Fed By Faith Super Doubles Trip

I was so fortunate to receive a monetary donation for Fed By Faith a few months ago. I told the person that I was going to wait and use the money at a Super Doubles or Triples event so I could get much more stuff for that amount of money! So today, I went shopping for Fed By Faith. It was so much fun!! I hope you realize just how much stuff this really is, and how easy it is to buy cheap items that are great for donating. It also proves how much coupon donations are needed, so I can do this. And it proves that if all you can do is donate money, it will be put to GOOD USE!! Remember, all these coupons will double up to $1.98.



Rice-A-Roni (x3)
On sale for $1.00 each. Purchased 3 and used a $1.00/3 coupon which doubled. Final price - $0.33 each.

Bounty paper towels (2-pack)
$3.99. Used a $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.99

Blue Diamond almonds
On sale for $3.99. Used a $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.99

Vanity Fair plates
$3.19. Used a $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.19

Beech-Nut baby food (x10)
On sale for $0.44 each. Used a $1.00/10 coupon. Final price - $0.24 each

Seventh Generation household cleaner
$3.49. Used a $1.00 coupon. Final price -$1.49

Listerine (x2)
Usually $6.59, on sale for $3.99. Used a $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.99

Arm and Hammer toothpaste
$3.69. Used a $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.69

Crest toothpaste (x3)
On sale for $2.50. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price - $0.50 each

Gillette shaving cream
On sale for $2.49. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price - $0.49

Vaseline lotion
$3.89. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.89

Johnson and Johnson baby shampoo
On sale for $3.00. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.00

Herbal Essence shampoo (x2)
On sale for $2.49. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price -$0.49

Playtex cleansing wipes
On sale for $3.14. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price - $1.14

A&D Diaper Rash Cream
$2.99. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price - $0.99

Band-Aid
On sale for $2.50. Minus $1.00 coupon. Final price -$0.50

Final shopping total - This is $90 worth of groceries. I paid just under $30 for all of this. That means each item was less than $1. And every item will go to Fed By Faith (along with a bunch of other items from other shopping trips I and other people have made this week!!) Thank you so much for all those who donate, no matter how it is that you give.

Incredible Saturday!

Whew, what a busy and wonderful Saturday this turned out to be! Brianna was up bright and early at 6:30am after a loooong night of sleeping. Stephen was already out hunting at that point, so once I figured out that Brianna didn't want to go back to bed, I started getting ready to go to yard sales, run errands, and then go to a wedding shower.

I checked my email before I left, and much to my surprise, Stephen had already shot a buck! He had only been in the woods for about 21 minutes (give or take a minute) and he said it was close enough for him to spit on it. He shot it instead, fortunately. This was his first buck so he is very proud! You wouldn't think it would take someone years to shoot a buck, what with all of them running in front of cars and such, but his dad didn't shoot a buck until he was late 30's and Stephen's been hunting 13 years with no luck. He's gotten plenty of does in the past but not a buck. (Although he has gotten buck from other species of deer on hunting trips, but that's a whole other story. Confused yet?) Anyway, this is a 10-point which is HUGE so we should get a ton of meat. Start looking for several venison recipes to come! He scored it (measured it) and looked it up online. It scored at 150 points which was only 10 points away from making it into the record books. Here are some pictures - I tried to pick some that weren't so bloody. You're welcome.



Anyway, Bri and I met Stephen on the road to admire the deer, and then we went on our merry way. The first two yard sales we went to weren't anything crazy special but Brianna did pretty good. She got a new toy, as you can see, which I think she will really enjoy. She has started banging things a lot. She also got a new pair of jeans, corduroys, and an outfit for $1 each. Yes, they are 3T and 4T but $1 each is too good a price to pass up! Plus these are so cute!

Next we headed off to Harris Teeter to get some Dole pineapple (free) and bananas for Brianna. They were just $0.69 a pound and I got just at a pound. I will halve them and freeze them for after we run out of baby food bananas. We have to use baby food in jars for certain things because a friend at church gave them to us - which we are so thankful for! - but I definitely love making her food myself.

The next yard sale was a bust - way overpriced. On my way to my last yard sale, I got stuck in the Turkey Trot! Those darn trotters were trotting everywhere!!! I desperately made U-turns, sudden turns, right turns, all trying to get to Hwy 211 with no luck. Streets were blocked off, cars were being detoured... all I wanted to do was get to that yard sale! I had to go because it was a church sale, see, so it would be worth it. I finally called mom and dad trying to find some back roads. After talking to dad and making several turns down small roads I was able to detour around the race and get to the yard sale. Whew!!

And guess what? It was worth it! See, I knew it would be! Remember last week when I found that mortar and pestle and I was so excited? Well I got a new one today. This one was more expensive - $5 - but keep in mind how expensive they normally are. The difference between this one and last week's is this one was hand carved in Bolivia and is truly beautiful. The man who purchased it in Bolivia actually happens to be a friend of ours, and he uses them all the time in cooking. It is not only gorgeous but I love using it with fresh herbs!


They were half-pricing stuff but I just didn't see anything that jumped out at me, so I headed off to Rite Aid to purchase some Kotex for Fed By Faith under mom's name (only one rebate per household so I had to "use" mom) and go to Lowe's to get some rice (free), sugar (free) and a gift card for the wedding shower today. I also got some sweet potatoes for $0.29 a pound. I froze some the other night for Brianna and will do this with these as well. Much cheaper than buying by the jar!!


When I got to mom and dad's, the more we talked the more I wanted to go back to the church sale to look through the kids clothes again. After dilly-dallying, mom, Brianna and I took off up there. We left dad at the house because he was having a free yard sale of his own. We drove up to the yard sale and were immediately disappointed. It looked like they were packing up stuff. I told mom I would just run up and ask them if they were done. It turned out they were selling stuff for $2 a box - fill up the box with as much as you can. I ran back to get mom and Bri. Mom babysat while I stuffed clothes, pots, candles, you name it into a box. I didn't see anything I really needed but figured a lot of that would go to Fed By Faith. As we walked away, mom mentioned to them how great it would be to have that stuff because of our ministry at church. At that, the people looked at each other, murmured to one another, and then... offered to let us have everything that was left. And that's why you can't walk through my kitchen right now.

What a huge blessing!!

On the same note, Brooke emailed me last week after I wrote that I had scavenged boxes from the recycling center. She mass emailed her coworkers and now people throughout that law firm are saving up what will literally be hundreds or thousands of boxes for Fed By Faith!! Oh my gosh. That is AMAZING. Brooke definitely did not have to step up like that - it is incredibly generous of her. She even had someone volunteer assistance! We can use those boxes either for storage or to carry the items to people. I just shake my head in amazement every time I think of this. What a huge blessing.

Please continue to pray for Tracey and Mark and their family. Tracey is such a trooper, she is clipping coupons for me in the waiting room of the hospital. Now that's a good friend! Haha!

I just can't get over how incredibly blessed my life is. Days like today seem to happen to me more than I deserve them to. I don't even have the words to describe my joy!

Community Service

A couple of years ago at a meeting of our ladies at church, our leader for that year asked us to fill out some worksheets. Included in the questions was one that I have thought about since then - "What is a vision you have for our ladies group or church?" My vision was for our church to create a food and clothing ministry. Many, many years ago, the church we went to for mission trips had a food and clothing ministry and on Wednesdays we would help volunteer there. It was amazing! This community is probably one of the poorest areas in West Virginia and yet somehow they always had a ton of food and clothing to donate. I don't think I really understood it then, but now I see that someone(s) made a lot of sacrifices to keep those ministries running as well as always have food and clothing available for people who were really in need.

Fast forward to a couple of months ago. I started really talking to my friend Cindy about some of her clients. She is a speech therapist and many of her clients live in the type of poverty that people seem to believe does not exist in our community. As I came across items that were free or cheap with coupons, or were given to me by others, I began just filling up bags and giving these things to her to give to clients. As I told mom about it, she began filling up bags as well. Tracey began sending me coupons (unknowingly contributing to these donations!). The more Cindy told me about these clients, and that many were crying upon receiving bags of items as "insignificant" as toothpaste, deodorant, pasta, cereal, etc., the more I wanted to do. Then one night I was talking to Stephen about one shampoo I had gotten for free. Pert Plus has a mail-in rebate right now where you will be refunded your entire purchase price when you purchase one bottle of shampoo. I just said to Stephen - imagine if every household in our church purchased one bottle of shampoo and donated it. No one would even have to pay for anything (except the stamp I guess), and we would be donating 80 or 90 bottles of shampoo throughout the community! To me, that is just insane! It's like it's just so simple!!

So I finally decided to do something about it. Last week I told our preacher and his wife that I want to start a ministry at church. The concept is simple. If I find out a way for people to get something free that is non-perishable, I will tell them. I'm thinking if I told our whole church about the Pert Plus deal, maybe 25% would go out and do it? Do you think that's a fair estimate? There's always going to be some elderly that don't even do their own shopping, some who forget to put it on their grocery list, some who don't believe it will actually work, etc. As for myself, I will get as many items as possible at events like triple coupons or other deals I find. For example, a few weeks ago Snuggle had out several $3 off coupons, and in most dollar stores that's exactly how much Snuggle costs! All of those went into donation bags. Other people who don't care to find good deals can buy an extra can of soup when they go to the grocery store and throw that in the donation pile. I figure pretty much everyone can afford to buy a can of soup or vegetables every so often (particularly when those things are almost always on sale for around 50 cents).

Every month we are going to pick a family to "adopt" for the whole month. All donations throughout the entire month will go to the family at the end of the month. I also am planning on adding up the amount of the items we are donating (approximately) so I can report to the church - hopefully so they will see how easy it is to do this and how much of a difference it will make. I have already gotten the okay from the higher-ups but tonight I am presenting it to the Ladies Group, in the hopes that the women who coupon will start to use coupons toward this ministry, and the ones who don't will give me their coupons so I can use them! Haha! Seriously, I am so excited about this and I am praying so hard that it will be HUGE and we can help so many people.

Here is an example. From the past couple of weeks these are just the items I have gotten for free from various stores and with various sales or coupons:


This is a total of items worth $66.97. And I didn't pay for a single one of these! That doesn't include the rest of the bags sitting in my laundry room now, and the most expensive thing in one of those bags was $0.74 I believe.

My theory is - if God is blessing you (and he is certainly blessing me!) then you should pool your resources to try to bless others. We are going to try to get that message across when giving our donations to people. Not just, "Here - we care about you and this is how we're showing it." But we want them to know we are able to do this only because of God and because we really want them to know God's love. These people probably do not feel loved by God. They probably feel that life sucks and is totally unfair. I want this to be the thing that gives them hope, helps them see that God is here and He does care about them, and I want them to feel loved by Him and others in the community.

And that's how Fed By Faith was started.