by Jamie Jeffers | Sep 9, 2015 | Happiness & Giving, Parenting & Household Tips, Parenting Tips
If you use snowplow parenting, chances are your kids don’t know how to handle disappointment. Here’s how to fix it.
The phone rang, and I glanced at the number.
It was from another mom in our town. Our kids went to school together…but I didn’t know her well.
I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I answered. Turns out, I was in for a surprise.
The fifth graders at school had been in a stiff competition to get first choice of t-shirt color for the big end of the school year bash.
You might think that my child lost the competition…but nope. Actually, his class won.
And that was the problem.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Sep 8, 2015 | Goals
*this post contains affiliate links
Last week I posted some goals for myself. Here’s where you hold me accountable! I didn’t do as well as I might have hoped, because I came down with a bad head cold that knocked me out for a couple of days. Oh well, it’s a new week to try again!
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by Jamie Jeffers | Sep 4, 2015 | Ways We Saved This Week
Every Friday, I like to post about ways we have saved money this week. I try to share ideas that go beyond skipping Starbucks daily. (You can go ahead and assume I made my own coffee at home every day!) When you are raising 5 kids on one income, you have to look for deeper ways to be frugal.
Here are the ways we have saved money this week.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Sep 3, 2015 | Be Prepared
*this post contains affiliate links
Well, our kids have been back to school for about two weeks now. Which means it is time for them to bring home some germs. My kids won’t always share their toys, but they are usually pretty generous when it comes to sharing the sickies!
I guess I can’t complain too much. We enjoyed a nice long summer with minimal illness. But a few days ago our 1 year old became very fussy and clingy. And now I know exactly how he was feeling, because he shared with his Mama. This cold is a doozy!
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by Jamie Jeffers | Sep 1, 2015 | Goals
Each January, my hubby and I come up with a list of goals for our family for the year. We also like to write down a general idea of where we want to be down the road to make sure our goals are heading us in the right direction.
So here is what we are doing to progress ourselves towards our goals this week.
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by Jamie Jeffers | Aug 31, 2015 | Grocery Tips, Meal Plans
Avoid 5:00 Worry With A Meal Plan
It’s back to school time. Summer is ending and soon fall weather will be here. I myself am more of a summertime girl, but there’s plenty to love about fall, too! It means more soup, pumpkins, and apples on the meal plan.
This week I was able to pick up the pork we had processed, so there will be plenty of that on the menu. I am hoping to be able to go to the apple orchard soon and get some bushels of apples. And my plan to get less comfortable and plan ahead better mean that I will be making more breakfasts and less cereal.
I meal plan 2 weeks at a time. I also try to keep it simple and double up on our favorite foods.
Breakfast
- cereal (I said I am going to do better, not completely abandon it!)
- pancakes
- Scrappy Baked Oatmeal
- homemade breakfast bars
- sausage omelets
Lunches
- sandwiches (PB&J, lunchmeat, nutella and graham crackers)
- salads
- leftovers
- cold pizza
- peanut butter or cheese and crackers
- wraps
- pumpkin muffins
- yogurt or cheese
- fresh fruits and veggies
- pudding, cookies, chips, pretzels, or some sort of small treat
Supper
- grilled pork chops
- BLTs
- chicken slop
- lamb ham
- hamburgers
- pizza x 2
- ham & beans
- salmon
- grilled chicken x 2
- tacos x 2
- spaghetti
- Sides will include grilled corn on the cob, grilled peaches, potatoes, rice, homemade mac & cheese, fresh veggies and salads
Treats and Desserts
- ice cream
- birthday cake (September is my birth month! I can’t believe I’m already 29…again…!)
- apple crisp
- cookies
- fresh fruit
- rice cakes
- graham crackers
- s’mores
If you don’t “get it”, grab a copy of The Sandlot ASAP!
Be sure to share your meal plan in the comments so we can…”borrow” your ideas, too!
by Jamie Jeffers | Aug 28, 2015 | Saving Money, Ways We Saved This Week
When you are feeding and raising a Medium Sized Family, you really have to be aware of waste and spending. I mean, we aren’t Washington D.C.! Here in the real world, we have finite resources to use.
With that in mind, here are 5 ways we’ve saved money this week.
Brown Bag Lunches
Sometimes we let the kids buy their lunch as a treat, but I generally feel like they can pack a good, healthy lunch for less than $2.50 per child. Each child chooses a fruit or veggie, a dairy (yogurt or cheese), a main course (sandwiches, muffins, wraps, etc.), and they are allowed one junk food item (sometimes). My hubby also packs leftovers to take to work rather than buying an expensive meal at the cafeteria.
Here are my best tips for packing lunches that make it more doable on a tight schedule.
Haircuts at Home
Let me preface this by saying that I hate cutting hair!! I always feel like I’m doing it wrong. It’s tough when your boys have stick straight blonde hair!
I often joke that when we win the lottery, the first thing I will do is start paying for haircuts. (Yeah right, at $60 per month I would probably still not want to waste that kind of money!)
All that said, we bought a set of clippers and recouped the money with the first round of haircuts. No one has complained of my “skills” yet, and it really doesn’t take much time to do each month.
Planting a Small Fall Garden
I was able to get seed packets of lettuce, spinach, broccoli, and some other fall growers for just 2 cents each. (Like us on Facebook if you’d like to learn about deals like this!) This fall we will have yummy salads without risk of recalls (that seems to happen a lot with store bought lettuce, doesn’t it?) and for the price of just pennies.
Planning Ahead
There were a lot of errands to run around here lately. I made sure to plan ahead so that we weren’t constantly buying food and drinks while we were out and about. Sticking with my plan to try to be less comfortable all the time!
I also have been making more effort to make breakfasts ahead of time. We have been stuck in a cereal rut for a long time, and I am finally at a place to make this more of a priority. This week we had Scrappy Baked Oatmeal, which is a great way to use up older pieces of fruit.
DIY Repairs
My hubby has been fixing up a lot of things around the house. This has saved us hundreds of dollars that we would have paid a handy man! When he is tackling a project, he often looks up YouTube videos to learn how to do it.
He also asks advice from people who have already done similar projects. We can sometimes make repairs using scraps of wood and things we had previously purchased, which saves us even more. I love the fact that he will attack a problem around here, even if he hasn’t done anything like it before!
Click here to see more ways we’ve saved money this week.
How did you do this week?
by Jamie Jeffers | Aug 26, 2015 | Recipe, Saving Money
Make this breakfast baked oatmeal casserole ahead of time. Use any fruit you have on hand…perfect for that last apple no one will eat!
Jump to Recipe
I love a good breakfast baked oatmeal recipe.
Not only is cheap and easy recipe, but it’s totally flexible.
And for just a half a cup of brown sugar, my kids sure love it. (They say it tastes like a cookie in a bowl!)
Got some bananas going brown? Baked banana oatmeal!
A leftover apple no one wants? Baked apple oatmeal!
Berries past their prime? Pears a little soft? This oatmeal works with just about any fruit you have on hand.
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I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. 
