Penny Pinching Peach

For the semi crunchy, homeschool friendly and totally frugal!

Category Archives: Frugal Family


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Swagbucks Savings!

I’m reposting my Swagbucks post with some updates, including a FREE e-book that can be used on Kindle! Check it out, and join the prudent penny pinching!! 🙂

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The mask & cape were gifts purchased with Mommy's rewards programs The mask & cape were gifts purchased with Mommy’s rewards programs

This post has been updated to add some tricks I’ve learned since I originally posted this last year. I hope that you will enjoy Swagbucks as much as I do! Please follow my referral code at the end to join and reap the benefits of this awesome program!

I want to share one of my very favorite points earning programs with y’all! Swagbucks is easy to use, and the points add up very quickly. I actually paid for most of my daughter’s 4th birthday presents using Amazon gift cards that I earned through Swagbucks and SavingStar by doing things that I would do with or without rewards programs!! I got over $35 worth of adorable gifts for my daughter from Amazon, with only $6 out of pocket expenses after using the gift cards I’d saved up from those two programs! Talk…

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The Teeny Tiny Ghost and the Monster

Halloween book

Halloween book

We were given a few of the best Halloween books from my mother in law’s expansive collection of all things autumn.

Halloween was her favorite holiday, by far. We lost her recently, so even though I don’t generally go all out for this particular holiday, I decided to do a Halloween themed story time with my munchkins in her honor, complete with a craft, game and treat. She also loved all things crafty, and was a retired Head Start teacher, so I know that she would have enjoyed it.

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I chose the book  The Teeny Tiny Ghost and the Monster by Kay Winters for our fun Halloween themed activity time.

It’s quite the cute little book, and not the least bit scary. My little girl is strongly opposed to all things “creeeeepyyyyy”, as she says, so that was a must. 🙂 This book and activity would be fun any time of the year, but especially for fall and Halloween. I love that it fits the season without being too scary for little kids.

Pipe cleaner arms and legs

Pipe cleaner arms and legs

First on our agenda are ghost and monster puppets!

To make these, you just need craft sticks like Loew Cornell 1021254 Woodsies Craft Sticks, 1000-Piece (or popsicle sticks),  Crayola Construction Paper, Assorted Colors, 240 Sheet (99-3200)or cardstock, pipe cleaners like these Creativity Street Stetems/Pipe Cleaners 12″ X 4mm 100-Piece Assorted Colors, tape and something to color with. I sketched the requested outlines for their ghosts and monsters, but if you don’t have a knack for drawing, just print or trace the outlines. While I let my five and two year olds loose to decorate their respective puppets, I grabbed a couple of pipe cleaners and snipped them into four pieces each for the monsters’ legs and arms. You need one pipe cleaner per monster.  I just twisted loops at one end of each to make hands and feet. Once they were finished coloring, I cut out their creepy (bahaha!) creations and helped them tape the arms and legs on the monsters and the craft sticks on all of the puppets. See? Super simple, easy peasy!! As I mentioned, even my two year old could participate in this activity.

If you don’t want to bother making your own puppets, this set of teeny tiny finger puppets is super inexpensive and awfully cute  Monster Finger Puppets – Collect all 8!

Halloween Monster Back

Halloween Monster Back

Below you see my munchkins proudly displaying their one-of-a-kind ghosties and monsters. Quite the colorful creatures, aren’t they? 🙂 They get all the credit, since Mommy literally left them to it while she finished the legs and arms and worked on dishes.

Monster and Ghost Puppets

Monster and Ghost Puppets

Now for the next part of our freaky fall fun fest!! Halloween storytime, with a game!

I settled them down in our oversized chair, and instructed them to hold up their ghost puppets when they heard the word “ghost” and their monster puppets when they heard the word “monster”. As you can see, they had to concentrate to hear those key words, but they did really well and thought it was the neatest way to read a book together.

Halloween Game

Halloween Game

We weren’t ready to be finished with that, so the kiddos put on a Halloween puppet show for me using their new monster puppets.

While I won’t pretend that the script was riveting, they were pretty doggone cute in their attempts at a story line. My two year old really didn’t get it, and wound up watching his sister’s puppets more than doing anything with his own, but they had a blast, anyway. Puppet time is great for creative children!

Monster and Ghost Puppet Show

Monster and Ghost Puppet Show

For the grand finale, I brought out their trick or treat buckets from the fall festivals we attended the other day and let them both pick out a sweet treat. As you can see, they were quite pleased with that finish! 🙂

Do your little ones enjoy books and puppets? What are your favorite books for autumn? For a fun pumpkin activity to do with your little ones, try No Carving Pumpkin Family!

Story Time Trick or Treat

Story Time Trick or Treat


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Let’s Celebrate Food Day!!!

Garden Fresh Jalapenos

Garden Fresh Jalapenos

You love food, I love food, we all love food! I mean, who can help it? We’ve all gotta eat! October 24th is an extra special day in the world of food. It’s not only the official celebration of Food Day, but also the birthday of one of my all-time favorite food lovers- my dear ol’ Dad! It’s only fitting that he was born on the day we celebrate one of his most beloved things (other than his darling children, of course! 😉 ). He sure loves himself some good vittles! Love you and a big happy birthday holler, Daddy!

Food Day isn’t just about any food. It’s about making an effort to eat real, healthy food and about the people who work hard to make sure these choices are readily available. It’s about encouraging families to choose more natural and less processed. According to http://www.foodday.org : In 2014, Food Day will have a special focus on food access and justice for food and farm workers.

Jalapeno Poppers

Jalapeno Poppers

I just finally got my late autumn garden of kale, broccoli and butter lettuce planted a couple of days ago to give us a continued supply of some fresh healthy green veggies for a couple more months while produce is getting more and more expensive. I wanted to plant spinach, too, but I waited too long to start the seeds and couldn’t find the plants anywhere locally. I’d love to have more in, but life interfered with my larger plans for this year. The only thing still producing well from my summer garden is the jalapenos you see pictured. They are doing amazingly well! 🙂 If you want to know how I made those yummy unfried poppers in the picture, just click the photo for instructions.

What are you doing to make healthy food choices for your family? How knowledgeable do you think you are about things related to the growth and production of the food we eat? Take this quiz, and let me know how you did! http://www.foodday.org/food_literacy_quiz I took it, and got 12 out of 15 right. A couple of my wrong answers surprised me! Can you outdo me?

The friendly face of Food Day. Happy birthday, Dad! :)

The friendly face of Food Day. Happy birthday, Dad! 🙂


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Dinner For a Dollar

Dinner For a Dollar

Dinner For a Dollar

“Dinner for a dollar?!?”  they exclaim, “It can’t be done!!”.

Let me tell ya, honey, it most certainly can! Tonight I made this delicious pasta dish for less than a dollar. It fed my five year old, two year old and me with leftovers…and we all ate seconds!

I am challenging myself to stretch our grocery money as far as possible, and cook from the pantry as much as I can to help with a money crunch while my husband is taking a career furthering class for several weeks and missing a lot of work to do so. I haven’t been shopping in about a week and a half, so I am doing pretty well with it thus far.

I found some pasta with no crazy ingredients, just semolina and durum flour, marked down for 25 cents each when I was shopping a couple of weeks ago, so I grabbed several packages. I used half a pack of those noodles for this dish, plus a can of Italian diced tomatoes (66 cents), a sprinkling of parmesan, a handful of mozzarella cheese and the last few slices of ham lunchmeat we had in the pack before we go grocery shopping tomorrow.

Dinner For a Dollar? It's Doable!!

Dinner For a Dollar? It’s Doable!!

I mixed the cooked pasta with the tomatoes, let my oldest sprinkle on the cheese and the shredded lunchmeat and warmed it in the oven for about five minutes. TADA!!!! A super cheap and yummy supper created in less than 10 minutes! 🙂

While this cost me less than a dollar, with more average prices it might cost closer to two dollars. Even still, it’s a budget friendly and speedily prepared meal for the penny pinching parent who is crunched for time.

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Need more recipes on a dollar budget? Check out this ebook on Amazon, Easy Recipes: Budget Dinners: Eat Well for A Single Dollar, as low as free!

What is the cheapest home cooked meal (that your family actually enjoyed ) you’ve made recently? Want another delicious pasta recipe? Try my You Can Have Your Cheese and Tomato Sauce, Too, Pasta Casserole!

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Wear Something Gaudy Day

Movie Star Munchkins

Movie Star Munchkins

Want something fun to do? How about celebrating Wear Something Gaudy Day with us? The official celebration is today, October 17, and it’s the perfect holiday for the free spirited fashionistas among us!  This is a day my mom would have adored, since she loved wearing some far out outfits! My daughter is definitely a kindred spirit when it comes to her sense of style. She- like my mom- can look fabulous while wearing something that would just leave the average person looking funky! She’s training her brother well, by being his personal stylist, as pictured. 😉

What would you wear for Wear Something Gaudy Day? Have a crazzzzzzy outfit to share? Please go like my Facebook page below and share a photo in the comments of this blog post there. I’d love to see what kind of gaudiness y’all have come up with, as long as it’s a family friendly kind of kookiness! 🙂

https://www.facebook.com/pennypinchingpeachpage

Here is a link telling more about the history of Wear Something Gaudy Day:

http://www.examiner.com/article/wear-something-gaudy-day-wear-something-loud-and-stand-out-the-crowd


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No Carving Pumpkin Family

This is a craft post I did at this time last year when I did no carve pumpkins with my daughter. I thought it was a good time to share it again! 🙂

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Pumpkin Family Pumpkin Family

This is the first year my daughter has had a huge opinion about pumpkin decorating, and she wanted to do a family out of miniature pumpkins. She picked them out at the pumpkin stand (75 cents each- penny pincher insert 🙂 ), and was super excited to morph them into a pumpkin family to set out on our porch. I did not want to attempt carving pumpkins with two little ones. She wanted a happy family, not a spooky Halloween one, so I was thinking bright & cheerful things she could actually help with. So, I went to the Dollar Tree and got a few items I thought would work for decorating and for crafts later on, stretching my dollars further. We probably used less than $1.00 worth of supplies, so these pumpkins cost less than $1.00 apiece to make. Score!! 🙂

We used: craft pom poms, sparkly pipe cleaners, googly…

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Getting Artsy With D, E, and F

Tracing "D" With Pompoms

Tracing “D” With Pompoms

My newly turned five year old and I are continuing our fun journey into reviewing the

Tracing E With Pompoms
Tracing E With Pompoms

alphabet and adding in the phonics side of things as we go.

She looks at school time as one of her favorite games, since Mommy is playing it with her and she is actually learning. I’m lucky that my kiddo inherited my odd fascination with learning new things, so it makes homeschooling her (thus far) more of a joyful journey than a chore.

This lesson is one we did several weeks ago, and is all about the letters D, E, and F. We did all of the activities over the course of a couple of days, along with other things we were working on. My little peachy princess really enjoyed all of the things I came up with for these letters! 🙂 I’m not going to list these alphabetically as much as by activity, to keep it from being too befuddling.

Tracing F With Pompoms

Tracing F With Pompoms

My little girl loves colorful pompoms and art projects, so it was easy to dream up this first activity! I filled an empty wipe box with multi colored pompoms Pepperell Craft Making Assorted Pom Poms, Standard Colors, 750 Per Package and wrote the letters D, E, and F in large print on three pieces of paper. I had her trace each letter using the pompoms, talking about the sounds each letter made as she traced it. She was very pleased with the results, and wanted to glue them to show off later, but we didn’t have enough pompoms for all that. 🙂

D is for Dog and Disguise

D is for Dog and Disguise

Next, we talked about what words started with each sound. She was delighted to realize how

E is for Elephant

E is for Elephant

many words she could come up with beginning with each sound. From there I asked her to draw or color a picture of something she really liked starting with each letter sound. She chose to wear a “disguise” while coloring a picture of “dog” biscuits for the “D” sound, to draw a picture of an “elephant” for the “E” sound, and to draw a picture of her daddy, the firefighter, for the “F” sound. She was so proud of her artistic abilities, and learned to write some new words. 🙂

F is for Firefighter

F is for Firefighter

For some outdoor educational fun, we went on a hunt for flowers to go along with the “F” sound. Since we were still enjoying ourselves so much, we created a beautiful letter “F” on our back deck using some of our flower finds. My peachy princess was fascinated with her floral creation! 🙂

How have you been having fun with your alphabet lately? Here are some fun activities for ABCs!

F is for Flower

F is for Flower

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International Coffee Day

International Coffee Day

International Coffee Day

For those of you who love your caffeine fix in the form of that aromatic beverage known as coffee, get your party hats on! It’s International Coffee Day, and it comes with lots of treats for you! Get ready to get your jitters on, people!!! 🙂

Here’s a few of the goodies I rounded up:

7-Eleven is giving out free large coffees on September 28 between 6 and 10 am at participating locations.

Dunkin’ Donuts in the US, on September 29, will be giving a free medium cup of hot dark roast coffee, limit of one per guest. Then, beginning September 30 through October 5, guests can enjoy a medium cup of hot dark roast coffee for the special price of just 99 cents. Dunkin’ Donuts will also be making International Coffee Day a genuinely global party, with offers of free coffee on or around the holiday in most of the brand’s international locations. Just check with your restaurant locally if you are not in the US.

Kangaroo Express is selling a 12 ounce cup of Bean Street Coffee for a whoppin’ penny on September 29 between 8am and noon. Since when could you actually buy anything for one cent?? 🙂

Krispy Kreme is joining in the celebration of International Coffee Day  with some great goodies Monday, September 29th, you can get a freeeeee 12oz cup of Krispy Kreme® House, Decaf or Dark Roast coffee, or a discounted treat of a 12oz Mocha, Latte or iced coffee for $1 at participating Krispy Kreme locations in the US.

Lamar’s Donuts has a free 12 ounce coffee on September 29.

McDonalds is supposed to be offering a free cup of coffee daily during breakfast hours through September 29 at select locations. It doesn’t hurt to ask!

Tim Horton’s has $1.00 medium dark roast coffee all the way through September 29.

Which cup are you going to sip on first? Hello??? Are you still there? Hmmm….guess you really wanted some of that coffee! 😉


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The Crazy Kingdom of Kiddos

Muddy Munchkin Man

Muddy Munchkin Man

I’m a stay at home mom, married to a firefighter paramedic who is literally gone over half the time just for work. I spend a lot of time alone in the crazy kingdom of kiddos….and it’s definitely a craaaaaaazzzzzzyyyyy place to be.

Want some examples? Happy to oblige! Maybe it’ll make someone else feel less alone in their own personal kingdom of kookiness. 🙂

Just the other day, my 4 year old decided that it would be a good idea to use a cooler and the counter to climb up and get the candy Mommy has safely stashed on top of the fridge to prevent the candy coma inducing binges she is so wonderfully prone to. My intervention was met with howls of indignation, instead of appreciation for the fact she didn’t break her stubborn little neck.

On the same aforementioned day, my potty training 2 year old came running up to me with a huge smile saying “Mama, me pee! Me pee!”. When I asked where, he proudly pointed under the kitchen table to the spreading yellow puddle. “Me pee!”. Yep, you pee… but don’t expect a treat for this one, baby boy!!

Some days my 4 year old doesn’t want to get dressed, because she thinks her jammies are the coolest outfits in the world. You know what? Sometimes I let her. Hey, a mommy gets tired! Ever heard the phrase “Choose your battles”? It seriously applies with small children of the strong willed variety. If I’m not doing a daggum thing other than puttering around the house, and the kid wants to wear her princess jammies all day, who am I to fight? I’ll fight when she wants to jump off the deck railing because it looks like fun or when she doesn’t want to brush her teeth because the toothpaste makes her milk taste funny, but wearing clean jammies all day now & then doesn’t hurt anything.

My munchkins were both playing happily with their water table recently as I watched out the kitchen window while doing the dishes. What I didn’t know was that the little stinkers had dumped a bunch of dirt into the table, and my little guy was smearing the resulting mud all over himself. By the time I did realize what they were doing, he was a pretty mess. In fact, the face in the photo came just before he started hollering “Bath!” and running for the house. You know a boy is filthy when he’s actually begging to be cleaned up! 😉

My 2 year old is all boy, no doubt about that. What he doesn’t yet know is that allowing your big sister to deck you out in her sparkly purple princess dress Disney Princess Sparkle Dress – Rapunzel 4-6Xand outgrown white Mary Jane shoes does not a macho man make. Gotta give the kid credit: He can almost make that get-up look masculine, as he struts around making superhero sound effects and rolls up the front of the dress to make it easier to charge around on his little red fire truck “saving the world” one stuffed animal at a time.

Yep, this kingdom of kiddos is completely crazy, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. 🙂 What craziness has happened at your house recently?
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ABC Fun, Find and Food

Amazing A Sound Hunt

Amazing A Sound Hunt

I am always looking for ways to make learning fun for my munchkins. Lately, one of the things I am doing with my daughter is reviewing the alphabet, making sure she can write each letter well and knows the phonetic sound that goes with each one. She’s not crazy about repetitive copy work, so I am having her do that part first so she can get to whatever fun game or activity I have planned with it.

Here is my lesson plan, if you can call it that, for the “Fun, Find and Food” theme for the letters A, B and C…

Letter A:

  1. Color the A page in her book, then fill in the practice page for writing the letter A.
  2. Attach the coloring page to the lid of a shoebox, as shown.
  3. Have her make the long A and short a sounds, and tell her to search the house for anything starting with those sounds.
  4. Watch as she runs excitedly around the house hollering out words for items to see if they start with the letter A.
  5. Give her a snack starting with an A, in this case, an apple.

Additional snack suggestions: Apricot, Apple Pie, Almonds.

In the above picture, she found: ape, apple, apron, antlers, animal, alligator, angel.

A is for Apple

A is for Apple

Letter B:

Repeat steps 1-5, just for the letter B.

Snack suggestions: Banana, Berries, Burrito, Blueberry Muffins.

Letter C:

Repeat steps 1-5, just for the letter C.

Snack suggestions: Carrots, Cookies, Crackers, Cucumbers, Craisins.

If you want to do all three letters in one day, you could have them collecting the ingredients for their snacks over the course of the three letters, then eat the snack at the end. For example, you could do a fruit salad with chopped apples and/or apricots, sliced bananas and shredded carrots or some craisins. You could also do a fruit trail mix with a mixture of any or all of the following: dried apples or apricots, almonds, dried bananas or berries, and craisins.

Here is an adorable Alphabetimals coloring book that would work well with this activity, if you need a new one: Alphabetimals Coloring Book (Dover Coloring Books)“>

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