Groups

I belong to. The first is the Babysitting Co Op. It is designed to help moms get things done without having their kids running around under foot.

So it works like this:

9 to 10 moms to fill 1 3 hour time slots from Monday to Friday, AM (9 to 12) or PM (12-3).

It might look something like this:

Mon AM - Cindy Crawford * Mon PM - Jennifer Garner
Tues AM - Kelly Rippa * Tues PM - Jennifer Lopez
Wed AM - Angelina Jolie * Wed PM - Katie Holmes
Thurs AM - Liv Tyler * Thurs PM - Halle Berry
Fri AM - Reese Witherspoon * Fri PM - Brooke Shields

Every mom starts out with 30 coupons each are worth 1 hour/child. You use these as "payment" anytime you need/want to use the Co Op. We are encouraged to use this for anything we desire, a nap, visiting teaching, an appointment, errands, quiet time and so on and so forth. It is very convenient and sometimes a life saver. I must say though I used it last year waaaaay more than I have this year. It only runs during the school months, from September to the end of June, and is usually put on hold during Stat or school holidays.

The other group I've joined is the Make Ahead Meals group. There are 10 or more of us and each person is to pick 1 main dish that is freezable and to make 10 of them. Then every 2nd Tuesday of the month we meet together and swap the freezer meals and should end up with 10 different meals to stick in our freezer. We figured that the budget should be between $75 and $100 to prepare 10 meals. And if you are under that then you could add a side dish that is freezable or to be put in the pantry. For this month I made Sloppy Joes and only came out to $47.97 so I ordered 10 dozen buns from our bakery up town and that still only brought me to $67.68 so I added a bag of Lays Potato chips, which made my total came out to $93.69. Wow, chips are not cheap uptown, too bad there wasn't a sale.
It was great, even though only 5 of us were able to attend this month, I got 3 lasagne's (2 people made this dish), 2 homemade Ultimate BBQ burgers w/buns, 1 Cheesy Italian Chicken, 1 Japanese Chicken and of course 3 of my Sloppy Joe meals. Not too sure what I'm going to make for next month maybe a chicken dish or soup?

I've also joined a Young Moms Book Club but haven't made it to any of their get togethers. Hopefully this month. I have read the book they've suggested, Twilight, haha. We will see.

So those are some of the groups I belong to. Maybe it will be something you'd like to start up where ever you live?