So, I saw this post over at Playgroups Are No Place For Children and then Loralee herself did a post about and I just have to chime in because this is an issue that is near and very dear to my heart. In fact, I would wager that most homebodies like me would consider the issue of what to spend the $ on and what to save the $ on to be an important one. I would say that it’s an issue that I happen to spend an unhealthy amount of time thinking about even.

Now, I’ve made no secret that I do a vast majority of my shopping at Walmart. If we had a Super Target here in town, I’d go there. But we don’t. The only other “discount” option is WinCo and I just refuse to do that on principle. I used to shop there in college when it was called Cub Foods and the store that’s located near us here is downright frightening. I don’t need to save a buck THAT bad. I love myself a bargain. I used to clip coupons obsessively but have pretty much stopped doing that because I am a lazy, lazy person. Plus, if I work it right, I can save a good deal of cash just by shopping at Walmart and buying generics where I can.

With that said, I wanted to do a listing of what I will buy generics for and what I tend to splurge on. I’ve gotten some great ideas from reading other people’s lists and am already plotting my next grocery trip accordingly. So maybe someone will see MY list and be inspired. Hey, it could happen.

Things I Get Cheap On

• Toddler diapers. Once Liam was about 10 months old, I started buying the Walmart brand “Parent’s Choice” diapers. And you know? They work pretty good! They will leak if you go too long between changes but I honestly have no problem with these diapers. My friends recommended this to me and I’ve been so happy with them! Plus, OMG, they are SO cheap. I think it’s something like $14 for a box of 100 or so size 4’s. That is an INCREDIBLE savings.
• Baby wipes. The Parent’s Choice wipes are fantastic. I started out with Huggies wipes and they were okay but I noticed they were a little on the thin side. I like a good, thick wipe and these definitely fit the bill. Plus, they’re totally cheap city. I just load up the Huggies wipe dispenser we have with the generic wipes and it works fantastic.
• Toddler finger foods (sending a baby-centric trend here?). Things like cereal puffs and dehydrated fruits are just the same generic as the name brand and you save quite a bit of money. Liam loves the Parent’s Choice dehydrated blueberries and peaches and I also buy their fruit-flavored cereal puffs as well. A lot cheaper than the Gerber variants!
• Most medication. We buy generic Tylenol all the time. Same goes for cough medicine, cough drops, etc. I guess you could include things like contact lens solution here too. I got Kile a big pack of contact solution form Sam’s Club recently and I imagine it’ll last him for MONTHS and it was SO CHEAP.
• Makeup. I love to browse through Sephora and finger the expensive goodies there but I have a hard time actually spending the money on it. I have to admit, I do most of my makeup purchases from the Cover Girl and Mabeline aisles (just found some Mabeline mineral foundation this weekend and am loving it). I don’t say no to fancy makeup, but I generally don’t spend my money on it.
• Clothes. When I’m not pregnant, I tend to buy a lot of my clothes from Walmart. I have a hard time spending much over $20 for a pair of jeans, though I’m trying to break out of that to some degree. But as far as t-shirts for layering and lounge-wear, Walmart serves me well. I am hoping to go do some shopping at Kohl’s after baby weight is lost. And isn’t it hysterical that I consider buying clothes at Kohl’s to be splurging? What a dork.
• Shoes. I pretty much buy all my shoes at Payless. I may get a pair of slippers at Walmart or some boots at Target or some sneakers at Kohl’s on occasion but I generally tend to buy at Payless whenever I can.
• Purses. I don’t think I’ve even TOUCHED a Coach bag. Again, buy a lot of my purses at Walmart or Payless or Target.
• Pasta sauce. Walmart makes a really good basic marinara sauce. We buy it all the time. Kile will add to it as needed but as a good base, it works and tastes great.
• Ketchup and mustard. Always buy Walmart brand. Always.
• Peanut butter and jelly. They even have a squeeze jelly. As long as you don’t get the strawberry squeeze jelly (too many whole strawberries), it’s really good. And you can’t tell the difference on the peanut butter. And we go through a LOT of that around here.
• Cream Cheese. Walmart has a great cream cheese in a tub that is easy to spread and tastes great. I’m totally addicted to it.
• Graham crackers. I’ve actually gotten to where I prefer Walmart’s brand of graham crackers. They taste better to me, somehow.
• Most basic soups. Things like Cream of Chicken, etc. If it’s used in a recipe, there is no telling the difference.
• Tuna. Walmart’s albacore is very tasty. As is their regular tuna in spring water. I can’t remember the last time we got name brand tuna.
• Frozen meat. When it comes to hamburger patties and chicken breasts, we always get the Walmart generic. Taste good, great price. We even love the newer Sam’s Choice “premium” angus burger patties. Still quite a savings to be had there.
• Frozen dinners. I tend to get cheap with TV dinners. Mostly I come home with Banquet or Michelina’s or Budget Gourmet or something. Sometimes I’ll “splurge” and get Lean Cuisine or Weight Watchers. But that’s pretty rare.
• Cereal.  For the most part (see below), Walmart has great generic cereals.  I particularly enjoy their generic frosted shredded wheat and raisin bran while the kiddos like their generic Lucky Charms and Cocoa Puffs.
• Milk.  The cheaper, the better.

Gah, okay, that’s enough of the cheapo-depot stuff for now. On to the splurge items!

Things I MUST Splurge On

• Toilet paper. It must be Charmin. I will go so far as to say that it has to be Charmin Ultra Soft Mega Roll, even. I’m very particular in this department. Kile has learned not to argue.
• Tampons. I cannot fathom using generic tampons. I even tend to prefer name brand maxi pads as they often have more “features” that I appreciate. Though I have been known to buy those generic from time to time. Right now it feels like it’s been so long since I’ve bought either of these that I can hardly relate. LOL!
• Motrin.  When I get a monster headache, it actually needs to be name-brand.  I’ve tried everything else.  Nothing works.
• Diet soda.  When it’s not diet, it can actually be generic.  But I will not drink generic diet soda.  Won’t do it.  I’m weird, I know.
• Ice cream.  Has to be Breyer’s.  If purchased by the pint, then Ben and Jerry’s is acceptable. But I am a total Breyer’s snob.  Luckily, Walmart has this stuff a lot cheaper than your average grocery store or I probably wouldn’t get to enjoy ice cream as often as I do.
• Cheerios.  Generally, cereal is just fine generic (see above) but if we’re talking Cheerios (regular or Honey Nut), it has to be the name brand.  Anything else just DOES NOT taste right.
• PopTarts.  I don’t ALWAYS indulge in PopTarts but when I do, I want them to be the real thang, yo.
• Yogurt.  I just can’t do generic yogurt.
• Shampoo and Conditioner.  This doesn’t mean that I buy salon brands (oh hells no, see my stance on “Makeup”) but I also don’t buy generic brands or even Suave.  Generally this means Herbal Essences or Garnier Fructis.  Though if I had my druthers, I’d buy Dove each and every time.
• Spaghettio’s.  Gotta have name brand for any sort of canned pasta.  I don’t know why, but anything else sorta skeeves me out.

I am SURE there are more things but my brain is totally farting right now.  I’ve had SUCH a rough day.  My back has been literally in agony today.  Now, I’m all doped up on Tylenol (wee!) (it’s generic too!), I’ve had my back rubbed and have sat on a heating pad… I feel as if I may just make it.  All I can say is, THE HECK.  Poor Kile even ended up coming home from work to care after my busted ass.  Here’s to hoping for a happier tomorrow, eh?  In the meantime: What are your splurges and what do you tend to get cheap on?

Kile is forever accusing me of overdoing it on the weekends.  My contention is double-sided: a) I’m holed up in this house all day long every day and by the time the weekend rolls around, I’m dying to get out of the house and experience the world outside and b) I’m only 31 weeks along here, and a couple of shopping trips by no means should put me out of commission.  I might buy it if I were 35 weeks, but barely 31? That just makes me a giant, out of shape wuss.  Which, you know, I probably am.

Saturday was bad enough.  Walking through Walmart for an hour or two trying to get grocery shopping done can wear out the best of us.  In my case, it made me tired and achy and unhappy.  Friday night we had gone to Walmart too (because we are true gluttons for punishment) so for those of you keeping track at home, we’re up to two trips to Walmart.

Yesterday was in a league all it’s own though.  We started off with church in the morning, followed by a trip to Sam’s Club afterward.  We adore their hot dog combos for $1.48 for lunch.  Cheapest lunch in town, brutha.  Tasty too.  After that we browsed around some (I looked at phones as I would like to replace ours and have discovered I’m rather picky about the features on my phone) and got a few grocery items.  After that, the boys dropped me at Babies R Us to browse around while they went next door to Michael’s to get Harry something he can work on this week besides getting on my last nerve.  I found that I am drawn to a new, more girly style Pack n’ Play even though we currently have TWO at home that would suffice quite nicely.  But dang, it’s pretty.  And has some nice features that our current one does not have.  The boys caught up with me as I was relaxing in one of the gliders they have set up in the back.  Did you know that some of those recline?  Hummina.

That’s when I saw this crib set that they had marked for clearance.  It was the “Sofia” crib set from “Kidsline” and incorporated some of the themes/colors we had already been planning on for Evie’s room.  It was nearly half the original price (which considering how expensive those crib sets are, is quite a deal) and we just couldn’t pass it up.  So we got it.

Pretty, isn’t it?  It has a very “shabby chic” look, which I like.  Kile was concerned at the understated colors but that is something I liked as I don’t want any Pepto Pink or Barney Purple stuff in this child’s room.  I like pale pink, pale purple, maybe some green and yellow as accents.  This set is mostly pale pink with embroidered butterflies, cream, and tiny green stripes.  The sheet and quilt have tiny bunches of flowers and butterflies on them.  Very adorable.  The crib set is gorgeous and it has made me very anxious to work on the baby’s room.  Even though I know that the baby won’t be in there for several more months to come.  We plan to paint and put up a wallpaper border at the very least.  I’d also like to come by a canopy (something like this) if possible.  We’ve also discovered putting in wainscotting or crown moulding and possibly hardwood floors.  I KNOW, right?  We’ll be lucky to paint the walls.

After that, it was time to move on.  We stopped at Ashley Furniture while headed home.  Kile wanted to look at couches and coffee tables.  I knew we needed a coffee table and the couch has been something Kile has been wanting.  As our luck would have it, we fell in love with TWO couches.   Both were sectional-style but without the “corner” piece.  One was shorter, made out of a plush fabric that brought me to mind of my bathrobe and had two very wide seats that reclined (Harry could sit comfortably next to me so they’re sort of like “two-person recliners”) separated by a storage console with cupholders.  The only drawback?  It was white.  But OH SO comfy.  The other was dark brown and very, very long.  It had recliners on the ends with sets in the middle that did not recline but it did come with an ottoman whose top flipped over to hold cups, etc.  Either side of the recliner had a console with cupholders and was also VERY comfy.  But like I said, VERY long.  Would require some rearranging of our living room furniture to be sure.  BUT, it was on sale for only $900.  We left empty-handed, of course, but with much on our minds.

While we were at Ashley, I discovered that Harry’s sneakers had holds in the toes.  HOLES.  And here he has been walking around in puddles and slushy snow all day!  We vowed to go to Payless and get him some shoes before heading home, which we did.  Liam fell asleep in the van before we got there and to our surprise, didn’t even stir while we browsed for shoes.  We finally found some decent sneakers for Harry to wear (he’s a size 3 1/2 already!) and marveled at how Liam didn’t even wake up when Kile was strapping him back into his car seat.  If you knew Liam, you’d know how out of character that was.

About this time, Harry announced he had to use the bathroom… BAD.  We headed towards home, knowing we needed to stop for gas.  It started snowing, again, OF COURSE.  The boys ran in to use the facilities while I pumped us up some gas.  We slipped over to Blockbuster afterward to pick up some movies as we weren’t planning on watching the Super Bowl that afternoon.  We got “The Simpson’s Movie” (which Harry managed to talk me into even though it is PG-13) and “3:10 to Yuma” which we watched last night and cemented my love of both Russell Crowe and Christian Bale (purr).  Then it was onwards towards Smith’s for groceries.  We buy our milk there and Kile wanted to get some meat and supplies for dinner.  Liam woke up just before we got there.  I guess his battery was charged sufficiently.

By the time we were done with Smith’s, I was a mere shadow of my former self.  I could only shuffle along at a snail’s pace.  We got home and I shuffled to my recliner.  At bedtime, I shuffled upstairs.  I attempted to get comfortable in bed even though that was a fruitless quest if there ever was one.  I woke up this morning completely stiff and sore and achy.  My back, at the moment, is screaming in agony.  Did I overdo it?  I’d say a big, fat, resounding YES.  I swear, one would think I was 39 weeks along the way I’m waddling.  What is UP?  And how on earth am I going to make it through the next six weeks??