The girls wanted to give some to our church's Thanksgiving pantry, but they had spent all their allowance, before they saw the list of needs in Sunday's bulletin. So, I made a deal with them, that combined Math Monday (hosted by Joyful Learner), and Bible Alive! Tuesday (hosted by The Fantastic Five).I had received a coupon in the mail for $15.00 off our next shopping trip, if we spent over a certain amount. So, I gave the girls the coupon, and the sale ads, and told them they could have the coupon, when I went grocery shopping, but I wanted them to search the ads for the best buys, so they could get the most food for the amount (and hopefully, alert me to some sales on our own grocery items, too).
They spent quite a while checking the pantry need list from the bulletin, and searching through the ads, and our own stash of coupons. They compared the sale prices at the store we were heading to, with the other store ads, to make sure we were really selecting good sale items.Finally, we were off to the store. I picked up my normal grocery items, while A kept track of our running total on the calculator, to make sure we bought enough to validate the coupon, and G kept a written total of the pantry items, to make sure they stayed within the coupon amount.
In the end, they (with a little help from me - I mean really, you practically need a masters in mathematics to navigate the store sales these days) not only picked up an impressive pile of canned, and boxed goods for the pantry, but knocked $92.00 off of our total, in the process. And, for a final boost to the lesson, the cash register spit out $14.50 in cash off (with no strings attached) coupons, for our next shopping trip.
I had intended our Bible Alive! Tuesday lesson to be from James - you know, faith with works. But, as I looked at the cash back coupons, the cashier handed me, I realized God had provided us with an entirely different lesson.
Ecclesiastes 11:1 "Cast your bread (or cash back coupon) on the water (or into the food bank), for after many days (or sometimes sooner) you will find it again."
It's great to be a homeschooler.
9 comments:
I'm impressed at the amount you got off and their hard work.
I need to stock up on things for our food pantry expedition on Saturday. We're sorting items.
This is so unbelieveably awesome on so many levels! I can't wait until JC can do this too! Good work and God bless!
Great lesson in shopping for the best prices.
I just LOVE this! Your "interpretation" of Ecclesiastes 11:1 is PRICELESS!
Sounds like the girls need to plan out your shopping list for every shopping trip...
(You are raising kiddos to be concerned about their neighbors AND to be wise with the resources God has blessed you with- just love it!)
That is so awesome!! Great lesson. We had a "similar" experience on Sunday. We get those $10 off $50 dollars spent coupons for Safeway every month. We all went shopping and Rod didn't have a problem getting to the $50 dollar mark. We got the good deal on the turkey, so that was a big item price. The rest the boys and Rod filled in. (like egg nog, real apple cider, mandarin oranges, ice cream (had coupon for that), and so on. We bought stuff we usually don't buy, but I like to keep Rod happy sometimes!
Beautiful post...in all ways.
Wow! That is very impressive!
I think I have to work harder at saving money on groceries.
What a great skill to teach them. And I've got a stack of newspapers if you ever want to loan them out for coupon clipping. LOL
This lesson is perfect on so many levels and teaches many things at once.
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