Allergy and Asthma Awareness Month

May is National Asthma and Allergy awareness month ! There's a lot of people asking about Allergies;Food Allergies on Mamapedia and other places. It seems almost everyone has been touched by allergies/asthma somehow-I know when I was a kid I would get pollen induced allergies and if I ran around too much in the spring months I would even get an asthmatic wheeze. Luckily I've pretty much outgrown it. But now our lives have been touched by food allergies-Which isn't that much of a surprise since there's been an 18% increase of food allergies in US kids in the past 10 years.!

Although we didn't know it at the time ever since my son "DJ" was a newborn he showed symptoms of a milk allergy-diarrhea;blood in his stool-after we started using formula(since nursing wasn't going so well). You could imagine our panic and took him to the Dr. It was an interesting experience to collect enough of a stool sample-and keep it in our fridge!! Once we took it in to the Dr. and they couldn't figure anything out. It was only a passing statement by a nurse that he may be allergic that we tried different formula's and finally settled on the Hypo-Allergenic formula Nutramigen. He also had an allergy test at about 18mos. to confirm the diary allergy since then we've found using soy milk-the kind that's vitamin fortified and has calcium--etc. Silk works well for him. It is important to get an allergy test to confirm an allergy and the severity. Although my son's allergy is mild it can be difficult say for instance if we're at a birthday party we may worry is that icing dairy free? and no he can't have the icecream-etc.

So, my heart does go out to those dealing with food allergies! Even though luckily my son has a mild allergy and might even outgrow it; it's still difficult. And I know there are many concerns out there-like Celiac Disease. But, the good news is besides checking food labels, food companies have made increasingly clear allergy labels, and even coming out with more options; recently General Mill's has made their varieties of Chex cereal gluten free,and there are place's like CherryBrook Kitchen that specialize in Allergy-Free food products. There's also plenty of great resources for allergies/asthma 1 -I recommend is the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. And remember Allergy/Asthma Awareness Month!

Saving Money

In these tough economic times it seems everyone is trying to save money. There's a lot of questions about ways to save money on Mamapedia and other places.

I know for me ever since deciding to be a Stay at Home Mom a little over 3 yrs. ago we cut down costs -decreasing our cable bill and saved as much $ as we could-etc. So the economic trouble is like a double whammy! Although currently we're doing a little better thanks to a tax refund, and my husband getting a promotion/small raise. But, I'm sure like a lot of you out there we're caught in the middle class crunch. And even though I've read plenty of articles about saving money some advice just doesn't seem to apply-Once I read cut down or not take your annual vacation-to which I said HAHA! -What annual vacation?!!

So I hope this is good advice for those families like mine: One of the main cost concerns is food/groceries. And being in the middle class crunch we don't necessarily "qualify" for any assistance even though sometimes we all could use a little help-Right?! One thing we have found is the Angel Food service -where you can get a package of food at a discounted price and EVERYONE qualifies! (Check their website for more info. and see if it's available in your area.)
Another thing our family does is use a dry-erase board calendar where we write in our weekly menu before we go shopping. Of course there's also clipping coupons-Depending how much time you have you can save and clip coupons from your newspaper-etc.,the more you do the more you can save! There's also various websites you can get coupons -1 I recommend is Coupons.com. Again depending on the time you're able to spend comparing prices at different stores-etc.-You can always find good deals! If you're like me and just want to go to 1 store and be done with your shopping -Don't forget some stores like Wal-Mart do ad match prices. We've always been pretty devout Wal-Mart shoppers ever since we we're newlyweds and at the time we could utilize my husbands employee discount. :)
To close: Having a game plan by writing a menu,incorporating what we may get thru Angel Food and clipping coupons has really helped our grocery bill! Also as far as the weekly menu-Of course you can always go with the flow and switch things around. Or order pizza when you're just too busy too cook-Just be sure to be on the lookout for good discounts/deals when you do! ;)

P.S. For more money saving tips -Check out the previous post-Happy Earth Day!