Declutter - part 2

Another area where I seem to have trouble staying organized is my pantry. I like to stockpile to reduce my grocery budget but sometimes it results in having a little too much stuff and thats when stuff goes bad and is wasted. Getting something inexpensively is no deal if it goes bad before you can eat it!

So as part of my decluttering/organizing, I decided to tackle the pantry.

Before













After - much better


Please someone remind me the next time I buy pasta that I basically have enough to support Italy at the moment. All pasta deals must be donated or ignored until I can get through what I have.









The second motivation for cleaning out my stockpile is that I adopted a family for Christmas and wanted to include some groceries with my gifts. So after going through everything, this is what I set aside for this family. How exciting is this? This is why stockpiling is a good idea! All of these items I got for free or significantly reduced and so it isn't a huge deal for me to share. YAY!

Declutter - part 1

I've been trying to simplify my life and get rid of clutter and things that I am just not using. I'd much rather have less stuff to clean and know that the stuff I got rid of is getting used by someone else. No need to keep stuff hanging around when others can use it!

In conjunction with this decluttering, I've also been focusing on cleaning and organizing - 2 of my favorite activities! Yep, I'm a dork.

But seriously, I just love a clean and organized house.

This weekend I took on the task of cleaning out my shed. Since I moved into my house in April, the shed has been a dumping ground of misc. items that I didn't want to deal with or didn't know what to do with. This had to end.

Exhibits 1 and 2: The mess


Notice how the shed is so FULL of stuff that you actually cannot step foot in it. Now, it isn't a huge space but there is no need for this mess.




So I bought some shelves and got to organizing.





Exhibits 3 and 4: The Result



SO much better! Notice how you can see the floor. This is where my bike goes. Now I don't have to keep it in the dining room. Bonus.

I'm back!

I'm sorry blog-world! I've been super busy this past month or so and it has interfered with my blogging. Rest assured, despite my lack of posts, I have continued with my decluttering, deal-seeking, and other blog-worthy activities.

Stay tuned for some posts in the coming weeks as I get back to my regularly scheduled life.

October Eating From the Pantry Challenge!

Welcome to October!! Where did September go? No, seriously - where did it go? Anyway, I have somehow accumulated A LOT of items in my freezer. So I've decided to spend some time cleaning out the stockpile this month.

My goal for this month will be to minimize grocery spending as much as possible. Purchasing perishables, milk, eggs, and necessities is allowed. Any leftover grocery money will go towards making an extra principal payment.

YAY! I will update you all at the end of the month.

Food Lion Deals

So I am typically not a Food Lion shopper because in general I haven't been impressed by their prices or their customer service.

However, Hip2Save alerted to me to a great deal on Kraft cheese so I decided to head over. Well...I still can't say much for the customer service but the deals may get me back there every once in a while. I ended up getting 5 packages of cheese and about 6 lbs of chicken for $11.80. The cheese ended up being $0.40/package and 2 packages of chicken were marked down to about $2.50/package. The third package was the regular deal this week which was buy 1 pound, get 1 pound free.

Unfortunately my cashier experience wasn't great. The cashier grumbled when I asked for a paper bag and scanned my coupon in wrong. He did not seem please when I asked him to check the coupon although he did correct the mistake. So - the deals were good, the customer service was so-so, but I wouldn't turn down a trip in the future.

Soap.com purchase

I got my soap.com purchase in the mail today! What a great surprise to have waiting at my door! I purchased the $20 voucher from Groupon for $10 and got 3 rolls of papertowels, 2 bottles of shampoo, 1 large bottle of dishwashing detergent, and 1 large bottle of hand soap.

All in all a pretty good deal. This soap should last me a VERY long time. The shampoo was something I needed anyway so it all worked out. I was overall impressed with soap.com. I was even able to use some coupons on the site. Definitely something to think about for future toiletry purchases.

I have a problem...

...whose name is Diet Coke.


Yes, I am addicted to Diet Coke (or more specifically, the caffeine in the Diet Coke). I try to limit myself but I still manage to get addicted to the stuff. IT IS A PROBLEM!

This week I've tried to quit cold turkey. This was a horrible idea because it resulted in 2 days of crazy headaches. I finally broke down and bought a package of those small 7.5 oz cans as a way to wean myself off.

Diet Coke you will not win!