Thrive Foods and the importance of food storage

I recently had a "Thrive" party at my house a few weeks ago. I had heard about it from a family friend and wanted to actually try the product before investing in it. I had heard wonderful things from other people about the quality and taste of all the freeze dried foods but I wanted proof! So I held a party and a few people came, maybe 6 or 7. Not very many but that was ok.

I would have to say that I am pleasantly surprised at the taste and pure awesomeness associated with Thrive foods. All my life I have been taught in church and church activities about being prepared and having a food storage but never took these lessons to heart until having my own family. The effectiveness of being prepared in all situations is key to your families survial. Of course we do not live in a primitive age, nor do we have the absolute need to think about survival as we are able to visit a grocery store that is usually so close to us, that has everything we could want or need. But there are times where we may find ourselves with lack of employement to produce funds to purchase food. Or something may happen where we may not be able to go to a grovery store or the shelves may be left bare. What we will do in these situations, when our needs cannot be met? Have we stored up food for our families to survive on or do we only get what we need at the moment?

Even when I was first married I have felt the need to be prepared... even though we are not struggling I have always felt that need to be prepared.

So back to Thrive foods, I had realized that this company was leading a revelotion in food storage. No longer were we limited to wheat, noodles and potato pearls from the Bishops store house. We have been given fruits and vegtables and dairy and meats that can last a lifetime in some cases, all without reducing quality, without any additives of harsh chemicals to preserve the food or decreasing a fresh taste. I think this is a wonderful blessing that has been given to us and I am so grateful I know about it.

You can even see some wonderful things made by our family Friend Christina Parker on her blog  http://thrivewithchristina.wordpress.com/ and you can contact her so you can see for yourself how amazing this product is! I do not advocate products that I don't believe in, and more so I want to educate people on being self reliant and using our reasources and not wasting.

Also I have another thought, if the store shelves were depleated would you have other things that you need such as toothpaste, diapers, soap and other nessecities? These are also important to help keep our bodies healthy. Would we have standard medication to help in time of sickness or pain? I can see that these questions might raise panik amoungst some people as they look around themselves and see the lack. But my questions are only to raise awarness of "What if?" And to also help educate others in helping themselves when no one else will.

Let's Talk About FREE Baby

So over the past week, I have been extremely busy with a wedding cake. Hopefully my last for a very long time, unless of course we have a very close friend that is getting married. So I haven't been able to blog about couponing or anything to do with couponing.

But tonight I have been going through all of my coupons and I have found a few free things amongst all the paper. I "liked" a whole bunch of companies on facebook and received free product vouchers for things like chips and air fresheners. Tony and I also shared a free loaf of banana bread from Sobeys today because I signed up for a welcome wagon basket when Tyson was born. There was a bunch of coupons in a booklet from Sobeys and a free banana bread loaf was one of them! Also you can go to certain pages on facebook where the companies are offering free samples, that are mailed to you.

This is my free pile... I hope it grows because who doesn't like free stuff????

Canning

From finish to start... yes, do you see how the pictures were uploaded? Anyways this post is on being frugal and getting your food storage ready for WINTER. I know I said it, that dreaded word.

My family came back from vacation to Christina Lake (the most beautiful lake in B.C.) and they had some time off this week before going back to work. And so my Father and I decided it's time to make batches of our favorite winter drink.. Crab apple Juice! I know crab apples are too sour to eat on their own but they produce the most wonderful juice, add cinnamon sticks and sugar and you have yourself a winner.

So sometimes canning can be very expensive, especially when you are just starting out because you need to buy everything. But I found a way to reduce the cost substantially. First try to get free jars. That is what I did and all I had to do was buy the lids because you cannot reuse the sealing part of the lid that goes directly on the glass jar. Second try to get free fruit... most people will leave their crab apples to fall and rot on their grass because they either don't have the time to make something out of them or they just don't want to or don't know what to do with them.

You see it was my father who came up with the idea of making juice because he didn't want to make jellies or jams with these apples. And then a star was born. I have fond memories of my mother bringing up a jar from the basement, adding some sugar to it then shaking the jar and then heating up the juice in a pot over the stove. The juice (we call it juice not cider but it kind of is like a cider) made me feel warm and cozy and content. And I want to share those memories with my children.

So today we are going at it again and seeing how much we can do as yesterday we were only able to get done 2 batches. But to save our energy bill from sky rocketing to the moon we are going to try boiling everything on the grill over the fire pit in our back yard. It will be. . .  interesting to see how that goes but I hope we can save money by doing it that way.

After this I want to start canning pickles and other things... It's wonderful to see what you can produce with hard work.

Frugality Secrets

So I lied... I can't get our groceries for just $20 this week. I am not that creative yet. And if you take into account that cheese is $5.00 (on sale) that's like 25% of the groceries right there! So I will try another time, when I learn how to cook better too.

But I have been thinking of doing some home renovations, not really... more like home re-decoration. I'm tired of the cords everywhere but most of all tired of the all black/ dark brown decor. My house always seems so dark inside even when it is during the daytime. I need to do this whole re-decorating thing for pretty much nothing. Which is so hard, obviously...

So I have made kijiji my new best web friend and have tried to get deals from there. We are possibly getting a computer armoire so that we can hid the printers and computer cords and make our dinning area a bit less cluttered. And it sure is cluttered!

I have also been looking at people's facebook pictures, sometimes people post pictures of their houses and I like to see what they do so I can get ideas. But I just need some help! I need to know what I can DIY around the house to make it more soft and homey feeling. AND BABY PROOF TOO. There is just so much to do I am a bit frazzled. So if anyone has suggestions please contact me! I like pictures too.

Ok so to the real reason I posted this post, Where do I get my coupons you ask? Well let me fill you in on my frugal ways.............

1. Did you know that you can get coupons sent to your mailbox by using certian websites? Here is a list of websites that I use. It's free to use, all you do is create an account and then click on the coupons you want mailed to you. It does take a little while for them to get to you but it's worth it.
* websaver.ca
* save.ca
* Gocoupons.ca
* Brandsavercoupons.ca

2. I use some blogs/websites to see what the newest coupons and deals are in the papers and in the stores. You may never have to open a paper flyer again by using these websites... shocking isn't it?
*mrsjanuary.com
*frugaledmontonmama.com
*bargainmoose.ca
*savetosnowbird.com

Let's talk about my favorite website savetosnowbird.com, I added this website to my facebook because they have a facebook page and so whenever I check my facebook which might just be every second of everyday, then on my wall I can see all the new postings for freebies and coupons. It's very effective!

I also love the frugaledmontonmama website because she has some very handy tips. And also store policies on couponing which is kind of important if you want to know your limitations so you aren't disappointed at the till.

3. I go coupon shopping on my spare time. Most of you might not be able to do this but when I have free time (which I will not have very very soon as I will be working my husband's other business) I go to stores and looks for tear-pad coupons. They can be combined with Internet coupons ONLY at London Drugs in Calgary.

4. Internet Coupons. They are very nice. All I do is search up my area and see if there are any posted online. You can google "Internet coupons Canada" or you can go more specifically if you want a certain product. Most product websites will have coupons you just need to look under their "offers" tab.

So this is how I save money, I hope you can save money too!

Could you do it?

$20 a week spent on groceries... could you do it? This is my challenge for the week. I have a $20.00 gift card to superstore and I thought maybe I should see how far this takes me.

Am I nuts? we will just have to wait and see! But I think couponing with come in very handy this week!

Yesterday I went around from a few stores with my parents to scope out some deals. I found that although you can stack coupons at London Drugs, everything seems really expensive there! But I did end up buying some pads there, I had 2X $2.00 off coupons for stayfree and London drugs had their own coupon for $2.50 off when you buy 2 stay free products. The regular price for one was $4.49 x 2 = $8.98 minus coupons totaling of 6.50 = $3.48 I paid!!! There was also some advil that I bought for really cheap as well, I believe I bought 4 and paid $3.99 each bottle which isn't so bad.

I'm not an extreme couponer, or I do not consider myself one but I do think I am doing a pretty good job at saving money because lets face it I will always get my period.

This is my first couponing grocery stash that I collected over at shoppers yesterday. I know it's nothing brilliant like some peoples trips can be but it's a start! Also I have made the decision that I will only buy products that I will actually use. None of this buy everything just because it has a coupon crap... that's just not how I do things. It wastes your money, time and product that other people may need. Also I coupon with integrity, there are some people out there who just do things, shall we say very unethically. I will never be that type of person. I have even heard of people dumpster diving for coupons... that is gross.

And I don't think I will become like this family

It looks like a good food storage, but really do you need 50+ ziplock container packages...
NO YOU DON'T
I'm not angry, really, I just don't understand why you would get things you don't need.


Anyways back to my challenge, so I am going to try to make all 3 meals with whatever I have in the fridge and cupboards with the addition of $20.00 worth of groceries this week starting today. And yes today is Tuesday... and no I'm not cheating, Monday is not even really a day

It's all about the coupons!

Being an extreme couponer in Canada is not as easy as it may seem, compared to that wonderful show that we all know of "Extreme Couponing". But no matter how unfortunate we may seem in the couponing department, there are ways of using the system to our advantage.

This blog will tell you how!