Thursday, March 11, 2010

Out With The Old . . .

It's not nearly as bad as last time (in part because I fully expected it), but this is about forty ounces of frozen breastmilk, thawing to be disposed of because it's way past its expiration date.

Most of it was about a year old, from while Peeper was NPO immediately following her surgery (about half) and from my "practice pumping" for the couple of weeks leading up to surgery.

There was also a tiny bit from around Christmas, when I was pumping to relieve a blocked duct, but I didn't bother keeping it, because really, Peeper is never going to take it anyway.


So, why did I finally get around to dumping it out?

Well, you see, there was a sale . . .


We've gotten in the habit of eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (I know.) for breakfast, and grilled cheese for lunch, so we're going through a loaf of bread in about three days.

Food Lion had their store brand on for $0.77/loaf, so I bought, seriously, about a month's worth.

Luckily, we had plenty of room for it, because all that was in this freezer was the breastmilk and about a thousand ice packs, most of which were used to ship various fertility medications to us.

I realized that, until we need them for something, they don't actually have to stay frozen, so I packed them all up. This blue ice chest is full and overflowing with them.


I'm trying to get my act together again with the grocery shopping, looking for sales, couponing and stocking up when I can do so cheaply. I think I've got a good start.

On the right (and top right) are leftover paper goods from various parties that we've hosted. We've got just about every major holiday covered.

On the left are Hefty brand ziplocks that I bought today. The regular price is $2.50/package, but they were on sale for $1 and each package had a 20 cents off "peelie" coupon, so they were actually only 80 cents each!


The party stuff again, cereal, Ramen noodles and some other stuff.


More cereal and miscellaneous stuff that doesn't fit in the main pantry.


Food Lion had toilet paper and paper towels on sale last week, plus "save $3 if you buy three" plus I had coupons! There are more packages in the basement.


Shrike's reading over my shoulder as I type this, and just said, "And if we run out of toilet paper, we can just start wiping our asses with bread."

Then she walked out of the room.

A few seconds later, she walked back in to say, "But we might get a yeast infection."

10 comments:

  1. If you are serious about wanting to coupon you should look at www.hip2save.com and www.krazycouponlady.com. They are awesome frugal websites that have saved me a TON of money.

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  2. Thanks! I've found KrazyCouponLady, but didn't know about the other.

    I was planning to go to a couponing seminar (I know!) this evening, but Peeper's got herself a little cold, and I don't think I want to leave her for 3.5 hours.

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  3. I am so with you on emptying the old BM from the freezer. I haven't pumped since December and unless she gets it directly from momma, she has no interest in it otherwise!

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  4. If the bread is less than stellar after being frozen, just pop it in the toaster; it will still make great toast.

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  5. i nearly peed my pants at the suggestion of using the bread instead of toilet paper!!

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  6. I have to say my wife has really whipped the pantry into shape. YOu've no idea. Wow!

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  7. I've had to throw out old BM too, and no matter the fact that it's expired and yadda yadda, it still makes my heart skip a sad little beat. It's just so much work to collect!

    But congrats on the pantry organizations and the shopping prowess.

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  8. LadyKay - We always toast it anyway, even for the PBJs.

    And, this tossing-of-the-breastmilk was not nearly as bad as the first round, because then: a> It hurt like hell to pump it! and b> I thought she was going to take it at some point.

    This time, the pumping was pain-free and I knew from the beginning that it was probably not going to get used - by the time I was pumping for surgery, she'd pretty much made it clear that there would be no bottles happening.

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  9. Also, this was about a quart - versus the GALLON that I threw out before.

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  10. That's halarious! I love the yeast infection comment. You could sell that one to a comedian and make a million I'm sure. Hey, just wanted to congradulate you on the bieng in the Top 5 Technorati Family blogs. That's awesome!!!

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