Homemade Pumpkin Bagels Video Tutorial

By Angela on October 6, 2017

This isn’t a new recipe to this blog, but it’s still one of my favorites. The soft inside and chewy outside make a lovely grab and go breakfast. I originally wrote this post in 2015. Grant is now in 1st grade! I don’t regret spending that last year with him, and even though the kids are all in school now, we decided my time is still best spent at home helping things run smoothly for everyone.

Tee hee. This video makes me giggle. When I watch the replay and Grant (4) dumps the pumpkin on the counter, I roll on the floor laughing and then back it up and watch it again. Maybe because I was there for the original moment, trying to balance a camera and helping Grant with the cooking at the same time. How the pumpkin on the counter shocked us both and I got the giggles, which I tried to hold in making a weird background noise. Grant, relieved that I wasn’t upset said, “We better clean that up.” Which made me giggle all the more.

After we made quite a mess but got most of the stuff in the bowl, I said “What should we do now?” I thought Grant would say, “Let’s clean up!” but he said “SMILE.” Which made me giggle all over again.

This boy is the joy of my days. The sleepless nights, messes, tantrums, and battles are all worth it. I had the option to spend this year in a classroom blessing other people’s children, while I earned money that my family needed. I would have had to let someone else be with Grant during the day, and I just couldn’t. It’s his last full year at home and I fought for my chance to be the one to clean up his messes and talk him down from the ledge of toddler insanity. It was selfish and selfless at the same time. He needs me as much as I need him and there’s something priceless about that.

For those who prefer a written recipe here you go:

Pumpkin Bagels

2/3 cup warm water
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 Tablespoon active dry yeast

Put all ingredients in the order listed in your bread machine. Set for the dough cycle. When the cycle is ended, divide the dough into 10 balls. Poke your finger through the center and make a large hole. Let the bagels rise for an hour or until doubled. Pour 8 cups of water into a stock pot, boil bagels for 1 1/2 minutes, turning once. Remove to a dish towel to drain. Place bagels on a greased baking sheet. Brush with egg white and sprinkle with a little sugar. Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden on the top. Cool on a wire rack.

This is day 6 of 31 Days of Pumpkin Recipes

1 Pumpkin spice mix

2 Homemade pumpkin puree

3 Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

4 Pumpkin Dinner Rolls

5 Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls

6 Pumpkin Bagels

7 Butternut Chicken Stew

8 Pumpkin French Toast Casserole

9 Healthy Pumpkin Pecan Scones

10 Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

11 Pumpkin Muffin/Drop Cookie Mix

12 Easy Pumpkin Cake

13 Pumpkin Dump Cake

14 Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

15 Pumpkin Mousse

16 Pumpkin Cheesecake

17 Pumpkin Latte

18 Pumpkin Pie Smoothie

19 Pumpkin Chili

20 Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies

21 Pumpkin Biscuits

22 Maple Pumpkin Butter

23 Stuffed Sugar Baby Pumpkins

24 Pumpkin Pancakes

25 Pumpkin Waffles

26 Pumpkin English Muffins

27 Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

28 Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

29 Pumpkin Biscotti

30 Pumpkin Caramel Monkey Bread

31 Impossible Pumpkin Pie

The $20 Birthday She’ll Never Forget

By Angela on April 7, 2016

This post isn’t really about birthdays. It’s about how relatively unimportant is the amount of money we spend on our kids. It’s about how kids spell love, T.I.M.E. and how having a friend to come along beside you to give new ideas and tell you that things are going to be ok, can make a hard thing seem possible.

Things have been quiet on the blog the last few days, because I was putting all my energy into a free webinar that has been my dream for the last 7 years. Finally all the pieces came together to make it a reality. The webinar itself gives enough information to massively change a financial trajectory, but there wasn’t enough time to go as deeply as I want to go. You can see the replay right here for the next few days. I’ll need to take it down after the weekend, because some of the information is time sensitive.:

Grocery Shrink Live Replay from Angela Coffman on Vimeo.

At the end of the webinar, I announced a 2 month course/private group coaching session that starts on Monday! In this time frame we can go as deep as we need to, to seriously change lives! Several readers signed up immediately and we’ve already started the journey in our coaching private group. One mother especially touched my heart with her story. We’ve been where she is and there were so many things she said that brought back those old emotions. She gave me permission to share her story here:

C: I’m a stay at home mom of 4. I am the financial manager of our home. (LOL) I too homeschool our kiddos. We are currently trying to prepare our home to sell. What we need to sell it for, is more than it’s valued at. We have nothing to pay the difference (a $20,000 difference). We are trying to upgrade the house for a higher resale in high return areas. We are doing the work ourselves to save there. Dinners have become a nightmare. We are feeling the urgency to list the house on the market “now” in prime selling time. However, feeling overwhelmed because the work is not yet finished. I tried to earn some income on the side to help offset the building material cost but I have no time to working the business. I’m still diapering and breastfeeding a baby. The other 3 children’s birthdays are right around the corner. We feel defeated as we may have to settle for a short sale. A real kick in the teeth. Because we almost lost it once before to foreclosure after the hospital bills from birthing came in. We did a loan modification and have been great with mortgage payments ever since going into the 6th year now. ~well that was a bit of a ramble. LOL, I suppose I could have journaled all that, it’s the first time I’ve stopped to look at the big picture! Oh yes, the Goal: to sell the house and become “us” again.

You see the course is about groceries. We are going deep into groceries and everyone in the course will save the cost of their tuition the first month or get a complete refund. But the course is also about you, your goals, your needs. That’s what the private group is for. 8 weeks of personal access to me and the other friends on the same journey. To encourage each other, share ideas. Here’s what I said:

Me: Oh hugs, C–. How stressful. How old are your kids?

C: They will be turning, 10,9,6, and 2

Me: Such great ages. If you want we could brain storm low cost ways to celebrate birthdays that make the kids feel like they’ve splurged.

C: That would be awesome b/c the first one is this month the 28th and I usually order things online…

Me: How old is this one? Boy/girl? Interests?

C: Girl turning 6. She loves horses, princess, tiny figurines to play with like critter county~she loves making little families, arts & crafts, cooking/baking, and dress up

Me: I’d make it a friend only party and limit it to 2 hours from 2-4 so no meal needs to be served. For party favors buy each little girl a box of movie candy ($1 each) and wrap it in cute paper, or plain white paper and let your daughter decorate them with markers. Grap a couple of extra boxes of candy for the cake. Buy a bag of mixed baloons (Walmart has the best quality for the same price as dollar tree.) Blow them up with your own breath and tie them together with strings (or curly ribbon if you have it already) and hang them from the light fixtures and backs of the chairs. Only buy festive paper napkins (you don’t need paper plates, cups, silverware and tablecloths) and serve the cake and ice cream on your dishes and use the best tablecloth that you already have. Pull out the fancy china if you have any. If not your regular dishes will be just fine. Serve juice mixed with a 2 liter of lemon lime soda in tea cups and call it punch. Do a $1 box cake mix and $1 can of frosting and let your daughter decorate the cake with candy. Get plain vanilla icecream to go with it and pass around a bowl of sprinkles and a spoon. For the party, have the little girls decorate a couple of refrigerator boxes with markers, colored paper and glue sticks to make a castle/house. Then pull out all the dress up clothes and costume jewelry and let them play. You won’t need to buy gifts yourself because each friend will bring something and that’s 9 gifts! at 20 minutes before the parents come, stop the play, serve cake and ice cream. Then open gifts. Hand each girl her own wrapped box of candy on the way out the door. Total cost: less than $20

For the boxes, call Home Depot several weeks ahead and ask when they recycle their appliance boxes. They will save them for you if you ask, but you’ll have to go early to pick them up (like 7:30am) They are free

C: wow, just wow! that all sounds fantastic! seriously I’m stunned…this sounds amazing and I know she would have a blast!

Me: The highlight of her day will be decorating the stuff with you for her friends. The key is to let perfection fly out the window and just let her do it her way. (That’s the hardest part.)

C: yes…I can see your ways 🙂 and all this incorporates who she is,… honestly I’m humbled and stopped in my tracks…

This quick intervention literally just saved me over $300. That is impressive indeed. But, what’s more heartfelt and gets me to the core, is my daughter. I have been trying to find ways to connect with her. She’s a quirky little duck…But I shared with her the birthday plan and she excitedly threw her arms around me saying “oh mommy this is going to be the best birthday ever!” I cried…the $ saved is amazing, but that moment with my little Ellie, priceless. I will remember that for the rest of my life. 🙂

Me: I LOVE this so much <3 <3 <3

We only have about 20 slots left in the class, but if this is something that speaks to you, you can see more here.

The One Important Thing

By Angela on March 31, 2016

If you could cut your grocery spending in half and remove all your debt payments, how would your life change?

When I was a young bride with 3 small children, we asked ourselves that question. We were struggling along on a $35,000 income and wondering how we were going to offer things like music lessons to our kids as they grew. At the time, we didn’t know that 3 more children would eventually join our family. We only knew that if things continued the way they were we’d never have the life we hoped for. We had an $89,000 debt looming over us. No longer were we satisfied with limping along paying minimums. We stared it in the face, taking massive decisive action. In 6 intense months, we were debt free. On paper, it should have taken much longer. Looking back we recognize ONE IMPORTANT thing that made the difference in the speed of our journey to debt free success.

Once someone hears the details to our story, there are two responses: 1. I could never do that because I don’t have blank or blank. or 2. This is so motivating I’m going to do it.

I really hope you are #2, because no matter what your situation is, the One IMPORTANT thing will make a difference for you.

I’m hosting a live video event Wednesday, April 6th and along with our debt free details will explain it all. Reserve your spot here.

How to Use Power Point to Design a Room

By Angela on July 7, 2015

This is so much fun! I made a video to show you how I try out a new design in a room before I break a sweat or spend a dime. I can decide if items work in my space just by trying them virtually without buying anything. If you take a photo of your room straight on, you can drop the items right over your picture so you get all the proportions right. Read more…

How to Use Pinterest to Discover your Design Style

By Angela on July 3, 2015

Do you know your design style? Are you a little bit modern or country? Do you like lots of decorations or prefer a minimalistic style? White walls, dark walls, neutral or bold? Painted trim, or stained wood? For some of us it’s hard to decide.

I can appreciate any well decorated space, so I made the mistake in our last home of combining too many styles in one room. Read more…

Smart Tiles Installation and Review

By Angela on June 13, 2015

Smart Tiles Installation and Review Mix month is still going strong and I have a big line up for you next week! But for the weekend I wanted to show you some progress I’m making in the girl’s bathroom. In July, I’ll have a whole month of house projects and frugal nesting ideas for you–this is just a sneak peek :).

Smart Tiles generously supplied the tiles for this post (after I begged them) and I honestly thought I would have it up and ready for them in April. If you remember, the space looked like this–very green:

Girl's bathroom before

I stripped the wallpaper and the popcorn ceiling and was stuck with how to repair this:

…and many areas like it. I finally hired a drywall guy to rescue me. He was amazing and affordable and I wish I had called him months ago.

This week, I primed and painted the space. It is white, white, white…from the ceiling to the floor. To keep it from being boring and cold, I have lots of gold accents and dramatic floor to ceiling curtains planned. Plus texture from faux bamboo shades, terry cloth rugs, and hexagonal tiles. These, to be exact. #onsalenow

I chose these tiles because I want the space done quickly without messing with concrete backer board, wet saws, adhesive or grout. Yet, I needed something to look great, be durable, and create a waterproof area. I was not disappointed.

Here’s a before and after picture:

Smart Tiles Before and After

The sink will eventually be white too.

I made a video for you showing how they work :).

Wrapping up the Spending Freeze

By Angela on February 2, 2015

Can you believe the 31 day freeze is over? I know some of you have already told me you are going for another month and I think that’s awesome.

We had a possible $200 from our basic living expenses to put back into our goal fund. Those dollars were kept separate from my purse, where they would have normally gone. Those budgets were: eating out, misc., hygeine, and blow money. The clothing fund also came out of my purse, but we can’t put those saved dollars into our goal fund. They need to be saved for future needs that we know are coming.

We had a few expenses and mistakes which left us $173 from money that normally disappears throughout the month.

I was gifted $200 from 2 separate places for Christmas/End of year bonuses that I decided to donate to the goal fund.

I also earned an extra $400 selling items on craigslist and online.

So the Spending Freeze found $773 for our project! Guys, this is huge for us. This means we can move the door, do the drywall, and basically create a finished bedroom to sleep in. The bathroom won’t be done yet, but still I had doubts that this much was even possible.

I’d love to hear how your spending freeze turned out–good or bad. Nobody can do this perfectly but even a little push in the right direction is awesome!

How I Make My Christmas Budget

By Angela on November 5, 2014

Christmas Budget That Works

The number one cause of Christmas Spending Disasters is a failure to plan. If you haven’t already made a plan it’s not too late. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about what you can do right now if you don’t have any Christmas cash yet. But today, watch the video to see how to get it on paper.