I cannot tell you how happy I am that Andrea introduced me to Ebates! Now every time I shop online I click through Ebates first to find coupons and get cash back on my purchases.  I don’t buy a lot of stuff online, but getting even a little cash back is awesome!

This week is Frugal Fashion week at Ebates and they are increasing the cash back at many great stores, including 15% cash back at Gap. Most of the summer items are on sale so if you live in a warm climate this is a great time to find some deals, while the rest of us buy fleece hoodies and socks!

And if you are like me and would love to win some shopping money you can enter the Ebates and BlogFrog Fashion Photo Contest. It is super easy to enter, just upload a photo of yourself in your most stylish outfit (in the Frugal Living Community) to be entered to win. (So far only 8 people have entered so your chances of winning are pretty good!)

The winner gets a $500 shopping spree! I can’t win, so I want one of my readers to get the big prize! I know I have some super stylish readers who shop the discount and thrift stores so this is your chance to show the Frugal Living community that discount fashion rocks!

The contest ends September 23, 2010.

Last month I challenged myself to cut my grocery bill by 10%. The reason for the reduction was to give our family extra money for stockpiling. I ended up cutting almost 20% from our bill, but part of that was because we all got sick and no one made it to the store!

As promised, here are some simple tips to help trim your grocery bill each month.

Match Sales with Coupons

Ten years ago this was a lot of work! But today, with so many blogs doing grocery store match-ups and coupons there is no reason you can’t get things for free or nearly free at your local store. This tip requires some strategic shopping and usually involves shopping at several stores to get the super deals, but if you have the time it is worth it! If you are a true coupon newbie, check out the Getting Started with Coupons Discussion in the Frugal Living Community.

Menu Plan

A simple menu plan will save you hundreds of dollars a year on groceries. Even if you don’t like structure, you can create a menu list for each week. You don’t have to assign meals to specific days, but rather come up with 5 meals you want to make that week. Make sure you have the ingredients for those meals before the week begins. You can wait until the night before to decide your dinner by looking at your menu list. You know what they say, “Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.”

Cut the Meat

Did you know that the USDA Food pyramid only recommends 2 -3 servings of Meat, Poultry, Fish, Dry Beans, Eggs, and Nuts a day? A serving size of meat is 2-3 ounces! Given those guidelines a pound of beef could easily feed a family of five. Consider substituting beans for meat or using beans to stretch the meat in two to three meals a week. Beans are cheap, healthy, and taste great if you make them correctly. Meat is expensive and is harder to find on sale. By reducing your meat you can reduce your grocery bill.

Buy Generic

Many, many years ago my husband worked in the produce department at a grocery store. This store sold two brands of milk, one was a “name brand” and the other was a store brand. People would pay $1 more a gallon because they believed the name brand tasted better. My husband learned that both brands were made and bottled at the same factory! It was the exact same milk! If you can’t get a deal on name brand items consider switching to generic. Most of the time these items are just as good, they just don’t spend millions of dollars in advertising so their price is lower.

Take a Calculator to the Grocery Store

Think you are getting a great deal? Get out your calculator and make sure. Many times a certain size item is on sale and has a coupon, but there might be a similar item in a different size without a coupon. You can only know which is cheaper by finding out the cost per ounce. While this is usually on the shelf, if you have a coupon this changes the equation. Before you buy, do the math.

Coming up next week: 5 Simple Ways to Menu Plan

This post is linked to Frugal Friday.

The start of school is right around the corner. There might not be time to plan a vacation, but you can celebrate back to school with a stay-cation! This was one of our favorite things to do when we lived in our last house. My kids would get out the tent and sleeping bags and have a camping trip in the backyard!

Many times we would roast marshmallows or hot dogs over the fire pit and the kids would stay up late gazing at the stars or reading by flashlight. I thought it would be fun to do this again to help “kick-off” the school year and when Coleman asked if I wanted to try out some of their camping gear I happily agreed!

I have to say that I LOVE Coleman gear. Their tents are super easy to set up and can stand up to the rigors of lots of kids. Also, they are sold at Target (my favorite store) and right about now all camping gear goes on clearance! When we first started camping I would go to Target every few days to see what I could find on clearance. Last year I scored a two burner propane stove for under $15!

What happens when you get your kids all excited about a stay-cation and then you have rain for the entire week? You move the campsite indoors! Now I realize this isn’t something everyone can do, but if you get creative I bet you can think of a fun way to have a camp out either in the back yard or the living room.

To begin, serve a camping type meal like hot dogs or hamburgers on the grill and get all the ingredients for s’mores! Cora loves s’mores almost as much as she loves her beans.

Anyway- back to our rainy day camp out. What we would have done, had it not rained for 3 days straight would be to set up the tent in the back yard, grill out dinner, and then bring on the s’mores! But since we had weather issues, my 14 year old helped me set up the tent in the living room. Can we say thank goodness for tall ceilings and 14 year old boys?!?!

I want to add a little something. We have camped away from home in the rain and it is kind of fun. The rain hitting the tent, the dark skies in the morning… but since my yard doubles as a swamp and I didn’t want to lay awake all night thinking we would get washed away, we moved the campsite indoors.

We ate dinner, set up the tent, and the kids were begging to “go to bed” by 6:30 pm! They couldn’t wait to set up their little sections of the tent. Sleeping bags, pillows, blankies, stuffed animals, lanterns, and enough books to open a library were brought into the tent.

Every time I make a small effort to do something like this I always think- why don’t we do this more often? It costs nothing, and the kids had as much fun as they do when we spend big bucks on an outing.

The kids stayed up waaaay too late reading, telling stories, giggling and having a wonderful time. In fact the tent in the living room was such a hit we kept it up for a while!

While camping out in the living room was not my planned stay-cation it was a fun one! I hope to do it again soon except maybe this time the weather will cooperate and we can set up outdoors.

One last thing, the quad lantern Coleman sent me is awesome! It looks like a lantern, but each section is removable to give you four separate lights! Perfect when you have lots of littles in the tent!

In case you want to get started with some camping gear, Coleman is running a giveaway to win your own backyard escape on their Facebook page. The prize is $5000 in cash and camping gear! I have to say camping is the most fun and cheap vacation and stay-cation for our family. It is relaxing and the kids play outside all day just being kids! There’s still time to make some final summer memories before school begins so consider a backyard or living room camp out, your kids will nominate you for mom of the year!

Happy camping!