Since November is around the corner (yikes!), it’s about that time of year that we start thinking about saving money for the holidays. I’ve been watching a lot of TLC’s Extreme Couponers lately, so I decided to go on my own little couponing voyage this morning. My goal was to only buy items that I could get with a coupon that the store would double. I didn’t want to pay more than 50% for anything! I went to two stores and walked away with some pretty sweet discounts.

I got two boxes of couscous, two boxes of pasta, a bottle of canola oil, tube of toothpaste, bottle of Febreeze, body wash, and hair conditioner–a retail value of $31.53 that I got for just $14.10! That means I saved an average of 56%! Not a huge haul but I say it’s pretty good for a beginner.

I even got this toothpaste completely FREE with my coupons.

In the interests of budgeting, I’ve also been trying to make meals with pantry ingredients and produce that I may have forgotten about. Today I still had some potatoes, green beans, and apples left from my last CSA box so I decided to make use of them in one meal.

Since I have an abundance of apples, I got a couple suggestions to do an apple and pork dish. We actually don’t eat pork frequently (I probably buy it once a month maybe), but it’s flavor goes so well with apples that I knew this would be a good move.

The sauce is an apple cider reduction with a little splash of cognac inside, and it gives the apples and onions an amazing caramelized flavor. This is such a delicious way to enjoy pork chops.

Do you like the new recipe tool? It will definitely make printing easier. I also finally finished updating my Recipage, which is where I’ll be saving my recipes from now on!

I hope you had a great weekend and are staying warm in this crazy weather (especially if you were effected by the snow storms!).

Thanks for reading!

-Lauren