Buy Smart

7 Ways To Save On Back To School Expenses

August 18, 2019 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

7 easy ways to save on back to school expenses for your kids.

Getting kids back to school ready can cost a pretty penny.

In order to keep these expenses under control, there are several easy ways to save money. These 7 ways to save on back to school expenses will lessen that back to school burden that can occur if spending gets out of control.

And with all that extra money you are saving, you will have a little leftover to show those teacher’s how much you appreciate them!

Our “Back to the Grind” coffee gift and the “Back to School would be totally Nuts without you” are two of our favorite gifts that are cute and inexpensive!

(Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.)

7 Ways to Save on Back To School Expenses

Check out these 7 ways to save on Back To School expenses and still has your kids ready and prepared for their first day.

Shop Tax Free

Many states do a tax free weekend a week or two before school starts.

This is a great way to save some extra cash on any items that you need to buy. It is especially beneficial if you have a big ticket item like a fancy calculator or a computer that you need to purchase.

Check the parameters of your state’s program, some allow more than others to qualify for the tax free exemption.

Evaluate Real Clothing Needs

The start of a new school year practically screams for you to buy your kids a new wardrobe.

But you certainly don’t have to! If you live anywhere like us, it is still in the mid to upper 90’s when school starts in August.

So summer clothes are pretty much a must. I know kids grow so fast and you need a new set of clothes almost every season for a while. But those summer clothes I bought in April or May still fit.

You may end up needing to buy some fall clothes but you can probably wait a month or two before incurring that expense.

Buy Used Clothing

There are tons of places that you can buy really high quality used children’s clothing very inexpensively.

If you don’t know about and use BST groups on Facebook, you are overspending.

Have brand specific kids that will only wear XYZ Brand? I bet they have a BST group for it.

I love putting my kids in brands like Mini Boden, Hanna Andersson, Polo and of course smocked dresses for the girlie. I wouldn’t dream of paying full price for these but I can often find very gently used for about Target prices.

I explain all the ins and outs of Buy, Sell, Trade here. This is not your neighborhood yard sale site. It ships to your door and it is amazing.

Almost Amazon good. Almost.

You can also search your local goodwill or consignment shop if you like the old fashion thrill of the hunt.

Reuse Backpack / Lunchbox

Especially if your kids are a little older and out of the character backpack phase, you could reuse the same backpack or lunch box for a second year.

Or since I still have some little’s at home, it is very reasonable to reuse my son’s paw patrol backpack for a second year of MDO. They hardly use those anyway!

The savings on this can really add up.

Pack Lunches

Depending on how much lunches cost at your school and the extras that they buy, you could easily spend $500-$700 a year on lunch.

Not to mention that they may only eat the unhealthy options and it will be hard to know.

Brown bagging their lunch fare can be a really easy way to save money.

I also love that it helps to teach responsibility and independence if you involve them in making the lunch. My kindergartener enjoys helping!

Here are lots of school lunch ideas that I send to school often. And bonus, they are peanut free, just in case your school or an allergy requires that.

These are some of my favorite Lunchbox helpers to make packing lunch a breeze.

I have been using this stuff for about three years now with no need to replace! It is all top notch quality. You won’t have to replace these as often, therefore, saving money.

Save 5% at Target

If you use your Target REDCard debut, you will save 5% on your entire purchase.

Combine this with school supply sales and cartwheel coupons and the savings can be pretty substantial.

Use Earned Giftcards to Help With Expenses

Earning gift cards in your spare time can be a great way to offset the cost of starting back to school.

I have been using Swagbucks for years as an easy way to collect points that can be exchanged for gift cards to use for birthdays, back to school or Christmas gifts.

You can do some tasks like answering survey or polls or watching videos to earn points.

My favorite way is simply using their search engine to earn points. I set the Swagbucks homepage as my default web browser.

By searching as usual at home and at work, I typically get enough point to get around $100 to $150 in gift cards a year.

It might not be life changing but it can definitely help with incremental expenses!

I hope these 7 ways to save on back to school expenses helps you this year to save and keep more of your hard earned money in your pocket!

Leftover Soup Bowl To Stop Wasting Food

July 28, 2019 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Are you tired of throwing away food? Does your family hate leftovers? Or do you only have a spoonful or two of something leftover that is not really worth saving? Find out a simple way to stop wasting these items without having to serve them up again the next day.

You are cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and there is one spoonful of green beans left. What do you do?

Do you throw it away because it is not enough for anyone and not worth saving?

Do you put it down the drain because your family won’t warm up leftovers?

If you said yes to one of those statements, you need the leftover soup bowl in your freezer. This simple trick will stop the wasted food at your house and provide you with a fresh meal for your leftover hating family.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

What is a Leftover Soup Bowl?

A leftover soup bowl is a bowl or bag that collects small amounts of leftover food over several weeks. Once the bag is full of a variety of veggies, meats and broths, you will make a large pot of fresh vegetable soup.

The leftover soup bowl eliminates virtually all food waste from dinner. It is also great for families that don’t do well with eating leftovers since it is a fresh new meal and not your dinner from the night before heated in the microwave.

What To Do

So to create a leftover soup bowl for your family, just grab a freezer safe bowl or a ziplock bag (my preference). Next, save your leftovers, big or small! The beauty of the leftover soup bowl is that you can save all food. Even if it is just a spoonful or two of food.

No that amount might not be worth saving if you are thinking about a plate of leftovers but it is definitely worth it for the leftover soup bowl!

After every meal, open up your soup bowl/bag and spoon in your cooled leftovers over the top of the previously frozen leftovers. Reseal the bag and toss it back in the freezer. Once your bag is filled, make a big pot of vegetable soup for dinner. You have made a complete family meal out of re-purposed leftovers that might have been put down the drain otherwise.

What to Add to the Leftover Soup Bowl

There are so many options for things to put into your leftover soup bowl. Utilizing this method will help you stay within your grocery budget by eliminating food waste.

Here are some ideas of things that I include in my leftover soup bowl. And remember the beauty of this is that you can save just a couple of spoonfuls of something that isn’t really enough for a reheated meal.

Corn

Green beans

Diced tomatoes

Mixed Vegetables

Tomato sauce/paste

Chicken/beef/vegetable broth

Celery

Onions

Carrots

Beans

Diced potatoes/hashbrowns

Shredded or Diced Chicken

Browned Ground Turkey or Beef

Rice

Noodles

Check Your Fridge

Before you go to the grocery each week, check your fridge for things that you have already bought that you could save instead of throwing out.

Produce

See if you have any produce that is on the verge of going bad.

If you catch it before it wilts, just throw it in your leftover soup bowl. Just make sure that if you are adding fresh vegetables that they are washed and chopped prior to freezing.

Cooked Meats

You also want to look and see if you cooked something recently that it doesn’t look like will be eaten as leftovers.

I particularly like taco meat or salsa chicken to add to my leftover soup bowl. Both of these are packed with flavor and lend themselves well to a taco style soup bowl. Leftover grilled chicken or steak chopped in bite sized pieces are great too.

Impotant Tips For The Leftover Soup Bowl

Use a freezer safe bag or bowl. I prefer a bag because I can store it flat. My mom always kept our leftovers in a vintage yellow tupperware container (which is why I still call it a soup bowl even though in my house it should probably be a soup bag.
Store your bowl/bag in the freezer. It may take several weeks to get enough leftovers for a pot of soup so you want to keep the food frozen.
Add fresh ingredients to your pot when you warm your soup bowl. You can take your frozen bag and add in fresh broth, vegetables, meats or spices if you need to bulk up your pot.

What other money saving hacks help you save money on your grocery bill? Share your budget friendly hack in the comments!

Earlier this year I saved a ton by cutting cable & moving to a direct streaming service and I haven’t looked back!

Lillypost Children’s Book Subscription Box Review

May 28, 2019 by Stacy Craft Leave a Comment

Lillypost Children’s Book Subscription Box review by a mom of two. Choose a board book subscription or a picture book subscription to suit your child’s age and comprehension level.

Wanna know a secret? Okay, more like an embarrassing mom confession. Here it is, I don’t always love reading to my kids.

I mean it is enjoyable sometimes… The educational benefits of reading to your kids is proven. Spending time with your kids away from tv screens is great bonding time. Helping your children develop a reading hobby is nice. It all sounds wonderful but…

BK (before kids), I used to imagine snuggling up in pjs with a big pile of books, reading and soft little giggles before bed. I’m not saying this never happens but most of the time there is loud talking instead of listening, the kids end up fighting, someone gets their hair pulled, a book page is torn. Not exactly that picture perfect storybook evening I had in mind.

And if I have to read Brown Bear Brown Bear one more time. Cute book but I needed something to spice up our reading life and make it time that everyone including me look forward to at night.

So when I saw the Lillypost advertisement on my Facebook recently I wanted to know more. A few new books in our library could probably pull me out of my ‘I don’t want to read’ funk. This Lillypost Children’s book subscription box review details our experience with our first Lillypost box.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

Lillypost Children’s Book Subscription Box Review

This Lillypost children’s book subscription box review explores two of the three subscription boxes that you can choose from when choosing a plan.

There are 3 plan choices to choose from: board book box, picture book box or a mixed box that includes both picture books and a board book. Since I have a 1 and a 5 year old, I chose to try the board book and picture book subscriptions.

You can choose to have the books wrapped for an additional fee. I chose to allow them to come unwrapped because I didn’t want to pay extra for wrapping. And let me tell you, it still felt like a present even unwrapped! The packaging has a clean, updated design and the books shine through all on their own, no gift wrap required!

Board Book Box

The board book box includes four board books. I like that you get one extra book in this subscription since the board books tend to be much shorter than picture books geared at older kids.

In this subscription we got the following books in our first Lillypost mail:

Spot Loves School

Love Monster

One Rainy Day

The Crayons’ Book of Colors

The total retail value of this set was just over $26. I paid $4.73 per book using my coupon code Box30. Definitely cheaper using the Lillypost service and the books were delivered right to the door.

If you have a 0-3 year old, you know that is a blessing. No car seat to buckle on the way to the book store (are those still a thing?) and no screaming kids to deal with at Target.

It was fun opening up the box and seeing a bunch of new books to read. Even though we were familiar with a couple of the books like the Spot series, we did not own these particular books so they were great additions to our collection.

Picture Book Box

The picture book box was impressive as soon as we unboxed the books in the Lillypost. The books were all unique with very beautiful and inviting covers.

Included in our first box were the following books:

A Dog Wearing Shoes

Raybot

Norman the Slug with the Silly Shell

If you price these out at retail, you would spend more than $50 for the lot. Using the coupon code Box30, I got the one month box for a grand total of $18.92 (including shipping). That is only $6.30 per book!

We were excited to see that we had never read or even heard of any of the books in this box! All of the books were enjoyable but our favorite was reading about Norman and his silly shell.

We read all three books in one night! And you know what? We had fun! All of us. Even me.

Charity Donation for Your Purchase

Not only is this company an asset for families that are looking to improve the literacy of their own children, it is a blessing to those in need. For each box that is purchased, Lillypost donates one book to a child in need.

Finding companies that give back to our communities is something that I value and appreciate. Particularly when the beneficiary of that good deed is a child that is less fortunate.

Would I Do It Again?

After reading this Lillypost children’s book subscription box review, are you asking yourself if I would subscribe again? The answer is yes, my account is still active and we just got our second box! Spoiler alert – it was just as good as the first.

We enjoyed the extra excitement and variety that the Lillypost box brought to our reading time as a family. I would definitely recommend the service as a way to save on the retail price of children’s book and also add that fun element of surprise that the monthly subscription offers you every month.

If you are like me and can’t imagine another toy coming into your house, this would be an awesome gift idea to throw to the grandparents when they are asking for birthday or Christmas ideas!

Terms of the Box Subscription

It is a monthly box subscription. You can save money by committing to several months at a time or you can choose to purchase month to month. The website does state that you can cancel at anytime so if you need to take a pause, it should be easy to do.

Don’t miss some of our top kid posts:

Switching From Cable to Hulu Live TV

April 14, 2019 by Stacy Craft 7 Comments

A great way to save money is to lower your standard monthly expenses. TV subscriptions can end up costing you upwards of $100 to $200 using traditional cable or satellite services. Here I will show you how we drastically cut our bills by switching from cable to Hulu Live TV and the benefits and struggles we encountered.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

A year and a half ago I gave birth to my second child. And if you are a parent already, you know your life kind of stands still that first year or so. This baby did not sleep, like ever. So my normal budgeting practices kind of fell by the wayside for the temporarily more important things like sleep, coffee and taking care of a baby.

But in 2019, one of my resolutions was to get back on the budgeting train. I despise just wasting money for no reason and I knew I was doing it in several areas of our life. The first thing I did was save $800 on my lunch break by lowering our traditional cable and internet bills.

Saving $800 is definitely nice. That is many trips to the grocery store or a fun weekend trip away for us. It wasn’t a flop but I wanted to save more. The TV streaming services had been interesting to me because of the large savings potential but I was scared. And my sports loving hubby was even more scared. He definitely did not want to be left without being able to see his favorite teams.

I knew friends that had taken the plunge and loved it. But I still had questions and reservations. After thinking about it a while, we just jumped in and tried it. Here is how it went. The things we love and the 2 things that we didn’t anticipate.

Switching from Cable to Hulu Live TV

If you are drawn to the streaming services but nervous to cut your ties with your traditional tv provider, check out all the details from my experience. There is good and unexpected issues but overall we are so glad that we did it!

Try it Risk Free

You can try Hulu Live for two weeks free. We did the free trial while continuing our cable service. My biggest fear was that I would cancel my current service, pack up all their equipment, send it back and then not end up liking the streaming service with Hulu.

By entering the Hulu Live free trial, we were able to work out any kinks and test out the programming before fully committing. If you don’t like it, just cancel the before the end of the trial and go back to your old school cable.

The Hulu Live TV Experience & Sections

When we were thinking about switching to Hulu, I had questions. Lots of questions. How does the live tv portion work? Could my husband see the sports events that he wanted? Would my kids be able to watch their shows (because Paw Patrol is just as important as LSU football in this house). Grey’s Anatomy would need to be able to be recorded because while I don’t have much time to watch tv live, I do love to keep up with my shows.

The answer was yes, yes, yes and yes. All of the objections that we had were immediately debunked while we were testing out Hulu during the trial period.

If you haven’t used the program before, it is easiest to explain it in sections. There are different sections or folders for the various programming aspects that you are looking for.

Live TV

The Live TV section will show you everything that is on right now. Just like on your cable subscription, you will see a guide showing you what you can watch right now on live tv. One thing that I really like about Hulu over the traditional cable is that it is “smart” when it comes to your viewing habits.

As an example, I watch the Today Show every morning. So when you pull up the Live TV section in the morning, it puts the Today show up at the top of the list because it knows that I will probably turn that show on. How cool is that? My tv gets me.

Recordings

You will have a “My Stuff” folder that will act act as your DVR area. Anything that you have recorded will be saved by show in this area.

My favorite feature is that it shows you on the front page of this segment which shows you have to watch and the ones that you are caught up on.

Browse & Search

The browse feature allows you to see different categories of material and find things that you like and want to watch.

The search feature allows you to just type in the name of what you are looking for to easily get right to what you want. I really like the “trending searches” part of the search area. You will find the top 30 or so searches from other people. They include regular network channels, Hulu specific content and cable channels in this listing.

I have found several things that I might not have otherwise watched by looking at this trending area.

Sports

Ok, this is not really my area of expertise. I’m a cheerleader. Take me to the tailgate, I will make you some yummy apps and people watch but the actual game, I could probably skip that. So I’m going to give you my husband’s perception for this part of the review.

We had a moderate package before switching from cable to Hulu Live TV. It wasn’t the most expensive but definitely not the cheapest. We had a couple of the standard sports channels (ESPN, ESPN2 etc). However, it seemed like every year I would have to call and add the SEC Network or some other channel for a few of the games.

With Hulu Live, we got multiple sports channels that we did not have with our normal cable package. That made my hubby happy. I saved money so I’m happy too!

Hulu Content

When I cancelled my tv with my other provider, they tried to offer me their streaming option. It was similar in cost so I decided that Hulu brought a better value because of the Hulu specific original content that they offer. Like the Handmaid’s Tale. Love it!

Pause/Rewind/Fast Forward

You can do all the features in Hulu that you can do on your cable shows. There is no difference. There are some on demand type things that require you to watch their advertisements (usually just around 30 seconds to a minute) but my cable network did not allow fast forwarding on certain on demand items so I find this go be similar.

2 Things I Didn’t Anticipate When Switching to Hulu from Cable

So far, you have read all the things I really like about Hulu. Of course, there are typically a few little hurdles when you make a big switch like this and I thought I would share the two that stood out to me that I did not really anticipate up front.

Incompatible TV’s for Hulu Live

All of our Tv’s are smart tv’s so I really did not think that compatibility would be an issue. And for the regular Hulu service, it was not. However, most of our tv’s are LG and apparently there are only a few models that readily work with the Live TV portion of the Hulu service.

This is another reason that I was glad to be on the free trial. Had this been a deal breaker for me, I could have cut the service and kept my old cable option.

There is a simple fix if you are in the same boat that we were. Buy an Amazon Fire Stick for your tv and it will be instantly compatible. Even if you have a bunch of tv’s, the cost of the stick is pretty low now.

And the money that we saved when switching from cable to Hulu Live TV made up the difference for the fire sticks that we needed to buy. Our first month was a wash when it came to savings because of the fire stick purchases. But every month after that, we have been raking in the savings!

Increase in Data Usage

We work from home, 2 computers on the internet at least 9 hours a day. My five year old gets some time to play educational games on the iPad every day. We have two teenagers that are here every other weekend that basically eat data for breakfast, lunch and dinner! And let’s be honest, I use a fair amount myself when you calculate in my Pinterest habit.

And then, we added in streaming all of our TV. Since we work at home, we both typically have a news channel on for background noise during the work day. Kids have their shows that they want, and then we watch something at night as a family.

I actually thought that our internet package was unlimited but it was not. I definitely don’t think this is a deal breaker but it is something to consider and watch. Thankfully my service provider gave a two month grace period and then I was able to upgrade to a true unlimited package.

Saving Money With Hulu

We switched from cable to Hulu Live TV about three months ago and haven’t looked back. We love the functionality, the Hulu content, the ability to see EVERYTHING that we were watching on regular cable and of course we really love the price!

Hulu Live TV is roughly about 1/3 the cost that I was paying to our old cable company. And we get more content for less money. I just can’t find a problem with that! What is holding you back from making the plunge to steaming with Hulu?

Baby Brezza Formula Pro Review

April 3, 2019 by Stacy Craft 1 Comment

A Baby Brezza Formula Pro review from a mom that has owned two! Find out if you need one for your new baby.

Affiliate Links are used in this post. A small commission may be paid to me at no extra cost to you and that helps to support this page. Please see my disclosures page for additional information.

I am writing this Baby Brezza Formula Pro review all because of an impromptu trip down a Target aisle in the Fall of 2013. My husband saw it and just had to have it. This was going to be his 4th baby and he claimed it would change our lives (this was going to be my first baby so I was relatively clueless).

It was expensive and I am a penny pincher. We didn’t have to have it and so I initially said no.

He talked me into it and into the cart the “Baby Keurig” went (as we have lovingly called her for the last 5 years). Here I will give you all of the highs and lows of the product. My experiences with the product and my ultimate opinion of the Formula Pro.

Baby Brezza Formula Pro Review

The Baby Brezza Formula Pro can make caring for a newborn a lot easier. Understanding the product ins and outs will make the process run much smoother.

How To Use Baby Brezza Formula Pro

Using the Baby Brezza Formula Pro is pretty easy. You load the water reservoir with fresh water. Fill the top container with the formula of your choice. Select the number of ounces that you want to make. Put a bottle under the funnel and press start.

That is it. A perfect bottle, at the perfect temp, every time.

Why I Love it

If you are about to be a new parent for the first time, you may not fully grasp this concept… yet! My mamas of a kid or two will understand completely, having two hands with a newborn or an infant is a rare occasion.

You are going to have a wailing baby that wants milk like NOW. And if it is 2 am, just add on a little extra stress.

You know what you don’t want to be doing at 2 am? Fumbling around one handed (while holding the screaming baby with other hand) for a tub of formula, trying to fish out that stupid scoop that always gets buried, getting water the perfect temp so that it isn’t cold but also not too hot, and shaking that bottle like a mad woman to get the formula dissolved.

It is so easy to breeze in, push one button, console that baby for a couple of seconds while your formula “brews” and then feed that baby! I even leave a fresh bottle under the spout before I go to bed to make those nightly feedings even easier.

Easier for Other Caregivers

I also love that it is easier for others to help me care for my child. Whether it is a grandparent, older sibling or a babysitter, I don’t have to communicate ounces of formula or the correct water ratio.

I can set it up and the caregiver only has to push the start button. It is so nice to be able to ensure that my baby is getting exactly the correct amount of nutrition. Not to mention making it easier on the caregiver.

Preventing Issues with the Baby Brezza

If you read some reviews, there have been reports of some issues with the units. In this part of the Baby Brezza Formula Pro review, I will identify a few issues that I know of and helpful ways to prevent them.

Mold

I think this is probably the most concerning of the issues to a new parent. Mold and newborn babies don’t mix. My first piece of advice is to actually read the manual that comes with the product. I know, I know. No one actually reads those things anymore but you need to. It shows you what you need to do in order to prevent mold from growing in the Baby Brezza.

Frequently cleaning the unit and drying it completely will prevent mold growth. My weekly routine was to make a bottle for nap time and then while baby was napping, I would clean the unit.

You take it completely apart. The water reservoir, the two orange spinners, the formula container, the funnel and the vented drain that the bottle sits on. Put any remaining formula into a clean bowl and then wash all the parts with warm soapy water. Rinse well and let air dry on a towel. Once everything is totally dry, assemble it again, refill the formula and water. Now you are ready to go!

If you stick with a routine cleaning schedule, you should not have any mold issues. The only place that I ever saw mold grow was after returning from a trip out of town (and I forgot to take the Baby Brezza apart). There was a slight mold growth under the white top on the water reservoir. I scrubbed it with some white vinegar to remove all traces of the mold. Once that was gone, I completed the cleaning process described above.

You regular Keurig will also grow mold if you don’t keep it clean. It really isn’t a reason in my opinion not to buy the product, you just need to properly care for it.

Electrical or Performance Issues

So you know I have owned two of these Baby Brezza’s but in reality I have actually owned 3. As I said, my first Baby Brezza was purchased in late 2013. I think this was one of the first models on the market.

We sold that unit before we moved a few years later (thinking that we were not going to have any other children). Surprise, our 2017 baby was a sweet little gift from God and after our experience with the first Baby Brezza, we wanted another. So we purchased another one to use for our 2nd child together.

I used the 2nd one from October 2017 until August 2018 without any issues. But at the end of August the formula abruptly stopped dispensing formula. I contacted customer service with the issue. They had me take a short video of the problem and email it over.

After reviewing the issue, there was some type of major malfunction. The customer service rep stated that this was not typical of their units and that they would replace the unit at no charge (enter my 3rd Baby Brezza). I did have to produce my receipt so my biggest piece of advice is to keep that receipt just in case you have a problem!

I was very happy with their willingness to replace the product since there was a problem. I only used it for a couple of more months and then once my baby was off of formula, I donated it to a friend.

Baby Brezza – Yes or No?

As a family, we definitely recommend the Baby Brezza Formula Pro. In fact, I have purchased a couple for friends that were expecting new babies.

The Formula Pro isn’t one of those items that is necessary to have when you bring home a new baby but it sure does make it a little easier. And let’s get real, being a Mom (or Dad) is hard enough. Why not make it a little easier on yourself?

Make sure you pin these super simple homemade baby food recipes for when your baby is ready for solid foods! Pin the 5 minute Banana, Blueberry, Pear baby food and the 5 minute Avocado Banana Puree.