Goodbye to Alabama Frugal Mom at Blogspot...

I have incredible news! I am now blogging exclusively for al.com! Please visit "The Frugal Mom" featured in the Lifestyle blogs.

More exciting news... I don't have all the details, but they are going to start printing my blog weekly in The Birmingham News! : )

al.com is the web affiliate of The Birmingham News, Mobile's Press-Register, The Huntsville Times, The Alabama Baptist, Montgomery Independent and the Redstone Rocket!

al.com is Alabama's #1 Web site with over 852,000 unique monthly visitors and over 51 million page views a month. In addition to being the state's best local source for news, information and classifieds, they have received numerous industry accolades.

Please visit me there! I have enjoyed all of your comments! Thank you!

Holly Cow ---Buy One Get One FREE!

I have been really bummed out... Holly Cow has been absent from the shelves of Wal-Mart for about a month now. :(

I was researching where I could buy it, and found it at Walgreens! Get this... Not only did I find it, it is Buy One Get One Free (BOGO) Right now!!!! I got two bottles for $3.49! Yeah!

Want some FREE coffee and FREE creamer?

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I have never tried coffee from Dunkin' Donuts, but I hear it is really good.


Now I get to find out for myself.


Click here to get your own FREE sample!


Act quickly... there are limited quantities.
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Get a FREE bottle of COFFEE-MATE!


Sign up now to receive a coupon for one FREE bottle of COFFEE-MATE (a $4.50 value) and discover for yourself how good your coffee can be when you stir up something new.


Enjoy coffee prepared exactly the way you like it... Let's see milk do that!


Liquid or Powder

Consignment Sale Reminder

If you are like me, you let church-sponsored kid's consignment sales slip by without remembering to consign your clothes or shop the sales.

Mostly to help me remember, I am going to give updates about upcoming sales a few days before they start receiving items. That way, I can actually participate and hopefully you can, too! Here is the upcoming sale:

Asbury United Methodist Church (North Shelby County)
Giggles & Grace
March 26 - 27 Receiving Items
March 28 - 29 Open to Public
Link to Sale

Want to reduce your junk mail?

Do you get a lot of catalogs that you don't want or need? Do you feel guilty when you take these volumes of paper directly from your mailbox to your trash can? There is a company that can help! Catalog Choice.

The Catalog Choice service is designed to benefit everyone:

* You benefit by reducing mailbox clutter, and the amount of time you spend sifting through unwanted mail.

* Your participation benefits merchants, lowering their cost of distribution and helping them better target their market.

* Your participation as a member of the Catalog Choice community collectively promotes the use of best practices in the direct mailing industry.

* Your participation as a member of the Catalog Choice community will collectively make a huge positive impact on our environment, as together we reduce the energy consumed, the carbon emissions, and the lost forests resulting from the current annual production and discarding of more than 19 billion paper catalogs.

* Finally, these benefits are cost FREE to you.

The Catalog Choice community is presently 677,665 persons strong, having already opted out of 8,898,279 catalogs. That is a lot of catalogs!!!

I had been getting these huge catalogs from Staples in the mail. I am not sure how we got on their mailing list... maybe by signing up for their rewards card. I felt really wasteful and inconsiderate when I would take this two inch thick "book" and immediately throw it away. Even recycling it seemed careless. I never looked at a single page!

I had good intentions to write or call Staples to be taken off their list, but I never seemed to get around to it. I was relieved when I found Catalog Choice.

All you do is sign up, find the catalogs you want, and opt-out. Easy.

As much as I want to save trees, I also want to save my pocketbook. You don't want what you don't see.

I found myself looking through the Pottery Barn catalog and thinking Boy, I really need that! It was probably a fancy table runner or some cute cloth napkins that I "needed" about as much as I needed the flu. :)

By not browsing, I am not as tempted to buy. This is a win-win situation.

Frugal Recipe #2 ---Homemade Tortilla Chips

I love chips! I love them with salsa! I love them with guacamole! My husband and kids love them, too! I have been buying the expensive Baked Tostitos Scoops at $3.49 per bag. I buy about a bag a week, so I have spent almost $200 in the past year on chips!

Plus, I get really frustrated when things don't go on sale. I can't recall ever getting a deal on them or seeing a coupon for them. I have bought the super-inexpensive brands, but they are not BAKED! Baked chips have 1/2 the fat and are more healthy than the regular kind. I had to find a way to get my chips on the cheap!

Here is what I found: a recipe for homemade, inexpensive, and easy baked tortilla chips!

Baked Corn Tortilla Chips:

1 Bag of Corn Tortillas (around 36 tortillas @ $1.00 per bag)
Non-stick Cooking Spray (like Pam ---I like the olive oil spray)
Salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lay the tortillas out on a cutting board. Spray lightly with the non-stick olive oil spray on both sides. If using a salt, sprinkle on both sides. Stack the tortillas in piles of eight. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, cut through the pile of tortillas, cutting into 4 or 8 equal triangles depending on how big you like your chips.

Arrange tortilla triangles in a single layer on baking sheets. Bake for approximately 6 to 7 minutes until crisp and the edges start to curl and turn lightly brown. Watch the chips carefully after 5 minutes, as they can burn easily. Once the chips are done, remove from the oven to cool. Chips will continue to crisp as they cool down. These keep for about 1 - 2 weeks in a Ziploc type bag.

This very easy and cost-effective. If you cut the chips into eighths, you can make 288 chips for less than a dollar! I have never counted the exact quantity of Tostitos per bag, but according to the nutrition guide on the back, there are around 150 chips in there. That means by making these home-made chips, I am saving almost $6.00 on every batch. After one year of making the chips instead of buying them, I will have saved over $155! Yea!

Send a FREE letter in the mail!

How would you like to send a FREE card with FREE postage? The U.S. Postal Service is encouraging us to send actual letters in the mail again (instead of e-mail). Their campaign is called The Power of the Letter. I must admit, it is fun and exciting to get a letter or card along with all the bills and junk. Here is some information from their website about this promotion:

John Adams (October 30, 1735 - July 4, 1826)

John Adams and his wife Abigail exchanged over 1,100 letters. To celebrate their prolific correspondence and honor their legacy, HBO and USPS are offering free greeting cards courtesy of Cardstore, including two-way postage, through March 31, 2008 while supplies last. Create your card, add a photo if you wish, and we'll send it to you to pen your own message. Also, enter the "Power of the Letter" sweepstakes for a chance to win a Colonial Williamsburg vacation for four.


I was very impressed with the card selections. I am not sure what I expected the cards to look like... probably like the picture of John Adams above. They were not at all like that.

There are six cards to choose from, and they look like expensive Hallmark cards. They are very modern and interesting. Once you select the card you like, then you pick a quote and even add one of your own photos. If there was any downside, it would be the back of the card: It is an advertisement for the HBO miniseries John Adams. Not a bad trade-off in my mind, though. Now, if I can just win that vacation!