Faith, Family, Frugal, Simplicity

Thursday, January 30, 2014

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!

Sunday, January 26, 2014

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}

Thursday, January 16, 2014

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.