Homemade Coffee Creamer

Super excited for this one.

Found this recipe on pinterest and LOVE that it only has 3 ingredients!

3 1/2 cups of Almond milk (we used vanilla for extra sweetness)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

Vanilla to taste

And a cutie kitchen - helper :)

Combine and whisk

Ask kids to taste, because I feel sorry for them not being able to actually drink coffee.

And finally,

Pour into a mason jar, 

because EVERYTHING is better in a mason jar

and pair with your favorite coffee (ours is from Aldi of course)

Frugal, Simple and YUMMY!

Aldi - love

Just another post about Aldi (if you are on the fence or on a budget, give it a try!)

This is a picture of our weekly shopping trip for $124

The meals we will have out of this trip:

Tonight (family over for dinner) Chicken and Noodles, mashed potatoes, broccoli and salad with chocolate cake (cake for $2.99 and DELISH!!!)  

Friday night (take-out copy cat)  Orange Chicken and fried rice

Saturday:  Manicotti with marinara, salad

Superbowl Sunday!:  Haystacks (taco stacks) - we eat this one all day

Monday (aka Tommy's cooking night) Frozen pizza, salad

Tuesday:  Chili and baked potatoes

Wednesday:  Potato Soup

Extra meal (prob for lunches) Veggie stir fry over rice

And the extras:

Veggies/fruit for smoothies

Egg sandwiches 

Bagels 

Nuts and pretzels for snacks

Cereal

And my helpers.  They love Aldi ALMOST as much as I do :)

Hugs and happy saving!

Fruglicity - Sunday Lunch

We eat alot  of rice and beans

Filling, inexpensive and simple

Today's lunch:

Flour tortilla

Cilantro rice

Sauteed onions, peppers and a TINY bit of chicken

adding a can of rinsed black beans and a little frozen corn to the sautee pan.

Topped with sour ream and cheddar cheese

Frugal +Simple = Fruglicity {love}

My BIGGEST TEMPTATION

Before we had children, my DH (Darling Husband) and I ate out all the time. Seriously, like it was our job.

I RARELY cooked.

We both worked full-time.

It was justified (sort of, hind-sight? we could have saved alot of money, but live-and-learn)

Then comes 2 children, 18 months apart.

For quite a while they would split a kids meal, or even better eat a little off of our plates.

Fast forward to today.

They both need their OWN MEALS in a restaurant.

So our $15 meals at a mid-priced faster food restaurant turned into $25 at LEAST!

So today...

I had the RARE opportunity to run some errands by myself

I was DANGEROUSLY close to many, many restaurants (we live in a big city).

I was also DANGEROUSLY close to stopping for lunch to take home to my hungry family.

Instead?

I was in Target, (and while we are cutting back on our meat consumption, we are not completely giving it up. ) I purchased a bag of frozen breaded chicken patties ($4.69) for 8

and some buns $2

NOT the healthiest lunch AT ALL, but could have been much worse.

So for $3.35 (for 4 servings) we had a homemade "fast-food" lunch.

It could have been $20 AT LEAST at Chick-fil-A.   WHICH WE LOVE and honestly, my make-shift homemade "fast-food" lunch didn't EVEN COME CLOSE to tasting as good as CFA, but we saved at least $15.

Then dinner.

SO tempted, at the end of our grocery week, to eat out.

Tonight's temptation?  Chinese. Panda Express to be exact.  It just sounded SO GOOD.

Instead?

I made homemade fried rice 

and 2 hours later we had waffles.

Money saved for dinner?   $25.

So total saved today by NOT GIVING IN was at least  $40

whew.  In the moment those are some really tough decisions for me.  Now? I'm so glad.  

While we are doing our best to avoid some very "avoid-able" cultural-temptations, eating out, overspending, getting a smart phone (I am STILL HOLDING OUT, HANGING ON BY MY FINGERNAILS AT THIS POINT!)  the temptation is real and its hard.  But saving money feels so much better at the end of the day.  

*I should note, eating out is ALOT easier in the dishes department.  We do have a dishwasher, ahem, me, but not the appliance-kind. sigh.

Him & Me {happy sigh}

I think it is safe to say that coffee is a big part of our lives (speaking for the grown-ups in the house)

I am currently researching a homemade coffee creamer recipe

Stay tuned :)

Regrowing Romaine Lettuce!

Love this fruglicity (Frugally-Simple) way to use the end of romaine lettuce

Grow more!

I am SUPER-excited about this and hope we can put them in the garden this spring for free lettuce starts!

We put it in 1/2 of water, changing it daily and this is 5 days of growth.

Hugs and happy fruglicity-indoor-gardening!

Meatless Lunch - Friday

Today's Meat-less Lunch

Romaine lettuce topped with Olive Garden Dressing

Mashed Yukon Gold potatoes topped with dried parsley

Sauteed veggies over cilantro-lime rice

Zucchini

Onion

Baby Portebellos

Coconut Oil

Hugs and Happy Meat-less Meals

Fruglicity for Dinner = Meat-less Meals

Over the past 6 months, we have been slowly cutting meat out of our recipes.

At first it was to save money and boy do meat-free recipes help ALOT!

But then we watched the "Forks Over Knives" documentary

 (I say "we" loosely, I watched it over and over, I LIVE for independent nutrition research, and gave Tommy the highlights)

Its has changed my thinking DRAMATICALLY about the role of animal products in our diets.  And since I am the cook in the family, I get to make the rules!  :)  (for the most part)

I am not on a soap-box here, I would hardly call us vegetarians, but we are re-thinking our favorite family recipes and in the process cutting back on meat and saving money.

What does that look like for us?

This picture is of pizza night.

No more meat on our pizza but instead just a cheese pizza

paired with a lovely salad of 

spring mix

red onion

baby portebellos

topped with Olive Garden dressing 

(Um, YAY!  didn't even know we could buy it at the store!)

So far we really haven't missed the meat.

In fact the last time I made a meaty dinner, Tommy ended up sick.

Co-incidence?  not sure

But I do know this, we are consuming MANY, MANY more fruits and veggies.

Hugs and Happy Meat-Less Meals!

Homemade Laundry Soap Updated

We have been making our own laundry soap for years now.  But there are times when our load of laundry is extra dirty and needs a little extra boost.  So there are times I buy store bought soap to supplement.  When I realized I was starting to really prefer store-bought, I started researching ways to stretch it.  OR better yet COMBINE home-made and store-bought.

Here is the recipe I found and LOVE!

Still grating 1 bar of Fels Naptha 

But this time melting it in 4 cups of water.

Then having Olivia add hot water to fill 1/2 of a 5 gallon bucket.

Add 1 cup of borax

and

1 cup of washing soda

stir well

Add more water to about 3/4 full

Allow to gel overnight 

and then, my favorite part

ADD a full store-bought container of laundry soap

Mix 

and 

voila!

Have Logan make a "homemade" label...

Fill old store-bought container

add just a SMIDGE of warm water

shake to combine (its pretty gloppy and gooey)

and we are done!

Super excited to see how long this lasts for us.

After watching the documentary "The 1%"  

This is the way to go for us.

Its a GREAT movie to get you thinking.

Hugs and Happy Laundry Day!