Along with new resolutions I'm reminded that it's time for our family to pick new insurance. If you are lucky enough to have great, and affordable, insurance through your employer - count yourself very fortunate. Remember, too, that no one wants to take that away from you. I've had great insurance through previous employers and I'd love to have it back.

But currently, while I'm home with the girls, dh is working for a small, private school that doesn't have very many full-time employees. The insurance that they offer for our family of 4 would cost us half of dh's take-home salary per month. This is almost as much as our mortgage! Seriously!

So, last year we went out on our own and got insurance but we hit an unexpected snag. The girls and I are covered together but dh had to get his own plan because we didn't realize, until after we'd accepted our plan, that because it was the same company as we'd had before they wouldn't bid against themself in insuring dh. So he wasn't covered for several months until we figured this out - while standing at the pharmacy trying to fill a very costly prescription.

Still, we have insurance that covers the basics and the high-end stuff but nothing in between. I don't get dental or vision or even my prescriptions covered. Luckily we've only needed to go to the doctor for 'routine maintenance' and that is all covered. I've had to make do with less frequent trips to the dentist for myself but I have excellent dental health and it hasn't made an impact yet. However, now that Comfort, and soon Joy, will need biannual check ups I'll need to budget those trips in, too.

All this to say that think what you will about things that politicians say to one another from stump speeches and the floor of Congress, but this is the second time in my life that I've had little or no health insurance and I'm not even 40 years old.

The first time was when I was just out of college and not yet employeed full-time. Dh was in grad-school and he had insurance through the school for $25/ year. To add me to his policy would have cost us more than we paid in rent each month. Why? Because I was considered fertile and an insurance risk. Women of childbearing age are expensive to insure. As women, and many of us 'Moms', I think it's important to remember that everyone deserves access to adequate health care. Don't let this issue fly over your head or ping around you like a tennis match. We've all seen the what the economy has done this past year and know 'that for the grace of God...' - so make sure that you put your two cents in when you can and help out everyone. Even those who don't have a voice.

I didn't get the official school supply list for Comfort or Joy's classes until Saturday so I've spent a good part of the weekend checking through my stockpile for things I knew I had: hand sanitizer, baby wipes, paper towels, etc. , and then running out to Kroger for the things I knew were on sale this week: liquid soap, composition notebooks, glue sticks, etc.

But that still left a few items on our list that I'll need to find in the next week. I could keep driving around from store to store but by the time I figure in gas and my time I decided I'd let my fingers do the shopping and go online to Amazon.

There, in a matter of minutes, I finished the shopping that I needed and even bought myself a little treat. Check out the deal on MP3 below! I so rarely buy music for myself that I can't even tell you the last album I bought. Mostly I mooch of dh's tunelist - or even Comfort and Joy's. [I do love the Philadelphia Chickens!] But I decided to get some grown up music for myself and this was a great deal.




Check it out. There are some great albums/ deals out there and for this price you can try something totally new. Give a new artist a try. Give yourself a new experience. That's definitely a Cool Idea!

Monday, September 7 from 10:30am to close participating Chick-Fil-A restaurants will give out a free Chick-Fil-A sandwich to each person wearing the clothing of a sporting team. Check out Chick-Fil-A for store locations and details. Stop by wearing some fun clothes and get a great - and FREE - chicken sandwich!

I did it! I cracked the 60% mark! In fact, I hit 61%!! I can't tell you how excited I am. My original total was $52.08 and then I had $13.84 in coupons. My total Kroger Plus Savings was $37.99/ 61%

Well, actually I will tell you how excited I am:) So much so that I'm posting about grocery shopping twice in one week.

And this is what I did... I stuck to the list. I followed The Grocery Game, picked items that I knew we would need, checked to make sure they were over 50% mark downs, gathered all of my coupons, loaded coupons from Cellfire, Shortcuts, uPromise [grab the button below if you need an account], printed from coupons.com [from the right hand sidebar], and had several from the Kroger mailings that came last month.

I also took advantage of the Kellogg's/ Keebler Free Milk Deal. I never end up doing these because usually they are for products I don't need but cereal and cookies are always things I can stockup on around here. But I had enough coupons for 2 FREE Gallons of Milk!

I did get one thing that wasn't on sale at all - Barkeeper's Friend - but truly I've never seen it on sale and I was afraid I'd forget that I heard it would help clean my porcelain sink if I didn't but it now. Of course it was $1.89. The next thing that had the worst mark down actually was the apple juice since it was only 29% off even though it was 10/$10 but it was off set by the fact that I was able to double up the natural sale price of Kroger Peanut Butter [at .99] with a .75 coupon from the Kroger mailing and got an 18 oz. jar of Kroger PB for .22!

And there we go. I even came home with some food. Comfort was asking to try the Tiger Cereal when we got home so we snacked on Frosted Flakes - part of the Kellogg's/ Keebler deal and there was a $1 off coupon in the Kroger mailing. Now that everything is put away I'm hoping that we don't need anything next week.

Except that Comfort asked for cheese with lunch and I noticed that we're out! Hopefully that'll be on The Grocery Game next week. Fingers Crossed because I have lots of coupons.

Sadly, this is not a review. It's more of a vision exercise.

It's been a long time since we've used a stroller. Comfort and Joy are toddlers after all and strollers aren't really made for those that are mobile. Have I also mentioned that our girls are very tall. Comfort is in the 75% for her age and Joy is literally off the chart. I know a lot of parents say this but I'm not joking. People ask us if Comfort is 7 and if Joy is starting Kindergarten when in reality they are 3 [going on 4 next week] and 2, respectively.

But we were doing a lot of sightseeing in DC last week and I knew that there was no way we could cover that much ground without a stroller because I couldn't carry them that far either. Carrying them short trips through a store - Yes. From the Lincoln Memorial to the WWII Memorial - No.

So we pulled out the Sit and Stand stroller that a friend loaned us last year after I mentioned that Comfort was 'done' with our wonderful jogging stroller. She'd had enough of it and wanted more freedom. My friend's kids had just outgrown it and this was perfect timing. It was a rude awakening for me as I transitioned from the wonderful, and lightweight, double jogging stroller to the tandem, rear stearing Sit and Stand style stroller.

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who finds these strollers to be almost more difficult than they are worth. Yes, they did offer us a way to keep the kids moving while not having to actually carrying them myself but at what cost. Steering one of these strollers - or any tandem stroller - is like steering an 18-wheeler from the rear. I'm not kidding. And for some reason these things weigh so much even though they appear to be hollow. Whereas, my jogging stroller appeared to me made of metal tubes and was so light I could get it in and out of the back of the car with little effort.

So this is what I propose - I want a Sit and Stand stroller that drives as well as a jogging stroller. I'm sure this technology exists and I can't be the first person to think of it. Here are some specific things that would be helpful:

• Ways to keep feet of older kids in the front seat off the ground
• Good wheels. Just going across a broken pavement nearly pitched Comfort off the sitting platformm
• Additional width. Doors most places are ADA compliant so take advantage of this..
• Here's a novel idea - kick off the front seat and have two benches for people like me who have two toddlers in this 'I can't walk that far' age range

So there it is. Sadly, until the girls get more stamina we probably won't be going on any mega sightseeing adventures again because the I can't take using the stroller again. Even yesterday's trip up the street to the bank and the drugstore was painful. Literally. A better idea, in fact, a Cool Idea, would be a stroller that was lightweight, steered liked a dream and had wheels that could handle broken pavement instead of being made only for the smooth surface of a shopping mall.

Thank you.

I'm not sure I've mentioned Gongos before but they are a wonderful survey company to sign up with. Don't let the funny name get in the way because this will be a great opportunity for you. They won't send you a ton of surveys probably but you'll see a greater amount of payout vs. your time input than you will for other sites.

I've also had the opportunity to do 2 full product tests for them and both of these came with additional payouts. Gongos pays in Amazon gift cards and they pay often. They also have a forums area for their members to chat about most anything you'd want to and you get points for your chatting, too. Yep, it's a win win.

So hop on over and sign up because I figure in a couple of months you'll already have at least $5-$10 in Amazon gift cards from Gongos and by then you'll be in prime Holiday thinking mode - right?



And before I close for the day, I thought I'd check to make sure everyone had a chance to sign up with Lightspeed Panel Surveys. They have some fun panels, some quick match surveys, and always tell you how long the surveys will take. I just cashed out my points for another $20 into my PayPal account. Hop on over and sign up for these great panels. Making money while giving companies your opinion is definitely a Cool Idea!

I have a friend getting ready to redo her kitchen and you can bet that I'm going to make sure she gets a copy of this. Of course, this isn't the first time she's redone a kitchen. Of course, new tips and ideas are always helpful especially when they come from the experts at KraftMaid. These booklets go quickly so grab it while it's around. It's definitely a Cool Idea!

Mercedes at Common Sense with Money is hosting a fantastic giveaway. She is giving away a six month supply of Ragu sauce to three readers. Hop on over and check out the ways to enter. This giveaway is open until 9/6/09.

Kids Eat Free at IKEA Sept 5-7, 2009 - not to mention that they have some wonderful things on sale this Labor Day weekend. So, if you need anything for the house this fall and you want to feed the kids a healthy meal head on out to your local IKEA.

Don't forget you can enter The Big Clip sweepstakes daily for a huge chance to win Box Tops for Education for your school.

Don't forget that you can still get a 10% discount on Lovable Labels until Sept 10th using the code itscool.

And in case you haven't noticed yet SWAGBUCKS released a new toolbar yesterday and it is super cool! Not only can you still search from the toolbar if you are an IE user but now Firefox and Safari users can, too! Very Nice! SwagCodes can also be found on the toolbar and you can trade your swagbucks in much easier. Well there are even more things you can do but you'll need to download it to believe it. It's beautiful. Truly.

Another bonus is that they are releasing a free SwagCode every day for the Month of September to celebrate the new toolbar. It will be much easier to catch the codes if you have the new toolbar so grab the button here and hop on over. Swagbucks are definitely a Cool Idea!

And here we go with our weekly freebie list:

FREE greeting card from The Card Store until 9/7

FREE Sample of Bear Naked Cereal or Granola Bars

FREE Sample of Aveeno Nourish+Shampoo and Conditioner

FREE Sample of Kashi Cereal

FREE Sample of Playtex Sport Tampons

It's the beginning of the month and the blue Coupons.com bar is fully charged. I just took a quick look through there and I think if you printed now you would have all the cereal you'd need for a long time! Lots of good cereal coupons. Also, great Yoplait coupons and I'm pretty sure I printed the Keebler cookies for myself, too.

There are so many on there today I can't even decide what to point out first so just hop on over and check it out. Print what you need and leave the rest for someone else. Don't forget that the cellfire coupons are good for another week or so, too, so grab those if you need them because we all know there are going to be some good sales at the store this week. Right!

It's a small success in something that really isn't a game after all but this was my first shopping trip that wasn't 'oh, I need to pick up a couple of things to take on vacation' related. For the first time since July I was going to stick to the list and thankfully Kroger had helped by scheduling a Mega Event to help me out.

Unfortunately, this Mega Event was school/ convenience food related. I know this helps a lot of people but my brain isn't quite there yet. I was still think about my meal planning issues and seeing that Fruit by the Foot was on sale didn't really help me. In fact, I can not even imagine what Comfort's behavior would be like if she ate a foot of that stuff! *shudders*

But I made my list and grabbed my coupons and made sure I could eak out 10 items to qualify for the Mega Event and wadded into Saturday Afternoon at Kroger. Once again I was reminded why I shop during the weekday mornings. I like having the store to myself.

I did get 2 items that weren't on The Grocery Game list but I had a coupon for them. Surprisingly, these were also convenience food/ school related. Everything else was either on The Grocery Game list or I had a coupon or a free item. [The free item was a box of Rice Krispies and this coupon came from being registered at Vocalpoint. Membership is free and they send out coupons and trial products throughout the year.] I even got a bonus discount on the rotisserie chicken because it was marked down another $2 from $4.99 to $2.99. Not sure why but my guess would be becuase it was a pretty scrawny bird.

All this to say that my plateau of 41% off, which isn't bad, got a bit better yesterday because I got it up to 45% off. Still not as good as what I hear a lot of other people consistently get but it may be the nature of the items I purchase. That's okay. I'd rather be buying things that I'll actually use then getting a good deal on stuff that I won't use.

The nice part about this trip to the grocery, too, is that I could see some meals taking shape as I walked through the store. The Grocery Game is about stockpiling when prices are low so that you have things on hand and sometimes, or many times, I'll come home and realize that I didn't actually buy anything to eat. That's okay if you remember the point. But yesterday crescent rolls were on sale and I thought about the many uses they could provide. I've used them to make little pizzas. I'm also thinking of using them for the top of a pot pie. Perhaps we'll have some kind of tartlet, too. That part will come next but at least I have the items on hand and I paid a good price for them. And that is the best and Coolest Idea I can think of