Bountiful Baskets (of produce)

Bountiful Baskets is a co-op that offers fruits and vegetables on a regular basis, as well as "specials" that vary by season. We have participated a couple of times and love it. The first time, however, I goofed and bought a basket ($15 for conventional- which we did the first time but now we do the $25 organic) AND an optional $5 fruit salad basket. We received all of this: for $20 (plus an extra $3 since it was our first time).


The result was:
-3 heads of spinach
-a head of Kale? (or some sort of lettuce...)
-3 bundles of celery
-2 yellow peppers
-9 pears
-1 cantelope
-6 apples
-5 peaches
-3 artichokes
-7 bananas
-18 little tomatoes
-4 yellow tomatoes (not sure what they are..)

and for our added-on fruit salad basket:
-huge bag of grapes
-1 watermelon
-huge case of strawberries
-huge case of blueberries

Luckily Charles had a birthday party that day so we made some fruit salad & served some vegetables. The produce lasts.... if you take good care of it & store it properly. It is always extremely fresh because the group of participants all purchase fruit/vegetables in bulk from the distributor. This means that we get it before the grocery store and therefore get super fresh produce at the cost that grocery stores do. And you don't have to pay anything (besides a $1 in handling) because it's a bunch of volunteers that put on the show. You pick your purchases up on the Saturday that you select. It's generally around 7 or 8 in the morning (since heats a huge factor here) and it's wise to bring either a laundry basket or a ton of reusable shopping bags. You do not get to chose what is in the general basket but I've also seen crates of tomatoes, loafs of bread (the $10 for 5 loafs of honey wheat is supposedly amazing... it's bakery style!), grass fed beef, Italian produce baskets, fruit salad baskets (like what I received), summer fruit baskets (pineapple, coconut, etc.) for sale. It's an awesome deal and if your family is small (like mine.... it consists of mommy, daddy & toddler), I would suggest splitting it. This coming Saturday, we are splitting the basket with my mom. I'm curious to see how this goes!!
You can find more information about the one that I participate through here.
You can also check here if you don't live in Arizona or Utah. I would also suggest googling your state/city & the words "produce co op" together and see what pops up.

Happy Savings!!

Movie Tickets for a $1

So apparently I'm a lazy bum who watches movies & tv all day since that's what my last two posts have been. Haha! I wish! I'm the mom of a two year old who has been REALLY sick lately, so my posts have been about us being lazy/cheap. I also haven't had time to post as much as I want. Although I do have some topics I'm dying to cover!

Who else has discovered "cheap theaters" (as my family likes to call them)??? By that, I mean watching slightly older/not yet released on film but out of the big dog theaters movies. Our cheap theatre sells their tickets for $2, but on Tuesdays, they sell them for just a buck! This is our favorite deal currently. It's been about 115*F where we live (Phoenix, AZ) so not only are we hot, but we are pretty lacking on the energy department. The three of us can get in for $3, and when we nix the concession stand (or sneak in a bag of organic popcorn that has 4,000 less calories than the $4 kind....), we come across some serious savings. Costs us about the same for us to rent the movie! Try googling "cheap theatre in ____" and see what comes up.

For the movies that we just can't wait 'till they come out, we try to hit up the "early bird" specials. Did you know that the majority of "big dog" theaters will let you into the movie for around $5 if you go to the first viewing? It's true. Harkins has the option for you to buy their "souvenere" cups/shirts and you can get free popcorn (with the shirt) or $1 refill on the soda (cup). Not too bad. Not as good as the "cheap theatre" but it sure does save money!

I've also heard of buying your tickets at Costco. Has anyone ever tried this?

Does anyone have any tips other tips that they'd like to give? If you already attend a "cheap theatre," please comment what theatre it is & what city/state you are in so others around you can bask in the same glory. Happy Savings!

Ditch your Cable for a different Cable!!

I thought I would post about a major way that we've been saving money lately around the house. I don't like "sacrificing" but I definitely don't mind making adjustments to save some cash!
About a year ago, we ditched Cable TV. There are a lot of shows out there that I'm slightly addicted to. Secret Life of the American Teenager (I was pregnant in highschool.... so this is a guilty pleasure. I know, lame!), The City, The Hills, 16 and Pregnant, Smallville, etc. Regardless of how lame my favorite shows are (and I know.... they are really lame!!! lol), we still don't watch via cable. Instead, we have connected our tv to our computer so we can "stream" our favorite shows the day after it aired. It's a small way that we save approximately $80 a month. ($80*12= $960.... so that's nearly $1,000 a year in savings!) It's actually quite simple to do.... you just need a cable (we use VGA-double female and it works wonderfully)! Here is a link to Cables for Less, which is a great site that has cables at a decent price. Most stores are WAY overpriced!
We have netflix instead of watching every movie at the theatre. We get 3 movies a time and pay around $20 a month for this service. We rent a lot of the movies that are "new releases" and watch the oldies online. Netflix has a huge gallery of movies and shows online that you can access from any computer as long as you have an account. Here are a few that we are digging right now: Stepbrothers, Tortilla Soup, Sleepless in Seattle, Casablanca, Made of Honor, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas and WordWorld, Chitty Chitty Bang Ban, Dora, Blues Clues & Land Before Time for the little man. the list goes on... for the movies we really do want to see on the big screen, we go to the cheap theatre that plays movies that have been out for a while. $2 instead of $9 per person! Not so shabby, ey?! I've also heard good things about Red Box but we haven't ventured there yet. So tell me, how do you save on entertainment? And while your at it, if you have enjoyed reading some things on my new blog... introduce yourself & tell me what else you'd like to hear! :D

"GREEN" cleaning supplies

I've recently started to switch over to green & cheap cleaning supplies? sounds like an oxymoron, right!? well, i've heard that going back to the basics with cleaning is both better for the environment as well as the wallet. I figured it couldn't hurt to try. On Monday, I cleaned the kitchen with vinegar (and attempted to get rid of pesky little flies that are obsessed with my mint & basil plants!) The smell did the trick, although two days later (today) they came back!!! SO apparently the vinegar thing needs to be done regularly for use as a pesticide! By the word regularly, I mean every other day! Maybe even daily. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I'll give it a shot and see.... As far as cleaning/sterilizing, it worked really well! The only difficulty I had was when it was grimy. Other than that, totally better than Clorox/411/whatever. I've found that Trader Joes has a product line called "Close to Goddliness" that is still good for the environment & fairly priced. I like that a tad better, although the vinegar works for the easier spots.

Today I tried Borox for both the bathroom sink & toilet. It worked all right, although I've had a hard time finding ANYTHING that works well and isn't harsh chemicals. With that in mind, it was worth the low price of money I spent.

In conclusion, I have found that the two work well for "easier" jobs. Definitely saves money! I'm yet to try it on other cleaning jobs, so I'm not quite done "testing" it out. I'll post more when I do.