October #1 menu

Here's another 2 week menu plan! If anyone has some great ideas of what to serve with BLT pizza, comment please! I fail at side dishes, especially for pizza!

1. Egg stuffed baked potatoes, Greek yogurt bar
2. Chicken paillards, crusty french bread
3. BLT pizza
4. Baked oatmeal, banana bread, smoothies
5. Breaded garlic chicken, fettuccine, salad
6. Sweet and tangy chicken, rice, beans
7. White chicken chili, cornbread
8. Date night
9. Leftovers
10. Tuscan garlic herb pork chops, bean salad, crusty bready
11. Make your own pizza bar
12. Roasted garlic mac and cheese, roast asparagus
13. Sausage and potato skillet, smoothies, biscuits
14. Chicken noodle soup, rolls

Breakfast foods

• Scrambled eggs and toast
• Granola
• Oatmeal
• Pancakes/waffles
• Yogurt parfaits
• Cinnamon rolls
• Smoothies
• Biscuits
• Popovers
• Muffins
• Pumpkin bread

Snacks

• Popcorn
• Graham crackers
• Yogurt
• String cheese
• Fruit/veggies
• Roasted chickpeas
• Cinnamon chips
• Apple nachos 

Treats

• Raspberry white chocolate chip cookies
• Slow cooker ooey gooey chocolate pudding cake
• Homemade doughnuts

Money tips: Clothes!!!!

I have a really small clothing budget for my family of six: $25/month for all of us, and that includes socks, underwear, shoes, coats, everything. Jason and I don't buy clothes for ourselves very often, and when we do, it's usually with a gift card from a birthday or Christmas. 

BUT it's really important for me that my kids feel well-dressed. (I like to feel well-dressed, too, but when I don't, it's more because of my lack of fashion sense than my lack of clothing funds.) Luckily, I have been able to dress my kids in super cute clothes on my monthly budget. I know they're still young, but it's working out so far!

• Biggest money-saving tip here: buy out of season! I buy all of my kids clothes when they go on clearance at the end of the season. Last year I got a ton of gloves, mittens, and snow hats for 25 cents each from Walmart! I usually try to get all of their school clothes bought in April/May when things are going on sale. I keep them in a closet until fall, and then pull them out and my kids are super excited to have new clothes!

This year's school wardrobe, bought on clearance over the past 6 months--tons of tights and leggings (in the bin), dark wash jeans, patterned jeans, a bunch of sweaters and long sleeved shirts, and three pairs of sneakers for $7 or less each :)

• Know your price points. What do you want to pay for a pair of jeans? For my kids, it's $8 or under. I know I can get them this low on clearance (usually at Target or Crazy 8), so I wait until I see them at this price and then I stock up.
• Gifts, gifts gifts: I always tell grandparents to get my kids clothes for gifts! Luckily my girls are clothes horses and love receiving clothes. I also always give my girls socks, underwear, and tights as one of their Christmas gifts. They might be boring, but they need them, so they might as well rip some wrapping paper off.
• Take care of what you have. I don't think you need to pay top dollar for kids clothes that they will outgrow quickly (I once did a very scientific study where I asked all my friends how much they spent on kids' jeans and how long they lasted. Guess what? Even the expensive jeans had to be replaced after just one year) BUT you can take care of what you have and make it last longer. Get proficient at stain removal (the Great Value laundry spray at Walmart works fine for me!) and basic mending skills.
• Get creative. I never buy my girls shorts, because by the end of the school year most of their pants have holes in the knees so I just cut them off at the hole and hem them into shorts. You can do the same thing with jersey leggings, and you don't even have to hem them. Those are great to wear under skirts without built in shorts! Once Helena cut a hole the belly of a brand new shirt, so I made it into a simple tshirt dress with a cute twirly skirt. 
• Watch sales and specials at your favorite stores. For me, that's Target, Crazy 8, H&M, and The Children's Place. I buy all my kids clothes at those 4 stores, and never pay full price. Ever. Crazy 8 especially has awesome sales pretty much all the time.
• Embrace your kids' own crazy style. The great thing about kids fashion is that pretty much everything looks awesome together. Stripes and polka dots? Great. High top sneakers and a tutu? Okie doke. Let them have fun dressing!!

Money Tips: utilizing your groceries

One important aspect of sticking to my grocery budget ($325/month for a family of five) is utilizing every part of my groceries. I don't want any of my groceries (or my money!) to go to waste. The best example I have of this is my homemade crockpot chicken broth. This is so easy, you'll never need to buy chicken broth again!
I never throw out the vegetable scraps when I'm prepping dinner. Celery stocks, onion scraps, asparagus ends, garlic bulbs, they all get tossed in a gallon size bag that I keep in the freezer for making broth. Then, when I make slow cooker roast chicken (bone in chicken pieces rubbed in olive oil and sprinkled with seasonings, cooked on low for 7ish hours), I save the bones and the broth that's left and add the vegetable scraps to the crockpot. I fill the rest of the way with water and add whatever herbs strike my fancy (oregano, rubbed sage, rosemary, garlic) and cook on low over night. In the morning, all I have to do is strain out the solids and freeze for later use. I fill muffin tins with the broth and then pop each 1/2 cup disk out and keep them in freezer bags. Then, whenever I need broth, I can just grab the amount I need out of the freezer!
Another thing I touched on in my grocery budget post was finding multiple uses for each (especially expensive) ingredients. If I need to buy blue cheese for hamburgers, I use it on salads, in mashed potatoes, or on crusty french bread slices with fig preserves (yummiest snack ever!) to make it worth the purchase and get my money's worth. With Pinterest, food blogs, and Google, it's really not that hard to find multiple recipes using similar ingredients!
Next up: clothes.

Sample meal plan :)

After my last post, I had quite a few requests for a sample two week meal plan. This works for our family of 5 (Pearl doesn't count, because she doesn't eat yet). Also, Jason packs a lunch (usually leftovers) and has snacks at work, which come out of our monthly grocery budget. During the school year, I pack lunches for the girls a few days a week and they buy lunch once or twice, too.

1. Hamburgers with bacon and blue cheese, corn on the cob, watermelon slushies
2. Grilled shrimp tostados, lime cilantro rice, Brazilian lemonade
3. BLT pizza: I used romaine lettuce instead of arugula because that's why my family likes.
4. Leftovers/oatmeal and toast
5. Roast chicken, twice baked potatoes, cornbread: I lucked out a year and a half ago at Walmart and found 10 lb bags of fresh chicken thighs and drumsticks for $1 each (they were expiring soon). I bought 4 bags (wish I had bought 10!) and threw them in my freezer. They're perfect for slow cooker roast chicken! I still have 15 lb left, too :)
6. Grilled chicken drumsticks, veggie skewers, watermelon slushies
7. Greek chicken, hummus, flatbread, lemon butter rice, lots of veggies: I marinate chicken in lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and oregano, then grill it and cut it into pieces and serve with lots of vegetables in flatbread.
8. Egg stuffed baked potatoes, crusty bread, smoothies, hash browns
9. Chicken salad wraps, chips, fruit
10. Deep dish pizza, salad with tomatoes and cucumber
11. Leftover/oatmeal and toast
12. Morgan's homecoming dinner at Jan's
13. Chick Fi La knockoff nuggets, oven fries, homemade lemonade
14. Homemade chili, corncakes, and tomato salad
15. Sweet and tangy chicken quesadillas, black beans and rice
16. Cool tomato basil soup, crusty french bread, salad

Breakfast

• Scrambled eggs and toast
• Egg in a hole
• Granola
• Oatmeal (quick cooking with brown sugar, honey, frozen mixed berries, craisins/raisins, etc)
• Pancakes/waffles
• Parfaits (yogurt and frozen fruit slightly thawed in the microwave)
• Smoothies
• Mixed berries with homemade meringues on top

Snacks

• Popcorn (air popped with either melted PB, or melted butter and cinnamon sugar, or melted butter and Italian spices + Parmesan cheese)
• Graham crackers and milk
• Crackers and PB or cheese
• Yogurt/frozen Gogurt
• String cheese
• Fruit/veggies
• Roasted chickpeas
• Hummus and pita chips
• Cinnamon chips

Treats

• Pioneer taffy
• Berry meringue mess
• Samoa brownies

Coming next in my Money Tips: Meal Planning series: a good example of utilizing your groceries to get the most bang for your buck!

Money tips: groceries!!

I am the money manager at our house and let me tell you, our budget is tight. It takes a lot of effort on my part to make it work, and I've accumulated a lot of tips on how to live well on a small budget. It is possible!

First up, grocery shopping. 

I've got a small budget here: $325/month. I just bumped it up from $300 because I kept going over, no matter what I did. I was at $300 for many years, though! 
First, some disclaimers:

• I don't coupon because I never see coupons for things that I actually buy: most seem to be for name brand, convenience items.
• I don't even bother price matching often because Walmart seems to always have the lowest price anywhere.
• I do all my grocery shopping at Walmart and no complaints from me. I feel like the produce is just fine (I've had worse luck with Costco produce, as far as freshness goes)

Now the tips:

• Limit your trips to the store. I shop twice a month, and that's it. If I run out of something before shopping day--oh well, we go without. My produce keeps just fine for two weeks. We usually eat up the produce that doesn't last as long the first week of my two-week menu, and then eat the heartier produce the second week (tomatoes, cucumbers, bananas, spinach, peaches, strawberries, etc first week; apples, carrots, oranges, Romaine lettuce, etc second week)
• MENU PLAN. I can't stress this enough. Do not go to the store without a plan. I plan out our dinners for two weeks (we always eat leftovers or oatmeal on Saturdays), plus breakfast and snack ideas, and a dessert for each weekend. When I make my menu, I think about what's in season, what's on sale, and what I already have at home. If I want to buy an ingredient that's more expensive than I normally spend, I try to find several recipes that will use it so it's worth the purchase.

• Take the time to prep foods the same day (or soon after) grocery shopping. I chop green onions and put them in the freezer, rinse strawberries in vinegar to make them last longer, things like that. If you let your food spoil because it wasn't properly stored or prepared, it's like throwing money away!
• Eat healthy food. My cart is probably 50% fresh fruits and veggies. I could probably save some money by cutting those out, but to me, it's important that we have lots of fresh produce.
• I make some kind of chicken almost every night. Really. Sorry, family, but it's cheapest, and I make it allllll the different ways, so it's not repetitive. 
• Go meatless a few times a week (pizza is good for this, or breakfast for dinner! I also like grilling a ton of different vegetables and serving it with poached eggs, shaved Parmesan cheese, toasted pecans, and crusty bread). Or use meat more sparingly and let veggies be the star of the 
• dish.
• We cut way back on milk and are down to a gallon a week--we drink it at breakfast and with treats, and that's pretty much it.
• Speaking of breakfast, I don't buy cereal. It's expensive, it's empty calories, and it's full of preservatives and junk. I do make homemade granola and we also have eggs and toast, quick cooking oatmeal with brown sugar and raisins, yogurt with frozen berries on top, things like that.
• Steer clear of convenience and processed items. Make that stuff from scratch if you have the time! You can make all kinds of stuff from scratch, trust me.
• Snack foods are a budget killer. Here, we snack on fresh fruits and veggies, yogurt (I splurge on Gogurts to freeze), roasted chickpeas, pita bread and hummus, air popped popcorn, smoothies, homemade tortilla chips, etc. I do usually keep a box of graham crackers around, too.
• Splurge on some things. Everyone needs a treat once in a while. I always have tons of baking supplies on hand to make goodies--chocolate chips, coconut, craisins, marshmallows, PB chips. That is one thing that I will always make room for in my budget! 

What do you do to save at the store?

mom's worst chore

I just did one of my most hated chores: made my two week menu and grocery list.

Feeding my family is so stressful!!

I don't mind the actual preparing of the food so much, but I really, really dislike planning the menu, making the grocery list, doing the shopping, unloading the groceries, and then putting them away. That's pretty much the whole process, isn't it?

We have a small grocery budget ($300/month) and I only go shopping twice a month, so I feel a lot of pressure to a) stick to the budget and b) make sure I have enough food in the house to last us two weeks. Getting ready for a shopping trip is a really long process, especially now that I have a Costco membership and I'm figuring out what to buy there and what to buy elsewhere.

So: how do you do it? What do you do that keeps your costs down and makes the process go more smoothly? Coupons, price matching, bulk stores, Bountiful Baskets, I wanna hear about it!