Just say NO to golf course breakfast burritos...

Breakfast the most important meal of the day, it kick starts your metabolism. Gives you energy to burn. Just gets you going. Now rewind two months ago my husband would argue with me that not only is breakfast the most important meal of the day, breakfast burritos are the most important meal of the day. Drove me up a wall. We live relatively the same distance give or take 2 minutes from his work to the golf course that he would buy his breakfast from. Every month when we would look through the account together it was the same discussion, about how I buy cereal and that is what I eat why is he not eating the same thing? Let me add here, my husband grew up having a hot meal nearly every morning, if they had to have cereal the sky was falling people! Hasn't changed, he still wants a hot meal and back before we had kids I would wake up at 4:30 in the morning and cook breakfast so he could be on his way to work at 5:30. Now 4:30 is the time we wake up together to drink our coffee, just the two of us, no kids. Its really the best part of my day. But I still do not make breakfast that early. If the kids heard or smelt breakfast cooking that early, I would be in for the longest day ever. No thank you, sir!
So this is what I do. I premake his breakfast burritos. This week was a short week because he had a 96 this last weekend, so I only made three days worth of breakfasts. So get your aprons on, and lets get started.

This right here is 2 potatoes, 1/8 onion, and 2 strips of bacon. Please cook the bacon first then add your produce. For one you don't want to get sick. Two, I don't care who you are, EVERYTHING, tastes better when its fried in bacon grease.

I pulled out the tortillas and realizes I didn't buy any this week. No biggie, because I had some bagels in the freezer. Thumbs up for shopping in my own kitchen.

Add the eggs! I put four eggs here.

This is what it looks like on the bagels. oooohhhh ahhhhhhh, admire it. Ok lets move on but first I forgot to take a picture of them after I put cheese on them . So imagine these with cheese. You get the picture?

Plastic wrap that bad boy.

WaaLa, 3 breakfasts ready to go in the freezer for my man to enjoy without breaking the bank.

$1.52 per breakfast bagel/burrito/ Compared to the $8 he would spend each morning. That's a win in my book.

 

I hope this helps some of you. Thank you for reading my blog guys, it always fun when I get to share my money saving tips. I am thinking about creating and sharing a template of our own personal menu that may help people get a good idea of how I am saving so much money on groceries, give me some feedback guys, I would love to hear from you.

Love, Peace, & Happiness.





You can do the can can too!

So awhile back my husband and I started a garden, nothing too big. We went to the small garden area at our exchange just before the tomatoes were about to die in there small pots and they were being sold something like $1.99 for 5 plants. Practically nothing. Well those tomato plants have grown out of control and we have been lucky to get a few great harvests of tomatoes so late in the season. I didn't want this last harvest to go to waste before our next harvest comes in so I decided to can. Canning can get kind of expensive, so I decided to check our local yard sale facebook page to see if anybody had canning jars they were willing to part with. ALWAYS check your local yard sale pages if you're wanting to save money. You never know what you will find, especially when you are a part of a military community, so many people are moving so often and have to downsize or just don't want to travel with so much to their next duty station. So I posted, "ISO canning jars", and almost immediately another spouse responded she had some and she sold them to me for $0.50 a piece. That is half the price I would pay at Wal Mart for them AND I didn't have to spend money on gas to go get them. ALWAYS be sure to sterilize your jars and lids before you start. This is important because you do not want bacteria growing in your food which could obviously make you sick.
If you want to can your own tomatoes I took a few pictures that can almost explain themselves as I went along.

Rinse the tomatoes

Bring water to a boil and place the tomatoes in that water. For riper tomatoes you could boil them for 3 minutes for the less ripe tomatoes I would say 5 minutes would have been perfect. This step is just to soften the skin. Don't walk away from this step because you don't want mushy tomatoes.

Start peeling! I like to keep a plastic bag nearby to put my scraps in it. I suppose I could have put the scraps in my compost but I didn't, I placed them in the trash. I can almost feel all the crunchy mamas glaring at me through their computer screen right now. Sorry ladies!

Now dice them up and fill up your jars. I also added water to the first line in here and 1/2 teaspoon of salt.

Place the jars into water and bring to a boil for about an hour. My husband and I couldn't come to an agreement on this part. He said they have to boil til there aren't anymore bubbles coming from the jar. Don't tell him I said this but he is usually right, so I went with what he said, and guess what... He was RIGHT!

Then let your jars cool, push down on the middle of the lid if it doesn't pop then that means you have done your job correctly. Pat yourself on the back, and tell yourself how freaking awesome you are!

 

The plants have practically paid for themselves with all the produce we have got from them, so in the end this project has only cost me $3.00! And I have 2 unfilled jars leftover. I'm going to give you a fair warning though canning is a process that can get addicting. So just call me a pioneer woman. ;)

Put your aprons on and get to canning you guys!

Love, peace, & happiness. 



 

 

What's for dinner?

Dinner time is like the light at the end of the tunnel for me. I love my kids I love being able to stay at home with them and watch them grow. I love being the first one they see in the morning, first one my oldest hugs after a long day at school, but lets be real dinner time is when the countdown to bedtime begins. Now to throw just a little more craziness in the mix its Thursday. So I am just digging real deep for some motivation, just one more day and a wake up and my awesome husband will be home for the weekend and I love having an adult around to talk to during the day. On top of everything I have been training for my APFT, which has me hitting the gym hard just so I can blow my personal goals out the water. Days like today it would be so much easier to give in and just order pizza for dinner. BUT NO! I am determined to save money! So what do I do? That's right get the crockpot out,  simple, no work to it. Dinner is practically making itself!
Tonight we are having Sauerkraut Pork Chops. I am not creative enough to come up with that mixture on my own I stumbled upon a ton of recipes via Pinterest. This combo originated from Germany and from what I gather is traditionally eaten on New Years to ensure good luck. Its not New Years, its actually October 15th, but who couldn't use good luck any day of the year? So this is what I have put together in the crockpot.

• 3 thick pork chops
• 1/4 of an onion
• 1 pkg of green onion dip mix used for seasoning
• 2 cups of sauerkraut
• water- to cover the bottom of the crockpot

In case you wanted a visual.

I have the crockpot set to high and I am letting it cook that way for 4-5 hours. I am going to be making mashed potatoes and serving carrots with this dish. I will update at the end of the day whether this was a hit with my picky eater or not, but just letting you guys know right now it smells delicious.
Also to all you moms out there, "let the odds be forever in your favor", it is almost the weekend.
ETA: Dinner was amazing! I really hope you guys try out this dish. Even my oldest cleared his plate! Maybe it really is good luck.

Love, peace, & happiness

You knew it was coming.. COUPONS!

Part of saving money is using coupons. I hear the same things over and over from so many people, but majority of people say, "Teach me how to coupon!!". Okay people!!!! Listen up, Im about to share any coupon wisdom I have obtained through the last couple years. Now I understand clipping coupons takes time and concentration that most people don't have, but if you have time to scan through Facebook for 30 minutes you have enough time to scan through some Sunday paper coupons. So here is a quick rundown. Focus. Retain all information below. ;)

• Where do I find coupons?
• Here's the deal, if you really want to keep costs down you can print your coupons off of coupons.com . That website is a great resource, BUT you are limited to the amount of coupons that you can print. The usual limit of coupons that can be used for one product is one coupon, but 4 identical coupons per transaction. You can not print 4 identical coupons off of most coupon websites. You can also order only the Sunday paper which is usually $0.75 each paper and you can order as many as you want. I only coupon for my family and 4 papers is plenty for us. If you want even more coupons, ask your friends and family! No shame. What's the worse they can say? No? Okay no big deal, but at least you asked.
• I have my coupons! What do I do now?
• So when I first started couponing I would sit down with a pair of scissors and snip every single coupon individually. NO! That is exhausting, and time consuming! Take apart the inserts, stack the individual but identical coupons and clip them all together. Go ahead, smack your forehead, I did too. How did I not think of that in the first place! Only clip for things that you need, but take the rest of the insert with you in your coupon binder JUST IN CASE you find something you would like on clearance and you have a coupon for it.
• Check your ads.
• You will find what stores are worth going to for you. I personally LOVE Target. What mom doesn't? They have so many gift card offers that I turn around and use to buy another set of items that also have a gift card offer. So, the gift cards just keep rolling in.
• Now get in your car and go to the store to buy what you need.
• Realize I said need? Yeah, IGNORE everything else. You are here to use the coupons you clipped for the things that you need.
• Rules I play by.
• I am not faithful to one brand. If I have a coupon for something and its on sale, I'm buying it and I am using it. There is an exception to this, I will not stray away from Folgers coffee.
• I do not spend more than $1 on each item. If you are spending more than $1 on an item you know you could find at the Dollar Tree or 99 cent only store you are wrong.
• Visually scan the clearance section first.
• What is stacking and how do I do that?
• So this is being said specifically for Target. Use your coupons in this order:
• Gift card coupon
• Cartwheel
• Mobile coupons/Target coupons
• Manufacturer coupons
• If you get confused, don't worry usually the cashiers are used to couponers and they will help you out or remind you to check your cartwheel app.

I don't think I have forgot anything, but if you have a question feel free to ask. I'm all about helping others save a buck.
Love, Peace, & Happiness

Soap is soap.. right?

So tonight while I was preparing dinner I started washing dishes, I like to clean as I go, ESPECIALLY since my toddler was taking a late nap. Anyway, on my windowsill I keep some knick knacks, hand soap, hand sanitizer, lotion, and dishwashing soap. I promise I am going somewhere with this. Oddly something caught my eye, there wasn't an ingredients list on my dishwashing soap. Dishwashing soap typically touches your skin I feel like it would be important to know what I am coming in contact with. After all, my hand soap, and lotion, have an ingredients list on them, as small as it is, the list is still there. Makes me wonder, what is it that this company is trying to keep discreet? It was near impossible for me to even google a list of ingredients for my specific soap!

After dinner I tried to compare a generic list of hand soap and dish soap, but the youngest one was awake so that task was easier said then done. I aborted that mission and decided to just google, "can you use hand soap to wash dishes?'. Goodness, what would I do without Google!? I found a few others asking the same question, which made me feel a little less weird that I was even contemplating this. To sum up what I found, people were saying that its fine. It's not harmful, after all one person uses hand soap multiple times a day. Our children use hand soap and most often they put their hands in their mouths. Most people said just to be sure to rinse well. I even read a little bit about historically soap was universal in a household. One soap for hands, dishes, beauty and cleaning. Made me laugh a little because I remember one time, not sure how old I was, but I remember my Grammy pulling a huge bottle of soap from under the kitchen sink and using it to wash my hair! Maybe I come from a long line of cheapskates.
I know what most people would say here, "dish detergent is better because it cuts through grease better than hand soap does.'. TRUE. BUT, I soak my dishes in borax before I suds them up anyhow. Borax is an amazing multi-use cleaner. Since I had a few dishes that had been soaking pre-dinner I decided to give this hand soap idea a spin.
I washed the dishes just like normal, except this time using the hand soap. Rinsed. Dried. Then I filled up a glass with water and drank it. Waited a few minutes, and now I am writing this post to let everybody know my water didn't taste strange, I'm still alive and well. I think I may have just made a change. Now, that's not to say if I find a really awesome clearance deal on dish soap or have a great coupon for it that I wouldn't use it. I am about saving a buck, and maybe I'll be on the lookout for a dish soap that has its ingredients listed on the back. That part is still strange to me.
ETA: If you are wondering how this is saving me money. Since I recently closed my business I had a cupboard of antibacterial hand soap that I had stockpiled from couponing a few months back. Using what I have on hand already is saving us money.

Background

Hello ladies, and gents! My name is Patience and let me start of by answering the first and most annoying question EVERYBODY has for me when I tell them my name; No I do not have much patience. Drives me crazy, but I can bet there were a few people out there asking themselves, "Hmm, I wonder if she has patience?", and they probably chuckled a little as most clever people do.
I am 25 years old, but I feel older than that. I have been married to my hero for 6 years now and we have 2 boys, and 2 dogs.
Our lives are busy with my husband being active duty, and me being a reservist we like to spend all of our down time together as a family making lots of memories for our boys to cherish. Now that used to mean we would spend lots of money back when I operated my own business and pulled in a generous income, but recently I closed my business and we are now a one income family. Scary, at least for me it was. We are an average family living in debt, because that is just the American thing to do,  right? We have car loans, student loans, credit card debt. Insert little anxiety attack here. I am not putting this out there because I am proud of our debt, but I am putting this out there for the families that are in the same boat. Now you may be asking yourself, "Why in the world did she quit her job if she is worried about all this debt!?". Valid question. I was spending nearly the same amount of money that I was making from by business, on my business. I also quit for other reasons, my business was in my home and it wasn't working out with my youngest. We all want to feel comfortable in our own homes, it was only right I made sure my children were comfortable in their environment.
So, without any further ranting, this blog is being created to share our journey of what I am doing to change our way of living but still be able to live our life to the fullest, AND pay down debt. I hope my readers take what they can use to help their own families.
Peace, Love, & Happiness
Patience