get to the store ASAP.

I have 19 premiums, one short of the 20 I need for a $50 gift card. Bummer! I guess I’ll have to limp along with my $35 gift card.

How many premiums do you have? What do you think you’ll get with the extra cash — will you use it to defray normal grocery costs, or will you splurge on something you don’t normally buy?

In early June of 2008, my newborn daughter was six weeks old, my maternity leave was coming to an end, and I was struck with the impending dread of routinely feeding five people after a long day of work.

I panicked.

I took to my cookbooks and soothed myself with favorites — The New Basics, Madhur Jaffrey’s lushly photographed Indian cookbooks, The Best Recipe, even Rachel Ray’s quick recipes.

I earmarked recipes during nursing sessions and made grocery lists on the back of receipts, trying to decipher what Nat Med Flr might have been from my last shopping trip a few days ago.

I unloaded cart after cart of groceries. I chopped, sauteed, steamed and baked. I roasted and rinsed and minced and cooked. I froze meals. I containered whatever I thought might help my family (and me) transition to being a two-income family again.

In July, I was back at work but hardly working. The pace was slow. I was stuck at my desk for eight dreary hours a day, trying to appear busy. I spent a lot of time surfing the Web, learning about random things like sewing underwear. (Because, you know, that’s exactly what I wanted to do with my free time: Sew my own undies.)

That’s when I started reading up on personal finance. I had a budget, but I hadn’t really updated it in months, if not years. So I added up my latest month’s worth of grocery receipts from my credit card’s online statements, just to see where I stood.

I panicked.

In June alone, I had spent roughly $1,000 on groceries for two adults, two young children and a nursing infant. My official budget had been $500/month.

The turning point

From personal finance blogs, I graduated to frugality blogs. From there, I hit up the forums on sites like Hot Coupon World. That August, I seriously clipped coupons for the very first time. I tracked my spending. I got a paper subscription for the coupons. I limited shopping trips to once a week on double coupon day. I learned the tricks to get free toothpaste, and I stocked up too much on laundry detergent. But most of all, I saved.

That was a year ago, and I have come even further since then. I haven’t bought toothpaste or detergent in months because I don’t need to. I’ve budgeted for organic milk and almost all organic produce (and locally grown when it’s around). I still buy my “splurges”: artichoke hearts, kalamata olives, pies from the Amish bakery, fancy cheese. Yet my budget rarely exceeds $600/month and usually hovers around $500/month — nearly half of what I spent last June.

Then and now

This July was surely the biggest month I’ve had in the stores since starting this journey, but at least I know where I stand. And I know how to cut back in other areas so a larger grocery  bill doesn’t threaten our financial security.

We also carved out larger chunks from our budget, like refinancing our house in October, saving us over $400/month. But grocery shopping remains one of my favorite places to save — and certainly spend — money. Every month, it’s an easy gauge to see how well I’m doing with my budget.

Even though America, and the world, is in a tough financial spot right now, I am grateful that I have some control over our finances — especially the part that helps me feed my kids.

My coupon organizer broke this week (actually, it broke a few weeks ago but I cobbled it back together), so I picked up another one — with polka dots! That meant I got to start fresh and set up the new one. I took the opportunity to review my grocery receipts from the last three months. Wow! I am so impressed with myself.

Since March 25, I have gone shopping at Pick ‘n Save 15 times, pretty much once a week every week. In those 15 weeks, I have saved a total of $842! That’s an average of $56/week in savings or $224/month.

Where else can you realize those kinds of savings each and every week? I know that watching less TV doesn’t mean my cable bill is lower. Driving less doesn’t mean that my car payment decreases. Changing my Internet habits doesn’t lower my bill, either. But changing my grocery shopping habits has dramatically changed my bottom line.

I lost my job — and more than half of our income — at the end of January. I am grateful that saving money like this has made it possible for me to stay home with our kids and generally live the same lifestyle we did when I was working full-time.

It’s been almost a year since I started budgeting more strictly for groceries and using the online Pick ‘n Save flier to plan my Wednesday trips. My method is rock-solid. I rarely overspend or mismanage our food budget, yet I’ve significantly increased our organic dairy and produce intake. I am really proud of how my family, and especially my three little girls, eat.

So it came with some shock that my last two shopping trips have been significantly over budget. My last trip was $200 — way more than I normally spend in a week. What is going on?

The party factor

I reviewed my lists, and I found that my last two trips contained a lot of items I don’t usually buy:

• Chips and dips (I curse the genius behind potato chips and french onion dip)
• Snacks and treats (yum for s’mores)
• Soda (mostly Coke products)
• Produce (especially berries and melons)

The reason I’m spending more is simply because we have a packed social calendar of summer parties, and I usually bring something to share with the group. Helping out the host and joining in on the fun is something I really enjoy. Plus, I love a sandwich with chips and soda in the summer. It’s my summer downfall.

I’m also hosting my own party next week, and I’ve been stocking up on essentials. Technically, some of that overage in my grocery budget could be picked up by my entertainment budget, since the food is being used for parties and such, but I’ll just chalk it up to summer fun and get back on track later.

The produce bill has been higher lately, too, just because there is so much in season right now. My kids love fruit, so I’ve been buying much more than usual.

I didn’t expect to spend more this summer, but I’m enjoying our time so much that I don’t mind. I know it’s temporary, and we can handle the higher bills for now.

What about you: Do you spend more on groceries in the summer? Or are the winter holidays the time to splurge at the store?