All Things Hold Together

It’s Menu Plan Monday again!

Last week, I did not have a chance to post my menu, but I am glad to be back this week. Menu planning is a great way to give yourself one less thing to worry about, and to keep your grocery budget under control.

Here’s what we are having this week:

Monday: Sausage, Green Pepper, and Potato Skillet

Tuesday: Spaghetti and Meatballs, with French bread

Wednesday: Teriyaki Chicken and Rice Casserole

Thursday: Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, and peas

Friday: Chicken Alfredo, with Farfalle (which is just a fancy way of saying “bow ties”)

Saturday: Leftovers or, if there are not enough, Baked Chicken Parmesan

See what’s cooking around the blog-o-sphere. Visit Menu Plan Monday at OrgJunkie.

I will be updating this post with the recipes later tonight soon.

Updated

Yesterday I needed to read about 15 pages worth of documents on a website for a local TV show that I am doing tonight, but I had a really bad migraine and could not read on screen, so I figured that I would print it out.

I looked at the supply of printer paper that we had left after the kids used most of it to draw on and there were only about 6 sheets left. I was not about to use them to print something that I was going to read and then recycle.

As I looked around for something else I could print on, I spied a pack of loose-leaf filler paper.

During Staples back to school sales, I always buy the 150 sheet packs of loose-leaf paper that they sell for 5-cents. I buy so many that I still have some packs left from the sale last year, not to mention all the packs that I picked up this year.

I tried it. It worked great. The right margin was a little small, but the documents fit on the loose leaf paper just fine.

With such a low cost for the loose leaf paper, I think I am going to use that from now on to print out anything that does not need to be kept.

Another way to save money when you print is to change the setting on your printer to the lowest ink setting, which is called something like “draft” or “quick print.” If you are not sure how to do this, here’s how. When you click “print” and the box pops up, click on the button that says “properties.” Here you will find options to change your ink settings. This varies by printer brand.

Update: Be sure to read the comments for an awesome tip left by mom2fur.

For more tips on frugal living, be sure to check out Frugal Fridays.

I decided to try to learn how to embroider with the hopes that I could make some embroidered towels or something as Christmas gifts.

I ended up buying this Savvy Stitches kit from Michaels for only $6 with the 40% off coupon from the sale flier. It came with 32 iron-on designs, hoop, needle, embroidery floss, practice fabric, and instructions.

I did some practice stitches and then I tried a butterfly pattern that came with the kit.

I think it looks kind of funny with the head hovering over the body, but that was how the pattern came.

It was pretty easy to do. It was fun, too. I liked doing a fiber craft that had immediately visible results. Knitting and crocheting takes so long to finish. I am known to finish scarves long after the cold weather is gone.

Anyway, if you want to try out embroidery to see if you like it, I highly recommend these kits. The regular price is $9.99, but Michaels has 40% off coupons nearly every week. There are different designs available, too. Here is the manufacturer’s website. It shows the four design sets available and you can search for a retailer near you.

It’s Tuesday! I can’t believe that I forgot to post a link to the Carnival of Homeschooling. It’s over at The Thinking Mother this week.

My neighbor Donna brought over some butternut squash that she grew in her garden. Not knowing what to do with it, I consulted my Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Slow Cooker Recipes.

Here’s what I found:

Spiced Butternut Squash and Lentil Soup

1 cup dried lentils
2 1/2 cups butternut squash cubes — (3/4-inch)
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup chopped carrot
1/2 cup chopped celery
2 garlic cloves — minced
1 teaspoon garam masala
4 cups chicken or vegetable broth

1. Rinse and drain lentils. In a 3 1/2 to 4-quart slow cooker place lentils, squash, onion, carrot and celery. Sprinkle garlic and garam masala over vegetables. Pour broth over all.

2. Cover and cook on low heat setting for 8 to 9 hours or on high heat setting for 4 to 4 1/2 hours. Ladle into bowls.

My house is now filled with the warm, earthy aroma of garam masala. Soon the smell of freshly baked Crusty Rolls will join the mix. Mmmmm.

Finding the garam masala was an adventure. I went to a grocery store with an international food aisle, thinking it would be there. No luck. I went to the customer service desk thinking that they must have some sort of computer system they could look in. No. They don’t. They rely on disinterested part-time employees to know whether or not they have something in stock. Yeah, great business model.

I decided to pick up the spices to make it myself (Google will return several recipes). While in the spice aisle trying to understand how in the world cardamom can cost 14 bucks, I found that McCormick has a gourmet spices line, which includes garam masala.

McCormick, we love you.

Shaw’s employee who told me not to bother looking in the regular spices aisle for an Indian spice blend because it would be in the Shop the World aisle if you had it, which you probably don’t, not so much.

Today, I decided to do something that I have been wanting to do for a long time - organize the junk drawer in our kitchen.

I saw the post on Organizing Junkie about organizing a junk drawer back in August and figured that some day I would pick up some containers and do it.

Then, I got the book Organic Housecleaning, by Ellen Sandbeck and she talked about cutting empty boxes to use for drawer organizing, so I started saving my empty Twining’s Darjeeling tea boxes with the hopes that some day I would get my junk drawer organized.

Today was that day!

Here is my junk drawer before.

And here is my junk drawer now!

I kept a screwdriver, a pair of scissors, and a couple of working pens in the front. On the side are knit trivets. And there are a few things in the way back - a small screwdriver kit, two more large screwdrivers, a paintbrush(?), and a calculator that never gets used, but everything else is in the tea boxes - and sorted.

I am going to love having all of my binder clips in one place. I clip every opened bag, especially in the summer when we are prone to ant infestations, and I hate fishing around in the drawer for one.

This is one project I highly recommend.

(Linking to Laura’s junk drawer post, I now see that she also suggests at the end of the post to use small boxes, including tea, if you do not have containers.)

The boys decided to get out the digital camera and try to make stop motion films with their Legos.

Here are the results.

From Big E…

From The D…

Several months ago, I started tracking how much we were spending on groceries. This is an area that I have never been very good at budgeting. I tend to buy what we need and then worry about how to pay everything else after.

Needless to say, that was not working very well.

I went through my banking statement for a few months and added up all of the purchases at the grocery stores. It was totaling $600+ per month!

I knew I could do better.

I decided to set my budget at $450 and stay within it. I have been successful at that for two months, so I wanted to share what I did.

I already buy in bulk and make a lot of stuff from scratch, so I am not going to talk about those things in this post. The changes I made that saved me over $150 in grocery costs were sale shopping and menu planning.

There are probably as many ways to do this as there are people who do it, but here is how I do it.

I menu plan usually one week at a time, but my grocery budget is for half a month at a time, so there are two different methods I use.

I’ll start fresh. When I am low on things and need to so a lot of shopping (usually around payday) the process looks like this:

I gather all of the sale fliers from the Sunday paper and I see what is on sale. Then, I plan my menu around what is on sale and make a shopping list.

When shopping sales, it helps to know the regular prices of all stores in your area. My method for doing this is kind of disorganized (but getting better!), but Trent at The Simple Dollar has a good post on making a price book that you might find useful.

(Side note: That is a great site. I plan to blogroll it as soon as I get around to doing a frugal blogroll.)

The important thing here is to make sure that the sale price is really the best price. I shop at one store that always has great prices (Hannaford, if you are in the Northeast) and sometimes great sales at other stores are still more than the Hannaford regular price.

The price differences can be quite sizable. For example, Hannaford charges $2.99 for Edy’s ice cream and Shaw’s gets $4.49 for it.

Back to menu planning. Meat is the leading factor in my menu planning, but I also incorporate other things that are on sale. For example, once I found a great deal on Mandarin oranges, so I made Mandarin Chicken.

The internet is great for this. Once I had some canned pineapple and some boneless chicken. I knew they would go together, but I didn’t have a recipe, so I just Googled “chicken pineapple recipe” and “chicken pineapple slowcooker recipe.”

As weeks go on, I have leftover items from previous weeks. Then my menu is more diverse. If the only thing on sale this week is ground turkey, and I have no other things on hand, I would have to make ground turkey every night, or meatless dishes.

But, if I stocked up on chicken the week before, I can incorporate that into my menu, too. The same goes for other things.

On the weeks that I am not shopping, my menu planning is pretty easy. I take an inventory of what I have on hand and plan around that.

For ideas, sometimes I ask the kids or my husband what they would like me to make with what we have available. And, of course, the internet can be your best friend in this area.

By just making these two changes - sale shopping and menu planning - I was able to tame a $600+ grocery budget to $450/month.

As time goes on, I am sure I will add other money-saving measures into the process - like using coupons - but this has been a great start toward getting my budget under control.

For more tips on frugal living, be sure to check out this week’s Frugal Friday over at Biblical Womanhood.

When I first heard about Homeschool Tracker’s free Basic Program, I downloaded it and checked it out. This was a year or so ago, maybe more.

I decided that it was way too school-like for my taste. I mean, who wants to input all of the materials, assignments and grades… and attendance? Who takes attendance in their homeschool?!?

But the other day, I was filing away some papers, thinking about how I am trying to be more organized this year, and I decided to take another look at Homeschool Tracker.

I plugged in the dates that I had sketched out for quarters (just to make sure we stay on track to finish the curriculum I submitted to the state and don’t have to do book work in the summer, if we don’t want to). Then I put in the materials we were using and recorded the grades from the tests they have taken.

By this time, the D came over to see what I was doing. I was playing around with the reporting function and ran a report card for him. “Cool!“

The one thing the kids miss about school is having a piece of paper that proves how smart they are!

Now, he wants me to record all of their grades and print out quarterly report cards.

Recently, Bob suggested that I sit down once a week and journal what we did that week, so the annual reporting won’t be so much work. It just so happens that HS Tracker does that, too. It has a place for me to record journal entries and another one to record field trips.

I have always leaned toward the idea that homeschool should not be school at home. As a result, I tend to not like to do things that are too school like, I guess.

I am beginning to realize, though, that being organized makes my life run a lot smoother. And living in a state that requires me to demonstrate annually that my children are making academic progress requires me to be organized about my homeschool record keeping, or else face hours upon hours of hassle when it comes time to file my enrollment.

If that means doing some things that are like school, then so be it.

So, I am going to give Homeschool Tracker a try for a while. I’ll let you know how it goes.