Amazing Mom: Deborah Devine, Queen of Savings

My name is Deborah Devine. I am 26, married for 7 years, and a mother of 2! I have a 3 year old and a 2 year old. I work part-time as a petsitter and babysitter! I am involved in my church choir and MOPs leadership through our church. My life is busy, even hectic sometimes! However, money is tight and needs are many, so I have learned the art of couponing!

It has taken me a while to really learn how to do this so-called “art” but once you get in to it you quickly learn it is an art! It takes more time than I often have, but the savings are tremendous and I truly can’t resort back to a life without coupons because the savings can be so great! I have found a great website through a friend at http://www.faithfulprovisions.com/ . You can subscribe to this woman’s blog and she will email you daily with amazing deals and great ways to get things free or nearly free! She has been very useful to me!

To tell you about my couponing I must tell you that I mainly shop at Kroger! With Kroger’s Plus Card you can go to websites and download digital coupons that will come off of your total at checkout after you present your card. Here are the sites you can download digital coupons from:
www.kroger.com Click on “In Store” and then “Coupons” to download coupons to your card
http://www.upromise.com/, http://www.shortcuts.com/, and http://www.pgesaver.com/.

The great thing is that you can also use a paper coupon printed from the internet or from your local Sunday’s paper. Pair them up with your digital coupons and often get things FREE!

I have a 3 ring binder that I use for my coupons. This can be quite a task to get started, but well worth it once it is all organized. I use picture slotted pages to put my coupons in and have them separated by tabs: Meats, Cheese, Canned Goods, Pastas/Soups, Baking Needs, Personal Hygiene, Diapers/Baby, etc. I cut out the coupons I know that I will use and place them in these slots by their category so that they are easy to find at a moment’s notice. I will admit that I am a little OCD and have the tabs categorized according to the layout of my Kroger store! lol

Often, things you don’t normally use will go on sale and with a coupon you can get these things free. So you may not have used it before, but you probably would now since it’s free, right?! So, I take the rest of my circular (this is what the ads are called) and I use sheet sleeves and have them organized by the name of the circular and the date. I place the ad in the sheet and then I still have it to use for later, if I need it! I have them organized like: Smart Source 8/1; 8/8; 8/15. Redplum 8/1; 8/8; 8/15. Etc.

If you subscribe to www.faithfulprovisions.com and she finds a great deal she will tell you that you can find a certain coupon in your Smart Source 8/1 Ad (for example). So then you can go back to your 8/1 Smart Source and then cut the coupon out that you need. This way you haven’t wasted time cutting out tons of coupons you may not use or throwing away possible coupons that you can use later!

I get free things weekly from CVS & Walgreens. I usually save anywhere from $50-$100 on my grocery bill each time I go! Couponing can be very time consuming, but consider you may spend 3 hours a week working your coupons and you save $50 on your grocery bill that week… then essentially you’ve made $16/hour! The benefits are wonderful! So, I encourage all of you to be great stewards of what God has blessed you with and consider becoming a “Coupon Queen”!

Natural Alternatives to Healing

As a mother, it breaks my heart when my child is sick. As a wife, I sympathize with my husband when he is sick. And as the household nurse, I struggle along when all of us are sick. Such has been the past week in my home.

Of course, I bought the Benadryl and diaper rash cream for my son and the cold medicine for my husband, but being pregnant, there wasn't much I could do for myself. After several days of misery (and barely any sleep) I decided to try something I said I would never do - I tried a Neti Pot.

For those of you who don't know what this little device is, imagine a child-size tea pot. The one I purchased came with 50 packets (for only $13) of the saline solution you use with it. Now, the point of this pot is to clear out your nasal passages and head of all that mucus. You warm water, add the packet and mix together, and then literally pour half of the mixture into each nostril. I am slightly claustrophobic and believed that this would feel like I was drowning. However, once you position your head down, all the water (and gunk) flows out of the other nostril. If you move your head too far back or have a deviated septum or other nasal blockages, then you will get some water flowing down your throat, but not so much that you can't immediately spit it out. After using this, you simply blow your nose a time or two and you can magically breathe again! Now, I would never want to be a model for the Neti Pot (or even let my husband see me use it), but it is something I'll use again. I used it one time and the effects lasted throughout my entire cold. And I was (somewhat) back on track to taking care of my family again.

I'm not against pharmaceutical remedies by any means, but sometimes they cannot be used, are not readily available, or just don't work. For example, my two-year-old son has had diarrhea for nearly two weeks. I took him to the doctor who told me not to worry so long as there is not blood in the stool or that he doesn't have more than 3 - 4 bowel movements a day. He says the virus will work it's way out of his system and that, in the meantime, I can give him yogurt with active cultures to help get good bacteria back into him. It's been three days since then, he still has the diarrhea and no amount of diaper rash cream has been working. So, starting first thing in the morning, I'm going to try some old-fashioned remedies. Here are some that I found and will try:

1. Don't use wipes on the bottom; use wet cotton balls. They're more gentle.
2. (Recommended by my mother) Brown flour in a pan on the stove, let it cool so that it's just warm, and put on baby's bottom.
3. Brown corn starch in a pan on the stove, let it cool so that it's just warm, and put on baby's bottom.
4. Give luke warm baths with baking soda.
5. Mix equal parts of Lotrimin Anti-fungal cream, zinc oxide, Neosporin, and Mylanta Antacid and apply to baby's bottom.
I HAVE NOT TRIED ANY OF THESE YET; THEY ARE SIMPLY SOME TIPS I FOUND ONLINE. ALWAYS CONSULT WITH YOUR DOCTOR FIRST IF IT SOUNDS REMOTELY UNUSUAL TO YOU.

The last two tips I have to offer are sometimes so simple that they're overlooked. Bleach, Mamas, and bleach some more! Door knobs, faucets, drawer handles, oven knobs, toilet handles, telephones, etc. They are all things we touch so often and forget about, so make sure you're keeping the germs to a minimum by disinfecting them as often as you can. And lastly, don't forget to disinfect your toothbrush! The germs that thing must carry at any given moment! Use some Hydrogen peroxide in a glass, let it soak for a minute, and then rinse thoroughly.

Hopefully these tips will lessen the time of your/your family's illness.

A Blog Celebrating Woman

I am woman, hear me roar!

And yet...

I must maintain a gentle and quiet spirit.
It is a difficult world in which woman lives in today. We have so many roles we play - so many expectations society puts on us as well as all the expectations we put on ourselves. Yes, we are superwoman! Yes, we can roar! And yes, despite all that strength, we can still maintain that gentle and quiet spirit. It's all about balance.

I really don't have a point to this post, except to reintroduce it to my friends (and hopefully others, as well). I gave up on it earlier due to feeling it wasn't what ladies were needing. I want a blog that can be read quickly, has some good advice, maybe a feel-good story, a new recipe or two, and mostly, just a place to celebrate all that we are!

Now, I'm not a feminist by any means - but Ladies, we do some pretty amazing things and I think we deserve that pat on the back sometimes. It's easy to take day-to-day routines for granted, but that doesn't make them any less important. I'm coming from the perspective of a stay-at-home-mom who's main interaction relies on the short attention span of a two-year old. I know many others in my situation. I can only imagine what working mothers go through and accomplish as well.

If any of you are interested in a place to celebrate our strengths and to learn from one another, please let me know. I would love to serve your needs in even the smallest way, if even only once a week. Let me know what it is you're interested in and I will do my best to meet that need.