A couple of things I forgot to mention
1. In PowerPoint you can drag over pictures to help with ideas.
2. You can also copy and paste your budget from Excel and keep everything in one place.
More on excel and budgeting tomorrow 🙂
5 Things to Do Right Now to DeStress Christmas
I know Halloween just ended and Thanksgiving isn’t here yet, but it’s time to plan for Christmas. You don’t have to get out the tree yet or starting playing carols (But if you do, I won’t judge.)
Do these 5 things this week to make this holiday season easier to navigate.
1. Make your Christmas Budget: How much are you spending on gifts, cards, postage, decorations and food? It has to be cash….no borrowing allowed.
2. Make your Christmas List: This is just a list of names and a dollar amount you are going to spend on them. All those dollar amounts must add up to what you budgeted for gifts.
3. Brainstorm Gift Ideas: This is a broad list of everything you can think of. There will be time to narrow it down later.
4. Make Your Christmas Card List: If you have one from last year, just take a few minutes to update the addresses and see if there needs to be any additions or deletions. Knowing how many cards you plan to send will help you tweak your budget in step 1.
5. Put it on the Calendar: When are your gatherings, school concerts, church events, family traditions? Also put in when you should be done Shopping, when to wrap gifts, when to mail out Christmas Cards, when to bake cookies. Put it on the calendar that is simplest for you. We use Google calendar in our home and have it sync with all our phones and lap tops. I still love real paper calendars too. When it comes to scheduling less is more. If I get too scheduled up, all my family gets for Christmas is a stressed-out mama. Nobody wants that.
How to Motivate Your Kids to Practice
Music is the language of God. The more I study it, the more I’m convinced it’s a fact. As an adult it’s easy for me to spout the benefits of music study….especially when it comes to brain development in the language and mathematic areas. You would think these lofty truths would motivate my kids to practice. What they hear is, “Wa wa wa wa wa wa.” (Read in an adult Peanuts voice.)
They want to play music for the self-expression and the opportunity to play in a group. But they do NOT want to practice. Lessons are expensive and going unprepared is a complete waste of money and time. This pains me in my frugal organ.
So, a few weeks ago I told my kids that they were going to start paying for their own music lessons. I offered them $3 a day for a good session of practice. If they fit 5 practice sessions into their week, they’d have the money to pay for their lesson. If they practiced more than that, they could pocket a little extra. If not, the lesson money came out of their piggy bank.
It was motivating! It worked! With a little problem. The kids would practice and I would be too busy to hand them the $3 right then. Getting the money right away is a very good behavioral reinforcement and we were missing that. A few days would go by and I’d forget exactly how many times they practiced, and they would too. We were sloppy.
So I made a little clipboard to keep track of it for us. It cost $3 a board. $1 for the clothespins and $2 per board (Dollar Tree sells these for $1….but ours are never in stock.)
I hung them upstairs near their practice spaces (their bedrooms.) They practice. I hear them. I give them permission to get their money. They put it in their cash envelope labeled “Violin Lessons” which is kept in their cases. They are too smart to steal the money off their board when I’m not looking. I trust but verify.
The little clothespins came from the dollar section at Target (I bought them November 1st, 2014–so depending on when you are reading this, they probably still have them.) Before I saw those pins already decorated, I was shopping for printed paper tape to jazz up some regular sized wooden clothespins. The tape cost the same as these pins already done….so I took the easy route.
I used a ruler to line them up.
Then hot glued them in place.
The name tags are 6 x 3 inch squares printed onto card stock. I just typed something up in Powerpoint.
If you wanted to get all fancy, decoupage and scrapbook or wrapping paper would be fun. I’m spending my spare moments building stuff in the garage, so decided the natural board was GORGEOUS.
I’m not sure how long this will motivate the kids, but for now is the most genius thing I have thought of in my life. I really like watching them hand their hard earned money to their teachers at lesson time. I think it sends the kids a message about what things really cost.
How do you motivate your kids to practice? I’d love to hear.
3 Budget Saving Fixes
Oh, Girls! I am in such a good place right now. My adrenals are almost completely recovered. I have energy and life doesn’t feel overwhelming. I know the blog has been quiet, but it’s not because things aren’t well here. I’ve been enjoying my family and working on things behind the scenes at Grocery Shrink Plus and organizing our home. I will be posting pretty randomly as I finish up some big projects. If you are subscribed to the blog (form on the right), you’ll get an email when a new post is up.
I’ve made a few updates to the kitchen. We are back at Baby Step #2, building our emergency fund, after our foundation repair last year drained it. I’m content with letting the kitchen be unfinished for as long as it takes to get that emergency fund done. It helps me to be patient now that the space is functional for cooking and family meals.
As I finished up a little project in the kitchen today, I noticed several things we did as temporary fixes to help us rebuild our savings. I thought it might be fun to describe all of those in a video and show you our space.
Compared to where we started, this kitchen is a dream! Oh my! It’s so big and so much counter space. I really love it. Here are a couple of before pictures:
Here it is after gutting the area, right before the cabinets and floor went in. (We were having a party anyway!)
And here’s the most current view, taken standing beside the fireplace.:
It really is the same space and the same angle. We took down a few walls so it can be hard to realize it’s the same view.
I know the plastic cover on the island is “Grandma Chic,” but I don’t mind. I have 6 kids that are good at rubbing mustard and chocolate into pretty things, and then feeling terrible about it, so the vinyl makes us both happy.
After I finished the video, I thought of a few things I didn’t put in there, like our big round folding table that we use for our meals. It was left in the basement when we bought the house. We were excited to find it because it seats 10–which means a couple of kids can have a friend over and we can still sit together. In our previous house the table only held 6 and we took turns standing during meals. I’m wondering if I could add some kind of skirt under the table similar to what I did to the island, except looking like a pedestal? It would hide the folding legs and make it look more like permanent furniture while still letting us get our legs under comfortably.
The chairs around our round table were salvaged from a restaurant that closed. We got 15 chairs for $100 a year or so ago. They are pretty ugly right now and covered in food bits, but the padded seats are comfy and I like the craftsman style. A little scrubbing, paint and upholstery will make them amazing. It’s on my project list, probably over the summer.
Have you ever made a temporary fix while you saved up for something nicer? Tell me about it in the comments.
Hold the Phone!!!
…literally! Our menu service just added smart phone enabled shopping lists with the free Out of Milk app. (No smart phone, no worries. The pdf shopping lists aren’t going anywhere.)
This means no more printing shopping lists. It works on both iphone and android devices. Family phones can sync up and share lists and changes. (So your spouse can shop from the list too.)
- Upload the appropriate amounts for the size of your family (You’ll be able to choose from 2, 4, 8, or 12 serving sizes.)
- Edit or delete list items
- Add or edit prices to see what your shopping trip will cost
- Cross off items as you shop with one touch
- Items are uploaded by where you will find them in the store, but you can also drag them around to change the order
- Lists available for both the everything and dinner only plans
- Free for all current subscribers
This service starts Friday!
I’m just a little excited.
Here’s a video tutorial on how to use it:
If you are a current menu subscriber, ignore the message below:
This Friday at midnight the menu subscription prices are going to double.
If you subscribe now you will lock in at the current low rate. You have 3 days left to save.
Our guarantee:
Once you enroll, your price will never go up as long as you are a subscriber.
How to Make Homemade Fortified Almond Milk
I turned my nose up at vegan milks for years. Real milk has protein and calcium, it’s affordable, and tastes great. Why mess with a good thing?
Then I met up with the symptoms of lactose intolerance. Sometimes I could eat dairy products without consequence and sometimes I would be doubled over in pain. It was like a dietary game of Mumblety peg.
Almond milk sparked my interest when I found out it only has 30 calories per cup, is low in carbs and tastes pretty good. It boasts a good serving of calcium, but only because it is added artificially. This is not a drink for babies or kids unless the diet has other rich sources of fats or protein.
Almond milk makes good smoothies, custards, cream soups, cream gravy, and fettuccini sauce. It costs about $3 for a half gallon, or $6 a gallon. The cost is about 50% more than regular milk. My children do not show signs of lactose intolerance or milk allergy so I do not feed them almond milk.
It’s not hard to make homemade almond milk and homemade costs quite a bit less than store bought–PLUS Almond flour is a by-product of almond milk production. That’s good news for low carb and gluten free bakers everywhere.
At Costco, almonds are $15 for 3 pounds. (Or almonds that haven’t been treated with fungicide are available at Trader Joes for $6 a lb.) It takes 2 oz of almonds to make a half gallon of milk. So one 3 lb bag of almonds makes 24 half gallons (plus almond flour) at $.62 each. If you want fortified almond milk that has the same nutrition as milk, you will want to add 8 calcium, magnesium, vitamin d3 tablets.
Adding vitamins adds to the cost slightly. These tablets* are $.07 each and I would need 8 of them to create a homemade nutritional profile comparable to store bought almond milk. Homemade fortified almond milk is $1.18 per half gallon vs $3.28 for store bought for a savings of $2.10.
Here’s how to make your own almond milk.
Measure 1/4 cup of almonds into a class cup and cover with twice as much water. 1/4 cup of almonds makes 1 quart of milk. 1/2 cup makes half a gallon–the same as in the typical grocery store carton. Let stand for 8 hours or overnight.
After 8 hours, drain your almonds, then place in a blender. Add a generous pinch of sea salt and any supplements or flavors (like vanilla and honey or stevia) you are adding. I used 4 calcium tablets so each cup of milk would have 30% RDA of calcium, plus magnesium and vitamin D3.
Cover with just enough fresh water to keep the blades running smoothly. Too much water will allow the almonds to get away from the blades and not grind as fine.
Blend for a couple of minutes until the nuts are all ground up into tiny bits.
Strain though a nut bag (I use a huge straining bag that I purchased for Kombucha.) Amazon* has nut bags also, or you could use cheese cloth, a clean flour sack towel, or even a coffee filter. They all work, but the nut bag is fastest and easiest. At the end, give the mass of ground nuts a good squeeze to get as much water out as possible.
Pour the strained milk into a canning jar.
Pour in enough fresh water to make a quart, or half gallon–whatever you used enough nuts for.
Voila!
Now scrape the nut meal out of your straining bag (or whatever you used.) Spread it onto a silicone mat, wax paper or parchment. Let it dry thoroughly. (In the dry weather, mine dries overnight.) If it’s humid, you can spread it on a cookie sheet and bake at 200 degrees for 2 hours. Then turn off the oven and let it stay in there for a few hours more. Transfer the dry stuff back to a clean dry blender cup and pulverize it super fine. Use it as you would any almond flour.
Q. How long does the almond milk last?
A. If you are using raw almonds it will go “sour” in 3-4 days. Costco’s almonds are blanched and the milk lasts longer. I’ve gone a week and it was still fine. It’s never lasted longer than that, so I can’t say when it sours.
Q. Shouldn’t you remove the skins from the almonds first?
A. Who’s got time for that? The milk tastes great either way. With the skins on the almonds, the almond flour will have flecks of color in it, compared to commercial almond flour which is just white. I haven’t noticed a difference in performance between the two flours. And the almond milk comes out white either way.
Q. I don’t like almonds. Can I do this with other nuts?
A. Yes. Cashews and sunflower seeds work especially well. Let me know if you try it :).
More questions? Concerns? Put them below. Have you ever made your own almond milk?
* P.S. The Amazon links are for your benefit only and are not affiliate links. As a Missouri resident I am not eligible to be an Amazon Affiliate.
Allergy Free Creamy Wild Rice Chicken Soup
One of my strategies for sticking to my elimination diet is making a big pot of something delicious and eating it for every meal until it’s gone. Then making something new. My family doesn’t touch it (except to taste it’s amazingness), and I cook them a traditional yummy dish. It sure beats cooking 2 different meals every time and we can still sit down together for a family meal.
My first big delicious pot was this Creamy Wild Rice Chicken Soup. I splurged on fresh mushrooms and it was worth the extra $1 over buying canned. A little treat like fresh mushrooms made it feel like a privilege to eat it instead of a sacrifice. It really was delicious. I sprinkled some crushed Van’s gluten free crackers over the top. Soooo good.
I always feel funny typing the words “allergy free,” because nothing is truly allergy free. I have a friend who’s allergic to chicken….and another who’s allergic to almonds and coconuts. But really, you can sub for almost anything in here. Plain rice milk will work fine, and another oil can be used instead of coconut oil. Flaked white fish would work instead of chicken. Own this recipe and make it fit your needs.
This is also Trim Healthy Mama friendly under E meals. And Fit Yummy Mummy friendly too. It’s gluten free/dairy free. But still super delicious.
Creamy Wild Rice Chicken Soup
1 lb fresh mushrooms
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1 Tbs Coconut Oil
1 cup of wild rice (Plain, not the mix kind. I found mine in the bulk food section of our health food store.)
3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts
4 cups water
2 tsp salt
1/8 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp each thyme and rosemary
2 cups almond milk
Melt the coconut oil in a skillet and sauté onion, garlic, celery and mushrooms until fragrant and tender. Stir in wild rice and cook a few minutes longer, until toasted. Transfer everything to a stock pot and add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a simmer. Cover and simmer for 30-45 minutes or until rice is done. Shred chicken with two forks (or pull out of the pan and chop with a knife.) Stir in almond milk and chicken and heat just until warmed through.
New! Looka French Pastries
I was shopping at Wal-mart today grabbing things for Brandon’s birthday cake and saw these in the frozen section. I think I misunderstood something, forehead smack. You can just grab these, at the last minute and everything. Genius.
Would you do this? If you were having a special gathering of important people, would you like to have Delicious, Fresh Pastries delivered for the occasion? Did you know that you can buy yummy French pastries in your frozen section and skip making homemade dessert? If you bought them, what would you do with the extra time? Clean? Spruce yourself up? Think of ways to make your guests more comfortable?
We had a chance to find out. Our guest was a young friend over to play with Dub after church. Our pastries were a box of Macaroon cookies (vanilla, chocolate, raspberry and pistachio)
A Box of Key Lime cheesecake
and a box of Chocolate Mousse cake.
They came packed in dry ice and thawed to a texture as fresh as if they were just baked and picked up from the bakery down the street. The kids were especially excited about the dry ice since their scientist uncle showed them how to use it to make homemade soda pop.
Here’s where my true character unfolds….
I hid the boxes of cake (since they had 2 servings each.) Then we cut each of the cookies into 4 pieces and passed them around so everyone could taste every kind. (Yes, we were that family you saw at the fair sharing a single funnel cake among 8 people.) Then I expressed amazement and delight over what a delicious and lovely treat we just had and dismissed all the children from the table.
When they were completely out of sight, I brought out the cakes. And savored lingering bites with my husband. When our two girls sauntered back into the kitchen, we shared a taste with them, and swore them to secrecy.
Guilt got to me an hour later, so I baked chocolate chip cookies for the rest of the kids. Then I read the back of the boxes for the cakes and was amazed at how great the ingredients were. It was pure, fresh, stuff that I would bake with in my own kitchen. Except nothing that came out of my kitchen ever tasted this good. That didn’t mean the cakes were calorie free though and I ate well more than 1 serving….should have shared.
All of this was before my allergy free diet and I’m glad I had the experience. They were delicious..but the macaroons were our favorite. Especially the raspberry.
Would you consider having something like this delivered for a very special occasion?
If you’d like to know more about Looka pastries you can visit their website or Facebook page.
Tough Decisions
It was one of those mornings. Brandon was screaming for a half an hour, because he couldn’t find his backpack. No one could find the backpack, and I was asking him to move on, “Make your lunch.” He’s in first grade, his backpack is empty. We have other bags. Seriously. But it was super important to him. Important enough that he screamed for a half an hour, kicked everything he could find and went to school with an apple for lunch, because I handed it to him on the way out the door. And he still didn’t have his backpack.
He’s cute when he’s not screaming.
I could have made his lunch, but the rule in our house is “Nothing good comes when you’re screaming.” We don’t negotiate with terrorists, ever. That was hard. Right now his class is eating a decent lunch and he’s hopefully munching an apple. I’m praying for him and hoping his teacher doesn’t bail him out. I want him to see that actions have consequences and if he can learn it now, the rest of his life will be better.
Right now, my brother-in-law (45) is in ICU after suffering a massive stroke. He has 2 sons and a loving wife and has been active and fit his whole life. In a few hours they have scheduled a surgery to remove part of his skull to relieve pressure on his brain. When I think about that situation the other decisions I’m dealing with don’t seem relevant, but they are. (Just throwing that out there in case you might say a prayer for Greg and his family Gayla, Jordan and Brayden.)
I went to IKEA yesterday. Our local store has been open for 12 days and I was hoping I waited long enough for the crazy crowds to be over. It wasn’t too bad. The show room was mesmerizing. We only set aside an hour to shop (definitely not enough) so went home empty handed. This sounds random, but it relates, bear with me.
I had a garage sale last week and sold the rest of my baby stuff and everything else I could put my hands on. I cleared over $600 and still have a generous pile to donate to Disabled Veterans and clothes to pass on to friends. My plan for the garage sale money was to buy a rug and an Ektorp love seat and chair (now on sale) for the attic sitting room in Dub’s new bedroom. Right now the room has a cedar chest in it–that’s it. I threw some pillows on top to make it more of an inviting seat, but it’s not awesome.
With Brandon’s outburst this morning, I’m thinking the money might be better spent building an organizational system for backpacks and such. Like this: ⇓ And a working garage door opener.
Decisions. Decisions. Darren said, if I could scrape together a bit out of our budget, he would start building our bathroom. That is very tempting too. (How soon I forget the pain of no kitchen for 9 months and no flooring for 12….and am ready to start a NEW project.)
AND–if you follow me on Facebook, you already know I found a doctor to treat my strange illness. She confirmed it to be adrenal fatigue, plus food allergies, plus thyroid stuff. We are waiting on test results to pinpoint how bad it is and exactly what to do to make it better.
For now, I’m on an allergy free diet. Which is mostly protein free, since most allergies are to food proteins. It’s a 180 turn from the way I’ve been eating for years, the way I’ve felt the best. I have toxins coming out through my skin, my tonuge and other places it isn’t polite to talk about. She said I would feel even worse for awhile, and she was right about that. After 4 weeks of this, they will reintroduce one protein at a time and see what happens. I’m hoping eggs end up on the ok list. But I digress.
The bottom line. I can spend my garage sale money lots of ways: garage organizer and opener, beautiful sitting area for the kids in the attic (and it’s on sale!), one project in the master bathroom, or beef up the emergency fund for the medical bills that are likely to come in.
What would you do?
Frugal Weekend Shopping from Your Sofa
A friend of mine shared a gift card with me to ThredUp. I’ve been hearing about them, but never checked it out before now. I looked around their site and was amazed at the selection of stylish stuff for thrift store prices. Some of the items are brand new, some are gently used. Each description is clear on what you are buying. If there is a flaw, it’s clearly described so you can make an informed decision.
I picked out 2 dresses, a pair of studded skinny corduroy jeans, and a tunic top with a fun leaf print. After my gift card savings it was shipped to my door for around $35.
Now here’s the part I wasn’t expecting:
Polka Dot Box
Cute little note on the inside flap.
Tissue gift wrapped and sealed with an enjoy sticker.
There’s my stuff–it’s clean, inspected, and tagged. Definitely not a thrift store shopping experience. (Ever feel like you need a good hand washing and maybe a shower after shopping at a thrift store?)
Part of the reason why I ordered a few new clothing items is I’ve gained 20 pounds since I became ill last December. I chose things that would fit me now and still look nice when I find healing and get my body under control.
This is a stretch black dress (I brightened it and messed up the color so you could see the cool detail.) The star burst style is Very figure flattering and the stretchy fit means it will still look great even if I get smaller again.
Navy Blue Studded Corduroys. I heart studs right now. The low rise cut means they still fit in my old size (because of my hormone imbalance I’m only gaining weight in my middle area and my thighs and hips are staying the same size.) These are probably the highest quality pair of pants I’ve ever owned.
This leaf top was listed as a dress, but it is just a few inches longer than my bum. It is an adorable tunic top to wear with my white skinny jeans and a belt to accentuate what’s left of my waist.
The last item I bought was this yellow belted strappy dress. I thought I would be a safe choice since it is an empire waist, but it wouldn’t zip :(. This is tucked in the back of my closet as inspiration to keep making healthy food choices. Heidi might borrow it while I’m working towards being able to wear it.
Overall, I’m thrilled with my whole experience with ThredUp and will definitely shop there again. If you’d like to try it, here’s a $10 gift card to get you started. If you shop with that link, not only will you get $10, but they’ll send me $10 too :).