Exercising your muscles not your credit cards...

While enjoying my Sunday paper this cloudy winter day, I noticed that most - if not all - of the sales revolved around weight loss equipment.  Sales on dumbells, kettlebells, ellipticals and scores of workout tapes.  A virtual cornucopia of products you NEED to buy if you want to get in shape. 

 

(Buy me!  cries the Total Gym, right before Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks you into submission.)

 

What these big stores DON'T want you to know is that you can do a lot of the exercises they are pushing WITHOUT the big equipment.

 

 

*******PLEASE NOTE:BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANY NEW WORKOUT OR EXERCISE ROUTINE, SPEAK WITH YOUR DOCTOR*******

 

Got a second floor to your house or a set of basement stairs?  Perfect, my own private stairmaster awaits me in the comfort and privacy of my home.  I just turn on my MP3 player and my cardio is done for he day.

 

Have some heavy bottles, cans or boxes?  Free weights for free!  My personal favorite is using the bottle of pancake syrup as a free weight.  36 ounces of buttery muscle building.  When I'm comfortable, I plan to graduate to a 12 pack of soda cans. 

 

 

 

(Beefcaaaaaake!)

 

 

If you are like me, you like people yelling at you to "Keep moving!" and "Don't give up!"  Exercise tapes can be fun and help you be successful, but they can also be expensive!  Most retail somewhere in the $15 range, though some can go as high as $30.  I'm not looking to spend any money on anything, whether I use it every day or not.  My local library is a great resource for all things, including VHS (yes, I know it is 2015) and DVDs.  Borrowing tapes is free, plus I get a variety of different kinds of exercises.  Free is for me!

 

So, my loyal readers (and hopefully you are out there) save some cash this Winter, and get creative while you get in shape!

 

 

 

PS - Still in the market for some "new" equipment?  Check out these sites for some great at home fitness deals and tips for those on a budget

 

 

www.freecycle.com - here you can find exercise equipment and or videos that people are looking to GIVE away.  check here before spending any money in the stores.  but buyer beware, and be careful folks!

 

 

www.youtube.com - a plethora of at home workout videos abound on this free site.  pick and choose to make your perfect workout

 

*****ONCE AGAIN PLEASE CONSULT A DOCTOR BEFORE YOU BEGIN ANY EXERCISE ROUTINE******

Day 1...

Today was day one of eating on the challenge.  Here was our menu for the day:

Breakfast

Cereal with Milk

Lunch

Egg Salad sandwich

½ banana

Dinner

Hot Dog Noodle Soup

 

Here’s how I made the soup:

Ingredients

2 packages Ramen Noodles, beef flavor

1 cup canned peas

4 Turkey hot dogs, sliced

Directions

Prepare noodles according to package directions.  Add hot dogs and peas and allow to simmer until warm.

Thoughts for the day

I did not eat breakfast today, but the kids and my husband did.  They ate their normal breakfast, so it wasn’t much of a switch.

For lunch, it was odd not to have side dishes.  Normally, we’ll have some canned pineapple or peaches as well as some sort of treat like chips.  Today we just had the sandwich and a half of a banana.  It felt odd, but I ate slow and drank a lot of water to keep me full. 

The dinner menu did not go over so well.  My daughter had two bowls, but she was still hungry.  My 6 year old did not eat the soup, and was scrounging around for food while my husband put my other son to bed.  My 3 year old son did NOT eat dinner.  He’s a picky eater and will only eat certain things.  I’ve been instructed, in the past, by my pediatrician and his service providers that if he skips a meal here and there, he will be OK.  That he will eat when hungry.  So don’t think I am starving him on purpose, he chose not to eat. 

My husband has already said that the experiment is over.  But I’m going to try to stick it out till the end of the five days.  I think we can make it.  And we are getting the word out about this project. 

Remember to check my updates on twitter @camp3082. 

Have a great evening!

Saving but spending in the long run...

Today we did our grocery shopping at a warehouse-related chain store that I won't mention but it very popular in rural communities. This store offers all types of items from clothes to bath soaps, bananas to building materials. I've heard many people extoll the virtues of this store, claiming the products are cheaper. But here's the catch, and this happens to me every time, you end up buying more than you need because you think you are spending less.

I chose to shop there today because we needed paper towels, toilet paper, shampoo and some cleaning products. If I didn't need all those things, I'd have shopped at my supermarket since they offer 10 cents off per gallon of gas with every $50 spent. But I went big today, thinking I would get a deal. But once you hit the aisles, you are thinking "hey, do I need another tube of toothpaste?" or "Should I pick up those water filters?" Or, "How can you pass up pants for a buck ninety-nine?"

So I went about my shopping and added some extra items I did not at all need. But the really strange thing is that I didn't get half the items on my list. Some products, like the cleaning products I specifically went to this store for, were not on the shelves. There wasn't even anything remotely close to what I need. Somehow, I walked out spending 120 dollars. Granted, I bought formula and paper towels and toilet papers, which probably added up to a good 25-30 dollars worth of items, but where the hell did the rest of the money go? Beats me.

I know if I had shopped at my local supermarket, I would have checked the aisles for sales, looked for the no-name products which are just as good as name brand, and I wouldn't have been tempted to pick up unnecessary items like candy. Sure, I may have saved a few cents on some items, but is it really worth it? Plus when you figure in the savings that I get for gas, it actually cost me money to shop at the big chain store.

Unfortunately, I have to go to my supermarket tomorrow and pick up the things I forgot to get today. Lesson learned.

Beware of wht you pay for...

Everyone is looking to save money,(especially us!) and we all go through a variety of differnt things to get that extra bang for our buck. Using coupons, shopping on clearance ailses etc. Like most people, I like to shop at the dollar store. for the most part I am pleased with the items I've purchased. One time I got a dustpan on a stick for sweeping. I still have it, it's fabulous, I love it. But recently I purchased some pencils for my literary quests and I am not pleased.

The pencils don't seem to sharpen on both sides. It's rather annoying and a pain to write with them. No matter what I do, these pencils won't sharpen properly. Grrrr.

I expressed my frustration on Facebook and I had a good number of commenters who sympathized with my plight. Moral of the store kids? Saving money SHOULDN'T mean passing on quality. Sure, those pencils only cost me a dollar, but they were practically unusable, so what did I save?

Someone must have slapped me with the hippy stick...

So in my quest to save money, I"ve been perusing the sale flyer a lot more closely. This week, my supermarket had a 2lb bag of carrots on sale for half price, 99 cents. I had bought a bag earlier in the week and decided to pick up a few more. Then a few more. And just a few more for good measure. In total, I purchased 6 bags.

I had in my mind that I would buy this amount of carrots so that I could make my own baby food for my 6 month old. I reasoned that two servings of premade baby food cost 99 cents and that I could get at least 6 servings out of each bag., making each serving a little more than 16 cents. BIG SAVINGS! Woe to me. For years I had mocked my friends for making baby food at home. Telling them that someone had to keep the Gerber people in business. I never thought about the savings from making it myself, not to mention that I am controlling the ingredients.

This week, I took the boiled potatoes and carrots I had made with corned beef (part of a two-night meal, first night corned beef, second night corned beef chili - a recipe I plan to use in another column/blog I write) and mashed them together. The leftover veggies have fed my son for 3 nights now. And we'll definitely get a fourth out of them.

So after careful reevaluation, I am now a maker of my own baby food. Cept for the prunes, Gerber's got that covered for me.