All most to the end of the year and still going strong with staying with our monthly dinner meal plans. November and December are probably the months were most families fall off the sticking to a meal plan wagon with all the different holiday events going on. We have actually been doing well with sticking to the plan. Here's our dinner meal plans for November.
We are on our 6th year of doing this Christmas countdown. It really has become a fun family tradition. Hopefully this year Michael will start reading the books on his own.
This will be the third year of us watching Christmas movies as a Christmas countdown. Over the years I have collected well over 24 Christmas movies and the collection is ever growing. That's what happens when you and your kid love Christmas! This will most definitely be a family tradition that my son will carry on with him.
I have joined up with a few other Disney loving moms and fellow bloggers to bring you not only the best things that Walt Disney World has to offer, but also some of the worst. When I think of it, worst is actually a pretty harsh word to use along with Disney. Let's call it more of least favorite things about Walt Disney World. Here we go.
Ever since we started this journey of financial freedom we're on, we've been cooking meals at home. After awhile you start to get sick of eating the same meals over and over again. With that in mind, I took to Pinterest to find something new to make that even my picky eaters would eat. Being mostly made in the crock pot/slow cooker was just an added bonus.
Meatloaf is one of those meals that brings me back to my childhood. Since it was my dad's favorite meal and a rather cheap meal to make, my mom would make it frequently. Now that I'm married and a mom, I love sharing things of my childhood with my family. I hope that Michael, once he starts liking hamburger, will have fond memories like I do when eating meatloaf.
It was a long time before we broke down and got an Amazon Prime membership. Jon actually signed up to help save his grandparents a few bucks when he was build a computer for them a few years ago. We decided to keep it because of some the added benefits of having a membership. Today, Prime Day, is just one of many of those benefits. Let me tell you more of what we like as well as give you a run down of some of the deals I've found so far.
For many years I felt like a hamster in its cage, going around and around on the wheel getting nowhere. When I felt like we were getting somewhere, payday would come and I would end up being in tears after I was through. It wasn't until the beginning of this year that we decided to get some help and hired a financial coach. It was the best decision we made.
If you've ever been to any of the Disney Parks, I'm sure you've seen the Mickey shaped rice crispy treats. They are actually not that hard to make and can help cure any Disney blues you might have. I actually made them for Micheal's Mickey Mouse birthday party a few years ago as the take home treat. Here's how you can have a little Disney at anytime of the year.
This week my list was rather long at all three stores. We were running low on items and also preparing for my mom coming in to celebrate Michael's birthday. Here's the grocery haul breakdown this week.
Happy June! The year is half over with - crazy how fast it has gone by. We've gone 6 months with sticking to the dinner meal plans and it really has been helping our finances, even with increasing our grocery budget. Here's what we had for dinners for the month of May.
This week had a rather short list, mostly because I had a good bit of the items needed for meals this week. Also helps that I didn't need much household items either. Here's the breakdown for this week's grocery haul.
There used to be a time were I hated to go grocery shopping, but that was before we changed our budget to $100 a week. The big key is that this budget is in cash. I tried keeping the budget in the checking account and use my debt card and I seemed to always go over. Wasn't as watchful of the cost of the items I was putting in our cart. Crazy how having that physical cash in hand really makes you double check your purchases, but it really does work. Here's the rundown for this week's grocery haul.
I have found that having a $100 weekly grocery budget in cash to be extremely helpful. Not only has it allowed me to not over spend, but it really has helped me question some of our purchases. When doing the shopping list, I generally start with what is needed for the meals that are planned that week, other household items we are running low on, and then maybe a splurge. Here's the breakdown on this week's grocery haul.
Staying within our $100 weekly grocery budget has become rather easy to do. I think that's mostly due to the fact that we haven't needed some of the more expensive household items yet. Hopefully I've got it so that those items only happen one at a time and don't hit the budget too hard. Here we go with this week's grocery haul.
Where has this year gone? Seems like it just started and not that we are now in May. We are on a role with stick with our meal plans. I can really see a difference with our finances by making dinner every night. Here's the dinners planned for the month of April.
For some reason this week's shopping list was extremely small. Because of that, I knew that there would be no problem with staying within our $100 weekly grocery budget. Here we go
For anyone who loves Disney and going to the Disney parks, celebrating your birthday at the parks is going to be the most magical experience ever. Since my birthday is this weekend, I thought I would write about how we made one of my dreams come true last year. Yes, I got to celebrate my birthday at Walt Disney World (WDW) and here's some of my tips on how to make it even more special without spending a lot of additional money.
Staying within our $100 weekly grocery budget has been rather easy over the past several weeks. Why we never increased the budget before is beyond me. It also helps that I've started to learn how to make those large monthly items not hit at the same time. Here we go.
Since the weather finally started to get nicer out, we decided that we wanted to check out what was going on at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C.. After doing a little researching and talking with Jon, we decided on going to the Sakura Matsuri Japanese Festival while checking out the cherry blossoms.
I think I'm starting to get in the swing of staying within our $100 weekly grocery budget. After a month and a half of our new budget, I'm slowly adjusting to knowing how to write a shopping list that won't have items crossed off it. Here we go.
Finally, a week were I didn't have to cross items off of the grocery list! We still had a pretty long list, but they were more on the inexpensive side so that really helped. Even with a $100 weekly budget, it's still hard to stay within the budget. Here we go.
I thought that since the grocery list wasn't nearly as long as it has been the past few weeks that it would be an easy week. Boy was I wrong. I still am blown away that we ever really survived on $50 a week because it has been hard to stick with the $100 weekly budget. Here we go.
Can you believe that it's April already?!? Amazing that we've made it through another month of sticking to our dinner meal plans. Here's the dinners planned for the month of March.
Since I started back at writing posts about our grocery shopping, I have been wondering how we ever survived with a $50 a week budget. The past month, I've been having such a hard time just staying in our $100 weekly budget. This week was another close one with the budget. Here we go.
I was hoping that this week was going to be a less stressful week when it came to keeping in the budget. Well, we ended up needing some items that are not weekly items. We were still able to keep it in our $100 weekly budget with a little bit of a carry over for next week. Here we go.
To be honest with you, before having my son I never really immersed
myself in the World Showcase. Like so many others, I thought there was not much to do in Epcot. My family is not very adventurous when it
comes to food and we're not big on drinking so we've never done the
eating/drinking around the world. When I was researching for our son's first Walt Disney World (WDW) vacation back in 2014, I learned that I had been missing out and that there was plenty to do around the World Showcase. I also learned about Kidcot.
This week we had the full $100 budget for groceries with a little carry over from last week. If you followed me on
Instagram and
Facebook, you got to go real time grocery shopping with me in the stories section. You also saw my grocery list and that there were things needed to be crossed off the list. Here we go.
It has been a while since I have written a post about our weekly grocery shopping. Since it looks like people are still interested in them, I thought I would bring it back. So, here we go with what was purchased for this week.
Welcome March! We have made it through another month of trying to stick to our dinner meal plans. Another month that our wallets are saying, "Thank you". Here are the dinners that were planned for the month of February.
Almost three years ago I introduced you all to a monthly book subscription called Bookroo. They recently expanded their box subscription with their new Junior Box and like their other box subscriptions, it is worth it!
Happy February! Can you believe that we've already gone through 31 days of 2018? We've also made it through another month of sticking to the dinner meal plan. I know that our wallets are so excited that we've been sticking to the meal plans over the last few months. Here are the dinners that we had planned to make for January.
One of the many fun things to do during the
Epcot Flower and Garden Festival is the EGGstravaganza. We were lucky enough to be able to participate in it last year during our visit in April.
If you love Disney like me, then you more than likely have a Disney Bucketlist. Yes, I have a Disney Bucketlist and will probably write a post about it. One of the things on my list was to attend the Epcot International Flower and Garden Festival. Last year I finally got to cross it off the list!
Since we are on this journey of eating at home to help keep our spending under control and fix our finances, I'm always looking for meals that my picky eaters will eat. In the past I would make chicken enchiladas via a box kit from the grocery. My husband has actually been asking for them and every time I go to the store with it on my list, the kit is not there. So, off to Pinterest I went in search of a simple chicken enchilada recipe. I ran across this recipe and thought I would give it a try.
We are definitely on a roll and our wallets are saying "Thank you!" You'll never truly realize how much money you will save until you are forced to stop eating out and cooking as many meals at home as you possibly can. Here are the dinners that I planned to make for December.
