Aug
28
Posted by JWallace
It’s official: I truly am the person most ill-equipped to be a parent.
It’s not that I don’t love and adore my daughter with all my heart. It’s just I sometimes do things that make me realize that my daughter is growing up into a cool person in spite of having me as a mother, not because of it.
Case in point: She had her first day of all-day kindergarten on Monday. It was an orientation day, so Daddy and I spent the morning there and then left. Since Daddy was on vacation, he picked her up after school. She didn’t have class on Tuesday — that was the second orientation day for the rest of her class — so her first true day of school was Wednesday.
I am tapped with dropping her off and picking up up afterward and running her to the sitter’s home so I can return to work each day. It’s not an optimal arrangement, but I loved how Spring Valley had all-day, everyday kindergarten and the staff at the school ( many of whom I met last year when my daughter attended programming there) is awesome, so I opted to do that instead of open enrolling her in Midview, where she could have gotten on and off the bus at my sitter’s home.
I handled the drop off fine. Believe it or not (those from her preschool last year surely won’t believe it given our regular lateness), we were even early.
It was the pickup where I dropped the ball.
See, I was in and out of meetings all day at work. Finally, I got back to my desk, sat down and started tackling the budget for Thursday’s paper. Then, my cell phone rings and it’s an unfamiliar number.
As I answer, I realize it’s the number for the school and then it hits me: I FORGOT TO PICK UP MY DAUGHTER.
For anyone traveling in Elyria at the time, you know how bad traffic is given the Route 57 mess. But I made it across town as fast as I could — crying all the way about how awful of a parent I am.
Thankfully, she’s got a great teacher — Mrs. Prusak — who had her cheerfully hanging out in her classroom, munching on popcorn. Instead of bereting me for making her stay late, Mrs. Prusak tried to calm me down. My daughter, I am told, didn’t cry a bit. In fact, she spent the drive to the sitter’s telling me she forgave me, and she’d give me another chance.
So Mrs. Prusak, you have my gratitude. I now have three alarms set here at work to chime mercilessly to remind me that it’s time to head across town.
After all, my 5-year-old only gave me one more chance. 
–Julie Wallace
Popularity: 4% [?]
Aug
28
Posted by LCM
Alyson Ward McClatchy Newspapers
Have you priced a gallon of milk lately? Seriously, it’s neck-and-neck with a gallon of gas. With grocery prices going up, we’ve all started wincing at the checkout counter. And spending more than ever.
Well, actually — don’t let this make you feel like a sucker, but Ruth Garrett isn’t.
The Saginaw, Texas, mother of five clipped coupons for years, saving 35 cents here, 50 cents there. But a few years ago, when she realized her family was spending $200 a week on groceries, Garrett decided to get serious about coupons. Now she’s a pro. And thanks to her crazy coupon skills, she can bring home groceries, personal-care products and household necessities for herself, her husband, her five children, three cats and a dog, all for $70 a week. Tops.
Garrett has a system — maximize the discount, then stock up — so every shopping trip is full of victories. She buys name-brands, almost never shops at warehouse stores. But her receipts show that she often saves between 75 percent and 90 percent.
It’s a game to her, this couponing thing. She’s good at math and great at finding deals. And last fall, she started teaching others how to do it, too. Garrett launched a Web site, groceriesdirtcheap.com, and offered her expertise — in the form of coupon lists, sale alerts and “dirt cheap” how-tos — to subscribers for a monthly fee.
Now she’s a woman on a mission. Her black Ford Excursion has “Got Coupons?” emblazoned in pink on the back window. She shops in a hot pink T-shirt advertising her Web site. And she offers frequent classes to get people started on saving.
“I cringe when I see people spending more money than they have to,” she says.
So just what makes Garrett the queen of the declining total, the master of the double discount? Well, it’s a strategy, yes, and a game. But it’s also a whole different shopping philosophy.
Garrett took us on a spin through a Fort Worth, Texas, Kroger on a Monday morning. Here’s what we learned about her system.
We’ll never pay retail for mustard again.
Coupons are everywhere.
First, you have to start collecting coupons. Garrett gets most of hers by buying multiple copies of the Sunday paper, which is full of ads and coupon inserts. But she finds a surprising number of coupons elsewhere, one by one.
“You’ve just got to keep your eyes open,” she says.
Look high and low on the shelves for coupons. Sometimes they’re in blinking dispensers on the shelves. Other times, you’ll find big displays that offer coupons on tear-off pads.
Coupons are stuck to the products themselves, stickers that offer immediate savings. Coupons print out automatically when you check out, from the register or from a freestanding machine. Oh, and some of the best offers — including generous discounts on meats — come from beer displays and from tags that are hung on the necks of wine bottles. (And usually there’s no alcohol purchase required.)
Sometimes, you just have to know where to look. Little-known fact: Target offers store coupons for groceries through its Web site. It’s true. And you can print them out at a kiosk near customer service.
Oh, and don’t forget that many stores will double or triple your coupons. And besides that, sometimes you can use more than one coupon. Remember that if you’re tempted to toss a low-value coupon aside.
“You’re probably thinking, ‘Fifty cents, what’s the big deal?”‘ Garrett says. “Well, it’s doubled at the grocery store. And what if you had four of them? That’s $4. That’s a gallon of gas. That’s milk.”
Think in multiples: multiple coupons, multiple items
This is Garrett’s philosophy: If you can get a 50-ounce bottle of Tide for $4.50, don’t buy just one, silly. Buy several and store the extras. It doesn’t hurt to have more detergent than you need; you’ll use it all eventually, and do you really want to pay $7.99 later on?
At Kroger, there’s a man crouched down near the floor in the health and beauty aisle, examining the sale prices of Gillette razors (regular price $6.59). He is clearly doing the math. Garrett speaks up.
“I’ve got a $2-off coupon,” she says, diving for her binder. “Do you want it?”
She hands him the coupon. But she also offers advice.
“Did you know that if you get three, it’ll be $2.49 each?”
They talk coupons for a minute, and the guy moves toward his basket. But wait, Garrett’s not through yet.
“I’ve got two more coupons, if you want them,” she tells him, pulling out two more slips of shiny paper. “You’re going to save yourself $9 on razors. You’ll save more on razors than you spend.”
She is beaming.
The man loads his basket up with razors, calling “thank you!” as he pushes away.
This guy’s got a ton of razors now. But they were dirt cheap. Everybody’s happy.
Couponing will change the way you shop.
If you do it right, if you’re serious, becoming a couponer is a lifestyle change. You won’t shop the way you’re used to shopping (run out of things, buy the stuff you need each week, grumble about the price of cereal). Instead, you’ll have a stockpile of groceries and other goods, filling the garage and spilling out of your closets.
Why? The idea is to have a few extra bottles of ketchup on hand, so that when you tap out the last drop, you can grab another bottle from the pantry — a bottle that cost you 40 cents — and you won’t have to pay $2.29 for a new bottle.
“Anything that doesn’t go bad, get as many as you can buy,” Garrett says.
And she does. The Garretts’ home has wall-to-wall shelves filled with the family stockpile of groceries, health and beauty products, cat food. She freezes just about everything that can handle 32 degrees.
The Garrett family keeps 20 to 30 boxes of cereal on hand at all times (most of it purchased for 60 cents or less). There are always 15 bottles of ketchup at the ready. And Garrett gets a little uneasy when her detergent stash dwindles to a mere three-month supply.
And this, fellow shoppers, is why she never has to pay full price. If the price of sausage seems a little steep, she’s got plenty stowed away at home. She can wait for a good sale.
By the way — some items tend to go on sale at the same time every year, Garrett says. In the spring, cleaning products are discounted in time for spring cleaning. In the summer, you’ll see marinades and condiments on sale, in honor of outdoor grilling. Near the holidays? Baking necessities such as flour and sugar. That’s when you need to stock up.
You can get free stuff.
Yes, sometimes sales and coupons take the price down to zero. You’ve just got to do the math right.
Want an example? Stick with us here.
Garrett picks up a bottle of Herbal Essences shampoo. Regular price: $3.19.
It’s on sale — two for $5 — which drops the price of each bottle to $2.50.
But wait, we’re not finished. This product is part of a special manufacturer’s sale, too: if you buy three Procter & Gamble products, you’ll get $1 off each. That drops the price to $1.50. (For her third P&G item, Garrett paid 69 cents for a package of Pampers baby wipes — a discount from the original $2.69, thanks to the $1 discount and a doubled 50-cent coupon.)
Here comes another coupon from Garrett’s binder: $3 off the purchase of two bottles. That’s $1.50 off each bottle. And there you have it: two free bottles of shampoo.
“There are things you should never have to pay for,” Garrett says. She ticks off a list of the items she regularly gets for free: Shampoo. Electrasol dishwasher tablets. Dish soap.
“I never pay more than a quarter for toothpaste,” she says. “I can’t think of the last time I paid for a toothbrush.”
That’s because she waits for the sale, maximizes her coupons and stocks up when she finds a deal. Yes, her house is filled with boxes of Electrasol. But every bit of it was free.
Strategize to get the most value.
Sometimes a special offer can be even better than you realize. You just have to stop, think and figure out how to maximize the deal.
Here’s some smart strategizing: Garrett has a coupon she clipped out of Parade magazine in June. It offers a free 12-ounce package of Kraft sliced cheese with the purchase of any three Kraft products.
So Garrett finds the cheapest Kraft products she can find: 20-cent packets of Kool-Aid, which her kids enjoy anyway. Sixty cents later, she’s earned herself a $3.79 package of sliced cheese.
(Actually, she has three coupons, so she buys nine packets of Kool-Aid and gets three free packages of cheese. Remember: stockpile.)
Here’s another deal, courtesy of a tag from a wine bottle: If Garrett purchases a container of Fiesta seasoning, she gets $3 off any beef product. No wine purchase necessary.
Garrett heads for the ground beef — $2.29 per pound — and starts rooting through the cold case for packages that cost about $3.
There they are: $3.50. $3.11. $3.18.
In fact, here’s a package that’s $3 even: “I’ll get this one completely for free.”
Garrett has multiple coupons, of course. In fact, she has coupons for the seasoning. In the end, she walks out with five packages of ground beef and five containers of seasoning — all for about $2.
This is not for the shy.
When you get serious about using coupons, you have to be assertive. When the store is out of the Tyson chicken she’s looking for, Garrett asks the manager if he’ll let her use her Tyson coupon on Pilgrim’s Pride chicken. He approves it.
If an item scans at the wrong price, most store policies promise to give you the item at no charge. But you usually have to ask for it.
If a coupon doesn’t scan properly, you have to say something, too, which slows down the checkout process. Those in line behind you may not like this, but it’s necessary.
And — this is important — you sometimes have to ask the cashier to ring up your purchases in two or three transactions, allowing you to maximize deals that have purchase or coupon limits. (Cashiers are usually good-natured about this, in Garrett’s experience. “They’ll open my own lane for me at CVS,” she says, because they know what’s coming.)
Of course, when you pull out a big stack of coupons, you know what everyone is thinking. Make it easier — and faster — by being organized. Garrett puts her most valuable coupons on the top, so she can immediately see whether they’ve scanned properly.
And — this is important — know your store policies and abide by them. Each store has its own policy about coupons — some will double or triple coupons, others won’t. Some will accept more than one of the same coupon, others will honor just one. It’s usually up to the store manager to decide most of these things. Learn the rules and don’t fight them.
Your goal: to save more than you spend.
Garrett wheels her near-overflowing basket toward the checkout lanes and the cashier starts scanning item after item: Powerade (on sale for $1, free with $1-off coupons). Suave shampoo for kids (4 cents, after a sale and a $1-off coupon). Two kinds of detergent (at less than half the original price, thanks to coupons).
A line begins to form behind Garrett. Soon another cashier opens another lane, and grateful shoppers move over. The coupon scanning begins.
By the 20th coupon, a couple of shoppers stuck behind Garrett have become a little weary. But after a few minutes, even they begin to seem fascinated by the declining total. $3 off. $2 off. Fifty cents.
The final total for the first transaction: $55.47. Garrett buys 74 items, and she saves $156.76, nearly three times the amount she paid.
The second transaction? Even more impressive. Garrett spends $6.48 on 11 items. She saves $30.88. That’s 84 percent of the total.
Of course, we aren’t all as savvy as Garrett. That’s why she assembles lists for her Web site and helps strangers in the store aisles. But if you’re pretty good at this — and devoted to your coupons and your stockpiling — you should be able to save at least 50 percent every time you shop.
“If you can save more than what you spend, you’re doing great,” Garrett says.
And then we could afford gallons of milk and gas.
———
Want more tips? Ruth Garrett’s Web site, groceriesdirtcheap.com, is designed to make the coupon game easier. For a $15 monthly fee, she e-mails subscribers several lists each week that round up coupon, sales and special offers at local stores, complete with instructions for maximizing each deal.
Garrett covers six stores: Albertson’s, Kroger, Tom Thumb, Target, Walgreens and CVS pharmacy. She also sends out a weekly “Dirt Cheap” list for her stockpilers, a compilation of the best, rock-bottom prices to be found in town. You can see sample lists on her Web site.
Popularity: 14% [?]
Aug
27
Posted by LCM
Rebecca Young McClatchy Newspapers
Children regard counting as play, not the beginnings of math. Too bad that attitude goes away long before algebra.
Play or not, it’s a good idea to keep those counting skills honed during the summer. Little ones should be ready for preschool or kindergarten just like older siblings need to stay sharp for big-kid school.
It would be tough for a 5-year-old to compute the number of terrific counting books out there. You can have as much fun browsing the bookstore shelves as authors and illustrators seem to have had creating these “concept books.”
As a start, here are two recent titles, plus a storybook about a rabbit who discovers that he loves to count.
“1, 2, Buckle My Shoe,” by Anna Grossnickle Hines, is a lovely take on the classic nursery rhyme.
Hines made a quilt for each cheerful illustration, using attractive fabric, buttons, yarn, rickrack and a combination of fanciful machine and hand-stitching.
Each number appears big and bold on its own page, with the same number of bright buttons.
On alternate pages, a black-haired girl wearing star-patterned overalls shuts the door, picks up sticks and carries out the other actions in the rhyme.
The buttons provide counting practice. At the end, a double-page spread repeats the numbers in their original fabrics. This time they are matched with fabric hands that have the corresponding number of buttons sewn to the tips of fingers. It’s a good visual to help kids recognize what holding up two, or four or six fingers looks like.
The reproduction quality is so terrific that youngsters will run their fingers over the pages expecting to feel cloth and buttons.
Hines has written many fine children’s books, but for two with even more intricate quilt illustrations, check out “Pieces: A Year in Poems & Quilts,” and “Winter Lights: A Season in Poems & Quilts.”
Fair warning, “The Baker’s Dozen: A Counting Book,” by Dan Andreasen, might require a walk to the pastry shop after each reading. It’s mouth-watering.
The tale follows a rosy-cheeked baker through the early hours as he readies the day’s wares.
Andreasen’s rhymes are deft:
“In tins the perfect size he bakes three cherry pies.”
And, “With icing he draws doodles on top of eight warm strudels.”
He bakes until he gets to 12 cupcakes. The baker’s dozen comes in the 13 customers waiting outside as he opens the doors.
Andreasen, who has provided wonderful illustrations for many picture books, outdoes himself with these lusciously colored oils. The baker is endearing. And doesn’t just bake, he provides fun circus-like antics, balancing 10 tortes on an index finger or juggling the cupcakes.
The last double-page spread shows all the scrumptious-looking pastries lined up next to their numerals.
“Christopher Counting,” by Valerie Gorbachev, tells the tale of a rabbit who’s so excited after a counting lesson in school that he wants to count everything.
He counts the fish in his aquarium, the ants outside. At night, he tries to count the stars. Finally at bedtime, he counts his mother’s “one kiss.”
Gorbachev’s charmingly illustrated story captures the thrill of learning something new.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Aug
27
Posted by LCM
Aisha Sultan St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The cartoonishly grand mural was my personal piece de resistance in decorating my daughter’s bedroom. The towering, purple castle with a brunette version of Tinkerbell fluttering outside is set against billowing blue clouds.
I’ve never stopped congratulating myself for discovering the local art student willing to paint it over a weekend for a third of what a professional would have charged.
My daughter fell in love with it when she was 3 years old. If we ever talked about moving, she would burst into tears at the thought of leaving that mural.
In a few weeks, she starts kindergarten. And lately she’s started proposing her own ideas to replace that beloved scene — maybe a seascape with dolphins. For as much as I’ve wanted her to grow up, for as long as I’ve yearned for five days of school, I’m getting cold feet.
Why do kindergartners have to be so worldly? So experienced with years of ballet, karate, swim and gymnastic lessons under their belt. So grown-up in their designer-styled clothes and sophisticated in their technology.
I’ve noticed the way my daughter talks about Hannah Montana T-shirts in department stores, wanting to know if I will buy them when she’s “older.” Her eyes linger on the “High School Musical” display in the party supply aisles. Of course, there’s always a natural evolution of interests, when little ones leave Pooh Bear behind for more glamorous make-believe pals.
But it’s not just sentimental parents who believe little girls start to look and act older so much earlier than they used to. Studies have shown that American girls are hitting puberty at younger ages than ever before. Possible causes range from increasing childhood obesity to our exposure to environmental toxins.
What I really fear is our children losing their innocence much too quickly in an age of cynicism and irony. Will the childhood dramas previously reserved for fourth- and fifth-graders — mean girls, ostracizing cliques — start at this tender age?
Academically, kindergarten has already become a lot like first grade was in my day. And I think young children are capable of much more academically than we’ve traditionally given them credit for. But I wonder whether they are as ready emotionally to navigate complicated social circles. Will my child feel secure and happy in this place away from home? Then again, what if she’s too happy there? Maybe I’ll never be able to pick the right mural again.
Once upon a time, my little girl loved dressing up in princess outfits and making up her own fairy tales. I usually played the part of wicked stepmother, evil queen or beast. Now, those costumes rarely come out of the bottom drawer. She’d rather create Barbie outfits for dolls online.
She seems so much older than her younger brother, who still runs around in his Spiderman costume and Superman pajamas. The other day, after I had asked her several times to pick up her toys, she sighed and said, “I wish I could be young again.”
So do I, baby. So do I.
———
(Aisha Sultan is a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Contact her at asultan@post-dispatch.com.)
Popularity: 13% [?]
