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.
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
Lunches
Supper
Treats and Desserts
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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 RecipeI 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.
(more…)This easy triple berry cobbler is made with frozen berries, but tastes delicious!
Jump to Recipe
Berries are so yummy. Whenever I find a good deal at the store, or my berry bushes go crazy producing, I love to put extra bags in the freezer.
Unfortunately, sometimes I forget that I put those bags in the freezer.
But no worries. I know I can always take them out and create this delicious Tripble Berry Cobbler in no time flat.
This recipe is so forgiving, you can combine any berries you have on hand.
Recipes have to be affordable, flexible, and something my family is willing to eat (so it doesn’t go to waste), or else why bother?
By the way, if you don’t have 3 kinds of berries, you can make this with any combination. One berry, 3 berries, or a hodge podge of bags of berries that you can’t even remember what they are anymore. 😉
Just cook up the berries and pour in the pan.
Then mix together the doughy topping.
Then dollop the dough onto the berries. (Don’t worry about what it looks like, since it will meld into a crust anyway.)
Then bake it into a delicious dessert.
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
In a saucepan, combine the berries, sugar, and cornstarch. Cook over medium-high heat until thick and bubbly, stirring regularly.
Pour into 3 qt casserole dish.
In a separate bowl, make the doughy crust. Combine flour, 1/4 c sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Cut in butter.
Add milk and eggs, and stir just to combine.
Drop dough by spoonfuls on berries. (It will expand as it bakes.)
Bake for 30 minutes or until thick and bubbly. Check dough for doneness with a toothpick.
We like to eat ours with milk. But you could top it with whipped cream, ice cream, or whatever you prefer!
Get simple school lunch ideas for Moms who don’t want to pack lunches for the kids every single night. Save money, time, and sanity with this method!
I eagerly checked the weather from our local news station, looking for any possibility of a snow day.
It’s not so much that I enjoy snow (I don’t).
But a snow day means a couple of things.
No alarm clock. (Hallelujah!)
No worry about whether all the kids have the right clothes clean for picture day, or gym day, or red and gray day. (Yahoo!)
But, best of all…
Ugh! Packing lunches is the worst.
First, you have to make sure you have everything on hand.
Then you spend an hour trying to make sure this kid gets their daily PB&J made just so without the crusts, while that kid gets anything at all but a sandwich.
There’s a headache for ya.
Still, some days there are enough battles to fight. Amirite?
But you know another parenting technique I’m a fan of? Teaching the kids to do things themselves.
Mama, I promise. If your child can throw packages into the grocery cart when you aren’t looking, they can toss together a lunch, too.
(pssst…There’s a free printable at the end of this post to make that shopping go easier, too!)
Now, here’s the method I’ve used to make easy lunch packing happen in our home.
If the kids are eating, they should be involved in the packing.
That’s right! Our kids start packing their own lunches in kindergarten.
But that doesn’t mean the same thing for our 5-year-old as it does for the 11-year-old.
We’ll teach our five-year-old daughter to pack her own lunch this year. By the end of the year, she’ll know how to make a sandwich.
She’ll also know how to choose options from the other food groups to complete her meal.
Now that the older kids have years of practice under their belts, they don’t need much help anymore. My job is to have the groceries around here to simplify their packing.
Remember, parents, that we’re trying to work ourselves out of a job!
A lunch in our home consists of a main course such as a sandwich, salad, leftovers, or things from the list further on in this post.
Then they choose a fruit, a dairy, a junk food (or treat), and a drink.
There’s no reason for them to eat a fancy 4 course meal. Besides, they spend a lot of their lunch period socializing with friends.
How much food do you think they throw away each day? Don’t add to the waste.
Ok, so who else wants this adorable lunch box??
A common complaint about making sandwiches the night before is that they would get soggy. But my kids have never complained.
If you know making a sandwich ahead of time is grounds for a complete fit, or wasted food, no worries. Just make it the next morning.
Pulling together just a sandwich in the morning is much easier than figuring out the entire lunch.
To save the most money, buy bigger bags of nuts, chips, trail mix, or whatever your kids like and bag them up yourself.
Bag up snacky foods the night before. Choose and wash up your fruits.
Pick your dairy item. I like to buy big containers of yogurt and portion them out into smaller containers.
I’ll add a bag of cereal for them to sprinkle over the top when I’m feeling fancy.
When we pack the night before, I don’t mean stick everything in the lunchbox. (Who has room for a bunch of lunchboxes in their fridge?)
Sure, stuff that won’t go bad (like a box of raisins), you can toss in the lunchbox ahead of time.
Otherwise, let me introduce you to “the basket”.
Each child has their own basket labeled with their name. They fill it and leave it in the fridge each night.
It takes up much less space than a bunch of lunch boxes in the fridge. And it’s so easy to dump it right in their lunch box the next day!
I put together thermoses of water for them while they eat breakfast for easy grab and go.
I’ve printed off my list of lunchtime ideas along with a copy of the school lunch menu. They’re hung next to our lunch making supplies.
When they’re tired of sandwiches, they can make a different choice. (Although some of them would eat PB&J for every meal!)
Here are some quick recipes you can make ahead of time to pack in lunches:
Healthy Homemade Chicken Nuggets
Click here to download a free MS Word copy of this list that you can customize yourself! Totally free for your own personal use!
Prayers for a snow day not necessary!
Did I miss a great tip? Let me know!
I'm Jamie, and I want to help you afford a beautiful life with your family. Learn more. 
