Feed The Freezer

Another recipe perfect for the freezer...

Enchilada Grande Casserole

1 lb. ground beef

1 16 oz. can refried beans

1 15 oz. can tomato sauce

1/4 c. water

1 pkg. enchilada seasoning

8 7to 8 inch flour tortillas

2 c. shredded cheddar cheese (8 oz.)

sour cream, green onions (optional)

In large skillet, cook ground beef until browned. Drain. Stir in refried beans, tomato sauce, water, and sauce mix. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer 15 minutes. Grease baking dish. Arrange 4 tortillas in bottom, overlapping. Spoon half of meat mixture over tortillas. Sprinkle with half of cheese. Repeat layer. Bake uncovered @ 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Top with sour cream and onions, if desired.

Double the recipe and have one for supper and stick the other in the freezer in order to kill two birds with one stone!

Winner

The winner of the $40 CSN gift certificate is:

I am not sure how old I was, maybe 5 or 6 when my mom had a party for me with some of the neighborhood kids. We bobbed for apples, played games and of course had cake and ice cream. My brothers are all older than me and they gave my friends piggy back rides and played with all of us. Except me. All I did was sit there and cry. Don't ask me why, I just did. I can remember some of it, but to this day mom will bring it up and we have a good laugh. Beth

Beth, please e-mail me at babys_mama1 "at" yahoo.com before Thursday to claim your prize. Congratulations!

Be Aware!

Today we took the dog back to the vet to get the pin taken out of her leg, since it has been eight weeks since she was hit by a car and needed surgery to fix her broken femur. Unfortunately, when they took the pin out they saw that it was still not fully healed, so she will be coming home tomorrow with a splint on her leg. I'm hoping that soon she can be fully healed and back to using her hind leg. I'm nervous about how much it is costing though...

Since we drove out of town to take her to the vet and were melting in these temperatures without air conditioning in our van I decided to give the kids a treat and got each of them a kid's meal at McDonalds. Usually when we grab a quick bite to eat it is just a hamburger and fries to share, so getting your own kid's meal is a real treat! It has been over six months since they have had this treat. And I'm thinking that they raised their prices because for three kids meals and the cheapest value meal they have the total came to $14.39. Ouch! $20 in gas for the van and we are down to $495.33 for the rest of the month.

As the title of this post suggests, we always need to be aware of where our money is going. One very helpful hint is to always check your receipts. Just in the last two weeks I have noticed three mistakes on my receipts and they add up to close to $10 total. Unfortunately, these were all mistakes from out of town stores and I didn't notice them until we arrived home. Two of the mistakes I will forgive and forget but one is close to $5 alone. I already called Target about it and they said it is fine to bring the receipt in next time to get a refund.

The fact of the matter is, when I shop I like to get good deals. I love to shop the clearance sections and bargain bins but I wouldn't have bought these things for more than what I thought I would be buying them for. It isn't a good deal if it ends up costing more than advertised.

This happens much more than you think. Many auditors that go from store to store to check grocery store practices say that on almost every receipt their is a price discrepancy from the shelf prices. Whether it is an extra 10 cents for the store, or an extra dollar or two, we tend to loose a little bit of our hard earned cash at stores without even realizing.

The best way to control this is to make sure you know the prices of the products and to watch the screen as the cashier scans the items. Unfortunately, most of you reading this are mothers and I'm sure that the majority of the time that you are shopping you have little ones with you, who help distract you from the task at hand. The next best thing is to scan your receipt before leaving the store, so that you don't have to trek back into the store. Even at home it isn't too late. Many stores trust their customers and will make an adjustment the next time you are at the store.

Check those receipts with every shopping trip and I'm sure you will be saving $5 or more of lost money each month!

Not Me! Monday

Is it wrong to...

...feel an urge to get pregnant because you found an awesome maternity skirt at a garage sale that you sooooooo want to wear?

...cancel your son's speech therapy for the day because your morning isn't going so hot and you just don't feel like rushing to get everyone ready to leave the house?

...hang up on a telemarketer?

...not answer the door when religious missionaries come knocking?

...yell at the dog for peeing on the floor, only to realize it was your child that did it?

...throw toys in the garbage after asking your children to pick them up for the thousandth time?

No?! Good, because I've done each and every one of these! :)

Happy Not Me! Monday!

Feed the Freezer Tip

Another freezer recipe is coming up this week but I wanted to post a tip about freezer cooking.

I never freezer cooking because I didn't have enough pans to freeze things in and didn't want to buy the disposable tin foil pans because that would cut into my savings. I know some people use freezer bags to freeze things in and these work well for things such as bread, meats, and side dishes but you really can't just freeze a casserole in a ziplock bag! I had a dilemma so often only made one or two dishes to freeze using my spare pans.

After hearing a tip about freezer cooking I have found the solution...

Plain 'ol tin foil! Line your baking dish with tin foil, leaving excess tin foil hanging over the side. Add your meal to the pan, fold the tin foil over to cover the dish, and freeze. Several hours later you can pull the frozen tin foil covered food out of the pan. I wrap it in saran wrap to avoid freezer burn. Label your dish and stick it back in the freezer. Once you are ready to use it just pull the saran wrap off, stick the "block" of food back into a pan, and cook! It has made freezer cooking a cinch for me!

Don't forget that you have until noon today to enter this giveaway!

K.I.S.S.

My total at the grocery store yesterday was $87.36. This is well above my weekly goal of $75 but I stocked up on several items that were on sale, one of them being 10 pounds of ground beef that was about $1 less per pound than I typically spend. I came home and divided it into smaller packages and now have several weeks worth of ground beef in the freezer, which will help me save money in the coming weeks by not spending so much on ground beef. Which takes our grand total left for the month to $529.72.

Now for the K.I.S.S. part of the post. Keep It Simple (Stupid) is one of the mottos of my life and ties into being a spendthrift quite nicely. I don't like paying someone or something (i.e. a machine) to do what I can do for free. Just a few examples are:

*I hang my laundry out on the line as much as possible because I don't like paying the electric company to power my dryer to do the same thing that the sun can do for free.

*We try not to go out to eat often because I don't like paying someone to cook when I can do it for free with inexpensive meal ingredients.

*I choose to keep the lights off during the day because I don't want to pay the electric company for something that can be had for free by opening the blinds and curtains.

*I choose not to have several appliances in the kitchen (mixer, food processor, etc.) because I can do it by hand, thus saving the money on the electricity and the appliance cost.

*I choose to have a garden and grow as much produce as possible so that I don't have to pay someone else to grow it for me.

I could go on and on, but you get the picture. Each of these cost saving measures are a choice that I make because I'm trying to keep it simple. There are times that I feel it is worth it to pay someone money to do something you yourself can do for free. We do use our dryer during the winter months and rainy weeks because I feel it is more convenient during those times to pay the electricity for that instead of hanging clothes up inside on a rack. During times of illness, business, or just plain tiredness I sometimes feel that it is worth it to pay someone to cook a meal for us. That, again, is a choice.

Sadly, it seems that the simple part of life is slipping away. We have so many time saving gadgets in our life but we seem to be busier than ever. Instead of spending all day boiling water, washing and wringing out clothes, hanging them out, and ironing them we can just throw the clothes in a machine that does the work for us. I'm not begrudging the advancement of technology because it does make life easier, but it doesn't make life simpler. We are now so dependant on the technology that our daily life revolves around it. I've heard the stories, that may or may not be urban myths, about how a key fob for a car wouldn't unlock the door so they fretted about how to get into their car, never once realizing that they could stick the key in the lock and unlock it that way. Or the grandmother who went to visit her granddaughter and remarked about all the dirty dishes that were in the sink and the granddaughter said her dishwasher was broken so she would have to wait for it to be fixed...never once realizing that she could do dishes by hand. Because they never had to do thing the simple way, the simple way to do them never even entered their mind.

Even though I like to keep it simple, I realize that I rely on a lot of the convenient products out there as well. Bread never used to be bought, it was always homemade. There wasn't such thing as laundry soap, dish washing soap, separate shampoos and body washes ages ago. Homemakers made their own household products and there was often a one cleaner fits all things that they made for their daily household and body cleaning needs.

One of my goals in life is to slowly become more and more self-sufficient. A major goal of ours is to homestead someday but that is further in our future. For now it is to start small and get back to the basics. I'll just keep reminding myself "Keep it simple, stupid."

This & That

I found the receipt for the watermelon and a few 100% fruit snacks for the kids...which was $4.83. We also spent $14.89 at our grocery store on my birthday for frosting for the cookies, grapes, peaches, and some meat. Last night we went to our local meat market for the first time, looking for some sweet corn which we saw advertised on their sign. Why, oh why, haven't we been there before?! Their produce prices are wonderful: we were able to get a dozen sweet corn for $3, cucumbers 3/$1, huge cantaloupes for $1.50, and onions for 25 cents. The fresh, local meat there is a good deal as well so we will be going back. Actually, we will probably be going back today because my husband wants to pick up another cantaloupe and some more of the yummy beef sticks that they have (which taste like a mixture of salami and beef jerky). Anyhow, my point was that we spent $8 there. Grand total left for the month is $617.08. I will be doing my grocery shopping either sometime today or tomorrow so will update then.

Remember last month when I mentioned the child trays of food for lunch? They are a big hit with our kids but we didn't have enough divided plates for everyone. Imagine my delight when I ran across retro divided plates on clearance at Target a few weeks ago! I bought each child their own...Joe has the bike one below, Becca has a cheerful cherry plate, and Jacob has a green pinwheel plate. Adorable and oh so fun!

For lunch one day the kids had fresh carrot slices with dip, ants on a log (celery sticks with peanut butter and raisins), and chips and salsa. There were also apple slices on the plate but Joe grabbed his off before I snapped the photo!