I'm a slacker...

So I know I said I was going to post more and try my best to keep this up to date. Truth is I just totally forget about posting. I've been busy with wedding planning and job hunting. Brandon and his mom were here last week to do some planning and find a place for the rehearsal dinner (which they found a great place).

I have good news though...I got a job! I got a call yesterday from Columbia Southern University, an online university in Orange Beach. I will be working in Admissions as a Customer Service Rep. I start on August 18 and I can't wait!

In other news, we have our location set for the wedding and reception. It's going to be at a plantation style house. Friends of ours from church live there and have been wanting to do weddings there. I will be the first wedding there and I can't wait. It's going to be fabulous!

To totally change the subject, I had my most successful trip to Publix ever last Saturday. Before tax I spent $34 and saved $38. After tax it was $38. I was super excited. I'm not sure how I will do this week. There isn't much in this week's ad that I need. I will probably be buying more produce than other grocery items. There are only a few BOGO deals and a lot of good produce deals this week. I am excited about the produce though. I think I'll be buying more from Winn-Dixie this week. Their ad seems to be a bit better.

I'm really going to try to post as much as I can in the next 3 weeks before I start my new job. I know after that I'm going to be so busy and tired that I'll be lucky to post every 2 weeks or so. Have a great day!

Publix Trip 7/8/10

I haven't really had any posts yet about couponing and the frugal side of me. It all started around 6 months ago when my mom started to really get into the coupon thing. It's really big down here. She started going to coupon classes and learned a lot about the grocery stores, drug stores, and their coupon policies. She also learned about cutting out coupons from the Sunday paper and printing out coupons online. She was told how to create a coupon book. This is basically a 3 ring binder that you fill with baseball card sheets to put your coupons in. You then buy dividers and label each section. For instance some of the labels are cereal, canned food, hygiene, medications, etc. It really helps having it all organized.

Anyway, after she had learned all of this she told me about it. I was still in college at the time and didn't think I would have much time for it. She got me a binder and dividers and while I was home for Spring Break I put mine together.

Once I started to see how much she was saving it got me hooked. The best grocery store for couponing has is Publix. They let you use 2 coupons on Buy 1 Get 1 Free items. The Publix in Fairhope accepts coupons from Target, Winn Dixie, Walgreens, CVS, and Brunos. You can also combine a Publix coupon with a manufacturer coupon, or a Competitor coupon with a manufacturer coupon on one item. They have really good B1G1 deals every week at Publix. Winn-Dixie usually has good B1G1 deals too. They also have better deals on meat than Publix most of the time.

Since I still don't have a job and have had too much time on my hands (unfortunately), I have been doing most of the grocery shopping to help my parents out. I made the weekly trip to Publix on Thursday.

Here's how I did...



As you can see before tax I spent $34.68 and saved $31.58. I was a little over $3 from saving as much as I spent....so close! I also made a trip to Winn-Dixie where I think I spent around $44 and saved $28..or somewhere around there.

I'm hoping to eventually get to where I save more than what I spend in total. It's going to come in handy once Brandon and I are married and are on a tight budget. :)

Triple Berry Brownie

My mom and I found a picture of this dessert in an insert in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago. We thought that it would be the perfect dessert for the 4th of July.

Triple Berry Brownie (Courtesy of Betty Crocker)

Ingredients:
1 box Betty Crocker® fudge brownie mix
Water, vegetable oil and eggs as called for on brownie mix box
1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup frozen whipped topping, thawed
1 1/3 cups halved fresh strawberries
1 cup fresh blueberries
1/2 cup fresh raspberries

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 350° F (325° F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease or spray bottom only of 12-inch pizza pan. Make brownies as directed. Spread in pan.
2. Bake 20 to 26 minutes or until toothpick inserted 2 inches from side of pan comes out clean. Cool completely.
3. In medium bowl, beat cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla with electric mixer on high speed until smooth and creamy. Fold in whipped topping; spread on brownie. Arrange berries over cream cheese mixture. Refrigerate 1 hour. Store covered in refrigerator.

This was so good and not overly sweet, which I liked. The fruit really balances out the sweetness of the brownie and cream cheese mixture.

Here's how it turned out...





I love how it looked all festive for the 4th. Brandon came up with the design of the fruit, so I have to give him credit for that. :) It tasted as good as it looked and I'll definitely be making this again.

I'm ENGAGED!!

So this past weekend was the best 4th of July weekend of my life. I got engaged to my best friend. On Saturday Brandon and I went down to Orange Beach for a good date night, which we hadn't had in a long time. We had a great dinner at Cosmo's (which I recommend). After diner we went to The Wharf to walk around and then went down to the beach at sunset for a nice little walk.



At the end of our walk we stopped up by the sand dunes where no one was around. Brandon said that he had another present for me from his recent trip to Costa Rica. He reached into his pocket and gave me this puzzle box that you had to take apart. He said to open it, which I did, and the ring was in there. I was shocked, speechless, and so excited. I couldn't believe that this was actually happening. I know I sounded like a blubbering idiot, but I didn't care. He got down on one knee in the sand and asked me to marry him. Obviously I said YES!! We celebrated with some ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery. We both love ice cream.
We are super excited and couldn't be any happier.

Here's my ring...





Isn't it beautiful?

On Sunday we spent the first half of the day calling family and letting them all know the good news. We all went out to Moe's Original BBQ for lunch. It's a local BBQ place down here, and really good. That night my parents, Brandon, and I went down to Fairhope to watch the fireworks.

Here's my wonderful FIANCE (I love saying that hehe) waiting on the fireworks.



It was overall an amazing weekend and one that I will never forget. Brandon left to go back home today :( but he'll be back soon and until then I have plenty to do. The wedding planning has already begun and I'm still on the job hunt.

I'm going to get back to blogging more! Hope everyone has a great rest of the week! :)