One household task I’ve never really minded, and maybe even kind of enjoy, is laundry. Good thing, considering on any given Friday, I do 4-5 loads, and then another 3-5 across the course of the weekend. It probably explains, at least a little, why we never batted an eye at the idea of cloth diapering triplets.

I work Tuesday-Thursday, so by Friday my inner domestic goddess is literally bursting at the seams. During the morning nap, I clean up, get the first few loads going, and perhaps a few other household projects. For the school year, we picked up my 4 year old (P) before lunch, and then during the second nap, he and I would do a project of some sorts. Today, we made brownies. But this is our last Friday of the school year, and from now on he will be at summer camp, and by the fall, who knows? I could be working full time and this could be it. Sniff!

The parents of our good friend down the street have an organic chicken farm and we are getting our first delivery of 6 frozen birds today (at the wholesale price of $2/lb!). I’ve always been a boneless/skinless breast and thigh girl myself, until recently when I started getting rotisserie chickens at Whole Foods and using the meat as well as bones. This is a whole other ballgame, though. I have no idea how to deal with an entire frozen chicken, from butchering to cooking and beyond. It’s clearly time to learn.

Anyone have an tips or ideas for me?

If this is your first time at sage after hearing about BeCentsAble on Good Morning America, welcome!

sage is the frugal shade of green parenting — it’s easy to go green if you want to spend a lot of money, but sage will show you how to live within your values and your budget.

Like BeCentsAble, our mission is to help families save time and money. At sage, we round up coupons and other discounts on organic grocery products, share new resources for recycling household items and creating homemade, nontoxic cleaners for pennies on the dollar, and innovative craft projects you can do with your kids that use household items.

Who am I? A mom to 4 adorable boys (a preschooler and one year old identical triplets), a passionate environmentalist, and a dedicated bargain shopper. I don’t want to pay full price for the things I have to buy, and I want to recycle, upcycle, and create as much as I can. I visit the couponing, discount, grocery store savings, green lifestyle, and parenting advice blogs so you don’t have to, bringing to sage the best the internet has to offer for natural parenting!

Subscribe to sage for weekly sage finds updates of coupons, discounts and specials from across the web, and sage reads, a round up of timely, inspiring links for parenting green on the cheap. I also tweet deals as I find them, along with the goings-on in our house with four boys under four.

parenting

Ohdeeoh has another take on the family interview, giving me even more fodder for something I hope to execute this weekend. Fun!

PopATot: Ingenious or not worth the money? I feel like we could be at the perfect age/mobility range for one of these in the spring, to keep one baby safely contained if another needs immediate attention. But probably I’ll just bring the less-popular of our exersaucers outside (the one we got at a yard sale for $5) rather than shelling out $50.

crafting

Crafting a Green World is hitting all the right notes with me lately, the way that Ohdeeoh seemed to be in my brain a few months ago. This week, cute small projects with fabric scraps. Also, more organic fabric and yarn sources. Must get that chicken print! Or perhaps spend some time making rubber stamps out of shoe soles.

eating

Re-nest helps us eat local! It doesn’t seem especially accurate for my state (why would a pile of produce be available right now in Minnesota that is not available in Wisconsin?), but it does give a sense of regional best buys.

The NRDC, Natural Resources Defense Council, has an online tool that can help you minimize the amount of well-traveled foods you consume. You can plug in the time of year down to early and late part of each month, plus the state in question. Once the tool churns out foods harvested or cellared in your state this time of year, it will also offer foods from neighboring states.

I’ve been having a leftover bottleneck lately, so the Parenthacks post on the topic comes at a good time for me.

resources

Whole Foods highlights their new recycling programs: Brita water filters and #5 plastics to be turned directly into toothbrushes and other hosuehold goods.

Kelly at Almost Frugal talks about rethinking your behavior to provide new ways to be frugal, and I totally agree. It’s easy to be prisoner to ideas that maybe have worked in the past, or items that are easy and comfortable.

Mommies with Cents posts a free opportunity to fight childhood hunger, an important cause to me and countless others.

Share Our Strength is an organization dedicated to ending childhood hunger. Some food banks across the country are reporting a 40- to 50-percent increase in demand.

Share Our Strength’s “Operation No Kid Hungry” works with the Mobile Giving Foundation to raise funds for food banks across the country. By simply texting the word “SHARE” to 20222 on your mobile device, you can instantly make a $5 donation to Share Our Strength. Wireless users can choose to donate once, twice or even up to five times to contribute.

My post today at BeCentsAble is bit about me. An actual picture of P and I, too. Enjoy!

Crafty Crow send out the addresses for the ornament swap, and I didn’t get any. Then I checked over my email carefully, and there it was, still in the draft folder… my request to swap! Of course, I just posted about how orderly my universe has become, right? Hubris!

Anyhow, dear readers, I know you’re out there. Google Analytics tells me so. Anyone want to make a few ornaments with their kids and swap with mine? P is *so* excited to do this and mentions it every day. If 2+ readers want to jump in, that would be so much fun. Any takers???

It’s been a chilly start to fall here already in the Midwest. Twice, I’ve been out for a walk with my 8 month old triplets and the overcast sky turned into a small snow shower. It got me in the mood for warm, filling food, for sure.

Then, a turn for the inconvenient: I have a swollen tendon in my wrist (repetitive stress injury) and a sprained-almost-broken ankle (falling down some stairs injury) and am the proud owner of not one but two splints! And some very limited mobility. So, I’m focusing on recipes that are really, really easy and one-pot oriented, so that I don’t turn to take out on these stressful days and don’t leave us too much to clean up!

Sunday: One of our family favorites, Qunioa and Black Beans. It doesn’t get more one-pot than this and it is full of protein, especially if you load it with shredded cheese and sour cream at the table. I used Whole Food’s Ranchero beans instead of black, it gives it a nice spicy kick without having to season it yourself.

Monday: Potsticker soup. Did I mention that in addition to my injuries, I’m fighting a virus, too? Yuck.

Tuesday: Slow Cooker taco bake. A new recipe, and I’ll be using turkey meat and some other substitutes, but yum!

Wednesday: Chicken Thighs and Orzo, plus turkey bacon and feta, minus panceta and goat cheese. (We don’t eat pork, DH doesn’t like goat cheese.)

Thursday: Cheddar, Corn and Potato Chowder. I know I’ve posted corn chowder recipes before. I’m still looking for the one that I’ll pull out over and over again.

Friday: Family pizza night. First time in months I won’t be using homemade pesto or other veggies straight from our garden

Saturday: Breakfast for dinner. My husband will take responsibility for this one, since he makes the best eggs! We’ll have turkey bacon, cheese grits, toast, and hopefully some leftovers for Sunday morning.

Yet another Walgreens coupon! I’m going to buy enough infant ibuprofen for us to swim in. What about you?

Through October 26, many childrens museums are having free child’s admission with the purchase of an adult admission. The full list of affiliated museums can be found here. (Thanks to Travels with Children via Baby Cheapskate.)

Wondering, as I often am, what to do with the broken baby swing in your basement, besides chucking it into the landfill? Instead, you can send it to BabyEarth RENEW.

If you’re done with your car seat, stroller or high chair, send it to us. We’ll make sure everything is properly disassembled and all usable parts are sent to accredited recycling centers. For example, fabrics will be shipped to developing countries, and metal, plastic and foam will be used for construction projects. In the spirit of renewing, if the item is in excellent condition it will be donated to and enjoyed by another family who needs it.

All you do is pay for shipping, and in return they send you a $5 off coupon for their online store. Not exactly a money-maker, but a great idea if perhaps parcel posting shipping isn’t too much for your items.

As I’ve mentioned before, my 6 month old triplets haven’t been exclusively breastfed since they were a few weeks old. I’m a lactivist at heart, but a realist since I know that each family has to make it’s own choices based on very individual circumstances. I am, however, always on the hunt for the best price for organic infant formula, and I imagine I’m not the only one!

Here are the best practices I’ve found for saving on this incredibly expensive product, that you can use whether you are full time formula feeding or supplementing just occasionally:

• Know your price per ounce (PPO). If you don’t know how much you pay on a regular basis, you can’t really tell if you are getting a deal when you are talking about multiples of 25.7 or 12.9 ounce containers. Because I am an absolute dork, I devised my own spreadsheet:

By calculating your everyday best price (in this case, I was basing it off of the Diapers.com price for a case (4-25.7 ounce cans of Earth’s Best, highlighted in purple) divided by the total number of ounces, you determine the price to beat (again in this case, $1.05/ounce).

• Use your online resources wisely. Armed with your everyday best price, look for anything that will help you cut that cost. Visit Baby Cheapskate for the weekly diaper and formula specials updates. Bid on lots of formula or checks/coupons on eBay. Trade formula checks you won’t use for brands that you will on craigslist.

This is where knowing your PPO is essential. It doesn’t make sense to bid up a lot of formula beyond the price you could get it in the store (and don’t forget to add shipping!). With my spreadsheet, you can plug in different prices to determine what your maximum bid on a lot should be. If $1.05 is your standard, you can determine what PPO you’re willing to pay. You might then bid up to $1.00 PPO, and if you get outbid at that point, you know it’s just not worth it.

• Love your manufacturer. Get on Similac’s mailing list for formula checks. Email Baby’s Only and tell them how much you love their product. I have gotten the most, and the highest value, coupons from contacting companies directly. Give it a shot, you have nothing to lose!

• Ask your retailer. I am currently paying less than $90/case for Earth’s Best formula (about $0.85 PPO!), before coupons (of which I have many, from contacting Earth’s Best, buying them for pennies on the dollar on eBay, and by being at the right place at the right time for a pile of store coupons). How am I getting organic formula for the price of conventional? Whole Foods special orders for me by the case! If you talk to your store’s grocery buyer, they might be able to help you out. At Whole Foods, it’s standard practice, and you get a 10% case discount to boot.

Want the spreadsheet? Shoot me an email and I’ll send it to you. (It’s a Google Doc, so no software necessary.)

Want to get started swapping formula checks to save money on your own? I have a small pile of Enfamil checks (4 x $5, nothing earth shattering!) that will go to a random commenter. Of course, you could use them for yourself, or, preferably, as currency for a trade for Similac checks to buy Similac Organic. Comments will be open until 9PM central Friday (Oct 3) and then I’ll use the random number generator to pick a winner!

Christmas prep has hit the blogophere earlier than I expected this year. We are Jewish, but half of our family and most everyone else we know celebrates Christmas so there are many aspects we take part in. In my mind, I’m already gearing up the asks for our boys (both the wants and the want nots, like plastic baby toys that take batteries!). Even though we don’t have a tree or anything, the holiday Martha impulse still hits me pretty hard, though fortunately the urge to shop and overbuy for friends and family does not. One tradition I love: holiday cards

This is my hard and fast rule for cards — I always buy next year’s cards in January when they are on sale. I store them in the same place each year and I address and sign them over Columbus Day weekend. We may not have the family photo taken yet, let alone printed, and the little update letter comes later, too, but I can do the bulk of the job in October. If I meet someone between October 15 and December 15 that should receive a card, I add theirs at that time, but really, what’s the chance of there being a lot of people like that?

In regards to the photo, we generally have a professional do an outdoor shoot the last week of October. We order a CD of the shots rather than individual pictures, and then I used up photo credits I’ve banked all year to get prints. I have more than 200 credits right now at snapfish, if you can believe it, just for paying attention to their promotions. You can use the web services to print copies of school portraits as well, just scan them in so that two jumbo wallets make one 4×6, order half the number you need, and then cut them yourself when they are delivered. Must cheaper than whatever “Package B” gives you!

Assuming you don’t have a stockpile of cards to make this work, the internet won’t let you down. eBay has tons of odd lots of cards (modern and vintage) available. The holiday stamp isn’t available yet, but if you want to add postage to your cards early, the cute “Celebrate” stamp available now would certainly do.