A few months back I had a conversation with my cousin about budgets and grocery shopping. I told her my grocery budget was around $30-$40 a week and her mouth proceeded to drop. She told me she spends about $100-$150 a week for her family of four and did not understand how I spent so little. To which I looked at her and said, "you can't spend what you don't have". With my husband starting a new job after we moved here our income was cut by more than half and sacrifices had to be made. I couldn't do much about our regular bills, they were what they were, but I could control what I spent on food.
It occured to me that most people probably spend at least $100 a week and the idea of dropping that bill down to $30 seems impossible. Anyone I have shared my budget with automatically asks what kind of stuff we eat. They assume with a small budget I'm limited to spaghetti, mac and cheese, hot dogs, and the like. While I am all about some hot dogs and mac and cheese, this is not an every week meal for us, and is usually more of lunch than dinner.
So this is how the $30 Grocery Challenge was born. Like many others there are weeks I go over budget by a few dollars or somehow justify spending extra on this or that. There are weeks I "forget" to meal plan and by Wednesday I'm scrambling to figure out what the heck we are going to eat. This challenge is to help me stick to my budget and challenge everyone else to decrease their grocery bill. Maybe $30 seems impossible when you're spending $100 but maybe $60 seems doable. If even that much of a drop makes you nervous, start by decreasing your bill by $10 a week. So If your budget right now is $100, next week make your budget $90, then the week after that try $80. Having a small grocery budget forces us to not buy all the snacks, and junk food. It makes us conscious of what we are putting in our shopping carts and makes us second guess buying all the little extras that "look good" in the moment. It also makes us appreciate the food luxuries like Little Debbies, sodas, and chips. These, I'm sorry to say, used to be staples in my weekly grocery trips and can increase your grocery bill buy $10-$20 easily. I'm happy to say (and my hips are too) they are not any more. I only buy snack cakes when I have a coupon and can get them at a great price (nearly free), soda is bought for special occasions like cookouts and parties, and chips are in our cabinet only when I've scored some free salsa or chip dip, and even then I refuse to pay $3 a bag.
Seriously, it's physically impossible for me to put a $3 bag of chips in my cart.
So every week I will post my meal plan for the week, grocery shopping list and total after coupons to prove how much I spend and that it can be done, and the recipes I use (if the meal requires one).
Here are a few tips on how I make it on a $30/week grocery budget, and how you can decrease yours:
#1 Meal plan-this is essential! There are so many times in the past I did not meal plan and just went to the store, bought some food, and spent a crapload of money. Only to get home, look in the fridge and realize there's nothing to eat.
#2 Have a variety of recipes. After you cook the same thing for so many weeks you get bored and that's when you start to stray and spend more in order to get a variety.
#3 Use your freezer to the fullest. I'm in love with freezer meals. They are fantastic and such a lifesaver for a busy family. I also stockpile meat when it's on sale. I don't buy 10 lbs but I buy family packs of whatever is on sale each week, divide it into meal portions in freezer baggies and that way I have it for future meals and don't have to pay full price. For years I have had a large deep freezer to take advantage of, now that we live in an apartment we are limited to a regular refrigerator freezer. Even with a small freezer you can still take advantage of freezer meals so don't let that deter you.
#4 stockpile/couponing. No I don't mean stockpile like the people on the Extreme Couponing show. You don't need a basement grocery store or a whole seperate room full of food to stockpile. When items are at their lowest, with coupons, I try to buy about 4-5 of them. For example, Quaker yogurt bars were on sale a few weeks back for $1.79 a box. I had a coupon for $0.75 off of 1 which at my grocery store doubled to $1.50 making each box $0.29 each. So I bought 5 boxes. Occasionally when there is a really great deal on an item I can get for free I will buy up to 10 but no more than that. Space in an apartment is limited and I only buy this quantity of items for things we go through quickly like ketchup, rice,cereal, etc.
#5 Plan ahead. Our local pool was not opening for almost a month when I bought the yogurt bars but my first thought was how great they would be to take with us to the pool, park, zoo, etc. The same thought occured to me when I bought 4 cases of Capri Sun juices a couple months back for $0.75 each. These are regularly over $2 so I was so excited to get them so cheap. During the summer months they are a necessity in our house. If I had waited until I actually "needed" them, I may have had to pay full price or not get them at all.
Are you ready to start saving some money? Are you ready to stop spending hundreds of dollars a month at the grocery store? Start this week, take on the $30 Grocery Challenge!
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Tuesday, June 4, 2013
Potty Training
Did you shutter when you read the title of this post? I have been dreading the inevitable need to potty train Grant. I have talked myself out of doing it many times with the reasoning of "he's not ready", which really means I'm not ready. Back in the day (before I had a child of my own) I would have told you exactly how to potty train your child and I would also tell you they should be trained soon after turning 2.
Fast forward to my having a child, a very stubborn, independent, strong willed, child and I had no clue how to train him, and the idea of attempting it soon after his 2nd birthday was enough to make me want to cry.
It sounds crazy, but it's oh so true.
I was at a loss as to how to start and I figured maybe a lot of mom's feel the same, so I thought I'd share how I've been training Grant. I won't say he's trained yet because I don't want to jinx anything but he is doing better than I ever thought he would at this point and I couldn't be more impressed and thrilled.
I started during a week I knew there was nothing pressing that needed done. Meaning I didn't need to be running around here there and everywhere and could pretty much stay home all day every day if it was absolutely necessary. So Tuesday when Grant woke up I explained to him it was time to wear his underwear and he needed to pee in the potty not in his pants. I spent the next 12 hours changing what seemed like an endless amount of wet underwear and wet pants.
After going through 3 pair of pants in about an hour I ditched the pants and let him run around in his shirt and underwear.
I did not get 1 single pee in the potty the entire day and by 6pm I gave in a slapped (not literally) a diaper on his bottom stating "I'm done". I questioned whether he was actually ready. Whether he would catch on and whether I was completely wasting my time and would be spending every day this week changing hundreds of pair of wet underwear and cleaning up pee puddles all over my house. I did have a spray bottle of dish soap and water and a scrub brush for cleaning the carpet after accidents which was convenient, but that was the last thing I wanted to do for a week straight.
I got up Wednesday morning fully prepared to have another day of wet underwear and it started out to be exactly that. After 2 pees and a poop in the underwear he came to me and said he had to pee. He went to the potty and ever since then he's been going on his own. He has stayed dry during nap time and has even been waking up during the night to pee, keeping him dry all night long.
I'm still in disbelief and waiting for the ball to drop. Waiting for him to make it a little more difficult for me but excited at his progress so far. The most frustrating part is when we are out places. The trip to the grocery store (our first outing while potty training) would have been a disaster had it not been for my husband. I took the potty seat from the house and put it in the van because public restrooms grosse me out. We hadn't gotten through half the grocery isles before he said he had to pee. Then no more than Derrick got him back in the store he said he had to pee again. He ended up keeping Grant out there about a half hour and said he peed 4 times. I just kept thinking, there would have been no way I could have done that by myself. I wouldn't have gotten my shopping done at all.
Here are a few things I learned and a few things that helped me:
1. Extra potty seat in the car. It's hard for little ones to potty on large toilets so having their potty seat and having the privacy of a vehicle makes it a little easier.
2. Padded underwear: lets face it, training pants are pricey and who has a bunch of extra money to invest in those and then a bunch of underwear they will just pee and poop in. So I made some "training pants" of my own. During yard sale season last year I bought every pair of 2T-4T underwear I could find then used the old school cloth diapers I had leftover from his infancy days to pad them so the pee wouldn't just dribble out all over my carpet. Here is how I made them. These worked great. I have every intention of making training pants like these for all future potty training.
3. Don't torcher yourself and Stay Home: If at all possible stay home for a few days and soley focus on potty training. The least amount of time your little one is in a diaper or pull up the better. I think this is what helped Grant the most. I know if he had been wearing pull-ups and we would have done the running around we normally do it would have taken him alot longer to start going on his own.
4. Use a timer: The 2nd day I used a timer I bought at the store and set it for every 30 minutes. When he would get up from the potty I set the timer for 30 minutes and he got to the point when he hear the timer go off he knew it was time to try to potty so he would come to me and willingly sit down.
5. If you have stubborn child, Don't Force It: By Don't Force It, I don't mean if he/she doesn't want to potty put a diaper back on and give up for awhile. I mean don't force them to sit on the potty over and over. I started my 1st day telling Grant over and over "come potty", to which he would yell "NO", and it started to become a battle. After a couple hours of this I stopped all together. I reminded him frequently to not pee in his underwear and would ask if he wanted to try to potty. If he said no, I left him alone and didn't force him to sit and try to pee, however he started to want to come and try. I have learned with my stubborn, independent child that if you try to force it or try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do he gets twice as stubborn and it ends up being a lost cause.
6. Don't give up: Even if you have 3 straight days of wet underwear and very few pees in the potty, keep going. If you know your child is old enough and can do it, just keep at it. I'm a firm believer in not using pull-ups except during sleeping hours. To me they are thinner diapers and feel the same to a child as a regular diaper and therefore it's much harder for them to get the idea they shouldn't pee and poop in it. This is why I say to stay home a few days until they get going good, because no one wants to take a child to the store in underwear when they are peeing through every 30 minutes. It only frustrates you and the child.
I, in no way claim to be an expert but I have had some good success so far and maybe this will help some other mother out there with a stubborn child who is dreading attempting to potty train.
Fast forward to my having a child, a very stubborn, independent, strong willed, child and I had no clue how to train him, and the idea of attempting it soon after his 2nd birthday was enough to make me want to cry.
It sounds crazy, but it's oh so true.
I was at a loss as to how to start and I figured maybe a lot of mom's feel the same, so I thought I'd share how I've been training Grant. I won't say he's trained yet because I don't want to jinx anything but he is doing better than I ever thought he would at this point and I couldn't be more impressed and thrilled.
I started during a week I knew there was nothing pressing that needed done. Meaning I didn't need to be running around here there and everywhere and could pretty much stay home all day every day if it was absolutely necessary. So Tuesday when Grant woke up I explained to him it was time to wear his underwear and he needed to pee in the potty not in his pants. I spent the next 12 hours changing what seemed like an endless amount of wet underwear and wet pants.
After going through 3 pair of pants in about an hour I ditched the pants and let him run around in his shirt and underwear.
I did not get 1 single pee in the potty the entire day and by 6pm I gave in a slapped (not literally) a diaper on his bottom stating "I'm done". I questioned whether he was actually ready. Whether he would catch on and whether I was completely wasting my time and would be spending every day this week changing hundreds of pair of wet underwear and cleaning up pee puddles all over my house. I did have a spray bottle of dish soap and water and a scrub brush for cleaning the carpet after accidents which was convenient, but that was the last thing I wanted to do for a week straight.
I got up Wednesday morning fully prepared to have another day of wet underwear and it started out to be exactly that. After 2 pees and a poop in the underwear he came to me and said he had to pee. He went to the potty and ever since then he's been going on his own. He has stayed dry during nap time and has even been waking up during the night to pee, keeping him dry all night long.
I'm still in disbelief and waiting for the ball to drop. Waiting for him to make it a little more difficult for me but excited at his progress so far. The most frustrating part is when we are out places. The trip to the grocery store (our first outing while potty training) would have been a disaster had it not been for my husband. I took the potty seat from the house and put it in the van because public restrooms grosse me out. We hadn't gotten through half the grocery isles before he said he had to pee. Then no more than Derrick got him back in the store he said he had to pee again. He ended up keeping Grant out there about a half hour and said he peed 4 times. I just kept thinking, there would have been no way I could have done that by myself. I wouldn't have gotten my shopping done at all.
Here are a few things I learned and a few things that helped me:
1. Extra potty seat in the car. It's hard for little ones to potty on large toilets so having their potty seat and having the privacy of a vehicle makes it a little easier.
2. Padded underwear: lets face it, training pants are pricey and who has a bunch of extra money to invest in those and then a bunch of underwear they will just pee and poop in. So I made some "training pants" of my own. During yard sale season last year I bought every pair of 2T-4T underwear I could find then used the old school cloth diapers I had leftover from his infancy days to pad them so the pee wouldn't just dribble out all over my carpet. Here is how I made them. These worked great. I have every intention of making training pants like these for all future potty training.
3. Don't torcher yourself and Stay Home: If at all possible stay home for a few days and soley focus on potty training. The least amount of time your little one is in a diaper or pull up the better. I think this is what helped Grant the most. I know if he had been wearing pull-ups and we would have done the running around we normally do it would have taken him alot longer to start going on his own.
4. Use a timer: The 2nd day I used a timer I bought at the store and set it for every 30 minutes. When he would get up from the potty I set the timer for 30 minutes and he got to the point when he hear the timer go off he knew it was time to try to potty so he would come to me and willingly sit down.
5. If you have stubborn child, Don't Force It: By Don't Force It, I don't mean if he/she doesn't want to potty put a diaper back on and give up for awhile. I mean don't force them to sit on the potty over and over. I started my 1st day telling Grant over and over "come potty", to which he would yell "NO", and it started to become a battle. After a couple hours of this I stopped all together. I reminded him frequently to not pee in his underwear and would ask if he wanted to try to potty. If he said no, I left him alone and didn't force him to sit and try to pee, however he started to want to come and try. I have learned with my stubborn, independent child that if you try to force it or try to get him to do something he doesn't want to do he gets twice as stubborn and it ends up being a lost cause.
6. Don't give up: Even if you have 3 straight days of wet underwear and very few pees in the potty, keep going. If you know your child is old enough and can do it, just keep at it. I'm a firm believer in not using pull-ups except during sleeping hours. To me they are thinner diapers and feel the same to a child as a regular diaper and therefore it's much harder for them to get the idea they shouldn't pee and poop in it. This is why I say to stay home a few days until they get going good, because no one wants to take a child to the store in underwear when they are peeing through every 30 minutes. It only frustrates you and the child.
I, in no way claim to be an expert but I have had some good success so far and maybe this will help some other mother out there with a stubborn child who is dreading attempting to potty train.
Monday, June 3, 2013
Day at the Zoo
I was so excited to take Grant to the zoo this year. I decided to get a zoo pass with some of our income tax refund and I think it's definately going to pay for itself. Grant had a blast and even though the beginning of the day was rainy and cold, it turned out to be a perfect day.
I didn't prepare for it to be as cold as it was, so luckily we had a winter hat and blanket in the van. I don't think Grant cared what the weather was like. He was just excited to see everything.
It's amazing how much kids grow and change in such a short amount of time. We were at the zoo in October of last year and he wasn't naming hardly any of the animals and now he wanted to know what every animals name was and was giddy at the sight of them.
With the way the day started I was afraid no one would actually get to see the zoo shirt I made for him. Fortunately after about an hour the sun started shining and the temperature started rising.
We always take our own snacks,drinks, and lunch since I have no desire to pay $8 a piece for a meal and God knows how much for a drink and a little snack. I made blueberry, apricot, and almond granola bars (recipe here), and packed Grant some trail mix of dried apricots, dried blueberries, peanut butter cheerios, pretzels, and quaker oatmeal square cereal. He was all about it and surprisingly loved the dried apricots. Who knew? I can't normally get him to drink much water but with his new water bottle he didn't want anything else.
I think his favorite part was the aquarium. He loved how close the fish were to him.
Growing up we never took big vacations to Disney World or the beach but every year we made it to the zoo and we loved it! I know Grant will be just as excited as I used to be and I can't wait to take him again.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
Homemade Shout Stain Remover
I have to admit I am not the mom that spends hours trying to preserve her child's clothes at the end of the day by getting the grass stains out of the knees or the kool-aid stains out of his shirts. I know I'm a slacker. No stain remover has ever really worked well for me, there seems to always be a light stain still left after I spray, soak, rub in, spray, soak, wash, spray, soak, wash.
It's like a never ending battle. Me vs. The Stain.
Somehow no matter how hard I work, I always lose.
So I gave up on even trying for a while and just turned all the really badly stained shirts into sleep shirts. However the time finally came when he stained one of his good shirts that I really wanted to keep stain free. Instead of spending a bunch of money on Shout or Resolve or Tide stain remover I decided to give a homemade stain remover a shot. I've had really good luck with all my other homemade cleaners and detergents so I thought my chances might be good.
I found a recipe here and followed the directions. I took a white kool-aid stained shirt of Grant's and a white tank top of mine with a stain on it (who knows where that came from). I sprayed them and let them set for about an hour. Then I soaked them in cold water for an hour or so. When I took them out the stains were gone. I wish I had a before and after pic of the shirts but of course I forgot.
Due the ammonia make sure you do not use bleach and you are in a well ventilated area not breathing in the fumes, because this stuff can be strong if you have a large stained area to spray.
It's like a never ending battle. Me vs. The Stain.
Somehow no matter how hard I work, I always lose.
So I gave up on even trying for a while and just turned all the really badly stained shirts into sleep shirts. However the time finally came when he stained one of his good shirts that I really wanted to keep stain free. Instead of spending a bunch of money on Shout or Resolve or Tide stain remover I decided to give a homemade stain remover a shot. I've had really good luck with all my other homemade cleaners and detergents so I thought my chances might be good.
I found a recipe here and followed the directions. I took a white kool-aid stained shirt of Grant's and a white tank top of mine with a stain on it (who knows where that came from). I sprayed them and let them set for about an hour. Then I soaked them in cold water for an hour or so. When I took them out the stains were gone. I wish I had a before and after pic of the shirts but of course I forgot.
Due the ammonia make sure you do not use bleach and you are in a well ventilated area not breathing in the fumes, because this stuff can be strong if you have a large stained area to spray.
Monday, May 20, 2013
Toy Story Wall Hangings
I've been really anxious to decorate our new place, you know to make it a little more homey. The last few places we have lived were very temporary and we never even unpacked everything. How sad is that.
I wanted to make sure not to do that this time around. I want to be fully unpacked and the place completely put together. I knew Grant's room would be fun and of course it's got to be done in Toy Story. Since his first birthday, which was Toy Story themed, I knew I wanted to make his room with the same theme. I made multiple Toy Story Cricut character cut outs for his birthday and have saved them all this time with the intention of making them into some kind of wall art.
I had planned on buying some wood plaques from Hobby Lobby and painting them, but with the cost of moving and everything, I just couldn't bring myself to spend what I didn't have to. I found 4 8x10 canvases I bought ages ago and decided they would work just fine. So I dug through my acrylic paint and found 4 colors that were perfect blue, red, yellow, and green. I had Grant help me pick the characters and then just mod podged them onto the painted canvas.
Are they not the cutest!
I love them and so does Grant. He's constantly pointing at them and showing them to everyone.
I also used some of the other Toy Story items he has to decorate. My friend gave him 3 Golden Books and 2 character dolls for his 1st birthday, so I took a couple shelves I've had forever and put them on it.
And of course I had to hang his name up.
In case you are wondering I am fully aware the letters are not even.
What can I say, I hung them by myself and didn't measure a thing. Live and learn.
I have 1 more wall to decorate and I have no clue what to put on it, I need a little inspiration, but I love the what I've started. Not bad for some free decorating.
I wanted to make sure not to do that this time around. I want to be fully unpacked and the place completely put together. I knew Grant's room would be fun and of course it's got to be done in Toy Story. Since his first birthday, which was Toy Story themed, I knew I wanted to make his room with the same theme. I made multiple Toy Story Cricut character cut outs for his birthday and have saved them all this time with the intention of making them into some kind of wall art.
I had planned on buying some wood plaques from Hobby Lobby and painting them, but with the cost of moving and everything, I just couldn't bring myself to spend what I didn't have to. I found 4 8x10 canvases I bought ages ago and decided they would work just fine. So I dug through my acrylic paint and found 4 colors that were perfect blue, red, yellow, and green. I had Grant help me pick the characters and then just mod podged them onto the painted canvas.
Are they not the cutest!
I love them and so does Grant. He's constantly pointing at them and showing them to everyone.
I also used some of the other Toy Story items he has to decorate. My friend gave him 3 Golden Books and 2 character dolls for his 1st birthday, so I took a couple shelves I've had forever and put them on it.
And of course I had to hang his name up.
In case you are wondering I am fully aware the letters are not even.
What can I say, I hung them by myself and didn't measure a thing. Live and learn.
I have 1 more wall to decorate and I have no clue what to put on it, I need a little inspiration, but I love the what I've started. Not bad for some free decorating.
Thursday, May 16, 2013
Homemade Dusting Spray
We recently moved and our stuff has been in storage for over a year, so naturally alot of our furniture needed polished and cleaned. We have 2 end tables we use in our living room that my Papaw made years ago. When we brought them to the new place they looked like some kind of white liquid had been spilled on them and dried to it. Of course I had no dusting spray or furniture polish to clean them and kept forgetting to pick any up at the store. I think I was intentionally forgetting because I truely HATE buying cleaning products. Lets face it they are extremely over priced and none of them work as well as they say they will.
While I was unpacking I found a list of homemade cleaner recipes and in them was one for furniture polish or dusting spray. I love homemade cleaners for a couple reasons;
1. They are usually cheaper because they are made from ingredients you already have.
2. Most of them are safe to be around little kids. While I still keep all my cleaning products, including the homemade ones, out of reach of my little guy it's nice to know they won't harm him.
This cleaner only contained two ingredients, which I had in my cabinet, vinegar and olive oil. All you use is 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 tsp olive oil. Mix them together in a spray bottle and spray on your furniture using a clean rag to rub it in.
While I was unpacking I found a list of homemade cleaner recipes and in them was one for furniture polish or dusting spray. I love homemade cleaners for a couple reasons;
1. They are usually cheaper because they are made from ingredients you already have.
2. Most of them are safe to be around little kids. While I still keep all my cleaning products, including the homemade ones, out of reach of my little guy it's nice to know they won't harm him.
This cleaner only contained two ingredients, which I had in my cabinet, vinegar and olive oil. All you use is 1/2 cup vinegar and 1 tsp olive oil. Mix them together in a spray bottle and spray on your furniture using a clean rag to rub it in.
Here is a couple before pictures of my poor little end table.
Here is the after:
I am so super excited about how well this worked so I knew I had to share.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
Strawberry Cupcakes
I made strawberry cupcakes for my nieces birthday and they were adorable.
I searched all over for a good strawberry cake recipe. I found this one from Martha Stewart and made it for my sister's birthday a couple days before. I was not satisfied with the flavor because you couldn't taste the strawberry. I actually had my husband taste it without telling him what flavor it was and he couldn't figure it out. So when I made them for Sophie's birthday I bought some lorann's strawberry flavoring and used about 1/2 the bottle. It turned out perfect! I used store bought cream cheese frosting because I had issues with frosting curdling (stupid Ohio weather), and they were so girly and cute, Sophie loved them.
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