Half-Priced Frappuccinos at Starbucks

I don't normally post things like this, but I'm so excited I had to share!  May 7-16, between 3 and 5 everyday, Starbucks is offering their frappucinnos at half price!  Their strawberries-and-creme fraps are amazing!  You may see me there every day!

Find out more HERE.

Freezer Cooking - Another Great Success!

I still have about 4-5 more meals to add to all of this, but we are pretty well stocked for the next month (or two)!  I started at about 8 am Sunday morning hoping that doing this on a weekend (when my hubby could help watch the kids) would save some time.  Didn't quite work out that way.  I finished 21 meals on Sunday, fixed a few more on Monday and I'm about to finish up the rest tonight.  Here's the list of what we have so far (what you see in the freezer):

1 Jambalaya Bake

2 Chicken Tetrazzini

2 Hamburger dinners

1 French Stuffed Potatoes

1 Chicken Pot Pie

1 Chicken Broccoli Casserole

2 Barbecued Chicken

2 Creamy Enchiladas

1 Smothered Burritos

1 Beef Stroganoff

1 Meatloaf

1 Caraway Pot Roast

2 French Bread Pizzas

1 Taco Pie

2 Chicken Supreme

2 Chicken and Wild Rice Soup

1 Chicken Scampi

2 Upside-Down Fettuccine Bake

3 Barbecued Chicken for Sandwiches

2 Chinese Chicken

Total = 31 meals

I got most of these recipes from two new cookbooks that I just bought:  Once-A-Month Cooking Family Favorites and Once-A-Month Cooking both by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg.  Many of these are fairly large meals and will last our family 2+ nights each.  Once I'm done tonight, we should have at least 40 meals that will last us two months!

I did have to spend about $180 at the store to get all of the ingredients I needed.  That definitely is a large chunk of our budget.  Since I already have most breakfasts taken care of, though, that only leave produce, a few lunch and snack items and milk on my grocery list!  We're shooting for a $250 grocery budget this month and I'm aiming for $200 next month!

I still plan on doing a freezer cooking day at the beginning of June to add a few more dinners to the stock, but I plan on focusing on breakfast, lunch and snack freezer items.  I'm excited to see what I can come up with!

Decorating On A Budget: Use What You Have

Inspired by a post at The Inspired Room, I wanted to try something a little different in our kitchen - I took the doors off of a section of cabinets.  After scrounging around the house for a while, this is what I came up with:

I had bought the jars a year ago for a project that I never got to.  I monogrammed them with B's that I got for free when I ordered a gift from The Simple Stencil and then filled them with chocolate morsels, marshomallows and pecans (great way to make more space in my pantry).

I placed my growing collection of cookbooks neatly on two shelves, used the two tins for hidden storage, put the flowers from my front door in a pretty pitcher and added some pictures of my girls and a few other little things I found around the house and Viola! - Free, instant makeover!

Publix Deals This Week

This picture is from just one of my trips to Publix over the weekend.  I spent $13 and saved over $50!  I got paid to get the Scrubbing Bubble, the popcorn was free, the Dentyne = .14 each, the Ricotta Cheese was just .59, the Parmesan Cheese was .99 and the Smart Taste Pasta was just .25 each!

Unfortunately, I still have not gotten to my Freezer Cooking for the month.  And seeing as how the month is almost over, it doesn't look like it's going to happen.  I was fully prepared to get some meals done over the weekend, but the 10 lbs of ground beef I bought to cook with spoiled over 2 days because the temperature on my meat drawer was set to the vegetable setting.  Very sad moment for me.

On the bright side, I still have enough to cook for the rest of the month with grocery money to spare.  And by May 1st I plan to be ready for a HUGE Cooking/Baking Day!

My First "Pretty" For Our New House

These make me smile. You'll have to ignore the sad lack of color on our walls, but I could wait until they were painted to show these off! So pretty!

Melissa at The Inspired Room had these on special at her Open Sky a couple of weeks ago. She has some super cute ideas for different ways to use these. I had been saving money from rebates and rolling coins just for these! I put them by the front door for us to hang our keys on. The only problem is I think our keys are too ugly for them! I'm going to have to find a way to prettify all of our keys (my husband is cringing as I write that).

Enjoying the Weather

We seemed to have completely skipped Spring this year! We went from snow one week, to 85 degree temperatures the next. We have been taking advantage of the nice weather (before it get too hot) and spending as much time outside as possible.

Our favorite new way to do that: Eating dinner outside!!

Winston especially enjoys being outside!

It's the perfect time of day - not too hot, not too sunny!

Freezing Meals Experiment Results

March is over and our freezer is much less full than when we began. Was my little experiment successful or a complete failure? Here are my results:

Did we save money?
Yes and no. We were still around $300 for the month, but only because I went crazy stocking up on cleaning supplies and Tide laundry detergent and Downy fabric softner (this is the first time EVER that we've been able to afford to use fabric softner!) I think I counted 7 bottles of Tide this morning! However, we did save money by not eating out nearly as much as we were before. If I didn't feel like cooking, I didn't have to! There was already something waiting.

Did it save time? YES!!!!
My kitchen has never been easier to keep clean. I ran the dishwasher every 2-3 days (sometimes still have empty). My counters and floors were cleaner because I wasn't pulling out ingredients to cook every day and night.

Over all, I feel like it was a great success. I did find a couple of recipes that I wouldn't use for freezing again (Tacos in Pasta Shells). We still have about four meals left and even got to share some with others during the month.

I'm getting ready to whip up some more meals next week and shooting to stay under budget for April!