Target Shopping Trip
2 Jergens Lotion – $1.84 each, used $3/2 printable – $0.34 each after coupon
2 Bic Ballpoint Pens – $0.99 each, used 2 $1/1 coupon from the 1/4 SmartSource insert – Free after coupons
2 Ziploc Bags – $1.25 each, used $1/2 printable AND $0.75/2 Target mobile coupon (Text SNACKS to 827438) AND $1/2 Ibotta rebate – Free plus overage after coupons and rebate
2 Barbara’s Cereal – $3.41 (On Sale Buy One Get One 50% off), used 2 $2/1 printable – $0.56 each after coupons
Total before coupons, sales and rebate: $20.47
Total with tax ($0.89) after coupons, sales and rebate: $2.41
As I was thinking about what topic to write on for this week’s How I Saved post, I saw my kids huddled around the latest issue of LEGO Club magazine that just came in and knew I had to share about this for the few of you who don’t know about or maybe have forgotten about it.
My kids have been getting a free subscription to LEGO Club magazine for the past few years and absolutely love it. In fact, it’s one of their very, very favorite magazines to get in the mail!
There’s truly no catch to this free subscription. It’s 100% free. Of course, LEGO is smart because there’s definitely some marketing and advertising built into each issue as they talk about the new kits coming out and all things LEGO-related.
However, we’ve found that it doesn’t incite much coveting in our children and moreso encourages their creativity to build new things with the bricks and kits they already have. The contests are especially fun as they give kids specific types of LEGO creations to “invent” on their own and then enter these into the contests to win LEGO sets and more.
The magazine is filled with stories, comics, contests, creative LEGO ideas, and more. The magazine is aimed at children ages 7-12. They also have a LEGO Jr. magazine for youngsters who are 6 and under.
Every single issues is pored over by all three of our kids and is read from cover to cover more than once by Kathrynne. This magazine has resulted in hours of entertainment for all of our kids and we’ve never spent a dime on it.
If you have LEGO-lovers at your house, be sure sign them up for a free 2-year subscription to LEGO magazine here.
3 Books I Read Last Week
Against All Grain — Multiple friends have mentioned this book to me and suggested I read it. Truthfully, I was disappointed in it. Most of the recipes were complicated and not really the kind of recipes we’d typically fix. I also have decided, that barring some physical issue, I actually feel a lot better when I eat some grains.
I don’t eat at all as much gluten as I used to, but I still enjoy rice and oats and a few other grains and don’t see myself giving them up anytime soon. However, if you have some physical issues where you can’t eat grains or don’t want to eat grains, this book would be a great resource for you.
Surprise at Yorktown (Imagination Station Book 15) – This is our 15th book in the series to read and I think Silas is now the one who really gets into these books, but the girls still enjoy having me read these aloud.
Chocolate-Covered Katie — So I know this wasn’t on my list for last week, but I just couldn’t help myself. I had to read through this book and dog-ear a bunch of pages! Here’s what I posted on Instagram the day I got it in the mail last week:
Squee!!! My Amazon order just arrived and I couldn’t be more excited! If you aren’t already following Chocolate-Covered Katie, you are seriously missing out. And her cookbook looks even *better* than her blog — which I didn’t think was possible!
In a pretty much unheard of move, none of the recipes in this cookbook have ever been posted on her blog and they all look a-maz-ing (yes, there are mouth-watering pictures of each and every one recipe… Which is another reason I’m in love with this cookbook!)
Sorry, y’all, I know I sound like a total groupie, but I just really love this girl and her recipes!
(Disclosure: I don’t know Katie and I bought the cookbook myself… Because I’m a CCK fan girl like that!)
After reading through the book, I realized that I do think there are 2 recipes in it that have been posted on her blog and they were the two most popular recipes from her blog, so I think they totally deserve to be in this wonderful book! Okay, I’ll stop swooning now… 
6 Books I’m Hoping to Read/Finish This Week:
Lizzy & Jane — Not sure what I’ll think of this book & I can’t even remember if someone recommended it to me or not, but I decided to try something a little different for my fiction reading this week. Have any of you read this book?
The Cricket in Times Square — I’m excited to read this to the kids. We started the first chapter today and, so far, it seems like the kind of book we’re all going to love. We’ll see!
The Grain-Free Table — This book showed up in my mailbox as a gift from the author and it looks good. I’m looking forward to diving into it this week!
Long Walk to Freedom & Kaffir Boy — I didn’t get these finished before my South Africa trip — hoping to finish them soon!
The Anxiety Cure — As someone who struggles with anxiety during different seasons of life, I'm on a mission to learn more about it and what I can do to help prevent or minimize it. I read Sleep: It Does a Family Good by Archibald Hart two years ago and learned so much from it that I picked up this title to check it out, too.
From This Day Forward — I saw an article about this book on Ann Voskamp's site and was intrigued so I picked up a copy.
What did you read this past week? Any must-read book recommendations?
Do you feel like you need some sort of new skin routine and you don’t know where to start or what to use? If so, you’ll want to check out this giveaway!
Mindy, a consultant with BeautyCounter, is offering five $50 gift cards to her site to readers here this week.
She generously sent me some of the Beauty Counter products to try. I have highly sensitive skin and it’s been a lifelong battle for me to not have constant eczema and acne outbreaks (I know. Just lovely!), so I was concerned that these products might cause an outbreak. Changing my eating and taking better care of myself has made a pretty noticeable difference in my skin, but I still have to be extremely careful.
I went ahead and decided to try them because, from what I could tell on the Beauty Counter site, these should work for even my incredibly breakout- and rash-prone skin. (For instance, the U.S. only bans or restricts 11 different ingredients in cosmetic products sold, but Beauty Counter restricts 1500 different ingredients!)
After multiple days of using the product, I was so surprised that my skin hadn’t broken out in any sort of rash or red bumps or itchy spots — which is often what happens if I even so much as put a little bit of non-Mary Kay product on my face.
What’s more, I really liked the products — probably just as much the Mary Kay products I typically use (which is saying a lot!). The only one that seemed a little iffy on my skin was the face oil.
If you’re looking for skin care products that are made with purer ingredients, you’ll want to check out Beauty Counter and be sure to enter this giveaway! If you’re looking for a way to make money from home, they also offer the opportunity to become a consultant.
Visit Mindy’s site for more information on Beauty Counter.
Would you like to win a $50 gift card to Beauty Counter? Just click on the graphic below and type in your name and email address and you’ll be entered to win. 5 winners will be chosen and posted next week. This giveaway ends Saturday, February 7, at 11:59 pm, CST.
