Homemade Hand Soap with Essential Oils

I bought the Young Living Thieves hand soap once. It was $16, which is almost unbelievable. Sorry, Young Living fans. That's expensive. 

But I had a plan in mind.  I didn't have a soap dispenser like this. So when the soap ran out, I simply refilled the same dispenser with two tablespoons liquid Castile soap, approximately 6-8 drops of Young Living's Thieves essential oil, and 2-4 drops of their Citrus Fresh blend. Then I turn the water on to a trickle and gently, slowly fill up the rest of the space with water directly from my faucet. I put the lid back on securely and turn it over a few times, so that the ingredients can mix. Viola! Homemade hand soap! 

Note: Some people use distilled water. I find that to be "a bridge too far," so to speak. If I had to use distilled water or boil water to purify my water, I wouldn't make my own soap. It's obviously better to use sterile water, but it's not something I am overly concerned with at this point in my "crunchy mom" journey. 

Note: My friend gave me a gallon of Castille soap when she moved a few years ago, so that was a huge blessing. A little goes a long way, so I am still using the soap she gave me.  

I use the same "recipe" for my bathroom soap as well. I purchased the Ever Spring soap from Target once. It was only $3-5, making it much more affordable. I do the same thing described above. I fill the empty container with two tablespoons of liquid Castille soap, then I add 7-10 drops Bergamot and Lavender blend of essential oils. Then I turn on the water to a gentle trickle and fill the space in the rest of the container. I turn it over and back a few times to mix it. 

I'm saving a ton of money on hand soaps by reusing the containers I have and making my own. I also save a ton of time and effort. I can replace a soap container in minutes- no shopping required. 

 

An Uncommonly Common Saturday

Dwayne made us all bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches Saturday morning. The smell of bacon has the most profound effect on pre-teens and teens who are usually happy to stay in bed reading until noon. 

With Norah home for the summer, the girls had the idea of going to the thrift store together, something they all truly enjoy and enjoy even more when they can go together. 

I made them do all their chores first, and shower, I did my chores first and showered, too. 

But I was happy to take them, happy to be free to so. Most days, there are a few things on the calendar, but I actually had a full day off for once. 

My kids have none of the prejudice against old, used, or even dusty and broken things that I would expect them to have. So to them, entering a thrift store is the start of a treasure hunt. 

And the prices there make shopping much less of a liability and much more fun. 

And the girls always do well to find the good things hidden in any thrift store. 

Adele found a new, adorable, stuffed narwhale. 

Norah found a mint-condition Sound of Music record. 

Avril found a vintage skirt she's wearing to church today.

I found a copy of Education, Christianity, and The State by Machen. The title rang some bell in the depths of my memory, but this is basically a book and a person I knew nothing about until I Googled him when I got home. I'm devouring the book, highlighting much. 

The girls also helped me find six, different cup and saucer sets for a class that I'm going to teach at one of our homeschool co-ops called "Tea Time." We'll be brewing and drinking a pot of tea each class and talking about tea-related topics. 

After thrifting, we had a pizza lunch at a little Italian place we all love. 

The girls also had gift-certificates to the big, box, bookstore gifted to them by our generous neighbors at Easter, so we went there and bought brand new books, too.  

After crashing on the couches or beds and silently reading for an hour or two once home, we made dinner and to finish the meal, I made a pot of hot tea and we all drank out of our new (and freshly washed) tea cups. 

We read from The Two Towers, our current read-aloud, and then headed to bed. 

I'm wise enough to know I'm blessed to have such an uncommonly common Saturday with my family. 

Store and Save

 

I have several recipes: soups, quiche, casseroles, that require chopped ham.  

So instead of paying a premium for separate ham steaks every time I need ham, I buy a larger ham way ahead of time when it is one sale, slice it into 8-12 portions that are 7-12 ounces each, and freeze these so that I can thaw them as needed. 

We often do this with ground beef, too. 

We get a better deal on the larger container of ground. Then we bring it home and portion it into 1 pound bags that we freeze and thaw as needed. 

Buying meat in bulk is a way to save some money... and time and trouble, too. 

We also try to keep an excess of the non-perishable items in the pantry, stuff that we always use like flour, canned tomatoes, and beans. 

With portions of meats in my freezer and most non-perishables we use stocked on my shelves, some weeks I only need to buy a few things because I already have a lot of the main and basics ingredients on hand.

As I plan my meals each week, I inventory my stores, shopping from my own freezer and shelves.

I replace stores of frozen meats and non-perishables as needed, but I can often get in and out of the grocery stores in minutes only needing a few perishables like milk, eggs, and vegetables. 

Save Vegetable Scraps for Bonebroth

I usually buy a cooked rotisserie chicken once every two weeks. 

I'll pull all the meat off the bones and use the pieces for one or two meals like soups or tacos. 

Then I use the bones to make several cups of rich bone broth that I can store in the fridge and use in meals that week.  

I had been using whole celery stalks, carrots, and onions to flavor my broth for years, but it occurred to me that I chop enough celery, onion, and carrots throughout a two week period for use in other meals that I can probably just save these scarps in a bag ins the fridge and gather enough to use in my broth. 

This worked like a charm! 

I had no need to use whole carrots, onions, or celery sticks, because my scraps amounted to basically the same amount of onion, celery, and carrot that I usually use, and the scraps provided the same amount of flavor. 

Now we have even less food waste! 

Camp Mom

We struggled to make ends meet when our kids were little. 

It's the same story as every other one-income family. 

We were sacrificing my salary so that I could remain home and raise our kids. 

Therefore, we certainly could not afford all the amazing summer camps available for kids.

But nevertheless, we wanted to give our kids all the enrichment. 

But the only thing our kids had was me. 

I was literally the only thing we could afford back then. 

But I wasn't Swim Camp.

Or was I? 

I remember standing in my kitchen realizing that my kids did not actually need camp.

I was qualified enough to be hired by just about any camp I was looking into.  

So why couldn’t I just be the camp? 

I could find a place with free to little admission fees, some of the same exact places camps were going to.

I could pack lunches.

I could take my kids everyday for a week or even two just as if it were an actual camp I'd paid for and was dropping them off to. 

The only difference: 

I'd be the one leading the activities.

But I was already mostly doing that all the time as a stay-at-home mom and homeschool teacher anyway. 

They say necessity mothers invention. 

But even the perception of necessity can force invention. 

So I invented "Camp Mom."

I determined to choose a beautiful spot where land meets water and we'd just go, day after day like it was a place we had paid and registered to be.  

And looking back from this point in time, I see sixteen or seventeen summers of memories made at local beaches, pools, and ponds.  

I taught my babies then toddlers then preschoolers then elementary kids then preteens then teens to swim better and better, little by little each year. 

We also explored nature. 

We got exercise. 

We got to know each other. 

We laughed. 

I stopped feeling sorry for myself about our lack of funds.  

I stopped feeling impoverished because of my career choices, mostly because I stopped acting impoverished. 

Camp Mom, for us, has always been some type or version of a "Swim Camp," since swimming is what I enjoy, what I'm passionate about, I was a lifeguard at one point, I know most of the strokes, and could learn how to teach them, etc.

(But if you are a stay-at-home mom with littles and limited funds and you want to do some version of Camp Mom, it could look like something else. You could hike or visit playgrounds or do crafts instead.)

Camp Mom has morphed a little over the years and now that we have more financial margin, but the changes came about incidentally, almost entirely after-the-fact.  

We were doing "Camp Mom" at a local pond for a while when we noticed that the lifeguards were giving swim lessons. 

We assumed that the lessons were too expensive. 

But, after a full year or two, we asked about how much the lessons were and found that, miracle of miracles, the price was reasonable and/or we could actually afford the price at this point in life.

So now, we actually pay for some swim lessons, and the kids finally get the enrichment of learning from someone else, someone they really want to please, and they make good progress. I can just sit and read my book for a while. It’s lovely. 

So Camp Mom now has a portion of the day where the girls meet with a lifeguard/ instructor (besides me) and they learn the strokes from him or her. 

But Camp Mom is still mostly swimming for hours with Mom and each other and friends who want to come, reviewing the strokes, racing, diving, jumping in, playing, kayaking, picnicking, playing cards,  wondering over the nature we see at whatever beautiful place we've chosen to be. 

And at this point, I bet we could probably even sign our kids up for an actual camp somewhere. 

But we’ve been so shaped by the years of “Camp Mom” that we just wouldn’t do that, because the way we see it now, there's no time for camp. 

We're too busy spending summers together. 

Reusing Giftbags

 

I save a lot of money and time by reusing gift bags, tissue paper, ribbons, etc. from birthdays and holidays. Sometimes I still need to purchase gift wrapping supplies like tissue paper. But most often, I can go months, even years, simply using what I have saved.  Over the years, our gifts have actually tended to look better and better, since we have more and more gift wrapping supplies on hand to use to adorn the gifts we give.  Most of the time the only things I have to buy are the gifts themselves.  But to be successful at saving wrapping supplies, you have to store them almost immediately and in such a way that they look as new as the day you received them. In order to ensure the supplies don't get damaged or wrinkled while in storage, I use a selection of shallow boxes that I have collected over the years to keep the items neat. And I keep all the gift wrapping materials together in a hall closet, so I can use them throughout the year.   

The Christmas Box

Having three girls means we can reuse clothes, which is nice, because it means we can save some money. Any clothes that aren't currently being worn are washed, dried, and put up in big Tupperwares according to their size and/or the season.  I save all our Christmas attire in a separate box altogether, since it is usually fancier and the fabrics that make these dresses and sweaters will not sit nicely in a box with a bunch of jeans, etc.

Naturally, I usually have to buy a dress for the oldest, biggest daughter, unless she doesn't grow too much in one year. And a few times I have had to buy a dress for a littler daughter, because she grew enough to make last year's dress too small, but she did not grow enough to actually fit into the next size up in our collection.

After thirteen years of doing Christmas with daughters, though, I usually have a dress for my little ones and it's only been worn once or twice.  So it's a very exciting day in December when I pull the Christmas box down and we try on the dresses and assess what we need, if anything.  Avril, my middle daughter, is already eyeing the black lace/ white tulle dress that her older sister wore many years ago that she would like to big enough for next year.

Spring Shopping From the Storage Room

It's springtime, so we went shopping in our storage room this week. We pulled out the Tupperwares that were labeled 10+, 5T and 2T and the girls tried on shorts, shirts, sundresses, and seasonal pajamas. Those items that fit got folded up and taken to their drawers.  Since then, I've been taking their winter clothes and pajamas out of their drawers and/ or out of the dryer (if they had been worn and put in the laundry) and I've been putting them in a large, empty Tupperware downstairs to be sorted later.

My kids love hand-me-downs and they especially love the days when we bring out the Tupperwares and try on their clothes for each other.  You can see my middle daughter posing in an old dress in the picture above.  My oldest daughter was actually whining because she didn't have a pile of old dresses like her sisters, because she has to go get new clothes.  Naturally, the oldest always has the least amount of clothes since we haven't been accumulating items in that size for years.

As it is, we have to buy our oldest daughter some shorts and at least a few nicer outfits for church, but other than that, we are basically done with our shopping for the coming season! And we didn't even have to go shopping!  If you are interested in how I organize and store our old clothes so I can use them again and again without having to search for the right sizes and dig through piles and piles, check out my lengthy post about it here. 

For me, one of the hardest parts of sticking to a budget is overcoming boredom. I'm always home with the kids so even going out to Taco Bell can be a thrilling change of scenery. But we've been finding ways around our meal-time mundane by eating over our fire pit in the backyard. These meals aren't ever fancy, but they are certainly fun. And we always finish our campfire meals with S'mores, of course.

We found this tricycle at the thrift store for $5 last night! I had been praying about and looking for a used tricycle for the past two weeks, ever since I realized that the new bicycle we purchased for Avril for her birthday was a bit too heavy for her legs to push at her size. At first, I thought that if we practiced with her bike enough, she'd get stronger and be able to handle it, but after a while it became clear that her little legs and body need another winter of growth before they could handle a bike that size. I realized I had spent as much money as we had to spend on a bike.. on a bike that was too big and so I was stuck. What could I do?

I was afraid Avril wouldn't have anything to ride on or even have a stroller to ride in (now that her baby sister is here) till she was big enough to handle that bike the next summer.  Would she just have to toddle behind us all summer long while I pushed the baby in the stroller and her big sister Norah rode her bike way ahead?

I had been looking on Craigslist and I saw these Kettler tricycles. I knew that they were going for over $100 used (way too much for us to spend). So when I walked into the thrift store and saw one of them by the entrance last night, I went over to it directly. I checked the tag and I could hardly believe the price.  It was so affordable, it would have been wrong not to buy it! We put Avril on it to see how well she would do pushing it and she rode forward with real ease.  At that, our whole family broke into cheers right in the store. We had all seen just how hard it had been for her to get any forward motion on her bike and we were all sad over her bike-predicament.

I give God the glory for these kinds of coincidences in my life. He's a good father to me and to my children. In perfect time, Avril has a bike just her size and she's ridden it all around our streets with ease twice today already.

Here's a peek at the girls' Easter basket this year.

 
Fill one Easter basket with treats for all your kids.

As I was shopping for the stuff to go in their baskets a few weeks ago, I picked out what I wanted them to have and quickly realized it wasn't nearly enough to fill two baskets. So instead of buying excess candy and toys just to fill two baskets, I just decided to let them share one basket. I may continue this little money-saving trick into the future. But, at that point, with three girls, I'll probably need to use a little bit larger basket. We will see then.

Get just enough candy for them to eat in one day.

I wanted to get the girls just enough of their favorite candy to eat within one or two days. I hate having extra candy sitting around the house after holidays. After a few days, the girls have eaten the kinds they really like and they forget the rest of the candy is there anyway, so why buy more than they want to eat in a day or two? I realized that I could spend less on candy, avoid waste and the girls will still get the thrill of having their treats on holidays.

Buy toys you would need or want to buy anyway.

I also got the girls some hefty shovels for their sandbox. They always need new sand toys to replace the ones that break. I would have gotten them even more sand toys but I couldn't find any others that didn't look too flimsy to justify spending money on.

And, finally, I got them each a micro kite. They appear to work just like regular kites only they are tiny. We will take these to the park and try them out the next time we go.

Set aside baskets, grass and decorations to use year after year.

The basket itself, the grass and the little chick came out of a Tupperware of Easter decorations I keep in our storage room.  After a day or two, I will take all that stuff back downstairs and put it back in that box till next year.  Not having to buy new baskets, new grass and new decorations every year also saves me a ton of money.

A few weeks ago, I was trying some of Norah's old sandals onto Avril's feet and as you can see, they were a bit too big for her. That much excess sandal past the tip of her toes will get caught on the ground and trip her over and over again as she runs around this summer. So I knew she would need a  smaller pair of sandals and since Norah never had a pair of sandals in the smaller size Avril needs, I would have to buy Avril a brand new pair for $10-20 dollars...

Bummer! since I saved all of Norah's old clothes and shoes that weren't too worn or stained in hopes that I would be able to reuse them with the next girl as she grew into them. But, it doesn't always work out, as in this case. Shoes have to fit well. For most things, like clothes, it doesn't really matter if things don't fit perfectly (so long as the season of the clothing fits the season outside) so it's usually in my best interest to save clothes to see if I can re-use them.

Note: These sandals will go back into a large Tupperware filled with Norah's old shoes and if Avril's foot happens to grow large enough by the end of the summer, these sandals will be waiting on her. If her feet don't grow fast enough, the sandals won't get used at all and they will have to wait for the next girl to come along before they get another chance to be re-worn.

In reusing clothes, I have had to develop a whole system of Tupperwares in our house to hold the stuff the girls aren't wearing, all labeled for certain sizes, all stored in their bedroom closets or in the storage/ laundry room downstairs. 

Right now, the Tupperware for clothes sizes birth to 3 months is almost totally empty since those clothes are waiting for the baby in the baby's dresser. There is one piece of clothing in the 0-3 month Tupperware and it's a snow suit. And, obviously, that piece of clothing won't be needed for this coming season, so it just lives in that Tupperware so as not to take up space in the dresser. That Tupperware lives in the baby's closet currently (see photo below), waiting to receive the pieces of clothing in that size as soon the baby outgrows them. The next Tupperwares for sizes 3-6 months and 6-9 are full of old, clean clothes, and they are also in the baby's closet so I can start adding those clothes into the baby's dresser as soon as the baby is big enough to wear them and as she outgrows the clothes in the smaller sizes and needs more pieces of clothing to wear.

If the clothes aren't anywhere near one of the girls' current size, they live in their respective Tupperware downstairs in our storage room and out of the way till they are needed again. Here is a photo of the Tupperware with the clothes Avril just outgrew "2T" and those she hasn't grown into just yet "Larger 4T."  Note: The clothes I call "smaller 4T" are in her dresser with 3T clothes right now and she's wearing them.

With three kids to clothe now, this process of saving clothes has gotten pretty complicated. I can't just throw the clothes Norah is done with into a black garbage bag and throw it in the storage room till Avril needs them. And I can't stuff Avril's old clothes into a bag for the baby and hope that I find that particular bag in time for the baby to wear that size, either. My life is too busy for that sort of disorganization.  Avril is constantly growing and if Norah's old clothes aren't already labeled and collected for me, Avril would probably outgrow them before I got around to finding the right trash bag with Norah's old clothes of the right sizes in it and then sorting through it to get out the pieces that match the current season of the year.

So I've had to develop this system of clothing storage for myself. And it's always being tweaked. I had to find a way to make saving clothes work efficiently. I am always handling clothes because of the laundry I do. And my girls are always growing, the seasons are always changing and clothes are constantly becoming obsolete or necessary again. So the system of re-using clothes had to "blend in" to my already busy days and be as easy to manage as an extra basket or two of laundry at any given time. And so far, my system is working alright.  For instance, one of Norah pairs of size 8 jeans are smaller than the other pairs for some reason. (Just like adult brands of clothes, one brand of kids clothes will be smaller than another, even if they share the same number size.) So those size 8 jeans got "too tight"quicker than the other size 8s that are in her drawer. With this system in place, I just pulled those tighter jeans out of the clean laundry, folded them and put them in the right Tupperware. And now those jeans are out of Norah's dresser, so she doesn't have to waste time putting them on to remember they are "too small."

I even have a Tupperware for clothes that don't fit my oldest, Norah, yet since I shop at thrift stores and often find it necessary to grab items when I find them even if they won't fit for a few more months. Notice the Tupperware labeled "10 medium and up" below. This is holding long sleeves shirts and jeans that Norah will use this coming winter, etc. As I collect them from the thrift store, I bring them home, wash, fold and put them in there for later.

I was telling another stay-at-home-mom-friend about how difficult saving and reusing clothes can be and she agreed and added that this is the kind of "hidden" work is what makes motherhood harder than any of us ever imagined it would be. I'm sure some people would read this post and think, "Why doesn't she just get rid of all the old clothes, save herself the trouble and buy everything her kids need when they need it?"

As a stay at home mom, I don't have to pay a daycare to care for my kids but I also forfeit having any extra income a job would provide. And, while taking care of my children is my main job, in doing that myself, Dwayne and I don't make the money we'd need to buy all new things for all our kids every season. Not that the families who have both parents working have the money to do buy everything new with every kid, either, but even more so it has become my "job within my job" to find ways to save money on things like clothes and shoes. I always tell myself that it's my job to save the money my husband makes, not to find ways to spend it like most people assume housewives do because of the wealthier, sillier ones on television. With that in mind, even something as mundane as storing clothes in Tupperwares becomes really significant. When I consider that it means I am making it easier for us to afford the ability to allow me to stay home and care for my kids myself, it makes the work of organizing it all worth the effort.

When I was a little kid, my parents used to make ice pops for me and my siblings in our deep freezer out of Kool Aide and Styrofoam cups. We'd sit out in the sunshine, on the edge of the sidewalk, in bathing suits, peeling and squeezing the Styrofoam off the blocks of red ice as they melted, savoring every sweet and tangy slurp. This is one of my most vivid memories as a kid so I do this at least once a spring/ summer for my kids, too. (I think my parents only ever made one batch of these ice pops because we didn't get them all summer long, only a few times and then we were "out.") It took me a few tries to find the exact flavor of drink mix to match the flavor I remembered from my childhood. I knew it was red, so I thought it had to be cherry or strawberry, but it turned out to be fruit punch so that's what I buy every time. My kids won't get a lot of the unhealthy things I got as a kid like Happy Meals with toys inside and I don't mind that at all. But I make a happy exception for Kool Aide ice pops.

I got this new spring/ summer outfit for Avril at the thrift store for $4. The shirt and shorts are both Circo brand from Target, both in "like new" condition.

But these pieces didn't come home at the same time. The shirt was purchased several months ago, well before it was in season. The shorts were purchased just last week.

I get almost all the girls' clothes at the thrift store now and I am managing to find each kid several more pieces of clothing in their size each season and still spending less on two kids than I spent buying everything new for one kid.

If I go often, comb the shelves and buy things a little big or ahead of season, I find almost everything the girls need in the way of everyday clothes. I haven't had as much luck finding enough pajama sets or shoes in their sizes, though. So, half the time, I end up having to buy those items new. However, I have gotten lucky here and there. I found both the girls' dress shoes to match their Christmas dresses for less than $5 together. 

Before I went the way of thrift, I never understood how anyone on a budget could enjoy shopping for clothes and shoes. For me, it was downright stressful, grievous and worrisome to find and buy enough new clothes and new shoes every season, even when shopping at some of the cheapest stores. But now, I understand how shopping can be fun. It's enjoyable to be "rewarded" with a great find after persistently combing the shelves on a regular basis.

If you hadn't already heard, I'm doing e-mealz this year. It's really working for me. But I also have to work to make it work for me.

Here's what I mean.


I usually have to alter the meals to suit myself and my family better. So I print out their list for dinners each week and follow their suggestions in general, but mark through/ add things to certain days as well.

Notice the photo above. On the first day, I plan to make "sausage lasagna" like they said, but I marked through two items they suggest "Caesar salad" and "garlic toast" and I added "french bread." I won't be making salad since being pregnant, all lettuce now makes me throw up this trimester, and I'd rather make a loaf of french bread in my bread machine than buy pre-made garlic toast with all that butter and salt and preservatives in it.

I realize that another lady probably wouldn't feel compelled to make these marks and notes on the list, but the marks and notes really help me focus on what I will be making right away and keep me from getting confused.

So I have to adjust all the meals this way (unless I happen to like everything they suggest.)


I also go over each item on their shopping list and mark through the ones I won't need, either because I changed the plan and I am not going to be making that item or because I already have it in my pantry.

For example, I won't need bacon since I am making margarita pizza instead of breakfast pizza, so I marked through bacon. I won't need sausage for the lasagna because we already have some because we bought extra sausage for a big dinner we made for friends. I won't need green beans for another meal since we keep several cans in our stock of groceries downstairs so I marked through green beans, too.

Going over the list item by item takes real work every week. I have to go downstairs to the storage room and count how many cans of green beans are still there, etc. but I have a much better idea of what is in my storage and in my cabinets now because I am doing this weekly.

And if you look at the photo above closely, you see that I was able to drastically reduced the amount of items we had to buy this week to make just as many meals. So I am saving us even more money and ensuring we don't buy any more groceries than we really want or need. It is now a very rare thing for us to throw out unused food or uneaten leftovers. It happens some, but no where near as often as it did before we used e-mealz, before I was paying weekly attention to our plans.


To make e-mealz work for me, I also need to make a small list of items that I want in addition to or instead of those on the list. Note that I wanted to use no-bake lasagna noodles instead of the regular kind they suggested. And I have to shop for breakfast, lunches and snacks, too! But you see that the separate list isn't too big and with all the items I took off their shopping list, we have more than enough room in our budget for this stuff. We can often get a good number of lunches and breakfasts for the same price of all their dinners.

One of my main concerns with using e-mealz at the beginning was that I would not like someone else deciding what we ate. But, interestingly, I am finding that that was not the biggest hurdle to get over. I think the most significant problem for me was that I was not already in the habit of working through a meal plan every single week. I did make meal plans and try and keep an eye on what we already in the cabinet and use it up, but it turns out that I did it only once every week and a half or two weeks. Doing meal plans every single week has meant more work more often, but the work more than pays for itself in the savings. We are saving so much money with the help of e-mealz! It was kind of unbelievable until I started doing it and seeing for myself.

A friend of mine who is a blog follower purchased me a gift subscription to e-mealz. She wanted to remain anonymous, so I won't include her name. But I wanted to say publicly how her gift has blessed me already and recommend e-mealz to you all.

E-mealz allowed me to tailor the plan my friend purchased for me to the store of my preference, Aldi. E-mealz has a meal plan for just about every grocery store out there, I think. Aldi is my preferred store because it is so, so, so inexpensive compared to other grocers, but it's stock is also more limited than other grocers... so it's hard to find everything you need for every single one of your recipes there... or at least it was.

Dwayne and I had been discussing how nice it would be to find meals that we could make with all-Aldi ingredients, all the time, but it just seemed impossible... That's when I got the email from my friend about the gift subscription and that's when I chose a plan for all Aldi products, all the time! It really was a perfect gift, perfectly timed!

So, now, as long as I follow the meal plan they provide, all of the ingredients in my meals are available at Aldi. So, in turn, I get to take advantage of Aldi prices on all my groceries. This week, for example, I was able to get what I needed for seven dinners for approx. $60 dollars! Unbelievable!

Having a meal plan has also been positive because it encourages me to try new recipes. I had never made bruschetta, for example, but I made it for dinner one night this week and we liked it. It made for a nice, light dinner on a night when we didn't want something heavy.

Also, before this, I usually only used ground beef or chicken breasts, ground beef or chicken, ground beef or chicken, but this week, following their meal suggestions, I am making one meal with chunk roast and another with sausage, too. It's been good because the plan helps me with variety.

I didn't go in order with the meals. I just bought the groceries for the seven meals and then I made whatever dinner I was in the mood for off that list of seven meals. That helps me from feeling too pinned down.

I have already found the need to alter the meal plan to my family's liking, but only in very subtle ways, but only subtle. On the night they said to make seafood jambalaya, for example, I left out the shrimp (since I am allergic) and used only the sausage. It wasn't seafood jambalaya, but it was still jambalaya and it was very, very yummy. And, on the night they suggested making BBQ meatloaf, I made a traditional meatloaf instead because I knew my family would like the ketchup- mustard- brown sugar topping better. So, I am finding it easy, very easy in fact, to follow their suggestions but also tailor the meals to my family's preferences in little ways.

And, there are leftovers! So the sixty dollars I spent was not just for our seven dinners in the end. It covers several lunches of leftovers (and if you are pregnant and jambalaya sounds good in the morning like it does to me, it can even cover your breakfasts, too!)

So look into e-mealz. It's been pretty awesome for me so far.

We haven't been out to eat since we went to Panera Bread on 12-21-11 in the middle of a busy day of holiday errands, so I think that means it's been eighteen days since we've eaten anything that wasn't made at home.

Eighteen days.

I think that must be a lifetime record for me, even if I include high school when I wasn't driving myself and I had to bum rides to Wendy's (not to mention money to actually pay for Wendy's). All told, I was even going out to eat more then than I am lately.

The first thing I'd like to say about eating at home is we need a lot more groceries, a lot. This should have been obvious. We eat three meals a day here plus snacks. I am still getting used to how quickly we tear through our supplies.

Before this, we ate at restaurants frequently enough to make a trip to the grocery store necessary only once every week and a half to two weeks, maybe. But lately, I have to go out to the grocery store with the kids at least once a week, at least. I can also usually get to Dwayne to go by and pick up a few things at some other time during the week like when he is coming home from work or going out to Home Depot or something. But, if Dwayne didn't do that for me, I'd be going to the grocery store at least twice a week, probably three times, easy.

But, I figure the longer we eat at home like this, the more I will know how to adjust my buying to cover the extra meals. I'll get three bags of corn chips instead of one, that sort of thing, and perhaps I won't need to shop as often as I do now. I am still learning how much I will need in order to eat at home more.

We are spending a lot more on groceries now. That probably should have been an obvious, too. We are surprised at how our grocery budget has gone up.

However, we saving so much on what we aren't spending at restaurants and fast food that we are still well under our monthly budget for food in total, well under. I did not realize the reason we had to skimp on the meals I made at home was because we were eating at restaurants, even cheap restaurants, far, far too often. I've been amazed at how well I have been able to feed my family at home now that we just always stay at home to eat.

Consider preparing "party foods" in place of a regular meal, especially on Friday nights or weekends. You can make pizza pockets, pigs in a blanket, a hearty dip and chips, french fries, egg rolls. The possibilities are endless. Eat something, anything, that you really like that you wouldn't normally make at home. You can even try to find a copy-cat recipe for something that you usually only get at your favorite restaurant. This will add excitement to your menu and keep your family at home. And home is where you can manage to save serious money on food bills, where everyone still has energy to help with the clean up, where you can have good conversation, play a quick game of Yahtzee and watch a movie before it's time for bed. I can't tell you how often we've gone out to eat at a restaurant only to spend too much money, taking serious effort to keep the kids in line in public, getting stressed, not really talking about anything meaningful only to come home too late to do any housework and so tired that we don't end up spending any quality time together before we head to bed. I've found that it's better to just think outside the box, outside the regular "chicken and rice" kind of meals that I usually cook at home and make something novel that will help us want to eat at home. One of my goals this coming year will be to make something "fun" like this once a week, clean up real quick and then play a board game with the kids that same evening.

You really can substitute sour milk for buttermilk. I had always heard this was true, but I was never brave enough to try it for myself. But, when we had a whole gallon of whole milk go bad after Thanksgiving, I couldn't bring myself to pour it all down the sink. (Dwayne bought it to make rice pudding, but never got around to it.) So, I made myself brave enough to try using the sour milk in place of buttermilk and to my surprise, I made the most dee-lish pancakes and scones that way. I plan to whip up another few batches of pancakes tonight while I am in the kitchen making dinner anyway and freeze 'em for the girls' breakfasts. I'm pretty thrilled at the fact that I'll never have to pour outdated milk down the sink again. Instead of wasting it, I'll just whip up some more pancakes or something like that.

We've been making a big batch of little pancakes from scratch, then letting them cool, freezing them and then toasting them every morning for the girls' breakfasts. These pancakes thaw as they toast and by the time they pop up, they are hot enough to be smeared with butter and covered in syrup, almost as if they just came off the griddle. (I've tasted them and they aren't that different than fresh pancakes.)


This has been pretty easy for me to do every day, mostly because I already know what I am going to make the girls and I don't have to give them choices and then wait for them to choose between two or three things.

And the girls love them. They eat them all right up. (Before, the girls would only finish half of some of the other breakfasts I was making them and just leave the rest untouched.)

Pancakes this way are also a much cheaper (not to mention hot) breakfast option than several of the other options out there.


And, with the same meal every morning (or almost every morning), I think I've found a way to keep the cost of at least one of our meals really, really consistent. I think that keeping costs consistent will help me stay on budget (since I won't need to pay for so many different groceries to provide so many variety of choices) and I am very pleased with that.