Mom’s Money

Meals Planned For The Week? Best Laid Plans Foiled Again!

Time is money. Watching your money also involves watching your time. It makes sense, then, that saving time is saving money.  If you’ve already discovered that planning your meals ahead of time is saving you, not only time, but money, good for you!  But, have you found yourself, still, even with the best of plans, having to run into the grocery store at the last minute after a long day?  Did you barely get to the daycare before they locked their doors after phoning you with that nasty call to come get your kids NOW?  Okay, you are really frazzled now, right?  So, no quick stop at the grocery store, it’s the drive-thru tonight.  Oh, well, maybe tomorrow…

That’s the thing about best-laid plans; you are going to come up against them when you least expect it.  Planning for a disruption to your plans isn’t something we very often do successfully.  My solution?  Just like a good Scout; Be Prepared. The inevitable glitch happens in all plans, but when you have a back-up plan that’s easily accessible, it takes the pressure off you and your family, and saves you time and, again, money.

In order to be prepared for a snag in my meal plans, I have prepared a “go to” recipe index, complete with shopping list for anytime I just can’t wrap my head around dinnertime after the pressures of the day.  The creation of this method is simple: 

1) I gathered seven of my favorite fast and simple recipes.  Any recipe will do as long as they involve very few ingredients, it’s nutritious, quick, and delicious.  We all have a few meals like that in our head. The dishes we make over and over again, typically one-pan type meals.  Now, write them each up on note cards.

2) Somewhere in your kitchen, pick a pantry door or cupboard door, and either attach some of those peel-and-stick bulletin board cork squares inside the door or screw in a clip if your door is thick enough.  Place your recipe cards inside an envelope and pin or clip the recipes inside the door.  Now you have your favorite quick and easy recipes in one spot ready for action.  You may even be able to call on your family to help get dinner started if you ask them to just grab a card and go!

3) In order for this back-up plan to work you’ll need one other item.  That is a permanent grocery list for your purse or car.  Look at your recipes, find the common food items, like chicken for instance, and put it on the list.  Other pantry items needn’t be on the list if you know you always have them on hand, like onions, canned tomatoes, spices, and the like.  Now, organize this list with the names of your “go to” recipes listed beside each grocery item it requires. For instance, if recipes named A, B, and C all require chicken, write A, B, and C next to “chicken” on your list.  Now if you’ve decided to make recipe A, you’ll be able to easily run down your grocery list and pick up all the items you need for recipe A.

Simple? It takes a bit of organizing ability at first, but is well worth it when you haven’t quite gotten your weekly menu planning done, or you’re running behind and the fabulous meal you had planned for tonight has to wait until tomorrow.  You’ll feel so smug the next time you’re zipping through the grocery store with your little list, moving quickly down the items, checking off all your recipe A items, and arriving home in record time to create a quick and easy meal that’s nutritious AND delicious!  Oh, yes, and did I mention inexpensive?  Compare the money you might have otherwise thrown away at the fast food drive-thru lane with what you just spent at the grocery store and you’ll have to give yourself a well deserved pat-on-the-back.  You are back on track and your menu planning, and budget, are saved!  Kudos!

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Pizza And Corn Dogs: Frugal And Nutritious…How?

If you’re like me, you’ve been watching your budget for some time now.  Family meals are one of the first and best places to start cutting back on expense; there’s always an alternative to high priced food items.  That’s fine if you are cooking for you and you alone.  What happens when you have kids who love pizza, corn dogs, and all those treats that generally cost a lot and aren’t always healthy?  There will be times when your children have friends over and it seems reasonable to feed them a fun meal.  You want to splurge a little and cook something other than beans and rice, right? 

Luckily, an adventurous cook such as yourself can develop some pretty inventive ways to recreate “fun” food with reasonably nutritious ingredients on a fraction of the cost of prepackaged goodies or, worse yet, delivery.  Check out these ideas that will make both you and your kids feel like they’re not being deprived while sticking to a budget.

Picasso Pizza:  So called because you get to be as creative as you want.  There are no guidelines to follow.  You can use any “crust” you want, whether it’s an actual store-bought pizza crust, dinner rolls flattened out, English muffins, or a piece of bread cut in a circle, the idea is to choose a crust that your kids will like and that they can build on.  Choosing an individual size crust will help your child customize their own pizza and make it more creative.  Let your child add tomato-based sauce, cheese-based sauce, mozzarella cheese, and choose from whatever you have on hand for toppings, like diced pepper, sausage, mushrooms, or black olives, and top with a bit more cheese.  Put the pizzas on a baking sheet with a little cornmeal sprinkled over the sheet, which adds the Pizza Parlor taste and texture.  Now, your kids not only get to enjoy what would have been an expensive treat, but they got to help design it, too.

Pizza Pocket Snacks:  You know the tiny pizza rolls that you can buy prepackaged that your kids love?  Try this extremely simple alternative to save your budget and have some control over the ingredients.  Take a regular, store-bought, rectangular pizza crust and cut it into evenly sized pieces each about the size of the palm of your hand.  Just eye-ball it.  If you use a meat and tomato mixture, brown the meat in a pan and stir in the tomato sauce you like.  Then take a spoonful of the meat mixture, mozzarella cheese, onion, or whatever your family likes, and place it in the middle of each square.  Seal the ends of the pizza dough (a drop of water may help) and place on a baking sheet sprayed with non-stick spray.  Bake in the oven using directions on pizza crust. 

Corny Meat-on-a-Stick:  Because corn dogs are pretty popular, you don’t want to totally deny your kids the pleasure of this treat on a stick, do you?  This hand made version is so easy and nutritious, you can consider it a real meal, not just a treat.  You’ll take about a pound of ground chicken or turkey, put it in a bowl, add salt, pepper, one egg, and a sprinkle of bread crumbs.  Mush it all together really well, then take a handful and roll it in your hands to form a hot dog shape.  Dip in a little beaten egg and milk mixture, then roll and pat in a crushed corn-type breakfast cereal.  Repeat with the remaining meat mixture.  Spray a baking sheet with non-stick spray and bake until the meat is cooked through, about 30 minutes but test one if you’re not sure.  You can put food sticks (found in craft stores) into the finished product to have a real meat-on-a-stick look.

With a little bit of ingenuity and resourcefulness, just about any snack-type food your kids enjoy can be recreated at home for a fraction of the price, and an abundance of nutrition.  See if these few ideas don’t spark a whole wave a creativity in your house.  I dare you to try!

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Plastic Freezer Bags versus Glass Canning Jars

Some years ago, more years than I’d like to count, I did a lot of cooking and freezing.  Well, I’ve started to freeze meals ahead again, cooking double recipes and freezing half, freezing fresh fruit and vegetables when in season, and all that good stuff.  I removed a meal from the freezer the other day, a meal that was all nicely contained in a zippered freezer bag, thawed out the soup, and thew the bag away.  Stop! 

I stood there looking in the garbage, deciding if 1) the bag could be washed and reused, and 2) if the bag could be recycled.  Either prospect wasn’t very appealing to me.  I have washed used plastic food bags but, after being used in freezing, they never are really free of grease which means they can’t possibly be clean.  Plus, how long does plastic last and is it safe to reuse?  And to recycle yet another plastic bag seemed like a question I just didn’t have time to research or debate. 

Then a memory rose out of the clear blue, back to those years that I did a great deal of “putting by” meals in the freezer.  Something I remembered made me step back just a bit.  Back then I didn’t worry about what to do with the container I used to freeze my meal in because it was glass.  Yes, I routinely used glass canning jars to freeze food.  And now I remember why.  I loved it!

I know what you’re thinking; that’s way too expensive.  But, let’s talk about quality first.  As I recall, freezer burn was not even discussed.  I never saw it.  I froze everything from fresh peaches to diced chicken and the finished product was always superior to anything I’ve ever frozen in a bag.  The seal is supreme and glass is impervious.  Yes, you’re saying, but getting back to the cost…

Okay, I agree that your initial expense may seem daunting.  Just for a ball park figure, a case of 12 jars in an 8 oz wide mouth size would run you about $10.00, and a similar case of 16 oz jars would be about $12.00 or so.  Now for 12 lids and bands, that’s about $7.00.  The rubber rings for the seal can be reused as well, if you’re not canning the food, just freezing it, and those run about $3.00 for a dozen.  Your start-up cost just for 24 assorted jars would be around $42.00.  I know, that’s a whole bunch of money to lay out for freezer containers, especially when you compare them to the cost of freezer bags.  But, aside from breakage, a bent lid every so often, or worn out ring, it’s a one-time investment.  If you throw out even one quart size freezer bag a day for a year, you’ve thrown away around $43.00.  That’s your money in the trash, never to be recovered. 

Seeing as you are such a smart shopper and a frugal fanatic, you may want to give this a try.  Do a little homework yourself and you’ll discover many wholesale and resale shops that offer glass canning jars at a reduced price.  You may even luck out at a garage sale somewhere.  Now that I remember using canning jars to freeze, I just might be enticed to start freezing more for my family, too, because those glass canning jars just look so pretty all stacked up in the freezer.

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How Much Money Are You Wasting On Bottled Water?

We live in an area where the water that comes out of our faucet doesn’t taste so great and the quality has been questioned.  Apparently, we are not alone.  The bottled water industry has grown by leaps and bounds over the last several years with good reason.  If you check the water quality reports in a lot of municipalities there are reasons why you won’t be too quick to drink water right out of the faucet.  This being said, there are debates raging about whether the bottled water you are purchasing is, in fact, cleaner or safer than tap water.  However, that discussion will go on for quite some time and regardless of whether or not it’s actually safer than your tap water isn’t exactly the point.  You, like many others, are drinking bottled water because you like the taste better than your tap water, and bottled water is  convenient.

But, here is where I think I can win the argument for “filtered” tap water versus bottled water.  Let me emphasis that I’m talking about filtering your tap water here as opposed to buying bottled water to drink.  I don’t agree with the proponents of municipal tap water systems saying our tap water is just fine without filtering it.  I’ve done my own taste tests in my own home and the filtered water wins my vote.  So, that said, where’s the money savings angle in this?

Put simply, if you are lugging home cases of bottled water, you are spending a huge amount of money that you don’t have to spend to get good tasting drinking water.  Here’s how it calculates, roughly:

For individual 16 oz bottles of water, you are paying around $1.25 per gallon.  Not to mention the harm you’re doing to our environment and health with all those plastic bottles filling our landfills.  Even if you recycle, it takes energy to recycle those bottles when they didn’t have to be manufactured in the first place.

For faucet filtered drinking water, you would be paying around $0.30 per gallon.  The faucet attachment is an initial expense of about $25.00, but taking that into consideration, it only adds a few cents to the  expense of your drinking water over the lifetime of the faucet attachment.  And there are no mountains of plastic bottles floating out to sea from our overflowing landfills.

One last point, because I believe in filtering our water at the faucet in order to have clean, good tasting water, I filter all my cooking water, as well.  Why should my potatoes boil in water that I don’t think is good enough to drink?  Can you imagine opening bottles of drinking water and pouring it into a pot every time you make vegetables for supper?  Consider your coffee and tea, too.  That’s why I did the math, because I can’t afford to spend $1.25 for every gallon of water I consume, can you? 

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Are Those Snack Attacks Ruining Your Budget?

If you have a few family members who are regular “snackers”, you probably have a grocery bill that could use some help.  Every time you buy bags of chips, dip, pretzels, ice cream, candy, frozen mini pizzas, and other yummies, your money is disappearing faster than you even want to imagine. You’ve been working hard on a budget that will get your family on solid financial ground and the snacking is undermining everything you’re trying to accomplish. 

Of course, you can ask your family to stop snacking and you can stop buying treats.  But, it’s part of the things you do as a family, we snack as we watch the game on TV or grab an ice cream bar on the way outside to play some hoops; those are the pleasures of snacking.  I don’t want to give that all up, do you?  The way out of this snacking expense is very much like the way out of any unwanted expense.  Find alternatives to the things that are costing you too much money.

One treat I go back to time after time is popcorn.  You’re better off, expense-wise and nutrition-wise, buying popcorn that you make yourself using a popper, which will pay for itself very rapidly.  You control the amount of oil, butter, and other flavorings.  Homemade popcorn, even with salt and butter, is far less expensive and much more nutritious than microwave popcorn or bags of chips. Your family is not going to feel deprived if they see a nice, hot bowl of homemade buttery popcorn on family movie night. 

Replace as many store bought treats as you can with homemade treats.  If you are like me and love your potato chips, have you tried making homemade chips yet?  You’ll  want to purchase a potato slicer gadget because they slice much thinner than you can with a knife, are safer, and the slicer will pay for itself quickly.  You just slice the potatoes up according to the directions, oven roast them, and you have your very own crispy, homemade potato chips.  The flavor and the cost savings is well worth the extra time.  If you do indulge in store bought potato chips, dish up a small serving in a bowl.  Never sit down with the whole bag;  it will disappear before you know it.

Ice cream treats can get very expensive.  Replacing the prepackaged ice cream treats with scoopable ice cream will reduce the cost.  Being very stringent about the size of a scoop of ice cream will help reduce the cost per serving.  As silly as this sounds, if you can find some inexpensive little dessert bowls, the ice cream will seem a bit more elegant and special, and no one will feel they’re missing out.  You may also be able to satisfy your youngsters desire for an ice cream treat by offering another less expensive frozen treat like a homemade popsicle made with lemonade, orange juice, or apple juice.  Sometimes it’s just a sweet tooth nagging and anything sweet will do. 

Just stopping to think before you buy that prepackaged treat and thinking how you might replace it with something less expensive, perhaps homemade, snack will begin to save you some real money. You may need to be creative so your family doesn’t feel deprived, but you can do it.  That’s what you do best!

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Been Putting Off That Rummage Sale? Try These Stress Reducers.

Here comes the dreaded rummage sale.  Whether it’s a matter of clutter or a matter of making some much needed cash, a rummage sale is something that almost every family will have to face at least once in their lives.  Drive through any neighborhood and you’ll see garages heaped to the rafters with STUFF.  Important stuff?  Maybe some, but certainly not all.  If this describes your garage, basement, or closets, you know you need to clean house.  If you are financially stressed, a rummage sale may help ease the burden.

How do we begin the process of the rummage sale without the pain it can cause?  Selling off your stuff is difficult when you’re just doing it to clean out the clutter.  But, if like so many people today, you are having a garage sale to make some much needed cash, your emotions will be doubly raw.  It’s difficult to watch people pick over your belongings, and you may become defensive and angry.  So, what do we do?

Give yourself plenty of time to gather your rummage sale items and mourn your loss.  In order to avoid some of the emotions attached to selling your possessions, you may want to ask a friend to help, both with the pricing and on the day of the sale.  It may be hard to decide to sell your baby’s playpen, but it can be even harder to watch it go, and at a ridiculously low price.  But, once you’ve made the decision, and the day is over, you’ll have what you need… cash in hand and a clean garage.

Now, beware the PRICING!  Here’s where most people will go temporarily insane.  I have seen friends try to stick a little price tag on every bib, t-shirt, book, and candle, and go stark raving mad in the process.  STOP!  This whole rummage sale thing is a difficult task.  Don’t make it even more difficult by pricing every single item.  It’s not worth it.  Any amount of money you get is more than you had before.  I recommend, and this is THE big stress reducer, put price tags on only your big ticket items like furniture and appliances.  Everything else should be priced like a Dollar Store.  Put similar or like-items together, bundle them and offer them for a flat price.  Make signs saying all baby clothes that fit in a particular bag $5, or any piece of adult clothing $1.  Pricing anything under $1 is not going to be worth your time.  You may be better off in the end by donating those items to charity.

Be sure to have a strong, reliable person, who’s good with money and people, help you on the day of the sale.  Don’t accept any checks from people you don’t know.  You don’t have to accommodate every rummage sale shoppers need.  Cash is King and everyone that shops rummage sales knows this rule.  It’s true that after the day is done, you may have some regrets.  But, you’ve done the best you could do for you and your family and that’s all that matters in the end.  Now, go count your cash!

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Family Budget Tight? Shop Online To Find Real Savings!

Every family I know is trying to save money.  And what I mean by saving money is really just getting by from paycheck to paycheck.  Surviving in tough economic times is becoming a challenge.  Not just grocery expenses, gasoline prices, or housing and heating expenses, but the day-to-day items that our families need to get through a normal day.  Items like school supplies, soap and detergent, pet needs, sunscreen, vitamins, clothing, and the list goes on. 

If you’ve been shopping the “brick and mortar” stores for your necessities you know what a trip to the store will cost you.  Of course, you’ll see other items that you must have because it’s a bargain you just can’t pass up.  So, $200 later, you walk out of the superstore and feel dejected.  How do you avoid this trap and find the best prices on these household and personal items? 

I know you are a savvy shopper already, because you’re reading this.  You’ve been searching for ways to squeeze out a few more days from your paycheck at the end of the month.   The family budget has been worked and reworked to try to get the most from every cent you spend.  Where do you turn to next to shop smart?  Why, the Internet, of course!

The Internet is, or should be, your first resource for the best value for your money.  There are countless drug supply, pet supply, clothing supply, beauty supply, cleaning supply, and even food supply clearing houses out there just begging for your attention, and business.  If you live in a small town, these Internet sites offer you an opportunity to take advantage of big savings that you couldn’t get otherwise.  All it takes is a willingness to search around and find the best sites.  There are also sites that do the “free shipping” and “coupon” searches for you!  Don’t shop at the first site you find, and never buy without looking for a coupon or free shipping first.  Let these sites work for you.  That’s what they are in business to do!

The very next time you have to get flea medication for your pet, or need a new curling iron, or want to try some new vitamins, search the Internet first.  You will be amazed at the wealth of commerce out there waiting to hear from you.  And at a REDUCED PRICE!

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Buy Locally… Eat Seasonally

If you are fortunate enough to have a local farmers market, or even individual farms selling their crop, shop there before you shop at your grocery store.  Of course, many smaller grocery stores will carry local produce.  The idea is to 1) help support your local economy, 2) help reduce our nation’s energy consumption by purchasing produce that is not shipped long distance, and 3) help reduce your grocery bill.  Buying produce locally is the first step.

The second step is to eat seasonally whenever possible.  For instance, we just got back from a trip to our local farmer’s market, our arms loaded down with a beautiful assortment of squash.  Why squash and not sweet peas, tomatoes, or corn?  Because it’s Autumn and there are countless varieties of squash available.  Our dinner will include squash tonight because it’s that time of year.  You say your kids won’t eat squash?  How about eggplant?  An eggplant Parmesan dish is usually a hit with kids because most kids will eat anything as long as it is covered in Parmesan cheese.  Depending on what part of the world you live in, there will be an abundance of certain vegetables and fruits at different times of the year.  Even in the coldest climates, you will find root crops oftentimes through December and sometimes beyond, so your dinner may include rutabaga, carrots, and potatoes.  You’ll always be better off, both nutritionally and economically, if you purchase your produce from the closest location possible.

Before mass transportation of food existed, we humans ate what was available to us.  I guarantee that if you eat vegetables and fruits that have very recently been picked from the tree or ground, the value you get for your dollar will be much better than produce shipped in from thousands of miles away. However, you needn’t totally deny yourself.  If you really want a particular vegetable or fruit, and it is out of season in your area, it’s okay to buy it frozen.  At least it was fresh when they froze it!  The purpose here is to think about your produce supply before you buy.  Not only will you eat healthier, you’ll eat happier

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What’s For Dinner Tonight? Whatever Was On Sale This Week.

A remarkable thing happened to me at the grocery store the other day.  I noticed that, if I walk around the aisles picking ONLY the items that are on sale, or a two-for-one deal, I can make an excellent dinner with the ingredients.  Granted, I have to be a little bit creative, but if I’m saving money, I can afford to spread my recipe wings a bit! 

The trick is, rather than sticking to a recipe or menu, explore your options.  You know what foods you and your family like.  Start on the outside aisles, where the fresh vegetables, meats, fish, poultry, and dairy are displayed.  There are usually deals on bagged vegetables, buy-one-get-one-free on poultry and cheese, and price reduced items in almost every section.  Go along the edges of the store and load your cart with only items that are on sale.  Now, quickly push your cart through the inside aisles grabbing only items that are on sale and that your family will eat.  You will be amazed at how quickly you start to get ideas for dinner.  Don’t think too hard because, when you get everything home, you’ll find items in your pantry that you can use as well.

Now, you’ve got all your sale items home, and the assortment is a little baffling because you don’t have a menu to follow exactly.  This is where a little creativity will pay off.  Pile your veggies in one spot, your meat, fish, and poultry in another place, your cheese or other dairy products in a pile, and your “inside aisle” items in another pile.  Look in your pantry for any rice, noodles, or potatoes.  Can you see where this is going?  Pick an item off each pile, review your choices for feasibility, and there you are.  Your dinner choice has been made.  Now don’t you feel smart? 

If you do this sale-items-only shopping a couple times a week, the savings will really start to add up.  And, you may just find out that you can do more than just follow a recipe… you can cook!

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Liquid Laundry Detergent Is Hard To Give Up

In my effort to create a sane family budget, I looked at every item I brought home from the grocery store for a couple months and found a constant luxury… liquid laundry detergent.  I quit using the powdered kind some years ago when I started bringing home a bigger paycheck.  What a luxury!  Seems a little silly, but I actually like doing laundry, so using all the best products was fun for me.

Now comes the financial crunch.  I can’t afford to drive my car AND wash my clothes if I don’t let something go.  Since my paychecks don’t stretch like they used to, I started glancing at the powdered laundry detergents, but have been turning my nose up and walking right over to my expensive addiction.  But, when I compared even the concentrated liquid detergents to the powdered, I knew I had to switch.  One thing I’m thankful for is that there have been improvements in powdered laundry detergents over the years.  There are a lot more brands to choose from, and many have improved the powder to dissolve more quickly and thoroughly than they did in the past.  The thing that hasn’t changed is that, if you have a top loader,  you still need to start the washer filling, add the soap, and then add the clothes.  That took some getting used to, but the payback is worth learning this little step! 

I don’t feel so bad now when I stock up on laundry detergent.  I don’t gasp when I get to the checkout, and my laundry turns out just fine.  I still like to add a few brighteners and boosters, but the money I’m saving by using powdered detergents helps make me feel okay about buying just a few luxuries!

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