Great Father's Day $10 Gift Card Offer at Target

Check out this week's Target ad if you are still looking for a great father's day gift idea. Target is offering a $1o gift card when you buy a pack of golf balls and any golf apparel item. This would make a great gift for any dad that loves to golf or would be great for anyone who just enjoys golfing. The offer is good thru this Saturday. Go to http://www.target.com/ and view your local ad for more information about this promotion.

North Liberty, IA Fun Days

North Liberty has their annual Fun Days Celebration this week Thursday--Sunday. The parade is Friday evening and the event will conclude on Sunday with fireworks. There are LOTS of family activities to enjoy as well as live music perfect to listen to on a warm summer night.

For a listing of events and more details visit this website:

http://www.northlibertyiowa.org/fundays/

JJ Cole Diaper Bag

Well it was finally time to retire the old diaper bag. It was stained, ripped and torn to pieces. We finally had to put it down. RIP old diaper bag, but we will not miss you.

At least we won't any way because I found a new one that I love. This JJ Cole Collection diaper bag clips onto your stroller or shopping cart. Plus the diaper changing mat has a magnetic clasp, so it folds back together very neatly with little fuss. How cool is that?

I got the polka dot pattern one but more styles can be found here.
http://jjcoleusa.com/mode-tote-bag

Homemade Yogurt Pops!

Every summer Thomas and I make our own popsicles from fresh seasonal fruits and yogurt. All you need is your favorite yogurt flavor, fresh fruit if you would like, something to use for the mold and popsicle sticks. To keep it super simple I like to use the yogurt containers, although you can even buy molds for super cheap at Target or Walmart. Just dice up the fruit into small pieces and blend with yogurt in a blender. You can also use ice cream, sherbert, juice or smoothie mixes and ice chips. Then pour your mixture into the cups, add a popsicle stick, and freeze until solid. Depending on how big they are, it shouldn't take more than 4 hours to freeze. Best part is, these make a guilt free snack that is perfect for a hot summer day! The bonus is they are budget friendly and kids love them too!

IPTV Kids Day May 30th at the Blank Park Zoo

I'm thinking of doing this with the boys in Des Moines this weekend. IPTV is having a Kids Day at the Zoo. Kids can meet Dan Wardell from the Kids Clubhouse and "Duck" from Word World from 10-4 PM. There will be other activities as well. It looks like it will be lots of fun, especially if the weather stays nice. Maybe we will make the drive out there and see some animals and have some fun!

More details can be found here at:
http://www.iptv.org/iptv_news_detail.cfm?id=3776&type=press_release

Awesome FREE Target $5 Gift Card Offer

Every once in a while Target offers a FREE giftcard with a select purchase. It usually isn't worth my time unless it involves Pepsi products or snack foods my husband and kids will eat up before I can tell them I bought them.

Well this week Target will give you a FREE $5 gift card when you buy any combination of 5 select Kellogg's snacks at $2.33. The offer is good on Cheez-it 9 oz pkgs, 12 ct Pop Tarts, and 11.5 oz Fudge Shoppe cookies. Since Cheez-It hands down have the least sugar I had to go for those. Not to mention how we happen to love them so much!

I happened to have a $5 gift card from a previous deal so that made each box roughly $1.33, plus I got another gift card out of it! Hurray for cheap snack foods!

Our Budget Saver of the Month: $40/week Groceries

As part of overhauling our family budget this month, I cut back at the grocery store.

For the first week of May, I spent $61.01. This week was a little higher than most because I was taking advantage of a big sale to stock up for the month. I also had to replenish a lot of our pantry items that were running low. Not a bad deal though, since I was able to completely stock up for the month at some very low prices at HyVee.

The second week of May I spent a whopping total of $21.79. I didn't have much to buy this week but took advantage a sale on bagels for $1 and some inexpensive meat and grilling items.

I skipped out on grocery shopping the following week. Our refrigerator was full of items still and this became our "No spend" week of the month. We also had lots of leftovers to use up.

This week I spent the most but I made it worth my money. I made a trip to HyVee and spent $33.01 on groceries. Not bad, since I had to replenish a lot of necessities from not shopping the week before. It was a great weekend to shop with all of the Memorial Day sales. There were some fantastic snack and pop deals at Walmart, Target, and Kmart so I took advantage of those. All together I spent about $20 on pop and $10 on snacks for our many trips to the park that we take in the summer. I also picked up some Organic Gerber baby food items at ToysRUs (BRU has the same deals). That totaled $10 but I won't have to buy baby food for a LONG time now.

Everything averages out to under $40 a week! Which is a HUGE change for us. We had been spending about $50-80 a week, sometimes much more if we were stocking up on items. And that didn't include pop. So we did a fantastic job this month. I will of course still be on the look out for this Wednesday's ads from Fareway and HyVee. I am hoping for some great sale prices following Memorial Day weekend. :-)