My slow quiet day at home turned into a busy day of being gone. Don't you love it when than happens? It does however bring me to another way of saving money - Freezer Cooking! Now I imagine that many people are imagining yucky casseroles or boring frozen meals. We are having Brunswick Stew tonight. I took this out of the freezer this morning. It simply needs reheating. While I am doing that I will make some grilled cheese and we will have a nice, quick, cheap meal. Another option would have been a pizza that I made for the freezer.
Homemade frozen meals can be a budget saver on the days when life is too hectic to cook and you do not want to resort to the drive through. One of my favorite sites for freezer cooking information is 30 Day Gourmet. It offers bunches of free recipes for freezer meals that even my picky DH enjoys. Here is a link to the archived issues of the free newsletter. This goes way beyond casseroles.
Also consider making mealtime a bit easier. If you do not want to freeze the entire meal, cook and freeze parts of it. We eat brown rice, which takes 40 minutes to cook. That 40 minutes is for two servings or the entire bag. I good the whole bag at once, saving energy I might have used to cook four separate times. I package it in meal sized portions and pop it into the freezer. When I need brown rice, I simply thaw and serve. I have done this with pasta by simply undercooking it before freezing so it does not turn to mush when reheated.
Did you have a little leftover taco meat? Freeze it! I mix the leftovers which are not enough for a meal on their own with some black beans (also homecooked and frozen) to make beef and bean chimichangas. This keeps food waste to a minimum.
If you are making a meal your family enjoys, just double the recipe and freeze the second half. Do a test run of any new meals. You do not want 10 meals worth of chicken Parmesan only to discover that your family hates it. As much as possible I use freezer containers rather than freezer bags cutting out a bit more cost. I prefer making my own frozen meals. I know exactly what ingredients when into the dish, and I can control the amount of salt.
Say "NO" to fast food once a week and serve your own homemade fast food!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Month of Savings - Day 1
In order to encourage myself to do better with blogging this month, I am doing a month of savings. I am going to share 31 money smart ideas. Some most people already do, but I hope to come up with a few creative ideas.
When giving a gift consider if your recipient would be happy with a used or refurbished gift especially with dvds, video games, or electronics. This might be a bit drastic for some, but in my family it goes over well. I do ask in advance. For example I drew my cousin's dh's name for Christmas, and he wanted DVDs. I told him I could get him one new one or four used ones. He opted for four previously viewed ones. My teenage cousin wanted an MP3 player one year. I got him a refurbished iPod for less than a plain MP3 player. He was thrilled to have an iPod. Only the package gave away that it was refurbished. A couple of Christmases later he upgraded to a bigger iPod and picked out another refurbished one as he could get more for his money that way. My niece and nephew both got refurbished MP3 players for Christmas. As posted earlier my Dh got 3 used video games and a used dvd. I could have purchased one of the video games new and have more in it than the four items he got. I also know that it will take him about a week to "beat" each game and he will be done with them.
Buying this way has allowed me to give more without blowing my budget. Shop around to get the best deal. Apple has a section for refurbished products. See it under "Special Deals" toward the bottom lefthand side of the page. Amazon and Ebay are also great places to find used DVDs and video games. I know this is not for everyone as many people would be insulted by a "used" gift. Choose your recipients well, and this could be a money saving idea that works for you.
When giving a gift consider if your recipient would be happy with a used or refurbished gift especially with dvds, video games, or electronics. This might be a bit drastic for some, but in my family it goes over well. I do ask in advance. For example I drew my cousin's dh's name for Christmas, and he wanted DVDs. I told him I could get him one new one or four used ones. He opted for four previously viewed ones. My teenage cousin wanted an MP3 player one year. I got him a refurbished iPod for less than a plain MP3 player. He was thrilled to have an iPod. Only the package gave away that it was refurbished. A couple of Christmases later he upgraded to a bigger iPod and picked out another refurbished one as he could get more for his money that way. My niece and nephew both got refurbished MP3 players for Christmas. As posted earlier my Dh got 3 used video games and a used dvd. I could have purchased one of the video games new and have more in it than the four items he got. I also know that it will take him about a week to "beat" each game and he will be done with them.
Buying this way has allowed me to give more without blowing my budget. Shop around to get the best deal. Apple has a section for refurbished products. See it under "Special Deals" toward the bottom lefthand side of the page. Amazon and Ebay are also great places to find used DVDs and video games. I know this is not for everyone as many people would be insulted by a "used" gift. Choose your recipients well, and this could be a money saving idea that works for you.
Birthday Party
I do not have all of my receipts handy, but I did spend all of my $200 grocery budget for February. The last of it went to DH's birthday dinner which was last night. I took a bit of money out of entertainment to cover the rest of the meal. I fed 8 adults and two children in our teeny, tiny house. My MIL provided the ham, and I spent about $25 on the rest. The rest of the meal included:
potato salad (potatoes bought on sale about 2 weeks ago)
salad (on sale last week)
macaroni & cheese (cheese on sale last week)
butterbeans (from freezer)
squash (from freezer)
homemade rolls
chocolate mousse
angel food cake with fresh strawberries and real whipped cream
I would have done the ham since that was on sale last week also, but my MIL insisted. Dh took the leftover ham to work and a coworker bought bread. They all had lunch. My parents ate leftovers with me after church. I am cooking some chicken to go with the remainders of the leftovers for tonight's meal. Whew! We ended up feeding quite a bit of people. That was much better than the cost of a meal out for all of us last night.
Dh's gifts from me were all used video games from his wish list along with a used James Bond movie. The first thing he asked was did I pay more for the games than he would have. Of course, I told him no which was the truth. It is nice to have a frugal minded (most of the time) husband!
potato salad (potatoes bought on sale about 2 weeks ago)
salad (on sale last week)
macaroni & cheese (cheese on sale last week)
butterbeans (from freezer)
squash (from freezer)
homemade rolls
chocolate mousse
angel food cake with fresh strawberries and real whipped cream
I would have done the ham since that was on sale last week also, but my MIL insisted. Dh took the leftover ham to work and a coworker bought bread. They all had lunch. My parents ate leftovers with me after church. I am cooking some chicken to go with the remainders of the leftovers for tonight's meal. Whew! We ended up feeding quite a bit of people. That was much better than the cost of a meal out for all of us last night.
Dh's gifts from me were all used video games from his wish list along with a used James Bond movie. The first thing he asked was did I pay more for the games than he would have. Of course, I told him no which was the truth. It is nice to have a frugal minded (most of the time) husband!
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Busy, Busy & Money Saving Meals
No pictures since my camera batteries are dead. I have to remember to put good rechargeable batteries on my shopping list. I finished up working on Monday except for a few hours of paperwork that I will go in and complete next week. I had good intentions of staying home all week. The lure of the sales at CVS and the need for cat food got me out of the house Tuesday. I thought I could last longer without shopping. I was able to take advantage of most of the CVS sales and ended up with $11 more in extra bucks than when I went in.
Yesterday was some early spring cleaning. My house is in sad shape and needs a good thorough cleaning. I started in the bath and laundry rooms. I hope to finish each area within a week. If not I will just work until everything is marked off the list and then move on to the next room. Tomorrow's main to-do is to clean the cabinets in the bathroom and the pantry area in the laundry room. I can restock the bathroom from my stockpile and get a good idea of what I have in smaller pantry.
Today was plenty of cooking. I made a reasonably priced pot of Brunswick stew. The pork was free thanks to my dad who killed a hog at the end of last year. I had $4 in chicken breasts, $4 in vegetables, cheap ketchup and barbecue sauce at about $2, and free Worcestershire sauce. I will say I had $10 in the entire pot, and I got 8 meals out of it. I think $1.25 is reasonable for a meal for two with probably one serving of leftovers. I packed it in reusable freezer containers.
My second big cooking today was pizzas. I made six to put in the freezer. I did the dough in my bread machines and par-baked it. I added cheese ($10), turkey pepperoni ($3), ground deer ($0), mushrooms ($1.50), piece of onion found at the bottom of the fridge, half a can of crushed pineapple ($.50), part of a bell pepper ($.50), and a large can of olives which we chopped ourselves ($1). I used about a bag of flour ($5). The rest of the dough ingredients including the yeast were minimal so I am not going to try to figure out the cost of those. Let's round up to $24 for the total cost; that is only $4 per pizza. Keep in mind I live out in the country so delivery pizza is not an option. The closest pizza place is about 10 minutes away and a pizza the size of the ones I made is $15 and loaded with grease. I can cook these frozen pizzas in about 20-30 minutes. I was able to use healthier ingredients. Give homemade frozen pizzas a try. The trick is to put the cheese on the crust first and add sauce sparingly.
I admit DH did pick up sandwiches on the way home as I was sick of both pizza and Brunswick stew and too tired to cook anything else. We did get two meals out of the sandwiches and ate chips plus drinks here at home. I saved some of the chicken and chicken stock from what I cooked for the stew. We will have chicken and noodles (found a piece of a pack of those in the fridge too) tomorrow night for supper.
Today's cooking took pretty much the entire day but I have 14 meals for the coming weeks. Both are things we really like so I have no doubt that we will eat all of them.
Yesterday was some early spring cleaning. My house is in sad shape and needs a good thorough cleaning. I started in the bath and laundry rooms. I hope to finish each area within a week. If not I will just work until everything is marked off the list and then move on to the next room. Tomorrow's main to-do is to clean the cabinets in the bathroom and the pantry area in the laundry room. I can restock the bathroom from my stockpile and get a good idea of what I have in smaller pantry.
Today was plenty of cooking. I made a reasonably priced pot of Brunswick stew. The pork was free thanks to my dad who killed a hog at the end of last year. I had $4 in chicken breasts, $4 in vegetables, cheap ketchup and barbecue sauce at about $2, and free Worcestershire sauce. I will say I had $10 in the entire pot, and I got 8 meals out of it. I think $1.25 is reasonable for a meal for two with probably one serving of leftovers. I packed it in reusable freezer containers.
My second big cooking today was pizzas. I made six to put in the freezer. I did the dough in my bread machines and par-baked it. I added cheese ($10), turkey pepperoni ($3), ground deer ($0), mushrooms ($1.50), piece of onion found at the bottom of the fridge, half a can of crushed pineapple ($.50), part of a bell pepper ($.50), and a large can of olives which we chopped ourselves ($1). I used about a bag of flour ($5). The rest of the dough ingredients including the yeast were minimal so I am not going to try to figure out the cost of those. Let's round up to $24 for the total cost; that is only $4 per pizza. Keep in mind I live out in the country so delivery pizza is not an option. The closest pizza place is about 10 minutes away and a pizza the size of the ones I made is $15 and loaded with grease. I can cook these frozen pizzas in about 20-30 minutes. I was able to use healthier ingredients. Give homemade frozen pizzas a try. The trick is to put the cheese on the crust first and add sauce sparingly.
I admit DH did pick up sandwiches on the way home as I was sick of both pizza and Brunswick stew and too tired to cook anything else. We did get two meals out of the sandwiches and ate chips plus drinks here at home. I saved some of the chicken and chicken stock from what I cooked for the stew. We will have chicken and noodles (found a piece of a pack of those in the fridge too) tomorrow night for supper.
Today's cooking took pretty much the entire day but I have 14 meals for the coming weeks. Both are things we really like so I have no doubt that we will eat all of them.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Adorable Baby Pictures and a Couple of Camera Hogs
Just to prove that I really do live in the country, here are some cute farm baby photos. The goats have started to have their little ones.
First up is Daisy, who is a pygmy goat.
Here she is with her mom, Bluebell.
Next is Snowbaby, who has triplets.
Her three are fond of playing follow the leader.
Here are the camera hogs. Rhett is the larger of the two, and he is a big pet. Stormy is proud papa of all of these little ones. He bites...hard. It is more of a nibble really, but when he sneaks up and bites you on the leg, it is not fun! I never could get a good picture of them. When I would step back, they would step forward.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Excuses, Excuses
I have two excuses, er...reasons, for my absence from my blog. This is first is my crazy DSL connection, which has been going in and out at random. It has been more out than in though. I have my toes crossed that this goes through. I need my fingers to type or they would be crossed too.
My second excuse, which is definitely an excuse, is this.............
It is the Nintendo DS Lite that I won from Red Baron's instant win game last November. The UPS driver dropped it off last week. It was just the game system, but I had bought a $10 game from Amazon at Thanksgiving and a skin from FatHead ($5 for this one plus one for Dh's PSP). I really, really love it. While I might not have seen myself paying $130 for one, I can tell that it is completely worth it. This thing is fun and addictive. I am searching for good deals on some more games. Fortunately this Touchmaster game has 20+ mini games on it and was well worth the money.
To make the win even more fantastic, the DS Lite is cobalt blue. Dh and I looked at the DS Lites in Wal-mart, and I told him I really wished for a blue one. Receiving one was dumb luck since I had no choice of color.
The instant win games done by major companies are legitimate, and the prizes do arrive. Patience is required as I waited nine weeks. My next big prize should be here in a month.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Shopping Adventure
After work I ran errands and picked up the weekly sale items. It was more hectic and stressful than it should have been. I was told at one of my favorite regional stores that coupons were no longer being doubled. Turns out the cashier was just improvising although I had to call the store's customer service number to find that out. The store is still doubling. Then I was almost in a car accident in another store's parking lot. Someone was cutting across the parking lot rather than driving down the appropriate lanes, which is another major pet peeve thing that I am obsessive/compulsive about. Honestly her SUV was inches from my car. It was a relief to get home.
My first stop was Walgreens. Using my gift card, I purchased the Right Guard deodorant that is giving a $5 register reward (RR) first. This is the deodorant that DH perfers so I buy it when it is on sale. I used the $5RR and my gift card to purchase the other items. I bought multi-purpose solution, Zucol lozenges, Revlon lipgloss and concealer, Thermacare patch, Contour meter (I have low blood sugar and like to test occasionally), and Garnier spray. My total was covered by the gift card. I will get 90 cents more than I paid when I submit for the rebates. The deodorant and meter were the only items not part of the February rebate. I only paid tax for the meter as I had a coupon.
Next I went to the grocery store where I had a problem with my coupons. I did not purchase the items since I was buying them due to having coupons that would double. I went to the same store only a different location and used one coupon to purchase mustard. It doubled so I knew the first store was incorrect. Hopefully the district manager will be able to get the cashier's trained on coupons. I am not one to call and complain, but I have had problems for months at this store and enough is enough. Total OOP was $1.04.
Next was Walmart. These were items that I had coupons for or the smaller store I went to last week did not carry. I bought mini corn on the cob, SeaPak poppers, ham slices, coffee creamer, Johnson's Buddies soap, Kashi bars, and imitation vanilla. The vanilla is for my warm milk at night. I just needed something cheap to give it a touch of flavor. My total was $10.43.
Last stop was Dollar General for canned soup and boxed mac & cheese. The Kraft mac & cheese is my stress food. I was certainly stressed so that was my lunch. Total OOP: 2.63.
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