Simplifying Life : Supper Edition

I finally decided to try my hand at making freezer meals for dinner.  I decided I would start small and only make a weeks worth of dinners. I know you can find millions of recipes and several people make a months worth but I didn't want to overwhelm myself the first time out. 

Before Cooking Day:

- Figure out how many days worth of meals you want to make.

- Find the recipes you want to fix

-Grocery shop before cooking day

Things to Have On Hand:

-Quart & Gallon size Freezer Bags

-Aluminum Baking Dishes

-Aluminum Foil

-Sharpie 

It's cooking time!

I gathered all the ingredients that I needed and laid them out. I decided it would be easier for me to start and finish one meal at a time, as to not confuse or swamp myself. With the help of my loving hubby this was a lot easier than I had initially thought. 

Recipes I chose for the family:

Baked Spaghetti:

Cooked everything as you normally would. Let cool. Add a tad bit of water and spaghetti sauce to the bottom of your freezer pan then layer your spaghetti then freeze.

Cooking Day: Sprinkle cheese on top then bake at 350* long enough for cheese to melt!

Lasagna (Baked)

Same as the Baked Spaghetti, just add a tad of water and sauce to bottom of the pan. 

Cooking Day: Add some cheese on top and cook at 350* til cheese is melted. 

Chicken Crescent Roll (Baked)

Chili:
Just make your chili as you normally would, maybe think about doubling the batch. We decided to freeze in several bags so we can eat as little or as much as we wanted. 

Honey Chicken (crock pot) served with White Rice:

Ingredients:

6 Chicken breast

1tsp salt

1tsp pepper

1.5 cups of Honey

1/3 cup of Ketchup

1 cup of Soy sauce

1/4 cup of oil

2tbsp minced garlic

Place all ingredients in bag coated and freeze

Cooking day: Slightly thaw and cook on low in Crock-Pot for 6-8hrs

Baked Ziti (Crock pot)

Roast! (Crock pot)

Simply add your favorite Roast & ingredients to a Gallon freezer bag. On cooking day slightly thaw and cook in Crock Pot 6-8hrs on low

Sweet BBQ Chicken (Crock pot)

Simple Tips: 

-Choose the best day where you aren't busy and you're well rested! 

-Make sure to have all your supplies and easily accessible

-Don't overwhelm yourself, TAKE YOUR TIME :)

ENJOY! Remember to follow me on:

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Pinterest 

Homemade Reusable Dryer Sheets

From my couponing I admit I still have a TON of dryer sheets in my stockpile but I was really anxious to try this out to see if it really worked as well as I had read online.

What You Need:

- Bottle of Liquid Fabric Softener (your choice of brand) $3.97

- Pack of Sponges $1 at Dollar Tree

- Sturdy Tupperware bowl

- Water

Directions: This is really simple. 

-All you have to do is cut your sponges in half, using however many you want. Add them to the empty Tupperware bowl. 

- Put 1 Cup of Fabric Softener

- Put 2 Cups of Water

Now all you have to do is grab a sponge, ring out the excess liquid then throw it in the dryer. Once your clothes are done, throw the sponge back in your Tupperware bowl and repeat the process. If you want it to be stronger just adjust the recipe til you find what you prefer. 

My total cost was under $5 and this will last me for months and I still have over half the bottle of Fabric Softener left for future use. 

Homemade Laundry Detergent w/ Purex Crystals {Powder}

After months and months of watching others making their versions of Homemade Laundry Soap, I finally decided it was time for me to give it a try. I also decided to try out Homemade Fabric Softener while I was at it.

Items you will need:

- 1 (55oz) Arm & Hammer Super Washing Powder $3.24

- 1 (76oz) Box of Borax $3.97

- 1 (4lb) Box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda $2.24

- 2 Zote Bars  $.97ea

- 3lbs of OxiClean  $7.52

- 1 Bottle of Purex Crystals, Downy Unstoppables. Whatever scent or brand you prefer. $3.97

For Your 1st Time you will also need:

- 5gal bucket or tote with a lid

- 2T scoop for measuring your laundry

- Container for your detergent or some use the Purex Crystals bottle 

1st Step: Combine Arm & Hammer Super Washing Powder, Borax and OxiClean in your 5gal bucket.  

2nd Step: Grating both Zote bars. You can either use a cheese grater or a food processor if your lucky to have one. 

3rd Step: Combine 3-4 cups of the Zote with 1/4th box of Arm & Hammer Baking Soda in your food processor. Run on high for about a minute. Repeat process til ingredients are gone. 

Once finished combine with the other ingredients in your 5gal bucket.

4th Step: Add in entire bottle of Purex Crystals. Put the lid on and shake til everything is well combined.

Then it should look a little something like this

Now you can store the detergent you will use in your container you bought or the Purex Crystals Bottle and keep the rest in your 5gal bucket.

~ My total was $22.88 + tax. With using only 2T per load this should make you a little over 250 loads which equals out around $.10 a load!! 

Have a different Homemade Laundry Detergent you wanna share email me or share it with us on Facebook. 

Chicken Cheese Balls Recipe - Only $3.40 Total

I'm always looking for new ideas for dinner because lets face it sometimes dinner can be repetitive and boring day after day BUT I'm all about being frugal as well. So when I found this recipe on Pinterest I had to share it with you guys my little twist on Chicken Cheese Balls. 

What You'll Need:

• Two cooked chicken breast
• 1 Can of Cream of Chicken
• Shredded Cheese
• Crescent Rolls
• 1 Cup of Milk

Start by first cooking the chicken breast as you normally would and cook the Cream of Chicken soup with the one cup of milk. After those are cooked cut the chicken breast into little cubes, then take the crescent rolls and "stuff" them into balls filled with the chicken and the cheese. There's no right or wrong just however much to your liking.

After you have your little chicken "pockets" in your cooking dish pour the cream of chicken soup over top. If you have any leftover chicken cubes just throw them in then sprinkle with cheese. 

Stick in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and your done! Super easy & so yummy! Depending on how many is in your family you can increase the recipe. 

Now to the frugal part!! For all the ingriedents(excluding the milk) I paid a total of $3.40. Here's how:

-I had got 5 chicken breast on sale couple days ago for only $4 marked down and I only used 2 in this recipe.

-I paid $1.89 for the generic brand Shredded cheese, which I used half bag on this recipe

-You can always get cheap soup and crescent rolls which I paid $.35 for soup and $.50 for the crescent rolls

Frugal Tips: Freezing Pancakes = Saving Time & Money

The other day I was reading Sisters with Stuff post about how she makes extra pancakes and freezes the rest for easy mornings. I love reading their time, money and just plain clever post. I have done this for some time now and thought I would share with you guys how I do mine.

I'm not a morning person at all so on school days when my kids use to ask to me to fix them pancakes for breakfast I would have to wake up early to do so. We bought the frozen kind for some time but as you all know it's way more expensive going that route, and hey I'm frugal. It's so much cheaper buying the pancake mix than buying the frozen boxes of pancakes. So we decided to start freezing our own.

Here's what you'll need:

• Pancake mix & ingredients it calls for
• Long baking sheet pan or wire cooling rack
• Aluminum Foil
• Freezer Bags
• Sharpie 

It's really simple just make your pancakes as you usually would. I do let mine cool a few before I put them in the freezer. I then place them on the long baking sheet or a wire cooling flat rack and stick them in the freezer to freeze. Once they are froze I put them in the freezer bags and using aluminum foil I separate each one. Then I just simply use the Sharpie to put the date of which I cooked them on the freezer bag. And your done! When the kiddos are wanting pancakes for breakfast and you just don't feel like making them or your running behind on time these come in SUPER HANDY!! And not to mention save you money from having to buy the frozen kind.

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Frugal DIY Tips & Tricks

Pin It

I'm sure most you like myself are "Pinterest Addicts" so while browsing last night I found a really cute idea that really I should have thought of myself. But isn't that how how it goes with Pinterest......"Why didn't I think of that"? As most of you know I have those ugly plastic drawers that I use for some of my stockpile, I found the perfect thing to spruce them up a bit on Pinterest!!







This particular one is in my bathroom closet so it doesn't get seen that much expect ourselves, but I tend to show friends and family my stockpile or give them items from it so I figured why not, let's give it a "face lift". I love to scrapbook so I already had all the supplies I needed to do this up do!

I used several sheets of my scrapbook paper and measured the inside of the drawer and cut to size. I just used my craft glue to glue these down but you could use Mog Podge if you wanted a better hold. After all the sheets are glued into the inside, I used the paper that was left over and made the white tags on the outside. I just used some of my craft scissors to cut a "design" and glued them onto the outside of each drawer. Then I labeled each drawer for whatever it's use was, example: Razors or Oral Care. On one I used some stickers letters again from my scrapbook supplies and the other one I simply wrote what was in them. I personally like using the sticker letters better.

Now this is still a cheap plastic drawer but at least now it has a little flair, not so dull and most of all you can't see everything inside it anymore! Just a quick, cheap DIY project I wanted to share with you guys, hope you enjoyed! 

Chicken Cheese Balls Recipe - Only $3.40 Total

Pin It

I'm always looking for new ideas for dinner because lets face it sometimes dinner can be repetitive and boring day after day BUT I'm all about being frugal as well. So when I found this recipe on Pinterest I had to share it with you guys my little twist on Chicken Cheese Balls. 

What You'll Need:

• Two cooked chicken breast
• 1 Can of Cream of Chicken
• Shredded Cheese
• Crescent Rolls
• 1 Cup of Milk

Start by first cooking the chicken breast as you normally would and cook the Cream of Chicken soup with the one cup of milk. After those are cooked cut the chicken breast into little cubes, then take the crescent rolls and "stuff" them into balls filled with the chicken and the cheese. There's no right or wrong just however much to your liking.

After you have your little chicken "pockets" in your cooking dish pour the cream of chicken soup over top. If you have any leftover chicken cubes just throw them in then sprinkle with cheese. 

Stick in the oven at 350 degrees for 30 minutes and your done! Super easy & so yummy! Depending on how many is in your family you can increase the recipe. 

Now to the frugal part!! For all the ingriedents(excluding the milk) I paid a total of $3.40. Here's how:

-I had got 5 chicken breast on sale couple days ago for only $4 marked down and I only used 2 in this recipe.

-I paid $1.89 for the generic brand Shredded cheese, which I used half bag on this recipe

-You can always get cheap soup and crescent rolls which I paid $.35 for soup and $.50 for the crescent rolls

Valentine's Day DIY Day 1: "52 Reasons I Love You"

Each day this week I'll be bringing you a crafty, homemade, FRUGAL way to tell your loved one how you feel this Valentine's Day. For those who follow me know that I sadly lack the creativity to take credit for any of these ideas, so for more ideas follow the links posted each day!

"52 Reasons I Love You Card Tutorial"

1. Find some playing cards! You can use an old deck from home or these are $1 at the store.
2. Scuff them up with some sandpaper to give them a used feel as well as a used look
3. Create a template with one of the spare cards
4. Punch two holes in each cards using the template as a guide
5. Create your reasons labels to attach to the cards
6. Using double sided tape and/or glue - attach the inserts to the cards (using glue will take longer to dry and will stiffen the cards up adding more dimension)
7. Create all 52 of your reasons cards and let the glue dry
8. Thread cards together. You can use yarn or rings that you can buy at a craft store.

You can create your reasons with Powerpoint or simply cut 6x4cm paper or cardstock paper and hand write your reasons.

Total Cost: FREE if you have items laying around the house, if not this should cost you less than $5 BUT it will mean the world to the person receiving it!!

Thanks to PaperVine for this great idea

Frugal Tips: Freezing Pancakes = Saving Time & Money

The other day I was reading Sisters with Stuff post about how she makes extra pancakes and freezes the rest for easy mornings. I love reading their time, money and just plain clever post. I have done this for some time now and thought I would share with you guys how I do mine.

I'm not a morning person at all so on school days when my kids use to ask to me to fix them pancakes for breakfast I would have to wake up early to do so. We bought the frozen kind for some time but as you all know it's way more expensive going that route, and hey I'm frugal. It's so much cheaper buying the pancake mix than buying the frozen boxes of pancakes. So we decided to start freezing our own.

Here's what you'll need:

• Pancake mix & ingredients it calls for
• Long baking sheet pan or wire cooling rack
• Aluminum Foil
• Freezer Bags
• Sharpie 

It's really simple just make your pancakes as you usually would. I do let mine cool a few before I put them in the freezer. I then place them on the long baking sheet or a wire cooling flat rack and stick them in the freezer to freeze. Once they are froze I put them in the freezer bags and using aluminum foil I separate each one. Then I just simply use the Sharpie to put the date of which I cooked them on the freezer bag. And your done! When the kiddos are wanting pancakes for breakfast and you just don't feel like making them or your running behind on time these come in SUPER HANDY!! And not to mention save you money from having to buy the frozen kind.