My New Best Friend

is my freezer.

Why have I not used this guy to it's full potential in the past!?

I'm am slowly learning all the ways my freezer can save me time and money. Sure, in the past I've frozen some things, but have not made conscious decisions to buy things just to put them in the freezer for a later date.

Yesterday, for the first time, I cut up a 10 lb tube of ground beef and divided it into smaller portions. Instead of packaging them into 1 lb bags like they are sold in stores, I divided the tube into 12 sections, or about .8 lb bags. I originally bought the (80/20) ground beef on sale for $1.69/lb but now it comes out to be about $1.40/package. When used in things, my family will never notice the difference.

I used the cutting board to squash the meat down flat so that they would store better in the freezer. I even cooked up three packages so on my especially lazy/short on time days I can just toss it in to whatever I'm cooking. We don't even use ground beef that much, so this should last us awhile.

My next goal is to make meals ahead of time and freeze them, so they are ready to thaw and cook or just go straight from the freezer to the oven. There have been many nights that I have gone astray from my weekly menu because Wade has called me to inform me he'd be home late that night. And instead of fighting with grumpy, whiney kids while I try to make supper, it's a much easier solution to grab Subway or a pizza on the way home. So, if I know that I've got supper waiting for me in the freezer, I'll save our family some money!

Any great freezer recipes you'd like to reccommend?

Oh, and if I wasn't feeling proud enough already for dividing up my own meat (which took me about an hour from start to finish), my kids played nicely together with play-doh that I had made for them awhile back.

And finally, this is what we had for part of our lunch today. (Leftover hamburger bun, banana slices, peach jelly, cut up prunes, marshmallow, peanut butter) Cute! (Better known as "We-need-to-get-groceries-what-can-I-scrape-up-for-lunch?" Did you notice our bare freezer?!)

Money-Saving Tip III

My husband's job is to provide (most) of our family's income and it is my job to stretch what he brings home as far as it can go. So for my third money saving tip that helps us out is......

Reducing Paper Products!

• Baby Wipes: For diapers that are only wet, we tear the wipes in half. The wipes we use are HUGE and after you tear them, you can even stretch them out a little to make them bigger.

• Face Wipes: (Love these when I'm too lazy to wash my face.) Same thing here. Such an easy way to double the product.

• Paper Napkins: This one's a little more strange. Instead of going through 10 napkins each night at supper, we use cloth ones. I cut up a few old, clean t-shirts into squares and keep them in an old baby wipe container. They are super easy to wipe up little messes from kids or messy faces. Then they just get tossed in a bag to get washed!

• Scratch Paper: I'm constantly writing myself notes or making lists so instead of using up pad after pad of Post-it notes, I use the backs of paper that would have normally gotten tossed in the trash. I've even cut it up before and stapled it together. I also use this for printer paper when I need to print something off just for myself. No need to use a nice white sheet of brand new paper when a pink sheet with writing on the back will do just fine for printing off driving directions!

Money-Saving Tip II

Movies!

Having two young kids, we don't get the chance to get to the theater as often as we used to back when we were dating. (Not to mention that it's almost $10 per person now, geesh!) And we very rarely (okay, never) buy DVDs from the store to add to our collection. But we do like watching movies, so to save a little money we do a couple of things.

1. We borrow movies from friends. It seems like everyone else besides us has a pretty decent movie collection, so we just ask to borrow one or two at a time and then remember to return them!

2. We rent movies from the library. Our library doesn't have all the newest releases but it's definitely got some good classics. This is where we get all of the movies Reese watches. They've got a TON of kids DVDs. My problem is making sure they get back on time so I don't rack up fines!

3. Redbox. If you've got one in your area, seriously take advantage of it! They are only $1 per rental per night, which beats Blockbuster and Netflix. And if you know a promo code, you can get them for FREE!!!! Try it out. I don't think we've paid for a movie with Redbox yet. When you go to check out, type in either DVDONME or BREAKROOM. At Walgreens, use DVDATWAG. It will only work once per credit card, but if you've got a couple different cards you can use it on each one. Go to this website for more codes for free rentals.

Money-Saving Tip I

When it comes to money, I've always been a saver. Thrifty. Frugal. Cheap. Call it what you want, but I've been like this even back when I was younger. When I got birthday money as a kid, I usually chose to put it in my savings account (or I was forced to...I'm not sure) and by 16 I was investing money in mutual funds.

Anyway, now that I stay at home with my kids, I'm always looking for ways to save money so that we can live off of one income. It always made me feel way cheap in a society that was obsessed with spending. But....... as you know, the tides have changed, and our economy is now in a recession. Bad for the US, great for me! Suddenly, every magazine, TV show, book is giving advice on how to save some money. And now it's perfectly understandable to decline an invite out to eat or something similar because "money's tight" and "we're in a recession". Luckily, this recession hasn't really affected us that much, but I am loving that more people are interested on saving money.

So, to mix up some of the family posts, every once in awhile I'll post ways that we save money as a family. Most of them are pretty small and seem insignifigant, but a lot of small savings add up to a big chunk of money which equals me staying home to raise our kids!

So here's the first one:

Soap. With changing lots of diapers comes washing lots of hands. So I've found a way to stretch the soap to go a little bit farther.

I love the Bath and Body Works Foaming Soap, but I've learned that I can basically double what I get by diluting it with water with a 1:1 ratio. The foam seems exactly the same and I've been playing around with exactly how much water I can add before I can tell a difference. I've also gotten many of these as gifts, and you can't get much cheaper than free.

For the kitchen, I purchased a KitchenAid Foam Soap Pump for $15 at Kohl's (on sale and with a gift card, of course!). It requires 10% soap (the regular kind) and 90% water. Shake and use! It's pretty awesome.
And there's more tips where that came from, so stay tuned! ;)