If any of you celebrated Thanksgiving like we did, you’re probably still completely stuffed from all the turkey you consumed these past few days!
And while I love a great cut of meat as much as the next person, I also realize that using less meat is one of the simplest ways to stretch a small grocery budget. So if you’re looking for another way to reduce your monthly expenses, try switching up your weekly meal plans to include a variety of these low-meat meals.
Happy Thanksgiving!
As many of us enjoy a day off from our regular routine, good food, and great company; and as Dave and I bring Nora home from the hospital, I want to leave you with a post I wrote last year at this time… just because I think it is SO fitting for today. I hope you find at least one opportunity to give thanks this week.
It’s Thanksgiving week — which means my mouth is already starting to water for the huge Thanksgiving dinner we’ll be having on Thursday afternoon. I’m bringing a delicious sweet potato casserole to our gathering at Dave’s parent’s house; but since I’m in love with all things “pumpkin”, I just couldn’t resist making one more pumpkin dessert!
If you’re still looking for a really simple Thanksgiving dessert idea — I might just have the one for you!
Christmas is just over 5 weeks away and I’m assuming most of you have already been asked “what do you want for Christmas?”
Even as adults, we occasionally get a few gifts each year, and I don’t know about you, but I always have a difficult time coming up with things to put on my OWN Christmas wish list. But now I have a really simple method of keeping track of the things I want for Christmas…
Waiting is NOT my favorite activity… and patience is still a virtue I’m working on! So these last 2 weeks have not been particularly easy for me… and yes, I’m STILL waiting {not so patiently though} for this baby to arrive!
So I feel like I can justify the list of the little projects I gave myself last week… to help me stay busy until this baby comes! I’ve been having a great time “getting stuff done” while I wait… and wait… and wait!
I am NOT a financial expert — just a really cheap Dutch woman! And while I am 100% against credit card debt, I’m not 100% against any debt at all.
There is some debt that can be considered good debt… at least that’s what I’ve been told.
Come see what I have to say about good debt, and feel free to share your thoughts too!
Dave and I {and our two international students} all love soup and we all love anything Mexican. So the other night, when I made this Spicy Refried Bean Soup — you can probably imagine it was a big hit.
Everyone had seconds and there was still plenty left over for lunches — and I even put a large container in the freezer!
Oh, and did I mention it only took about 30 minutes to make!
Every year, as I’m making my Christmas list and searching for great bargins on creative Christmas gifts, I always start thinking about all the DIFFERENT ways people handle the issue of “gift giving”.
I know every family and group has different gift-giving traditions, so I thought I would first share a few of the different ways my family and extended family handles Christmas gifts… but then I’d love to know how you do it too!
Based on my past experiences, it’s quite difficult to take any amount of time off from my business {especially since I’m a one-woman operation} but it’s also 100% worth it every time I do. Even taking a few days off seems to give me a fresh perspective and even more energy to get back to work when I return home.
So as we enter another very busy holiday season — and as I enter a period of maternity leave — here are a few of my thoughts about how I plan to continue generating a decent income, keep my business running, and prevent possible issues {all while being as “hands-off” as possible}.
I know a lot of people are intimidated by painting anything… let alone furniture. But I want to assure you that you can do this!
I didn’t know the first thing about painting or distressing furniture when I got started… and now my house is filled with fantastic looking furniture at a fraction of the price!
Since I work from home almost all the time, and Dave spends many evening hours grading papers and planning lessons for the week, we BOTH really wanted a place to store and organize all of my business things, his school things, and everything else we use to run our home. So a home office we very high on our “what we want in our next house” list.
And even though I love our home office, I just can’t stop drooling over all the amazing home offices around the web. Here are a few of my favorites!
I love hot chocolate and can be “forced” to drink it in almost any climate — even if I’m not cold! However, I don’t love paying top dollar for it at fancy coffee places and restaurants. I also don’t really like the “cheaper tasting” watered down hot chocolate packets from the store.
So thankfully, my mom always made her own homemade hot chocolate mix… and shared her really easy recipe with me {it only has 4 ingredients}!
Even though our farmhouse has SO many features we absolutely wanted and needed in a house; the one thing it doesn’t have is a mudroom… or any type of front closet or back closet.
And although I would absolutely LOVE a nice big area to dump all our winter gear, I’ve had to get creative and come up with alternate solutions… especially now that winter is right around the corner.
See how I transformed a $20 armoire into our new “mudroom”!
Several months ago, when I first broke the news that we were pregnant, I talked about Having a Baby on a Budget.
Since then, I have stayed true to my frugal nature and with the help of Craigslist, my mom’s garage-sale addiction, lots of borrowing, and generous gifts from family and friends — I’m super excited that we’ve spent LESS than $300 on our baby so far!
Want to see how I did it?
Dave is a high school teacher…which means he can’t just pick up his cell phone to answer my call or send me a text message at a moment’s notice {especially since students aren’t allowed to used cell phones in class!}
Because of our crazy schedules, we’ve had to come up with alternate methods to communicate with each other throughout the day… mostly so I don’t go insane keeping everything inside 🙂
Obviously, I can’t be sure… but I’m really, REALLY thinking {and hoping} that my baby is coming this week! So I have another relatively simple weekly menu planned… with lots of quick meals that could be shoved in the freezer if necessary! However, since I have everything planned, that will be a good reason for the baby NOT to come… right??
If you don’t currently have a method for meal planning, feel free to follow our weekly menu, and make sure to check out some of my free meal planning resources at the bottom of this post!
This post has been a long time coming — and even though I’m still waiting on ONE more piece of furniture, I’m so excited to take you on a tour of our “brand new” Farmhouse Nursery!
We basically gutted the entire room and completely started over from scratch {you’ll understand why once you see the before pictures!} I’m simply ecstatic with the end results — practical, functional, and pretty darn cute — and I’m positive our baby girl will LOVE her new room… whenever she decides to make her big debut!
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