Paleo (on a Budget)

So it had been at least a very since I posted to my livejournal account, which I've had for many years under one name or another. It was nice knowing that some of the people I had "friended" were still around. I've been an avid user of the internet, even before it was the internet (bulletin boards surfing while under 10 years old, haha!).

Anyhoo, this Coupon Ninja still hasn't bought much lately. This enabled me to have enough money to get -- dun dun dun! -- the iPhone 4! I actually wanted to hold out until the iPhone 5 came out because I had an available "upgrade" but my old iPhone 3 starting acting funny as well as not wanting to turn off via the power button on top. So anyways it was a great excuse to get a new phone and it only cost me a new contract with AT&T and $199.

Also, trying to figure out a weekly menu plan for our Paleo diet. I want to go about 90-100% Paleo for an entire week and see what happens, but I also don't want to pay a boat-load of money to do so either. My other problem is, while there are many sites which give "paleo recipes" they don't have a menu or eating plan for a week or two. Or they do, but they are a "pay" site. And there's my problem - I want someone else to show me what exactly they ate to lose weight. But it's like, no one wants to share at all! Seems like all they say is "Oh you need to let your body figure it out for itself, maaaan." Right.

Grass-fed beef and organic veggies are spectacular but a lot of people wouldn't be able to afford such luxeries and quite honestly, if I really wanted to go out of my way to get such things I'd visit a Farmer's market which I am just too tired to do today. However I am calling off of work on Saturday (unrelated to the post, but I am so tired of working nearly 22 to 24 hours STRAIGHT on the train, I need more time off!) so maybe there will be some going on on Saturday.

Hopefully going to post my Paleo menu plan today. I had listed items I wanted to purchase yesterday based on sales at places like Aldi's, Jewel, Stracks, Food4Less, etc but now it is Thursday and the new sales week for all the stores XD

Apparently, this Coupon Ninja can hide VERY well...

Indeed! I've been away from couponing for nearly a month again - I haven't even bought papers/inserts for the past three weeks. I simply have everything we need when it comes to the non-food items, and we've been only buying fresh foods and meats for the most part (though I did cash in on a good deal on 12 packs of Diet Coke at Stracks - $7.77 for four).

I don't know if I want to go back into couponing "hard core" as it were, because I've been able to NOT spend all my money. In fact, after paying bills I have a surplus of around $1k, and I get my next check THIS Friday.

On the flip side, I purchased an Alienware m17x R3 laptop which cost me about $2,013 after taxes XD I nerd raged when I found out I could get a credit line with Dell and now I have a fantastic laptop with which to play World of Warcraft XD I figure, since I no longer have a payment with Best Buy for my iPad, I can just go right into paying off the new laptop on a bi-weekly basis. I'm going to try to pay $250-$300 a month on it (hoping I can schedule automatic payments well into the future like I can with my HSBC credit card!).

Specs and pictures soon to follow! I haven't actually seen and/or played with my new laptop yet - I am currently at work but my husband informed me that it was delivered today! My train is late and I'm just waiting in antici-----pation! to be home to see it.

Paleo Diet

So, I really, really, REALLY! need to get back to the Paleo way of eating. Both me and my husband Zero fell off the bandwagon hard after our vacation to Atlantic City in early April, and never quiet got back up onto it. At my lowest weight, I was at 163 or so pounds after only one week of eating Paleo most of the time. Now I'm back up in between 168 and 170 (especially after our mini-vacation to Indiana Beach just a few days ago - lol!).

Going to try to figure out what I can purchase from grocery stores in the area today for a few meals, and then hopefully plan out some more purchases for about a week's worth of food. I haven't been bringing good foods with me to work either :(

I also threw out/got rid of some of my indoor plants. On the brighter side, some of my tomato plants actually have tomatoes on them! I also planted three tomato plants as well as my two pumpkin plants outside...It remains to be seen if those particular ones will bear fruit.

On Vacation!

We're on vacation in central Indiana! I get to visit a Kroger today or tomorrow to experience "double couponing" whoo! There isn't actually much on sale but at least I can sign up for a Kroger membership card :)

CIC's Stance on Extreme Couponing

Very interesting read!

CIC on Extreme Couponing

Walmart Coupon Policy Change

Apparently, they updated their policy again - for the better. I have avoided this store in the past but I may start shopping there more often if other stores continue to slap down couponers.

Updated PDF of Walmart's Coupon Policy

New Coupon Binder

Is quite Steampunk in my opinion...:P

Just finished cutting out the coupons from the Unilever Redplum insert from today. I'm going to start cutting out coupons from this week and onwards; my "pile" of inserts from past weeks will just get to stay that way, though if I ever organize it perhaps I'll clip a few coupons if their dates are still well into the future. I've not clipped my coupons out before-hand for about four months :/ I am also going to bypass most of the "food" coupons as they are mostly for junk anyways (or something I otherwise wouldn't buy). Going to try to go strictly Paleo again sometime soon and because of that I certainly don't need coupons for Pringles, Slim Shots and Magnum Ice Cream (lol).

Perhaps I'll cut the other inserts coupons out tomorrow on the way home (while on the train). I was able to obtain 10 newspapers, yay! Sadly, I had to go to three different stores. I normally go to my local Jewel, which has a huge rack of newspapers on Sundays (and Saturdays as well). This week they DID have a big rack and it WAS full -- however, there were hardly any sales papers in the insert bag, let alone coupons! Very dissapointing. I ended up getting my one delivered paper, three from one Walgreens, two from a Dollar General, and 4 more from a Walgreens on my way to work.