Monday Menus

Last week I didn't plan out a menu and I was struggling to come up with dinner some nights. I am forcing myself to figure it out right now, so I can save frustration later.

Monday - breakfast burritos and salad

Tuesday - tacos, applesauce

Wednesday - pork chops (if I can dig them out of the freezer), brown rice, salad

Thursday - mac n cheese (spaghetti for Emma), glazed carrots, peas

Friday - garlic lime chicken, cous cous, veggies

Saturday - pizza, carrots, green beans

Everyday frugality

It seems so much of frugal living is in the little choices we make every single day. Yes, you can save a lot of money by refinancing your mortgage or getting the lowest price on a new car - BUT we don't do those things very often. For every time we do something big, there are probably thousands of little choices we can make to live a frugal life or not.

The big choices are extremely important, but so are the little ones. The little things absolutely add up to big savings. Let's take a look at some examples.

Choosing to make dinner at home rather than going out will save me about $25 a pop. That includes the around $5 it costs for me to cook dinner and assumes we would go some place cheap to eat. (Panera Bread costs over $30 for us to go - drinking water only too) If we make the frugal choice once a week that will save us $1300 over the course of a year.

By staying home several days a week I save a few dollars in gas (not to mention I am more productive around here). Those few dollars add up to a couple of hundred dollars in a year. That is two weeks worth of groceries in savings

When I cut my husband's and son's hair I save at least $30 a time between the 3 of them. We do this about 10 times a year saving $300 a year.

Kevin packs a lunch every day for school rather than going out. This saves a minimum of $25 a week or around $1000 over the course of the school year.

These are just 4 examples of little things that save us big each year. There are so many more things that add up that can be hard to put a price on. Every week we hang laundry, reuse ziploc bags, make due with things we have on hand, cook from scratch, put the kids on the bus, combine errands, wear hand me downs, combine coupons with sales, and many more things. It is worth it! If we did not live a frugal lifestyle, I know that I would not be able to stay at home with the kids without going into debt. What little things do you do to save big?

*This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.

Homemade chicken broth

When I was first married my mom taught me how to make broth out of chicken bones. For years I would do it occasionally. I rarely cooked with broth, so I only made broth when I wanted to have chicken noodle soup. For the past couple of years though, as more and more recipes I make call for broth, I seek out every opportunity to make my own chicken broth. It is really very simple. And little did I know that my extremely frugal alternative was also extremely good for you. It turns out that bone broth is on of the best things for your health.

After I make a whole chicken I pull off all the meat we want and then throw everything into my crockpot (but it can also be done on the stove). All the skin, fat, bones and excess meat go in the pot. To that I add whatever veggie scraps I can find. For the broth I made last night I pulled out a bag of kale stems I had trimmed a couple of weeks ago when we had kale chips (they were in the freezer). I also added some fairly dry carrots, as well as onion skins and plenty of garlic cloves. I crushed some black pepper and added a few shakes of thyme. Once you get all your veggies in, fill it almost full with water and a couple of tablespoons of vinegar. The vinegar will leech the calcium from the bones making it that much more nutritious.
I let mine cook overnight on low. In the morning I had Kevin turn it off and remove the lid. By the time I was done eating breakfast it was cool enough to store. I simple strained it into some 2 cup containers and froze. Making your own chick broth requires very little hands on time and is almost free considering most of what I use is scraps that would otherwise be heading for the garbage. You really can't beat it.

So I need to know - do you make your own broth? What things do you add to it while it is cooking? How often do you make it?

*This post is linked to Works for me Wednesdays.

Eating real food & food allergies

Everything I read about real food talks about how wonderful milk and eggs are for you (among other things). Many books and blogs I have read also talk about just how bad margarine is for you. This is where I get discouraged. Emma is allergic to dairy and eggs, so not only can't she have the good for you stuff, but she is forced to eat the really bad for you stuff. Ugh! I am frustrated beyond belief.

When she has muffins for breakfast she wants margarine on them. She likes margarine on her baked potatoes. When I cook baked goods for the whole family I have to substitute margarine for real butter. Knowing that the margarine could very well cause her heart disease I am feeding it to her. I don't know of other substitutes that she could have. I can only limit the amount she does have. But I don't want to tell her that she can never have butter on her muffins, ya know?

I can get everyone else in my family to eat the healthy stuff, but when it comes to her not so much. I frequently wonder if she is deficient in areas. Does she get enough calcium? Does she get enough fat in her diet? Probably not, she is skinny as a rail (yet strong as an ox). She is extremely fit and has never had an ounce of fat on her - I believe because she can't eat a lot of fat. For awhile she couldn't even eat beef. Our bodies need fat in our diets (healthy fats found in butter, cream and eggs for example) to remain healthy. Yet she rarely gets any. I know I do the best I can and there isn't anything I can do to cure her food allergies. But it is very frustrating knowing I can't give her some of the healthiest stuff out there.

Information Overload

In my quest to get us eating healthier I have been reading a lot of books on the subject. I am also seeking out new blogs to read so I can learn as much as I can. The problem is I am getting overwhelmed. There is so much info out there and comparing myself and how we eat to other families that eat so much better than us hasn't helped me as much as I thought. Imagine that - it hasn't benefited us for me to compare our situation with others. How many times do I need to learn that lesson?

So for now, I am going to go into maintenance mode. What does that mean? It means I will just try to maintain the new things we have put into place for awhile and not try new things for a bit. I just need a break. It has been stressing me out to think of how much better we should be eating. I need to look at how far we have come and take some time to let the latest changes sink in before I keep trying new things. I want these changes to last our lifetime, not just a month or so. Taking it slow is hopefully going to help that.

Lest you think I have been perfect at eating healthy, today at the store I bought 4 boxes of brownie mix for $1.25 a box. I caved in a moment of weakness to the convenience of boxed mixes. It seems I am always having to bring a dessert or snack somewhere and having a cheap box mix to take is a convenience that is worth it to me. These 4 boxes will probably hang around for months before I use them all. BUT you won't see other real food bloggers out there buying boxed brownie mixes. I guess I figure brownies aren't healthy no matter how you look at it, so I'm not going to worry about those 4 boxes.

Know your price point

Frugal grocery shopping is like dodging land mines. The grocery store is out to get us to spend as much as they can, while we are trying to frugally dodge all the fluff and really just shop for the things at their lowest prices. There are so many tricks the grocery store plays it can seem impossible.

Something that helps me to keep my budget under control is to have a limit as to what I will pay for something. For instance my price point on pasta is $1 a box. I will not pay more than that, and will hopefully pay much less. I ran out of pasta (a huge shock) here a few weeks ago while waiting for a sale and hoping for coupons. A sale finally came, but I didn't have any coupons so I just got 5 boxes, enough to last us a couple of weeks. When a good coupon comes out I buy a lot of them and get dozens of boxes of pasta for free or very cheap.

By paying attention to prices and knowing in my head the most that I will pay I can avoid spending too much. By having a price point for what constitutes a great sale I can stock up when things are their rock bottom prices. Tuna for instance used to go on sale during Lent for $.25 a can. I would get enough to last the year. I haven't seen a sale like that in a long time, although I did recently get 10 cans for $.29 each. By having a price in your head for each item that you regularly use (it can be general like boxed cereal or specific like Heinz ketchup) then you can make the most of your grocery budget and never spend too much money.

*This post is linked to Frugal Fridays.

When do you get rid of the kid's things?

We have too much stuff. I know this, but I don't know what to do about it. The problem is the kids. Well, not them I guess, but their stuff. My kids go boy, girl, boy, girl. There are 4.5 years between my 2 boys and 4 years between the girls. So I am storing a wide age range of items, as well as stuff for both genders. I have 4 years worth of clothing for both the girls and the boys stored at any given time. It is overwhelming to say the least.

Books are the same. I have a wide range of ability levels when it comes to readers. I did get rid of all board books a couple of years ago. But Claire and Luke still like to be read picture books and Michael and Emma are fully into chapter books of all topics and age ranges. My younger 2 are learning to read, so I have a bunch of readers. It is just never ending. I have 9 full shelves of books that are stritcly for the kids. And we go to the library almost every week. I hate to get rid of books that Luke and Claire will one day read, ya know?

Toys are another huge issue. Their rooms are full, but each one doesn't have that much stuff if that makes sense. The girls room has dolls and the stuff that goes with it, a doll house and horse stuff. The dress up clothes for everyone are in there too. The boys have nerf guns, legos, lincoln logs, play mobile and knight stuff. Essentially 5 toys, but each toy set has so many pieces! And everything gets played with, all together. They create these huge set ups that include pieces from every set. So I hesitate to get rid of any one toy.

So, obviously I have issues holding me back from really getting rid of things. Help me make some decisions here. I am tired of having so much stuff around. How do you handle this issue? I know I need to purge, I just don't know where to begin. I don't like the idea of getting rid of something that is being use, or will be used. Help!