I'm In Love & Reader Updates

I'm in love, love, love with a new shower cleaner that I ran across. Moderate Means showcased this cleaner a few weeks ago and it looked like it worked so well that I had to give it a try.

My natural and homemade cleaners work well on almost everything except my shower/tub. That is a whole other story. With three dirty kids bathing/showering nightly and a hubby who sometimes gets filthy at work who then gets clean at home my tub and shower surround get a beating. The soap scum never fully comes off and in a tiny bathroom with poor ventilation there seems to be a little mold spore or two (or millions) growing around the base of the surround. Considering that the tub/surround are just a few years old one would guess that it should be fairly easy keeping it looking like new but with the abuse stated above it is almost impossible to correct. That is...until now!

Want a natural, safe, inexpensive cleaner that works? Just mix some baking soda with some Dawn dish detergent until you get a paste. Apply with a rough sponge or scrub brush and then scrub. This stuff smells heavenly and works, works, works! Even my husband noticed the shiny glistening tub when he arrive home from work.

I also tried this on my stove top the other day when I noticed a lot of baked on goo around the burners. It worked like a charm. The possibilities for this cleaner are endless. So that's my frugal tip of the day...save some green and be green with this awesome recipe!

With my birthday yesterday we went out to eat at a Chinese buffet. Total was $17.85. I also picked up some frosting and a watermelon at the store but can't find my receipt right now so will add that to our expenses in the next day or two. I paid our phone/internet which was $51. Our total left for the month right now is $644.80.

Today is Friday, which means updates from the readers that are doing a budget challenge this month. Whether your goal was to save $50 or $500...let us know how your first week went! If you are blogging about it please leave your blog link as well!

28!

Today was a nice day. Nothing special like birthdays as a child but still a wonderful day. :) My aunt dropped off a little gift this morning that contained the keys to a happy day (chocolate!), my parents gave me the perfect gift of books and stationery, and my hubby took me out to eat Chinese food and gave me a certificate to get my hair done tomorrow.

It is not the gifts that count, of course. The many Facebook messages on my page today and the birthday cards in the mail mean just as much. But there is just a little extra sense of specialness when you realize that your aunt remembers you are a chocoholic (is that a good thing or bad?), or your parents know your love of reading and writing, or your husband realizes that you never spend money on yourself and didn't blink an eye at the price of a cut and highlight.

Speaking of which, my hair appointment is tomorrow. I'm terrified and excited at the same time. Excited because I've never had my hair professionally highlighted and I'm curious to see what it looks like. Terrified because I am choosing a very short pixie cut and I have no idea if I am going to look cute with it, or like a boy! I'll find out soon enough...

I had no desire for a cake this year. I'm not sure why but I just didn't feel like one. I was going to fore go all desserts today but this morning as I rummaged around in a cupboard I found these, which I had kind of forgotten about until now, and decided to make some fun cookies with the kids. As you can see from the photo above, the kids and I are not professional cookie decorators, but we had a lot of fun and these hit the spot so much more than a big piece of cake could have. They even stuck a few candles in the cookies for mommy to blow out!

I'm going to enjoy the rest of my birthday by giving the kids a bath, tucking them in early, and watching a movie with hubby.

My Birthday, Your Present!

It's my 28th birthday today! And to celebrate I am teaming up with CSN to give you a chance to win a $40 gift certificate to one of the CSN stores...they offer everything from a table lamp to the natural wooden baby toy that I had for a giveaway here several months ago. CSNstores offers an incredible variety of products so the winner has a vast choice of products to use their gift certificate on! (*gift certificate does not cover cost of shipping.)

Want a chance to win? Just leave me a comment below telling me what your favorite birthday memory is. Winner will be drawn Monday, August 9th, at noon.

Feed The Freezer

On my quest to have some ready-made meals on hand and to avoid those last minute "Let's get takeout!" or "I need to run to the grocery store for something" times my goal is to double a recipe each week to store one dish in the freezer. I want this to continue with side dishes, breads, and desserts so that sometime soon I can have at least 7 meals waiting for us in the freezer. Instead of depleting those meals I want to also make sure that the weeks I take one out that I also stick a new one in. It's not an overwhelming thought and as of now I have two frozen meals in my freezer.

My first recipe is one that I know freezes well, as I've done it before. I didn't snap a picture of it, but we all pretty much know what cavatini looks like. I made one casserole dish for us to eat for supper and froze the other one for later. I didn't quite double the recipe on everything though, and this is where the saving money part came in. I often felt like the sausage overwhelmed the dish. The original recipe called for 1 lb. but while doubling the recipe I decided to use just 1 lb. for both dishes and it seems to have worked well as it was just enough sausage in the dish without being too much. The below recipe is the doubled recipe so you can make one for supper and one for the freezer...or both for the freezer. It's your call!

Cavatini
2 lbs. pasta (any kind, I prefer the swirls - which I happen to forget at the moment what they are called!)
1 lb. sausage
1/2 lb. pepperoni
2 jars spaghetti sauce
2 lbs. mozzarella cheese (I used about 1 1/2 lbs.)
Cook pasta according to directions. While pasta is cooking fry up sausage; drain. Cut pepperoni slices in half or fourths and add to sausage. Drain pasta, add meat, add sauce, and stir. Layer 1/2 of pasta into two casserole dishes. Sprinkle with 1/2 the cheese. Add remaining pasta on top and sprinkle the rest of cheese on top. Wrap one dish up and stick in freezer. Cook other dish at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until cheese is melted.


When ready to cook the frozen dish you can pull from freezer and stick directly into oven. Keep covered with tin foil and bake at 350 degrees for an hour. Pull tin foil off 15 minutes before done in order to let cheese melt.

Day 3

I went out to dinner with a friend last night. It is so nice to be able to sit down and eat a meal with some good conversation and no interruptions. No needing to cut someones food into bite sized pieces, no needing to get up to refill a cup. It is wonderful to get out of the house for some girl talk and a meal that is served to your table. I had popped a chicken in the oven earlier in the afternoon for my family and my hubby heated up some green beans and rolls to go along with it and served the children in my absence. I think that is the first supper he has served...ever...in our family (except for bowls of cereal or ramon noodles!); so am glad that he now appreciates how much time it takes to make, serve, and clean up after dinner. :) I spent $5.35 at dinner tonight (yes, you can eat out on a budget!). We ate at a pizza place and were looking at the lunch menu remarking that we would love to have the personal pan pizza combo for that price but disappointed that the special ended at 4pm. My friend asked the waitress how much more it would be and she remarked that the special was good for all day! The lesson learned is that it really does pay to ask questions. We each got a personal pan pizza, three breadsticks, and a soda for just $5 and tax.

Today we also put $20 of gas in the van. I forgot to mention paying the mortgage at the beginning of the month, which is $461. So in the last three days we went from $1,200 in the budget to $713.65 left. With 29 days left to go!

Be on the lookout for more thrifty tips this week, including an all-time favorite new shower cleaner recipe as well as my first freezer cooking recipe! Are there any tips or hints that you would like me to address?

Give It Up!

I finally finished the book that was next on my reading list - Give It Up! by Mary Carlomagno. As a reader commented when I mentioned this book, the challenges in the book does not apply to the majority of us reading this blog.

Mary decided to give one thing up each month. I felt as though she didn't delve enough into her challenges each month; not enough detail for me. I couldn't relate to over half the things she gave up, as they are not a part of my everyday life. Elevators? In New York they are surely a daily thing but in my life? Not so much. Alcohol? It was terribly difficult for Mary to give it up as it seemed to be a large part of her life, but it would be easy peasy for me as you'll only find me with a drink a few times a month at the most. Dining out? Not a big part of our life. Same can be said for coffee, cell phones, and taxis. While it was interesting to read about how someone's life can revolve around those things, it disconnected the reader who doesn't have to rely on any of those.

Television, chocolate, multitasking, and shopping were a bit easier to relate to. But how does one, especially a mother, give up multitasking?! And shopping...well, she is talking about the type of shopping that most of us probably don't do to begin with...the fancy shoes, expensive clothes, and so on.

What bothered me the most is that during the month of no cellphones, while she found other ways to communicate, she made it seem as though one could really never live without a cellphone. She went so far as to say "This month's deprivation caused my boyfriend to nearly reconsider our recent engagement, jeopardized friendships, and caused unbelievable confusion." Uhmmm...no cell phone causes that much discomfort? Maybe having a cell phone is the bigger problem if one depends on it that much.

While I could barely relate to this book, and it did little to help me in the way of my own personal challenges, it was still an entertaining read. It's a small book so doesn't take a lot of time to read and can be put down in between chapters without loosing your train of thought. I give it a 4 on a scale of 1-10.

Day 1: Farmer's Markets

Welcome to day 1 of the budget challenge for August. My goal is to try to spend $1,200 or less this month. This includes the mortgage, bills, food, fun, and eating out. Basically, I will be paying for all our normal monthly expenses from my $1,200 fund and updating you as the fund dwindles. Last month I went over by $175, this month I would *like* to come in under my goal but we shall see. If you are curious about how we can do this, how much our typical monthly expenses are, and other tips, you can read through all my June posts since June was the first month I attempted this challenge.

My first thrifty tip in order to help you save money is: Shop your local farmer's market! I only am reminded of this because yesterday I had stopped into our local farmer's market. It's been quite some time since I've been to our local farmer's market because I used to go when they had it on Tuesday also, but now it is just on Saturday mornings. I don't know about you, but our Saturday mornings are low key and a bit slow to start so I never get out of the house while the market is still going.

Yesterday was different. My husband is working every other weekend at work, until they can fill a position, so he was gone bright and early yesterday morning. You'll remember in my post yesterday that I had several errands to run and so I loaded the children up and as we drove downtown I spotted the farmer's market. We had 30 minutes left to shop until closing time so we browsed through the tables.

You forget how awesome it is to shop locally and support your fellow neighbors. I chatted with one woman about her soaps and tea blends. I mentioned to an Amish man, while buying the last of his cucumbers, that my cucumbers plants have all but died this year. He asked if they turned all brown and curled up and I told him that they indeed did. He then went on to explain that it is probably a root worm that got down into the root. My children were given cookies by one lady because they were behaving so well and everyone was just in a jolly mood. You miss this type of interaction when shopping at a big box store.

It's not just the mood that is wonderful, but the quality of the produce and the prices as well. Everything is fresh, nothing is shipped, and the majority of it is grown organically. How much greener can you get?

I bought:

1 dozen ears of sweet corn

1 package of a special tea blend

6 cucumbers

1 dozen eggs

for $9 total.

When shopping at the grocery store I noted that the cucumbers were 2/$1, the sweetcorn was $3.99, and if I remember correctly the eggs are $1.29. And you can't buy special blend tea at the store. So I was able to get fresh, organic foods for cheaper than what the store charges for their old, shipped in groceries.

Next week I hope to get there early as the pickings were fairly slim so close to closing time. In order to save money and eat local and fresh...remember your farmer's market!

And for those of you who were following my $400 healthy eating budget plan in July, add the $9 above to my total and I was still able to come in below $400! I'm back to my $75 or less weekly shopping now!