Menu Plan: Week 3

Last week went well, except I ended up with two meals leftover.  One night we opted for "fend for yourself" night as we call it, and the other was Thursday when we're at church, so we just grabbed dinner on the way.

This week, however, is going to be much more difficult to manage.  My husband and I are both swamped with meetings, school, deadlines, and evening commitments, so rather than putting together a detailed meal plan, I'm going to keep things simple.  We are going to repeat a few meals from last week:

• Grilled cheese & Ravioli (which worked very well last week - the ravioli was delish and a sinch to whip up) - already have all ingredients
• Honeymoon Pizza - I'll make the dough this weekend so it will be quicker this week, and the bacon is already made as well! And no trip to the store for this one, either!
• Pancakes - from a box :/ I used to always make them from scratch, but my son loves them so much that we end up making them quite a bit. This is easier, and the box at Aldi is under $2. I also have everything for this meal!

What does that mean for my grocery budget? Beyond fruit, yogurt, and milk, it means we get to pay for diapers! Whoohoo. (That was very unenthusiastic, if you couldn't tell.)  I know the day will arrive when I don't have to do this, but right now, I can't see it...

Crock Pot Sweet-and-Sour Chicken

 For Christmas, my mother-in-law gave me a Taste of Home Cookbook called Casseroles, Slow Cooker, & Soups.  I found this recipe and thought it would be perfect for after church on my first Sunday morning "off" (and by "off," I mean they didn't need me in both services so I didn't have to go until 11!) in several months.  You can find the original recipe here, but I adjusted the recipe significantly to suit our family's tastes and to try to keep from buying ingredients that I would only use for this dish.

To make this recipe, you will need all the ingredients below:

• 1.5 lbs chicken breast, chopped into chunks (not pictured because I forgot and it was already on the stove)
• 1 T oil
• 1 8 oz can pineapple chunks and syrup
• 1 green pepper, chopped into large chunks
• approx half a bag of carrots (I used carrot chips)
• 2 T soy sauce
• 4 t corn starch
• 1 1/2 t ground ginger
• 1/4 C water
• 1 C sweet chili sauce
• rice
• salt and pepper to taste

 

1. Saute the chicken in the oil.  The recipe says you only need to do this for 4-5 minutes, but you could still see pink in 4-5 minutes, so I kept going...

2. Combine pineapple juice (save pineapple for later), soy sauce, carrots, green pepper, and chicken. I also added half an onion, chopped. Cover and set to low for 3 hours.

 3. Mix corn starch, ginger, water, and sweet chili sauce (and pardon the mess in the picture above) until it is smooth like the picture below:

 4. Add sweet-and-sour mixture to crock pot with pineapples and turn to high for 15 minutes more.

 5. Serve over rice and enjoy!

Take Aways:

• The original recipe did not include onions, but I chopped about half of a large one and threw them in.  This was a good decision.  I personally believe the original recipe is remiss without them.
• Crock pot cooking is nice and so convenient, but it doesn't really suit my lifestyle right now.  Most recipes require at least 3 hours in the crock pot and I have found very few that require 12, which is about what I would need for a typical school day!
• It's always fun to try a new recipe.  It was yummy and pretty healthy, but my son would not eat it and I don't know that I liked it enough to make it again.  It was also a pretty expensive meal. HOWEVER, I will say that when I ate the leftovers the next day for lunch, it was much tastier!

First Yard Sale Weekend

It's finally garage sale season!  I had a great day Saturday, and I was only out from 7:30 to 8:30!

Sale #1 = $3.50

 1. Train Toy - $.50 This item was unmarked. I was going to offer $1, but I know from experience to ask them what they want for it first.  If it's higher than what I want to pay, I say "How about x?" and go from there.  Today, she said $.50.  If I had offered my $1, I would have paid double.

2. Cool Winter Sweater - $3 It might seem a little strange to spend $3 for a winter sweater in the spring, but I have been FREEZING at work the past few days, so I may even wear it this season!

Sale #2 = $6.00

 3-5. Polo Shirts - These were for my dad, and they were in great shape and only $2 per shirt!

Sale #3 = $1.50

6. Cardigan - $.50 and just my size
7. Green Flowered Shirt - $.50 and something different than what I usually pick for my wardrobe
8. 3T Train Thermal Shirt - $.25 which is my target price for kid clothes. It's too big now but it will fit perfectly next year.

Sale #4 = $1.00

 9. Misc. Kitchen Items - $1 (if you click the picture you can see they were individually marked...I over-paid by $.15 just to save the lady the hassle of finding a dime and a nickel.)  I've been doing a ton of baking lately and am finding that you can never have too many measuring cups or teaspoons.

Total for Day = $12.00!

Menu Plan: Week 2

 Last week went very well! We did end up grabbing dinner instead of doing leftovers one night, but since I take leftovers every day for lunch at school, we really don't have that much in the way of leftovers. I didn't feel too bad about that!

This Week:
Honeymoon Pizza - make the dough this weekend
Chicken Enchiladas
Stuffed Shells & Crunchy Romaine Salad
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches & Ravioli
Leftovers

Grocery List:

• PIZZA:
• Bacon - on sale @ Hyvee this week for $1.99/lb
• Shrimp - a friend at work gave me two cans she said she wasn't going to use.  I've never used canned shrimp, but for free, it's worth a try!
• Cilantro - >$1
• Sweet chili sauce - I'm almost out so I'll buy another bottle - approx. $4
• SHELLS/SALAD:
• Jumbo shells - I will have to buy these at Hyvee since Aldi doesn't carry them :( - $2.50
• Cream cheese - it has been on sale for $.99 the last few weeks at Aldi
• 1 lb sausage - $2.29 @ Aldi (regular price)
• Head of romaine - >$2
• 1 pkg ramen- $.20
• SANDWICHES/RAVIOLI
• Sliced American Cheese - I buy the Kraft kind when I'm doing grilled cheese, so it will probably be pricy... - $3 
• Bread - $1.29 @ Aldi (regular price)
• Ravioli -*confession* I know it's gross, but we eat canned ravioli. We both grew up eating it at home and at school.  However, I have decided to give making my own ravioli a try - not from scratch (though that sounds like a fun project for the summer!), but just boiling frozen ravioli and adding sauce. -$4 ?

I think I have everything else! Approx. total before tax = $23.26  Of course I need milk, eggs, yogurt, cereal, fruit, and some other staples, but with our $50/wk grocery budget, I think this should work just fine.

Thank You 2: Daycare

We don't pay for daycare. Why? Because we have freaking awesome moms who watch our son for us.  If this were not the case, we would have to put our son in daycare every day. Let's say it would cost us $100/week to put our boy in daycare (this would be an insane deal).  I have the summers off, so we are talking about approximately 40 weeks.  So let's do a little math:

$100/week x 40 weeks = $4,000

That's just for one year.  I have been back at work for two years now:

$4,000/year x 2 years = $8,000

Being a 1.25 income family, we could not have afforded this without an additional income.  This means that my husband would have had to get a full-time job, which would have made his schooling impossible. Not only is this a monetary blessing, but if we can't be at home with our child, who better than the people who raised us?  A HUGE thank you to our moms!

Nook Book 9: Daughter of Joy

Daughter of Joy by Kathleen Morgan

Length: 261 pages

Format: Nook Book
Price: $6.49 currently, though I think I paid $.99...must have been on a sale
Author Website: http://www.kathleenmorgan.com/index.html (photo credit)

Basic Premise: In search for an escape from the past that took her husband and son, Abigail Stanton takes on a job as the housekeeper of embittered and angry ranch owner Conor McKay, an man whose past is nearly as dark as her own.

My Take: 6 out of 10 (scale here)
This is a historical fiction piece set in Colorado in the late 1800s.  I like that, and I like that the heroine is a woman of faith who believes, despite the terrible difficulties she faces in losing her family, that God's will is still being accomplished.  Conor, who gave up on God a long time ago, finds Abby's fierce allegiance to God both annoying and unsettling, but he can't help being drawn to her.  I was a fan of the writing style - it flowed easily and challenged me with some new vocabulary - but I felt the author left a bit too much to the imagination in some areas.  I also felt the plot structure was very up and down.  I understand some authors use this tack to keep the reader interested, but I personally felt it was a distraction from the development of the story.  All these combine for my 6 rating.  There are subsequent books, but I don't think I'll be reading them.

Menu Plan: Week 1

This is my first official week of menu planning.  It's Saturday morning at 6 AM, the house is clean, and no one else is awake.  I have no excuses.  One of my goals from this post was to make meals at home every night of the week, so this is an attempt to keep planned and organized.  I am also inspired by my good friend over at Everyday Home Cook, who has been great at this:

Taco Bar - brown and season the beef today while I have time
Homemade Macaroni & Cheese
Bierocks - make the dough today while I have time
Leftovers to go (Thursday nights we bring Daddy dinner at church)
Birthday dinner - out with the family

One of the points of menu planning is to help make the grocery list for the week.  I checked the ads before I made this menu plan and need to purchase the following:

• 2 lbs ground beef - on sale at Hyvee $2.48/lb (NOT a great deal, but the best one I've seen on beef lately!)
• taco shells - $.99 @ Aldi (regular price)
• tortillas (I prefer soft tacos) - $.99 @ Aldi (regular price)
• refried beans - $.49 @ Aldi (regular price)
• (I already have taco seasoning, cheese, and sour cream)
• a head of cabbage - I'm not sure on this one, but at Aldi I can usually get it for around $1.29

I have everything else I need already for these meals.  Of course I need other things, like milk, butter, fresh fruit (which my son goes through like nobody's business), cereal, yogurt, a whole chicken (which Hyvee has on sale for $.69/lb), and ingredients to make this Rice Krispy Treat recipe. I am going to see if I can get onions and maybe even the cabbage at the farmer's market today, too!

This Week...Better

 

I wrote this post a week ago today at the height of stress - in fact, probably the most overwhelmed I've felt in quite a while.  I think I cried through most of it.  Then I wrote this post of daily to-dos in the hopes that it would help me get focused and organized.  It kind of worked.  I had Monday off work and was able to get some things done, but I had to take Wednesday off because I woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache.  I took the whole day off and still didn't feel 100% on Thursday (my birthday). The good news is that now it's Friday, and the weekend is full of birthday fun - a dinner date with my husband, birthday lunch with my family, including my brother and sister-in-law, and (hopefully) a nice, relaxing Sunday!

Why We Use Cash

We have never been credit card people.  I did have a credit card near the end of high school and into college, but I paid it off every month using money in my checking account.  When we got married, my husband was passionately against the use of credit cards, so we decided we would be debit card people - the money would come straight out of our accounts so that we never spent more than we had.  However, after a few years, we realized that, while debit cards were perhaps more responsible than credit cards, we were still spending more than we ought to, and certainly more than we meant to.  As a result, we decided to be cash people.  Here's how we do it:

• BILLS - bills are paid monthly through electronic funds transfers from our accounts, so no cash is used here
• GROCERY - I budget $50/week for grocery, diapers, hygine items, and any other consumables needed for us or our home
• FUN MONEY - we each get $50/month for entertainment, wardrobe purchases, or any other "fun" thing on which we may wish to spend money (this was a VERY difficult adjustment in the beginning - probably the hardest part of the whole system)
• OUT-TO-EAT MONEY - I hate that we have a section for this, but it really can't be avoided. Since my husband goes to school 30 minutes away, he has to eat out each day, and most of the time, he has to do it on campus, which is expensive.  He can't bring his meal because he has nowhere to store it, and even if he did, his schedule is such that he wouldn't have time to go trudge across campus, retrieve it and warm it up. We will get a reprieve from spending this kind of money this summer!
• GAS - this is the only thing for which we use debit cards - since it can't always be predicted, it is difficult to budget cash (and even if it wasn't, it's a pain to pay with cash at gas stations!)

We have successfully (for the most part) employed this system for nearly eighteen months.  I have no idea how much money it has saved us, but the savings has been significant.  When you run out of cash, you can't spend it!

Weekly To-Do List:

Due to my rough week last week, I decided to sit down and make a list of all the things I would like to do each week, ideally.  Here is my list:

 

KITCHEN

• Prepare dinner at home (each weeknight)
• Load the dishwasher and wash any un-dishwasherable dishes (daily)
• Run the dishwasher (as needed) and unload the following day
• Sweep the floors (as needed)
• Keep counter tops and sink free of dirty dishes (daily)

DINING ROOM

• Keep dining room table clear of clutter (daily) - less than 1 minute
• Wipe dining room table down before and after dinner (daily) - less than 1 minute
• Quit leaving shoes under the table (This is a habit of mine - I take my shoes off and tuck my feet under me while I eat.  My son has started doing this, too.)
• Sweep the floors (as needed)

FAMILY ROOM

• Every evening before Night Night, have my son help me pick up all of his toys (I do this sometimes, but not regularly)
• Clear desk of clutter (daily)
• Sweep (weekly)
• Vacuum(weekly)

BATHROOM

• Clean up after myself in the mornings (Often I leave the hairdryer out and my make-up on the sink)
• Clean toilet bowl (weekly)
• Clean surfaces (weekly)

 BEDROOM

• Place all dirty clothes in hamper (daily)
• Keep end table free of clutter (daily)

 SON'S ROOM

• Place all dirty clothes in hamper (daily)
• Remove wet diapers from trash (as needed)
• Have him help put books away (as needed) 

Struggles

I have been struggling lately.  It seems like no matter how hard I try, I just can't stay on top of everything.  What is everything?

• My son - I love him so dearly, but I have no idea what to do with him. Today we were at lunch with my mother and sister-in-law, and he threw a fit as soon as he realized there would be no more chocolate milk.  Do I take him out and spank him?  Do I try to bribe him into being quiet with ice cream?  Do I let him get out of the high chair and sit on my lap?  (I did all of these things.)  And why is he behaving this way?  Is it really because of the milk, or is it because he's tired?  Is he just angry, or does he really want to sit with Nana instead of with me? 
• My job -  It's April.  April sucks.  Kids don't want to work, and neither do I.  In fact, I left a huge stack of grading on my desk simply because I couldn't summon the energy to grade it.  Lately I have a love/hate relationship with my job.  I like contributing to society, I like interacting with kids and co-workers, and obviously I like the paycheck, but I hate dealing with difficult kids, I hate going home completely beat at the end of the day, and most of all, I hate how I am constantly wishing I was with my son.  (Although, lunches like the one today make me feel less like this.)
• My house - It's a wreck.  Okay, it's not really a wreck, but there are toys everywhere and *confession* the dishes I washed in the dishwasher on Tuesday still haven't been emptied.  Laundry is piling up, we are out of groceries, and I find myself more and more tempted to go out to eat instead of dealing with it all.

Ah, okay.  I've unloaded.  That's all I'm going to allow myself.  Here's how I plan to make next week a better week:

1. Schedule time at home. Part of my issues stem from the fact that I have been out three of the past four nights for the KU game, a movie with my book club kids from school, and church.  Next week, I only have Bunco Wednesday and church Thursday.  This will give me some good time at home with my husband and son.
2. Go back to my morning routine.  Since I was up late so much this week, I've been sleeping in and haven't been doing my usual morning routine.  I know this is affecting both my outlook and energy. Even just spending dedicated time praying in the mornings would help!
3. Come up with a chores schedule. I am of the belief that if I can just get things organized enough, my life will be easier. This is either not true or I have never been organized enough.  This weekend I'm going to sit down and write out a daily chore chart, which I will post.
4. Return to reading for pleasure.  Since I got my Nook, I have averaged about a book a week.  This week, I have read NOTHING.  I plan to change that this evening.
5. Count my blessings.  There are so many things I have that I don't deserve.  How ungrateful of me to complain about a few lousy little things.

Next week will be better!