Years ago, I participated in a Neilson study and had such fun sharing my ideas and opinions. Honestly, I do not particularly appreciate the way many marketing and product avenues are going, and I felt this was one way I could contribute and get some free things for my family as well. I have no idea how quickly you can earn things now, but one of my friends just received her home scanner and is excited to start sharing her opinions about products.

It only takes a few minutes to fill out the survey, and then they will let you know if your area code fits the location they are looking for right now.

Influence the products made and sold. Join the National Consumer Panel. Click Here if you have a land line, which they prefer.

If you do NOT have a landline, use this link

Once you get started, let me know how you are enjoying the experience. I am eager to hear.

It’s September 1st, which  means some new coupons have loaded at Coupons.com and around. I just finished printing out my favorites and you won’t be disappointed.

Here’s just a sampling of what I will use this month.

Ol El Paso taco seasoning is OFTEN priced at $1 or under. Use this Old El Paso Coupon at a store that doubles and you can get this for free or nearly free if your store doesn’t double.

As much as I love making home made pizza, I admit, we eat frozen more often. Easy and quick…Digiorno’s is one of our favs, especially with a Digiorno’s coupon.

Six months ago, I stockpiled about 30 bags of frozen veggies. We use them all the time, but they are GONE. (Gasp) I’ve been waiting for a great BOGO free sale and this coupon will be perfect. (There are three other Green Giant coupons, so just look around)

I am ending with the best coupon of all. $5 off of FIVE Kraft Products. Print now because this will not last long. This past week, I actually went into the fridge and had NO cheese. I had to buy some without a good sale. That is the number one Stockpiling 101 error. Well, Walmart, Publix, Target and Harris Teeter all have cheese on sale for $2. Use this coupon and you can get it for $1/piece.

Meijer – Buy 10 Kraft Chunk Cheese (8 oz) @ $1.67 each
Use two $5.00/5 Kraft Cheese or Dairy
Pay $6.67 and get a $5.00 checkout coupon valid on your next order

Yes, paying $1.67 for 10 packages of Kraft Chunk Cheese after coupons and catalina promotion is unbelievable. We don’t have Meijer in NC, but it’s almost worth the drive. lol. (thx to Mercedes commentors)

Safeway Kraft Cheese  is on sale for $1.69 with in ad coupon and $10 minimum purchase.  Use this $5/5 coupon and get them for only $0.69 ea!  There is a limit of 3 at the $1.69 price so you’ll have to buy 2 other items that may or may not be on sale.  I’d suggest looking for the Philadelphia Cream Cheese, which could be a great filler item.

Does anyone know any other store that Kraft is on sale? I’ll update it.  Make sure you hit the back button when printing coupons. You may print two.

Day in and day out, we desire to instill character in our children. Day in and day out, it’s a challenge that is worth it.

I reflected on my time  in the kitchen this past week, and realized that the hidden life lessons found together cooking are often those that just happen – unintentional, unprompted, unplanned, and unrehearsed. We started baking our muffins, but then ended with my eldest daughter whipping up some of her yummy cheesy noodles for lunch. They were both a hit, but it really wasn’t about learning to cook in the kitchen, it was about what happened in between all those moments captured in the pictures.

• We learned that too often sharing doesn’t come naturally, but when we practice it, joy flourishes.
• We learned that attitudes are a choice. We all have that choice…but what we decide to focus on is our own.
• We learned that often, paying attention to the small details in life are necessary to avoid disaster, but sometimes, it’s all about flexibility. It’s knowing when to implement each effectively where the lesson is learned.
• We learned that instant gratification isn’t long lasting, but practicing patience while waiting for that special moment to come is where true character is honed.

The hidden life lessons that come from spending time in the kitchen is priceless. The work is worth the hidden rewards.

(I have to continually remind myself  of my own cooking life lessons. Yes, even when it’s just me, all by myself, letting the noodles overflow for the tenth time. )

Have you learned any life lessons in the kitchen lately?

(I originally wrote this as ” The Hidden Life Lessons” for The Family Dish site.)

Welcome to Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods!

Simple Rules for Tasty Tuesday Parade of Foods – If you’re joining in with a recipe link, two simple requests. As always,  Please link directly to your recipe post and not your blog URL, so that everyone can find the recipe months from now.

Also, please link back here from your post, so that everyone can join in the fun -  it’s just common courtesy of blog carnivals.

Don’t forget to support your fellow bloggers by checking out some of their amazing recipes…be inspired by others.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Hampton Hotels. All opinions are 100% mine.

Over the next two months, I will be doing a few quick over night travels, which means staying in a variety of hotels, with many different amenities and price points.

Last weekend, we had our oldest two sons first Varsity football game, three hours away, at the beach. I know, someone had to force me to watch them in such wonderful conditions, so it might as well have been us. As we were arriving to check in at the tiny, shady, sketchy, team motel, my daughter proclaimed, “Can’t we just stay at the Hampton?” (We had passed their billboard just up the road.) I replied, ” Oh honey, I wish we were.” Yes, we took one for the team, and next time I will give a little input before I arrive and am surprised.

When the Hampton Hotel emailed me the next week, and wanted me to share about their amazing giveaway, I knew this would be a perfect fit for my readers.

You know how I love and encourage some good bonding time. Well, Hampton is giving a grand prize winner the chance to book an entire Hampton Hotel for one weekend in their Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes.

The grand prize winner will receive 200 “Be My Guest” certificates for 100 of their friends to stay at a Hampton for free for one weekend.  The winner will also receive $5000 to help pay the tax for the weekend. Wouldn’t that be a blast? Besides that, they are picking a winner EVERY DAY for a weekend away. Love that!

You can enter the contest every day, and each day one winner will receive a weekend stay at the Hampton Hotel of their choice. Now that is my kind of a giveaway…one with great chances. Unfortunately, it ends soon. I just found out about it, but you have a few days to enter.

So where would you choose to go? Typically, I say the beach, but since we had the opportunity to go this summer, I would choose NYC with my family. Our kids have never stayed in a large city like that and it would be such fun.

Go enter the Hampton Chain of Friends Sweepstakes. Hampton picks a winner every day and I’d love for it to be you.

Moving to the country was never a dream of mine, and I would have scoffed if anyone had tried to tell me this is where I’d be living when I was “all grown up.”

I am a suburban girl, born and raised with all that it entails. Friends that have been reacquainted with me after decades,  do a double tack when I explain this “Green Acres” transformation. Sharing that I wake up to chickens in our coup, our typically sweet cat just sick and tired of the large puppy trying to wrestle with him, and cows and horses in my back yard (thanks to my neighbors, I enjoy all the beauty without any of the work, and can you believe that blue eyed beauty?) leave them wondering. They just pause, chuckle nervously and then ponder me in this environment, while wondering what in the world has come over me. It comes down to the realization that after 13 years of country living, I know the kids are living a dream. It might not have been my dream (and I still do miss elements of suburbia), but it is now. They may not know it yet because they think having trees to climb, woods to room, trails to blaze and forts to build over acres and acres is just normal, but they’ll understand soon enough.

Now what does that have to do with my yard sale find? Well, when you live nestled back on a gravel drive, there’s a tendency to just let nature be your master landscaper. We have the pros and cons of having no neighborhood association to answer to and so if our shrubs, grass and flowers lean toward the “they obviously need help” side, we are OK with that. And so I admit…we have landscape issues. Not that we haven’t tried, we have, but trying to do it ourselves has not yielded anything very dramatic. This year, we are going to change that. While my husband was unemployed, he actually took some landscaping classes at the local Community College (yes, it’s a long story). Besides from the fact that he can now name 500 species in their Latin root name, something he finds impresses those around him on a regular basis, he also did a lot of slave labor “class projects” around the campus to teach them new skills. We are going to figure out how we can use this new found knowledge to help beautify our landscape (or lack thereof).

Since we finally finished putting up the gazebo on our deck after my harried hospitality episode, I realize we have this gorgeous structure with a lot of mismatched junky items underneath it. Since I am not about investing$1K in some outdoor furniture, I am waiting patiently and slowly picking up some items that I can transform for our outdoor areas.

The large planter above, I picked up a few weeks ago for only $2, AND it came with the gorgeous greenery. I couldn’t even hope to buy a tiny plant for that amount.

I just love both of these outdoor chairs. The top black iron chair has great lines, and was a yard sale steal for $5. You can tell someone else started some painting of their own, and they had the right idea. I’m holding off on painting it until I know what furniture colors I will use, but I can’t wait to go to town on that chair. It’s going to be fabulous.

The white wooden rocker is as solid as you can imagine. I don’t think I am going to touch it, except to clean it up and glue in the one little rod. I bought this chair, along with the this brown chair for only $5 ($2.50 a piece). I would have easily paid $10 for that rocker, but don’t tell the sweet woman who just wanted to get rid of it.

These granite, concrete-y type planters were an unbelievable find (how’s that for a professional name). Someone was having a moving sale and literally selling everything. I came very late to this sale, and so I have NO idea why someone else didn’t snatch these up. My guess is that they didn’t know they were for sale. There were six of them sprinkled throughout the yard and some flanked their walk way with no “For Sale” sign on them. It took me just asking if they wanted to get rid of these as well, and the answer was a definite yes. Pricing these at our local nursery BLEW ME AWAY. These things are EXPENSIVE and I snatched them for $5/piece. I couldn’t even begin to pick them up by myself, so  I went home and brought two of my boys back with me. They were that heavy.

Yes, they needed a little sprucing up, but look at how quickly they clean up with just a minute of pressure washing the sides. (One of our best ever investments…pressure washer.)

As I was loading the planters  (it took two trips, so I got to know these new best friends of mine), I noticed a beautiful bird bath in their woods. I asked what they were going to do with it and they said, “nothing, it has a small crack in the bottom and doesn’t hold water anymore.”

HELLO!! He gave it to me after I mentioned I’d use it. Now it sits nestled in our woods holding some beautiful flowers.

Three weeks ago, I drove past a really junky looking sale, but something made me turn around.

It was this. Ok, don’t roll your eyes. It does have some work to do, but you all know how much I love the Cracker Barrel. Every time our family waits to be called, we sit out on their porch, play checkers and I covet the double rockers with the $250 price tag. Well, guess what? This is one of those rockers and I got it for $10. The owners kept it outside in the elements, so it needs a little tender loving care.

My daughter started helping me cut the frayed edges, but I think all it needs is a good cleaning and an easy paint job and it will be restored to front porch, checker playing glory.

My only question is if I should completely take off the frayed part and put in a new back or just go with the paint job. Time will tell and I will definitely let you know what I decide.

So that is the long, dragged out story of how I am slowly finding yard sale treasures…for my yard. Remember, I didn’t find this all in one week or at one yard sale. This was spread out over a whole season of yard sales, and I just consistently kept my eyes peeled for those treasures I can reuse.

Remember to keep your eyes open and don’t be afraid to ask.

0801 – Worship from WAV Technologies on Vimeo.

It’s a rarity that our family eats out at a sit down restaurant, but when we do, you can be assured we have found a free or discounted deal (except Cracker Barrel. As we use those deals, I’ll try and share them here. We love Chili’s and I am all about a fun free  date night appetizer. Chili’s send out coupons and discounts with their email club (including a freebie around your birthday.) Now, it’s not my favorite unlimited fries and goumet burger from Red Robin, but I am not picky.

Fall is in the air (It went from 98 to 85 degrees and in NC that  just might mean I need a sweatshirt.)

I LOVE this time of year. Decorating for fall, picking apples, simmering soups, and spending Friday nights in the football stands are just a few of the things that make it grand.

This fall will be a bit different. I am adding something to the top of the priority list.  For the month of October, I will be sharing “31 Days to More with Less.” This idea started an entire year ago when I posted my $1 Dollar – One Minute Magic Post.”

Here are just a few lines from that post, “I am a family manager that loves accountability. My heart’s desire is to be in intentional in all aspects of my life, not just with my family. My intentional balancing act also consists of my home, personal finances, friends, quiet time, and a myriad of other essentials I could list. But quite frankly, when the busyness of life gets in the way, those mundane domestic tasks are often the first to get pushed aside.

Here’s the kicker. I have a fun brainstorm coming up where we can hold each other accountable for one month in the little things of life, but more importantly, let’s view those things through my lens of frugal living.
30 days of intentionality can transform the way we think about SO MANY things. But trust me, I will only set the timer for ten minutes a day, experimenting with how many areas I can take “outside the box” in transforming the little things from mundane to magical.
Does anyone want to join in?

Let’s read that first line again, I am a family manager that loves accountability, or should I say NEEDS accountability. (Seriously, I don’t think anyone loves accountability.) My great idea  never came to fruition, until now. It took the Nester gathering up this fantastic group of bloggers to encourage and inspire you for the month of October to make it happen.  We are all bringing a topic for which we are passionate, and I am privileged to be included.

There’s nothing I enjoy more than encouraging you all to live Life to its fullest…on less money. Look for nuggest from me on finance, food, friends, fashion and frugal living (which also translates to fun, trash to treasure finds, but I couldn’t think of a good alliteration for that.:))

I am shaking in my boots -  not about the topic, but the 31 day thing. For my longtime readers, you know that the thought of posting something THIRTY ONE DAYS IN A ROW is leaving me a little faint. In fact, a few of my blogging buddies literally laughed at me, “You? The woman who writes at midnight the day a post is due? You’ve never posted that much in your life, let alone ahead of schedule.”  Yes, they know me too well. While many of these other amazing ladies already have their October posts outlined,  I can’t even see past the weekend. Yet, that’s why this place is Balancing Beauty and BEDLAM. It’s a real life look at trying to balance it all  – the good, bad and ugly.

The best part of this whole month is that I get to “hang out” with these wonderful ladies.

:: 31 Days to Stress-Free Entertaining from Sandy at The Reluctant Entertainer
:: 31 Days to a Better Photo from Darcy at Life With My 3 Boybarians
:: 31 Days to More with Less from Jen at Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
:: 31 Days of Autumn Bliss from Melissa at The Inspired Room
:: 31 Days of Grace from Emily at Chatting at the Sky
:: 31 Days to an Inspired Table from Kendra at My First Kitchen
:: 31 Days to a Less Messy Nest from the Nester at The Nesting Place
:: 31 Days of Living Simply from Emily at Remodeling This Life

I know each of these amazing women in real life and they are the authentic deal through and through. (The Nester, Emily, Kendra and I have all gone to the same church at one time or another for years, so this gives us an excuse to catch up.)

Don’t worry, we don’t want you glued to your computer every day, so just choose through out the month which bits of wisdom nuggets you need to hear for the day.

My month of “31 days to More with Less” is just as much about what I need to hear, and I can’t wait to learn along with you.

Are you ready to join me??

Speaking of wonderful ladies? Do you know that (in)courage is celebrating their ONE YEAR anniversary? I am sharing about creative friendship building ideas, and the best part is that they are giving away two amazing Dayspring Glass Pitchers if you leave a comment over there. I know, so much to read…but how fun is that?

As summer is winding down, and fall scheduling is back in high gear, intentional family moments will have to be sought after and fought for during the next few months. A few weeks ago, I gave some suggestions for end of the summer tradition ideas and thought it  important to have my actions match my talk. Let me tell you, I didn’t want to…

There’s always a reason NOT to capture spontaneous memorable moments.

• I’m busy.
• I have work to do.
• I don’t have any money. We can’t afford it.
• The house is a mess and chores need to be done.
• I’m tired.
• I need to catch up on my overloaded “in box.”
• I have a few calls I need to make.

Yet on this day, I remembered my commitment last summer to being a “Yes Mom” in the little things.  A mom who cares enough to say “No” in the hard moments, but captures the magical ones with a big, fat “Yes.”

So when this daughter requested, “Mom, can we take a picnic outside tonight,” I said, Yes.”

Now, hear me on this. Don’t get all HGTV/ Food Network-y on me. We have built up expectations that magical moments need to cost us time and money. That is NEVER the case. Those moments that will be remembered years from now are the ones where you were just available, and I need to continually remind myself of that.

Look below at what our gourmet fare consisted of that evening. Pretty impressive, isn’t it?

I almost told my daughter “no” to her request because we didn’t have any “official” picnic food on hand. She reminded me about our hot dogs (which I had just purchased Buy One, Get One Free the night before) and chips. Quickly, the two of us set off to boil hot dogs, put them in buns, grab some cookies, chips and ketchup and jump in the van. Our teen boys moaned for a minute, but we didn’t give them the option. Our spontaneous picnic came together in less than ten minutes, and cost us only our time. The food was already bought (with coupons) and the lack of excuses…priceless.

This evening wasn’t about the amazing open air alfresco spread with an assortment of various cheeses spanning three continents. It was just about spending a few moments together and breaking bread…even if it was just $0.99 Harris Teeter hot dog buns.

As busy families, working women, stay at home moms, single adults – what ever stage of life we’re in, it’s so easy to prioritize the non-essentials. I do it all the time, and some how I make time for those moments that won’t even be remembered a month from now.

You can be guaranteed that this magical moment is etched in my memory for a lifetime. (And to think I almost missed it because I was too busy).

When did our baby get so big, or could it be that my husband shrank?

So why not take a few minutes and shake up your after school snack or dinner time hour this week?

Remember, it doesn’t have to be elaborate to make memories. There’s something about the simplicity of eating outside that allows that to happen all on its own. You don’t need a beautiful lake in your vicinity, you just need a few minutes of creative intentionality.

Here are a few inspiration ideas that cost zero money, but more importantly, minimal preperation time:

• Picnic table at your local park - (Summertime Brunch and Tablescape)
• Beautiful meadow with wild flowers that engageyour senses  – don’t forget the blanket.
• Switch yards with your neighbor for an hour.
• Hop in the car and ask the kids to direct you for five minutes. Where ever they lead you…stop and eat there. (Yes, it could be interesting, but your kids will talk about it for years).
• Do you live near a friendly neighborhood farm? Borrow their corn field for an hour (after asking, of course).
• Find a local creek. Dabble your feet in the water while you enjoy the freedom that comes with bare feet.
• Are you in the city? People watch at your local city center or find a bench near a fountain.

I would love to hear your creative ideas, and I will add them to the list.