We are approaching week five in our frugal meal planning series. I have to say that having meal plan every week has been crucial to me this season of busyness with work, compiled with being a little short financially. Our refrigerator and cabinets are starting to lose that bloat of odd and ends stuffing them. You…
The last few weeks have gone so fast. How are you doing on your budget? Has frugal meal planning helped your budget out? I know it has been helpful for me, especially as this coming week I find I miscalculated and have almost nothing in grocery money. Yup, I spent too much on Black Friday/Christmas…
Do you feel like it is a constant struggle to stay on budget with your groceries? My goal is to help you with your frugal meal planning goals while giving you great menu options and grocery lists to keep your meal plan tasty and easier. This week is our kick-off week and I will have…
Beans are a good simple dinner ingredient. Frugal and full of protein, beans are used in almost every culture’s cuisine to stretch meat or replace it in lean times.
We recently got home from our big road trip and the snacks were dwindling the last few days. With 3 kids individual snacks don’t always break down evenly, and when they do it seems my husband or I break the “even”. This means we end up with an extra this and that, and the same…
This post has been sponsored in partnership with Whole Foods Market Devon who has helped us get “road trip ready”. School is in session and it’s time to plan back to school snacks. When school first starts it can be super easy to pack a lunch or have an afternoon snack waiting at home, but…
As mentioned in my previous post, I grew up in a culture where canning was a summer routine. A favorite memory is of summer’s end when our basement shelves would be heavy laden with row after row of shining fruit and vegetable filled jars. This is my dream for my kids. That someday they can…
***This post has been sponsored by Beyond Meat.*** Our family is a family of meat eaters. Finding good filling meals that they enjoy and that give them enough protein without meat can be a challenge but we like to eat meatless occasionally. I also know I have some readers who don’t eat meat, so when…
We’ve reached the end of our Ice Cream Sandwich Recipe month here at Real: The Kitchen and Beyond and at A Life in Balance. It’s been fun looking at what we can create with 2 dessert favorites – ice cream and cookies. We’ve made or bought ice cream and made or bought the cookies for…
June is Dairy Month, which means it’s time to celebrate #AllThingsDairy! Our family loves our dairy products. Cheese is a staple in this house, maybe even more so than bread. At any time of day you can find us adding cheese to a snack or meal. A favorite easy meal in our house is grilled…
***Disclaimer: This post is brought to you in partnership with Mystic Country, CT, Mystic Seaport, and Mystic Aquarium. All experiences and opinions are my own.*** School can be incredibly boring. Sitting in a classroom, learning day after day and hour after hour, I wistfully looked out the window, wanting to be out in the sunshine….
My son is obsessed with calzones. He just doesn’t get the impracticality of making them for lunch when you have to make the dough, wait for it to rise, then bake them. Calzones really are quite simple but it just isn’t efficient to make for lunch. I had pitas I was planning to use for…
I cannot tell a lie, I grew up sneaking a spoonful of the cookie dough. Then I grew older and became afraid of what could be lurking in the raw egg. Some of you who know me well know a “play it safe” kind of girl is above the surface, hiding the crazy “try it…
We love salad, and as summer is on its way, we are thinking of salads more than ever. There is nothing so easy as throwing a salad together for a hot summer evening’s meal. Quick and easy wins the day for me but boring old blah salads can’t stay. Bye bye boring, hello fun! Try…
No matter what the season, it seems like life is busy. From young to old there are career couples, parents with toddlers running around, parents with kids in school and sports, and finally, those later years with teens who have a busy social life. Things can get especially hectic if you have kids, with days…
As soon as I saw information for “Give Kids Sight” day in Philadelphia, I knew I wanted to be a part of it. I have worn glasses for well over half my life and I would be lost (quite literally) without them. In 4th grade I had a problem. I went from easily grasping concepts…
April is grilled cheese month. It’s also my birthday month, woot! Wait, I totally can’t imagine me saying “woot” in real life but whatever. Let’s get to the serious matter at hand. It’s grilled cheese month! I do love a good grilled cheese: grilled swiss and ham with spicy mustard on multi-grain bread, grilled extra…
Spring came out to play but winter has come back to taunt us. I’m not really sure how cold it is actually going to get but ‘high of 60, low of 22’ doesn’t sound so fun to me. Instead of the current craze of Shamrock Shakes, which I completely adore, by the way, I am…
