Buying Convenience: Is It Really Worth It?

As you all know, I love saving money. The feeling you get when you see the extra money still in the account after grocery shopping is amazing. Money that can be used for something else or tucked away for a rainy day when it is needed. One thing I changed years ago was to stop buying convenience. Buying convenience, is it really worth it? For my family, no, it’s not worth the extra money.

When I grocery shop, I don’t normally buy convenience items, I buy ingredients. I’d rather spend a little extra money and have the ingredients on hand to make a variety of food items than to buy an item that will be eaten at one meal, or quickly snacked on and then be gone.

Mediterranean Chicken and Pasta

Pasta is a weakness for my family. At one time we ate spaghetti every two weeks with one other pasta dish included in the list of foods. I came across a recipe while searching for another pasta option for my Master Meal Planner. With a few little tweaks I made my version of Mediterranean Chicken and Pasta that suits my family's tastes.

Inside Out Shepherd's Pie Recipe {Day 6}

Inside Out Shepherd’s Pie is not your traditional dish if you don't care for a Shepherd’s Pie. I’ll never forget the first time I baked a Shepherd’s Pie; the recipe I used was one that came in the mail from a membership recipe collector’s club. You know the ones where you are committed for 2 years to purchase recipe cards that are sent monthly. I was so excited about making that recipe because I had always wanted to try a Shepherd’s Pie. Of course, if that recipe was being previewed in a membership it must have been a good one, right? Boy was that recipe a let-down! To this day, I still don’t know what it was about that recipe that ruined it for me.

Five Cheap Alternatives to High Priced Paid Services

I love sharing frugal ideas that we do to save us money because just like you, I love learning new ways to pocket extra money.   Many of us are more frugal than others because we simply sacrifice things others have not been brave enough to do, yet. Becoming more frugal is not an overnight process, Lord help us if it was. Being frugal is a lifestyle, it is something you decide to do and work to achieve a little at a time. Today, I want to share with you Five Cheap Alternatives to High Priced Paid Services. Making a change in one of these areas is a step closer to being more frugal with extra money in your pocket.

Homemade Peanut Butter

Peanut butter, there’s something yummy about the peanutty taste (especially with apples). YUM! Homemade Peanut Butter is even tastier than you can imagine and it only contains healthy things. While the convenience of grabbing a jar of our favorite brand maybe something that is a cheaper to do, it’s what’s inside that makes me go “hmm”. We’ve cut out almost all hydrogenated oil products - yep, it’s in peanut butter - one step at a time.

Saving Money with Roku {an update}

Better late than never I say since this post is two weeks late. Today, I’m updating about our Roku box. I love the fact we can choose what channels we want to watch that are GEARED TO WHAT WE LIKE. There are no forcing channels on us and we are NOT tied to a certain time to watch a show. Best of all, we are not under a contract to watch up to date TV shows and movies. We're saving money with Roku and I LOVE IT!

How We Save Money on Our Home Phone Service

There is nothing like the opportunity to SAVE MONEY. Last year, I wrote about our move to Roku boxes, and we are still happy with them. Not long after we moved here and had the home phone turned on, we turned it off because of craziness with the phone company. Today, I’m going to share with you how we save money on our home phone/cell phone service.

Saving $750 And Still Enjoying TV

In January, we decided to cut the cash flow to paying for television. It has been the best thing we’ve done in a l-o-n-g time. The main reason for this decision was to save money, but we also did not enjoy worrying about crude advertisements while watching TV. We're saving $750 and still enjoying TV very much.

Mexican Casserole

My husband knows my love for Mexican foods.  In fact, this month there have been more Mexican dishes served than normal since this has been a month of experiments with meatless recipes. Mexican Casserole is one of our favorites and my husband who never asks for something particular except for fried chicken, asked to have this a second time in a week. It's that good!

Teriyaki Stir Fry

I'm sharing with you another new family favorite recipe... TERIYAKI STIR FRY. My friend Rhonda led me to the IDEA of this recipe. While knowing the tastes of my family, I knew just soy sauce, salt and garlic powder in the recipe were not going to win them over,so  I had to do something else. We love Chinese saucy foods, and before we moved here we had a favorite Chinese buffet that served a teriyaki noodle dish, so I decided to make a teriyaki sauce to go the noodles and vegetables. What a dish, it is dee-lish!

Cheesy Pasta Bake

I am in LOVE! Since I am trying new recipes that are frugal and meatless, I have come across the second recipe that has quickly become one of our favorites. All it took was one bite and we were hooked. Of the last three new recipes I cooked, CHEESY PASTA BAKE is a real humdinger!

While we are NOT vegetarians but rather a carnivorous family (we love meat) we have tried several new recipes over the past two weeks that calls for no meat.  After listening to a radio program this afternoon, I know we are not the only family who is looking for other means of healthy, wholesome meals without squeezing extra dollars out of the grocery budget. So, no meat it is!

If you are within a hop, skip and jumping distance from the grocery store, you need to make this dish very soon. Do Not, I repeat DO NOT wait around to make this recipe. You will be insane if you do and if you pin this recipe, be sure you do not forget about it. I know I am the only one who pins scrumptious looking recipes to only forget about them until I scroll through my Pinterest boards. I'm the only one, right?

I love alfredo sauce and I like a really good marinara sauce. What I REALLY love is mixing them. Who knew they would be so good... TOGETHER?  When I buy any pasta sauce, I normally buy Bertolli; it is our favorite store-bought brand. If you are not like me and like brown, crispy pasta noodles, cover your baking dish before placing it in the oven.

 Cheesy Pasta Bake

1 box penne pasta
1 jar Alfredo sauce
1 jar Marinara sauce
2 cups shredded mozzarella cheese
1 cup shredded parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cook pasta according to directions and drain. Mix the sauces together in a large bowl. Add the mozzarella and stir to combine. Then add the pasta and toss to coat. Pour mixture into a 9x13 baking dish and cook for 20 minutes or until bubbly. Remove from oven and sprinkle with shredded parmesan cheese and bake for another 5 minutes.

So YUMMY!

I can not wait to make this again. There are a couple of changes I do want to try like adding a little chicken and using my homemade sauces. If you make this, let me know, I'd love to hear how you like it.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

This month is an experimental month in the kitchen, I am trying as many new meatless recipes as I can to see how far I can cut my grocery budget. While I don't spend $400 or more a month, I would love to see just how low I can get my grocery bill without eating Ramen Noodles and hot dogs. Don't get me wrong, I like to eat my share of hot dogs, but not every day of the week.  Monday I cooked up a batch of  Broccoli Cheese Soup. 

While this soup wasn't the HUGE hit as my Garden Chowder, it filled tummies, it is frugal and I am happy some what. If I want to be one of those moms... it's healthy also. Since this was not a touchdown with my husband, it will be one of those meals I make when I need to use up broccoli before it gets limp-y in the refrigerator. Truthfully, I don't care for broccoli that is cooked to death, so I had a little hard time with this recipe. Can you say, "Last Resort Recipe" file? Yes, this is where this recipe is going.

The original recipe called for half and half, but I like my creamy, cheesy soups thick, so I used heavy cream. I also added more broccoli so the extra wouldn't go limp in the refrigerator. (That's probably why I didn't care too much for this.) I also added garlic cloves while cooking the onions.

Broccoli Cheese Soup

1 Tbsp butter
½ medium chopped onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
¼ cup melted butter
¼ cup flour
2 cups heavy cream
2 cups chicken stock
½ lb fresh broccoli
2 carrots, grated
8 oz grated sharp cheddar cheese
salt to taste
pepper to taste

Saute onion and garlic in butter and add to chicken stock; add broccoli and carrots and simmer for 15 minutes. Make a roux using the melted butter and flour using a whisk over medium heat for 3-5 minutes. Stir constantly and add the heavy cream. ** If you want, drain (keep the stock) and chop the broccoli and onions in the food processor at this time. Place back into the pot. Add the roux to the stock and whisk to keep from clumping. Simmer for 10 minutes and add salt, pepper and cheese.

I know, I know! I should really love this recipe since I'm sharing it today. But you know what, I'm trying to keep it real. I REALLY do not like overcooked, undercooked, baked, boiled, steamed or mushy broccoli. Give me a plate of sauteed broccoli in an Asian sauce and I'll eat my weight in broccoli. Go figure!

Creamy Garden Chowder

I mentioned in my last post about secretly challenging myself to find as many meatless meal ideas to cut down on my grocery spending. While surfing the internet for ideas I remembered a friend of mine sharing many of her recipes on Facebook and most of those recipes were meatless. So, I headed over to her photos and found several. I remember looking at GARDEN CHOWDER when she posted it and thought yum, that really looks and sounds good but I don't think anyone else would eat it. 

Ditching the Satellite Dish

The day I called Direct TV was a huge mistake! When we first moved here, we really thought we needed local channels because of the weather. Yeah, right! Our "local" channels were Bismarck channels and by the time any weather was heading towards Bismarck it had already moved from this area. Yeah, so local channels were not so local.