Kroger Deals......Awesome Trip

First of all, there is a gallon of milk that I bought too and forgot to put in this picture.

I am so proud of this shopping trip. I spent 63.97 and saved 72.90, a savings of 53%. Kroger is having a Mega Event. When you buy 10 of the listed items, you get $5 off your purchase. All of this was bought mostly with coupons that I printed off the internet, so if you don't have a lot of coupons, you can still save money, just go online and print them. For all the coupon match-ups and links to the printable coupons, go to www.southernsavers.com.

Halloween Costumes.......by me!

I hate the idea of buying Halloween Costumes and spending a lot of money on something that the kids will wear only once. So, I decided to make our own.
Mahala wanted to be a lady bug and Emily wanted to be a puppy. I got online and searched for ideas and patterns, and took some of them and made my own.

This is Mahala the lady bug........



All together Mahala's costume probably cost $10 and the shirt can be worn again. The pants she already had. When I take the antennas off the hat, it can be worn again also.

This is Emily the puppy dog.......


First of all, ignore her blue mouth, she was eating a sucker. Emily's costume cost a little more than Mahala's, but Emily needed a brown shirt and pants for hers. All together, Emily's was around $15, but her outfit can be worn again too. The shirt had a design on it, so I loosely sewed the felt on the front to cover it. It can be taken off. Same for the toboggan, the ears are sewn on loosely so they can be taken off and it worn again.

Halloween Pumpkins................

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!

A few weeks ago at Walgreens, the catalina machine was printing off coupons for $5 off any Halloween item. We got these awesome Mr. Potato head like things to poke into our pumpkins to make faces. They were $4.99, so all I had to pay was tax! I love these and it beats having to clean all that yucky stuff out of the inside of the pumpkin!

Jello Cups

My kids love jello cups and they are nice to have in the fridge. My only issue is the cost and they are gone in a day. When I was at Kroger recently, I saw these plastic cups on clearance and I had an idea. Make my own. No problem, since I only have 10 boxes of jello mix in my cabinet from a great sale. I got each box of jello for around 20 cents.
I fixed 1 box of jello, poured it into these little cups, and put them into the fridge to set.
Then I put the lids on them and put them back in the fridge to enjoy. The kids love them and when they are done all we have to do is wash them and make another batch.

Home Run!!!

I think I hit a home run today! Sometimes I try something new and it doesn’t always work out, and my family politely says, “it was okay”. Well today the something new that I tried was “awesome”.

I had gotten some cream cheese at the store for free thanks to an awesome Kraft coupon and a sale at Kroger, and I was determined to find some awesome recipes to use my cream cheese.

This was the end result. It smelled and tasted wonderful!

First of all I made my own crescent rolls. Feel free to use canned crescent rolls.

Crescent Rolls (Adapted from Golden Crescent Rolls on allrecepies.com)

• 1 (.25 ounce) packages active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 eggs
• 1/4 butter
• 2 cups all-purpose flour

1. Dissolve yeast in warm water.
2. Stir in sugar, salt, eggs, butter, and 1 cups of flour. Beat until smooth. Mix in remaining flour until smooth. Scrape dough from side of bowl. Knead dough, then cover it and let rise in a warm place until double (about 1-1/2 hours).
3. Punch down dough. Divide in half.

Now for the rest of the recipe. This is the recipe for Sopaipilla Cheesecake Bars from Food.com with my modifications. I also modified the name.

Crescent Cheesecake

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
• Crescent roll recipe above or 1 pre-made tube of crescent rolls
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup cinnamon sugar

Using a greased 8 x 8 or 9 x 9 baking pan, unroll 1/2 package of refrigerated crescent rolls or roll out ½ of the homemade dough mixture. Line the bottom of the pan and flatten, pinching seams together as you go. In a medium bowl, add together the cream cheese, sugar and extract. Mix til well blended. Spread mixture over the crescent rolls.

Unroll the rest of the crescent rolls or roll out the rest of your dough mixture and place on top of cream cheese mixture.

Pour one stick of melted butter over the top and sprinkle with about 1/4 cup of the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Allow to cool, eat at room temperature or serve chilled. Refrigerate any leftovers.

ENJOY!!!!!

Potatoes with bacon and cheese

This is one of my favorite recipes. I love potatoes, bacon, and cheese!

I started with 5-6 small red potatoes and cut them in small pieces. You can do more or less based on how many people you are feeding. Place them in a greased dish in a even layer. Add salt, pepper, butter, and a little EVOO (extra virgin olive oil).


Place them in the oven on about 350 degrees and cook until they are soft.

While they are cooking fry some bacon. I used turkey bacon and no one knew the difference. Plus I got a pound of it on sale at Kroger a few weeks ago for only $1.



When the bacon is done, break it into small pieces and crumble over the soft potatoes and add some shredded cheddar cheese. I have also known some people to add some ranch dressing over the potatoes too.




At this point, I place them back in the oven and allow the cheese to melt.

Take them out and enjoy! YUMMY!

A New Start

I decided to discontinue my previous blog and start a fresh new one. The previous one, I did not post on very much, and it was mostly about saving money. This will be everything about me rolled in to one. I hope to start posting tomorrow, and we will go from there.