How I saved money this week: Volume 1

Just an update, meal planning has gone really well.  While we haven't stuck with the specific meal for the specific day perfectly, we have had the meals I had planned within the week.  On Monday, we had pizza for lunch instead of dinner and on Tuesday I realized that I still hadn't gotten ricotta cheese (for some reason I couldn't find it at the grocery store when I went last week, so I was planning on just getting a big container at Costco but totally forgot!).  So we still had some ham and we had that on Tuesday night and moved the lasagna to Thursday night.  Anyway, other than the ricotta cheese and having to get more milk, we stuck with our meals and didn't go to the grocery store!  That was a big goal of mine!

Now, for ways I actively saved money:

First, this is actually something that Tim did for us, but we cleaned out our storage unit.  Right now, everything is spread out in our garage while we go through everything and decide what is keep, give, and trash.  Technically we aren't able to really save this money because it is the exact amount of Robby's tuition for Mother's Day Out.  But thankfully, that means it cancels out that expense, which makes me feel a little less guilty for him going.

Second, I made our own crackers.  Technically, they were supposed to be goldfish crackers but I didn't make the little cutter to make the fish, so I just cut them in squares.  I used this recipe and they are SO good!  I need to make them a little thinner so they are more crispy and less chewy.  But the flavor is wonderful.  Tim said he likes them better than goldfish.  Robby liked them, too, and actually ate fewer of them at snack time because they were more filling.  They were extremely easy.  Way easier than I ever imagined.  If you have a food processor, you're set!
I gathered all my ingredients: 8 oz of freshly shredded cheddar cheese, 1 Cup of flour, 3/4 teaspoons of salt, 2 Tablespoons of cold water

 I put everything in the food processor and pulsed it until it was mixed and looked kind of gritty.

I added the water slowly until a loose dough formed.  I molded it into a flattened ball and put it in the fridge for a couple of hours.  The recipe calls for just 20 minutes, but I somehow got distracted by a kid or two and that turned into a couple of hours!

 I rolled out the cheese dough and instead of using a cutter, I just cut strips and made square(ish) shapes.

 Lined them on parchment paper.

And baked at 350 for 15 minutes.  They aren't pretty.  If I were making these to give to someone or take somewhere, I would have made them much better.  I think I have heartedly expected them not to turn out very well so I didn't worry too much about how they looked.

This recipe made enough to fill a quart size ziptop bag.  Since I always have these ingredients on hand, they don't cost me anything.  The only thing I'm at risk of running out of would be the cheese and this recipe calls for about $1 worth of cheese when I shred it myself.  I would imagine I'm saving about $2 for every batch of these I make since we aren't buying them.  Plus, they taste better!  I'm considering using whole wheat flour one time and seeing how those turn out.  I'll let you know!

Third, I couponed.  I've done a couple of coupon clipping trip, mainly to CVS or Walgreens when they were having specials on health and beauty products and I had coupons.  Usually those trips ended with me saving a little but mainly I would get the rewards cash or coupons back, which I guess is still saving money, it just wasn't saving a ton of money on that specific trip.  This time, I spent two days worth of nap times finding baby food coupons.  Target is having their big baby sale through the 8th and I knew I wanted to take advantage of all the baby food they had discounted.  Thankfully, at Target you can use Target coupons, combined with their sale prices, combined with manufacturer coupons.  Before I went, I organized all my coupons by brand, made sure Tim was taking care of the boys (there was no way I could have focused on this if I was also having to keep up with them), and promised myself not to purchase anything that wasn't on sale AND that I didn't have a coupon.  My budget to spend was $100 and I had to stick to that.  I happened to go to the baby section through another section instead of down the main aisle, the way I usually do.  Since I went that way, I was able to see quite a bit of baby food that was clearanced on an endcap. I first checked the expiration date because I have found clearanced food items before that were a month or so away from their expiration and that doesn't save any money if I have to throw it out before we use it!  All was good, and I started going through my coupons and finding the matching foods.  Then I headed to the main baby food aisle.  I mainly had coupons for Gerber, but it was all on sale and I had two coupons for each baby food item I purchased, so I got most Gerber items for around $.10-$.15 each.  Other coupons I had were for the baby food pouches.  While these are more expensive, even with the coupons, we have found that these work very well for us.  They are super easy to feed from when we use the little attachable spoons and once Charlie is able to suck from the pouch himself, I can just hand them to him when we are in the car and he can feed himself.  We used these all the time when Robby was little.  I would stock up on them when they were on sale at Babies R Us or Target, but never had coupons also.  All of those I got for under $1.  Now, I know the way to REALLY save money on baby food is to make my own.  I do make some items, mainly the items that all I have to do is mash them with a fork, but I can't seem to get my act together to make all the food and freeze it.  But I have a few ways of saving when it comes to baby food that don't include making it from scratch.  We buy applesauce in bulk from Costco.  As long as it is only apples and no sugar is added, it's the same as baby food apples.  We get three HUGE containers of applesauce for around $4.  One of those packages lasted us through Robby's entire time of eating baby food.  We add it to baby cereal, feed it alone, and add it to other baby food to add another flavor/component to the food.  Doing that also stretches the baby food to last longer.  And since baby food isn't a replacement for bottles yet, we only feed an actual baby food one time a day, the other times is oatmeal or rice cereal.  Anyway, I was heading to the checkout after filling my cart full of baby food and a few other items and I just knew I wasn't going to be able to stick to my $100 budget.  I said a quick, silent prayer that God would bless my basket and bless my wallet and keep it within what we can afford.  I know that sounds silly, but I had to do that at the grocery store the week before, too, because we had such a strict grocery budget that I had to keep to.  Well, y'all, God answered my prayer because when I checked out I was shocked.  I quickly passed the $100 mark and got up to $158.  I wish I could have a total of how much it all would have been not counting the sale prices.  If my calculations on everything is right, it was around $210.  I handed her my stack of coupons, totally expecting the camera crew from TLC to show up.  The cashier started scanning them and I just watched as the total dropped and dropped.  My grand total for the baby food was $98.54!  I had to get some aftershave for Tim, so that brought my entire total a tad over $100 (but I had a coupon for that, too!).  I was so excited, that I called Tim right away!  I kind of understand those crazy couponers now.  I texted my friend Catie and she totally nailed my feelings when she said it gives us a high when we save a good amount of money.  That's very true!  Here is everything I purchased:

It is enough food to get Charlie through his baby food phase!  I could not believe that I got so much (a few items are missing because Robby could reach up on the table and get some so he was carrying them around while I was trying to take a picture.)  I don't think I'll become a crazy coupon person, but I do think I will pay closer attention to what coupons are out for items I already purchase.  It didn't take all that long for me to find coupons online to print, but it did take quite a bit of time to match them with my list.  I definitely don't want to buy things just because I have a coupon for them and I want to be sure that I wouldn't get a better deal simply by purchasing the store brand.  I think I will need to start shopping by myself though because it definitely takes a lot of focus to keep everything straight!

How did you save money this week?  I'd love to hear about it!

On Saving a Little Money...

After reevaluating our budget and making plans to drastically pay down or pay off some things in the next year to two years, we realized we needed to make some major cost saving changes.  I have been pinning some things lately that I was ready to start implementing and thought I would share them.

First, I decided to make some homemade mixes.  I found some basic ones that I wanted to start with, including a Bisquick mix, brownie mix, white cake mix, pancake mix, tortilla mix, and cornbread mix.  I printed out the recipe for the mix and the directions for making whatever it is.

My plan is to get some clear containers for all the mixes and put the directions on the front and the recipe for the mix on the back and cover them in contact paper so they don't get messed up.  I'm on the lookout for some good containers that don't cost a fortune, since spending $50 on containers for the mixes kind of negates the purpose of making the mixes to save money!  So far, I've only made the Bisquick, brownie, and white cake mixes.  I will be making the others in the next couple of days.

I don't spend a ton of money on store bought breads and doughs, but I would say I spend at least $25 a month on things like that.  Considering that is $300 a year, I decided that I would be better about making things at home.  I have a bread maker that I use, but since that can take as little as 45 minutes and as much as 4 hours to make something, I wanted to have something that was quicker on hand all the time.  I will mainly use the Bisquick mix for pizza crusts, biscuits, and general breads for meals.  I doubled this recipe and am expecting it to last us at least 3 months.  I had everything except the nonfat dry milk on hand to make the mix, so it really didn't cost much to make it. And in the future, when I need to make more, I'll have everything already so it won't cost anything to make it. I made the pizza crust last night and it was really good!  I'll had some herbs to it next time to give it a little something more.  Tim and I noticed that it was more filling than my previous store bought dough or bread maker dough.  That's a good thing since we will probably end up eating less.  I, of course, had to make the brownie mix last night, too, in order to see if it was any good!  :-)  The brownies got Tim's seal of approval!  Our favorite way to eat brownies is in muffin form.  We both like the edges of the brownies, so when I make them as a muffin, we usually only have about one bite that doesn't include an edge.  I haven't tried the cake mix yet, but I don't really make all that many cakes.  I am looking forward to using this to make quick cobblers and I have a big cookie recipe that uses a cake mix.  It will just be good to have it on hand.  And the cost to make that entire container of cake mix was less than buying two boxes of cake mixes.  Also, I made some cookie mixes to have on hand.  I make pretty much only make homemade cookies but sometimes I want them and don't want to go to all the trouble of getting everything out and making them.  This way, all I have to do is add a few ingredients and bake them!  I had all the items needed to make two of each of these mixes (except for the gingerbread since I'm not really a fan!).

Second, I am back to making my own pizza and pasta sauces.  I used to do this all the time, but had gotten out of the habit of it.  I have a super easy pizza sauce recipe and it cost a little over $2 to make 5 pizzas worth of sauce.  (BTW, my sauce recipe is just a 29 oz can of tomato sauce, a 15oz can of tomato paste, 2 Tbsp dried oregano, 1 Tbsp minced garlic, and 1 tsp basil.)  I put one cup of sauce in each bag and put them in the freezer to have ready to go for pizza night, which is about once a week!

Third, I had no idea how much cheaper it was to shred my own cheese instead of buying the bags already shredded.  I purchased cheddar and monterey jack cheeses at Costco for less than $5 for 2 pounds of each.  That makes almost 10 cups of shredded cheese.  That much cheese already shredded is about $10.  We go through a TON of cheese around here.  I would usually buy 4 or 5 bags of shredded cheese every two weeks.  This is going to be a great way for us to save.  I was excited to get to use my food processor as a cheese grater!  When I shredded the mozzarella cheese, it clumped pretty badly.  After doing some quick research, I discovered that it's best to freeze the cheese before you shred it so it won't clump as much.  I packaged them in bags with 2 cups of shredded cheese and wrote the date I shredded it on the bags.

Fourth, is meal planning for the entire month.  I've talked on here before about meal planning.  I didn't keep up with it very well, but now I am doing better.  The way I have done it for the month is having a specific type of meal on each day.  So on Sundays I will make a big meat meal and some sides.  So this month we are having ham one Sunday, then a turkey breast, a roasted whole chicken, a roast, and a pork tenderloin.  The reason I decided to make that type of meal on Sunday is I can plan to use the leftovers in other dishes throughout the week.  Mondays are pizza nights because Mondays are usually pretty rough for me and that is a quick meal that I can make.  Tim informed me that we could have pizza three times a week and he would be fine, but I don't think I could handle that.  We're not in college anymore!  Tuesdays are Italian.  The great thing about this is I can make all the Italian dishes for the month in one day and freeze them if I wanted.  So all I have to do is pop them in the oven and we're good to go.  Or if I know I'm going to have plenty of time that evening, I can just make it that day.  I like the option of having the meals already in the freezer whenever I can!  This month, our Italian meals are lasagna, baked spaghetti, fettucini bake, and manicotti.  Wednesdays are breakfast for dinner nights!  One of my friends told me that she does this with her family and I LOVE it!  We all love breakfast foods and it's nice to be able to sit and enjoy it together since that's not possible for us to do in the mornings since Tim leaves so early.  This month we are having fried eggs and waffles, breakfast tacos with bacon, breakfast casserole, and ham, eggs, and country potatoes.  The fun thing about this is we can make it as simple or as complex as we want, but it's still just yummy breakfast food.  Usually these are really quick meals, which is something I love, as well!  Thursdays will be leftover days.  Fridays are Mexican!  We both LOVE Mexican food and it has, without really being planned this way, always been our Friday night thing.  Before kids, we would usually go out every Friday night to our favorite Mexican restaurant.  This month, we are having taco bake (minus the gross cheese sauce!), black bean and chicken bake, chicken tacos, and enchiladas.  And I'm pretty sure we will have cheese dip with every one of those!  :-)  Saturdays will be another night for leftovers.  I wish I could be more creative with my recipes and try a lot of new ones.  These are all things I've made a ton, but it's getting to the point that I'm good if I can even get dinner made while taking care of the boys.  I'm hoping in a few months I can start branching out and doing more interesting meals!  I'm thinking that with having a set plan for every meal, I will know how better to shop and know that I have everything on hand for all the meals, HOPEFULLY leading to us not eating out.

Fifth, I'm going to make our own laundry detergent.  I haven't done this yet because we have enough for a little while longer.  But I'm really excited about this.  I've heard from people who have made this recipe that it costs $11 for supplies and it lasts anywhere between 6 months to an entire year.  Can you imagine only spending $11 on detergent for a whole year??  Along with that, I found a cheap way to refill my foaming soap pumps!  I read that I could use about an inch of baby bath wash in the soap container then fill the rest with water and mix it up.  I tried that but the bath wash didn't completely mix up and I didn't get as much foam as I wanted.  I have several of these big containers of clear Palmolive that I picked up for $1 each a little while back.  I used that instead and it mixed completely and makes a great foam!  I'm excited to know that I can refill my soap containers probably 20 times from one of these big bottles that cost me $1 instead of using the refill soap you have to buy for $5 and only refills it 4 or 5 times.

I hope I didn't bore you too much with this.  I hope someone might find some little tips they can use to save a little.  I would really love to hear about any ways you pinch pennies and save money!  I need as many ideas as possible!