Baseball Season = Baseball Cleaning

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By definition, baseball season involves a lot of dirt.  Since it took me a while to learn how to deal with this, I thought I’d share.

First, get a boot/shoe dryer (DryGuy Wide Body Boot and Glove Dryer).  This will not get rid of actual dirt, but it will dry out their cleats and substantially reduce stink buildup.  Note, this is true for any kids footwear.  Our dryers are in use year round.

Second, buy baseball pants.  Baseball pants are relatively cheap for their durability, especially the elastic waistband ones.  And, the grass stains come out of them better than general purpose athletic pants.

Third, find OxiClean gel sticks.  Oxi Clean liquid is pretty easy to find; the gel sticks less so.  Target should have them; your grocery store might.  If you can find a coupon that helps as, in my experience, they almost never go on sale.

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Fourth, liberally pretreat the pants.  I do this right before I put them in and start the machine.  I don’t think there’s a need to catch the stain early or let the product soak in for a great length of time.

Fifth, add the OxiClean liquid to your machine and run it.  BEFORE transferring to the dryer check to see if the stain is gone.  If it is proceed to dry.  If not, hang up the pants to air dry.  This will prevent the stain from setting.  Wear the pants for another game (where they will inevitably get further stained) and repeat the process.  The second pass should clear up the original stain.

Note, OxiClean doesn’t pay me to advertise for them.  I’ve just found their product to be much more effective for this type of stain than Resolve/Spray ‘n Wash.  Personally, I find Resolve does better with most stains – like food.  But, OxiClean does better with dirt and grass.

Back in the Saddle Again

Apologies for disappearing for so long.  It has been a hectic few months.  New baby, buy a new house (make that build which is fun but exponentially more complicated), sell current house, and keep track of normal life are a lot of tasks to do simultaneously.  Specifically, selling our current house occupied an extra hour a day getting ready for showings & open houses so there went my blogging time!

But, I did keep up with the grocery picture taking and receipt tracking.  We did continue doing stuff.  And, now I have new topics to blog about.  Over the next few months I’ll get us all caught up on how our grocery spending went and I’ll use some of our activities as inspiration for new posts.  I’ll also write up some of the things I’ve learned about building and selling houses, as well as moving, to hopefully help someone else.

Thankfully, we’ve entered baseball season on the heals of getting our house sold.  I’m not sure I could have added another super time consuming task to the list.

Here’s the hat display for this year.  I’ve written about the hecticness of the schedule before.  This year we’ve got 4 kids involved for a total of 3 baseball teams plus 2 soccer teams.  That gives us 13 baseball events plus 4 soccer events each week, including 9 each Saturday.

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We did get the Dodgers again.  But instead of a California theme we have royal blue.

Grocery Update

I guess I was making up for last week with (only) two rather large shopping trips this week.

On Wednesday, I went to Wegman’s.  I’m disappointed that bread crumbs are now in pouches.  Thankfully, I hadn’t run out yet so I still have the canister from a previous purchase that I will dump these in to.

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On Thursday, I went to Stop & Shop.  (Sorry for the extra low light in this picture.)  Taco shells, bread, chicken nuggets, and grapes were on sale.

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April Grocery Review

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This was very welcome after a couple of higher months!  We were still eating out a bit with the house on the market, but not nearly as much as we had been.

  • April TOTAL: $
    • Stop & Shop: $823.80
    • Wegman’s: $240.67
    • BJs: $145.69
    • Other: $210.11
      • Local: $37.81
      • Star Market: $129.71
      • Trader Joe’s: $17.12
      • Target: $25.47
      • Other: $0

I only stopped for groceries once this week: Wegman’s, on Monday.  I got my free pastry (in the bag).

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Grocery Update

This week I went to Wegman’s on Tuesday.  It was a pretty big visit.

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On Saturday, I picked up a few items at the farm stand.

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Then, on Sunday I made a small trip to Stop & Shop.  I didn’t get to take a picture of all the groceries before we stared cooking, but here are a few.  We were making Carne Asada.

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Grocery Update

After a full week, I only made two grocery stops this week.

On Tuesday, I went to BJs.  I don’t usually go twice this close together, but I had an appointment nearby so I decided to stop in.  The grapes and apples are for soccer snacks.

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On Thursday I went to Stop & Shop.  The bananas are also for soccer snacks.  (We’re on duty for two games this week.)

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Grocery Update

This was a restocking week.  On Monday I went to Wegman’s.  This was the first time we tried their grape juice and pasta sauce.  We quite liked the pasta sauce, but the grape juice was only ok.  I might buy it again if I’m otherwise out, but I’m going to stick with Welch’s.

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On Tuesday I went to Shaw’s.

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I also went to Stop & Shop.  Pasta was on sale.  The bread was in seconds, but I’ll use it for French Toast sometime.

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Finally, on Thursday I went to BJs.  We’re not really winding down for the move just yet.

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March Grocery Review

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This week was not overwhelming in the grocery department.

On Tuesday I went to Stop & Shop.  I think you can spot the post Easter sale items!

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Then on Thursday I sent to Wegman’s.  Turns out these protein bars were a fail – too gummy.  I tried Wegman’s brand white grape juice since they didn’t have Welch’s.  It was ok, but we’ll go back to Welch’s, purchased elsewhere.  The other items are common for us.

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This is the last month where we have a significant number of family dinners for a while.  Soccer kicks off next month, and then baseball in May.  They’ll occupy our evenings, except for a short respite in late June, until mid-August.

That being said, it was a nice, low month.  I’m starting to try to eat through the fridge/freezer in preparation for moving.  And, I did well on meat with the Easter sales.  In a turn of events, I only went to Stop & Shop once all month, but it was a large bill.

March TOTAL: $843.53

  • Stop & Shop: $143.52
  • Wegman’s: $311.88
  • BJs: $251.61
  • Other: $136.52
    • Local: $10.84
    • Star Market: $107.18
    • Trader Joe’s: $13.84
    • Target: $4.66
    • Other: $0

Grocery Update

After a few weeks without pictures, I was able to get them done again.  In the early weeks of the house being on the market, nothing could be left out even for a short while least someone call for a showing.

I went to Wegman’s on Tuesday.  I got mostly odds and ends, with a few extras like fancy cheeses and crackers.

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The weather was nice enough that we decided to grill Saturday, so I went to Wegman’s again for meat.  I picked up that week’s milk and a fairly hefty dose of produce.

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February Grocery Review

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This month we’re starting to balance out after a few higher than normal months.  I did less stocking up, but also was able to take greater advantages of sales, particularly on meats.  One week I was able to get very close to 50% off, including a free package of cheddar cheese slices.

  • February TOTAL: $861.28
    • Stop & Shop: $227.36
    • Wegman’s: $296.21
    • BJs: $238.55
    • Other: $99.16
      • Local: $32.13
      • Star Market: $51.90
      • Trader Joe’s: $15.13
      • Target: $0
      • Other: $0

And in the spirit of continuing the budget friendly trend in March, I did no grocery shopping last week!