Menu for the month Monday...

Y'all ready fo dis?!

Our food/grocery budget started over on Saturday.

I realize that I didn't share one other thing with you in my last post about our budget. And that was this: the Sunday paper and coupon clipping has not proven to be work it. Unless you need a new tooth brush for the kids, in which case you can probably find that coupon on line. It is nice to know when things are on sale, but it makes me want to spend more money, not save and the coupons are all for processed crap or skin care products with chemicals in them. That's not how we roll.

Here is the food we have planned for the month!

8/25 out to eat tacos
8/26 (turkey)BLTs with salad- we actually use cabbage in place of lettuce in these and in our tacos etc.
8/27 Lentil Burritos
8/28 Grilled chicken with veggies and mashed potatoes
8/29 Quinoa and Blackbeans- we use trader joes roasted corn and add kale
8/30 Mexican Pile - I'll have to explain this one later...
8/31 Pile! - again, I'll have to explain it later. It's delicious.
9/1 Tostadas- baked
9/2 veggie night- all vegetables all night ;)
9/3 Turkey Lettuce Wraps- I use this recipe for inspiration
9/4 Tuna salad stuffed portobellos topped with cheddar and side salad
9/5 Crock Pot Marinara for a simple pasta bake
9/6 Crock Pot Black beans for black bean burgers
9/7 Pile!- it really never gets old, never
9/8 Crock pot chicken divan
9/9 Homemade Pizza and Salad
9/10 Sweet Potatoes and Black Beans served over rice or quinoa
9/11 Tostadas baked
9/12 Crock Pot chicken tacos- There are a million recipes on the www for this
9/13 Mexican Lasagna- no chicken only beans
9/14 Veggie Night
9/15 Turkey Burgers with salad and potato wedges
9/16 Preston's Birthday! = Party food
9/17 Chicken Parm
9/18 Ouinoa, Black beans and avocado
9/19 Curried Chicken and vegetables
9/20 Pile! and salad
9/21 out of town
9/22 out of town
9/23 (get home) Tostadas are easy :)
9/24 Vegetarian Chili and GF corn bread with salad
9/25 NEW BUDGET!

See, that wasn't too bad!

As you probably noticed, we make things in big batches and use them for all different meals- for example - mexican pile has mashed potatoes and we are also having mashed potatoes with our chicken. Black beans made in a big batch and portioned out for different meals etc.

As you see, we repeat some things and it's ok. :)

We also have some kind of salad with almost every meal for example; spinach salad, kale salad , romaine lettuce salad or even home made cole slaw on occasion. For our all veggie dinners, we hit the farmer's market, it is truly amazing!

When we go out of town at the end of the month, we will still take some of our food with us, for example; I'll make bread and probably some quinoa salad or pasta salad etc. We are going to my in-laws and with Preston's food allergies it's just easier that way.

Did I miss anything?

What are you eating this month?!

How we make our grocery budget work!

$500.

It seems so small, yet like such a large sum of money. 

Doesn't it?

This is our grocery budget for each month.

I finally came to terms with the fact that I have another job.

Household Manager.

It is kind of like being a stage manager, only the stakes are higher.

It's life or death, really.

We eat a lot of organic. We do not eat red meat. We eat a lot of beans. This number includes paper products and cleaning supplies. There are sometimes 5 of us, and sometimes only 3. 

Regardless, the Budget stays the same.

And I am going to share with you how we do it!

I have to start off by saying that I have read a lot of posts on budgeting, freeze ahead meals, meal planning, cooking one time a month etc. But it really seemed like the meals were not very healthy. 

This process has taken about 4 months to refine and nail down, but I have found out a system that works for us, and I am so very excited about it!

Decide when your budget starts and stops, keep it the same every month. Happy Hubby gets paid on the 26th of each month, so that is when our budget begins!

I'll start by saying what all of the other budget blogs say. 

Make a meal plan.

1. Ask family members what they'd like to have for the month, and make a list of 30+ meals that you can hang onto for future months. Also, know your schedule. I teach some nights and it is way easier on us to have crock pot meals those nights. (Really, just about anything can be turned into a crock pot meal these days!)

2. Write it on a calendar where everyone sees it. Highlighted so there is no doubt. We use a calendar template printed for free from the internet. On big paper.

3. Make a list of ingredients you will need for each meal.

4. Go shopping at the beginning of the month for the whole month, other than produce.

5. Keep a weekly allowance for weekly fresh produce and "uh oh, I forgot" items. This is usually $25-$30 per week for us. 

Here is my plan written and highlighted.

Go Shopping

1. Buy big and buy in bulk, you will need to freeze things. Don't worry, we just have a regular tiny freezer too! Costco/Sams/warehouse shopping is so very much worth it!

2. Compare prices. Things are not always less expensive in bulk. You can keep receipts or write down prices to recollect what a "good price" is.

Yes, that IS 25 lbs of brown rice flour... I make our GF bread.

3. Compromise. You don't always have to buy name brand, and it's not always "better"

4. Know your ingredients. We rarely buy crap boxed cereals or snacks. Other than tortilla chips and tortillas. For snacks we have fruit or veggies with peanut butter, homemade granola bars (they're so easy to whip up!), breakfast bars, baked oatmeal, muffins, smoothies, eggs (cage free organic etc), grits, pancakes with honey etc. We don't need all of the chemicals in the products that come in a box.

Make big batches of pancakes, breakfast bars, muffins, whatever and freeze them, it'll save you!

5. This will seem contradictory to what is listed above, but buy treats. This month it was ice cream and spinach artichoke dip. We mindfully ration it out. We believe this keeps us from feeling like we are confined, and we then won't run out to buy worse food like french fries and frosties! lol

I should note too, that we don't use paper towels, they're too wasteful. We washcloths from Ikea with color tabs that are used in their absence and washed daily. We also use cloth napkins, since I make them! However, I assure you we wipe with toilet paper ;) We are not THAT far gone.

More on 4 and 5 in a minute....

Try to hit all of your shopping in 1-2 days to get all of the effort out of the way! 

Prep and put it away:

This is so great for us, no moldy cheese and this amount lasts 2 months.

This amount lasts two months. It is about a once a week treat, if even that when we buy it. 

Freezing it in the muffin tin works out to be the right portion size.

We buy lots of onions from costco. These last us 2 months. We chop them and keep them in jars.

We also chop some and freeze them (in a little water) like the artichoke dip.

Here are old classico jars we use for chopped onions and excess beans.

We buy dried beans and sometimes sub them for meat in recipes- we get the 20 lb bag of dried pinto beans from costco. We make them in the crock pot. Super duper easy!

Here is our teeny freezer packed up!

On the night you do all of your grocery shopping, plan something so very easy or eat out!

Like chicken hotdogs in tortillas with cheese!

Keep your receipts with a log to track your budget and keep tabs on prices. I write mine in my everything notebook. 

And that, my friends is how we feed/wipe/clean a family of 5 on the tight budget of $500 per month!

Check back on Monday for this month's meals!

What are your budgeting tips and tricks? 

I'd love for you to leave them in the comments as there is always room for improvements!

DIY Headboard- Burlap and Old Wood Flooring

I am beside myself with the newest addition to our bedroom! 

I have been wanting to make a headboard forever! I have had a interest board just for headboards so that I could sort my ideas and pinpoint what I really wanted. I knew that I wanted fabric of some sort and Happy Hubby wanted steel or wood of some sort... I decided we would compromise! I haven't been able to make my headboard because we never had a car big enough to carry home the materials. Well, guess what?!

We bought a new car on Saturday, but that's a whole other post! 

We woke up on Sunday morning and Happy Hubs asked, "what do you want to do today?" I said , "Make our headboard." I mean, why waste time?! We got the car finally!

We visited my favorite place in the whole world, The Rebuilding Center! Now I knew I wanted some sort of fabric and some sort of frame, but I decided a long time ago, to be very open minded when shopping at the rebuilding center and allow the project details to truly manifest themselves (yoga teacher language lol) once I see what is available. 

Materials:

We found a sheet of plywood for $3!!!!! It was almost the perfect size too, we only had to cut off 4 inches. I thought initially that I wanted raw wood as the boarder, but then we found this chipping white wood that looks like it used to be old tongue and groove wood flooring. We paid $7.20 for plywood and frame wood, ya can't beat that! I purchased a twin sized foam mattress cover for $10, 1 1/4"nails for $3, flush mounts (to hang the headboard on the wall) for $4. We already had an old fitted sheet that I cut up as base fabric and the burlap was leftover from our wedding last year. 

Tools:

We used a miter saw, hammer, screw gun, a staple gun, and a tape measure.

Here is how we put it together:

I didn't want pieces of white paint to chip off of our frame wood, so I sanded it with a 220 grit foam sander block. Then slapped on a coat of Mod Podge (I'll use it on anything I can!!) and then sealed it with a coat of Minwax Polyacrylic. These steps are not necessary, we have children and I did  not want them picking off paint chips... One child in particular has been known to do this already lol!

Cut Plywood to desired width and cut foam to fit. 

Staple foam to plywood. Note: Because I knew we would be using the old flooring frame, I did not fold my foam over and staple it to the back. I knew the frame would cover any bumps.

Cover foam with old sheet, staple on the back and cut off any excess fabric. Because this was a fitted sheet, I had to cut off the elastic band, which you can see in the background of this next photo.

Lay burlap on top of headboard structure and cut it leaving 4-6 inches all of the way around. Iron burlap then lay it out on the floor I didn't get a shot of that, but it was important to lay the burlap on the floor then place the headboard structure on top of it face down. The burlap shifts very easily and this keeps it straight. Pull the burlap tight around the edges, staple all the way around, taking care at the corners to keep them tidy.

Measure the boarder of the headboard and cut your wood to fit, and cut the ends of the wood pieces that will come together to make the frame at a 45 degree angle. 

Here is where it gets tricky, you will need 2 people. One person holds the wood down while the other person hammers in the nails to attach the wood to the head board.

We screwed the frame onto the headboard from the back for extra security. We didn't want wood falling on us in the middle of the night!

**Make sure your screws aren't too long or they will poke through the frame wood.

Measure and attach flush mounts to back of headboard and the wall. I can't give you too much information on this as it was Happy Hubby's job and I was just the eyeballs... We were off by about 1/2" initially and had to adjust. my advice: Have patience.

Let's look at the final product again!

I love how rugged yet elegant the frame looks!

It goes great with the pin tucked duvet cover that I made :)

I love that this burlap was in our wedding. 

It's a little reminder every morning of that special day that we promised each other our forevers!

I'm feeling a little stenciling coming on. I have no idea what color(s) or pattern I'd use, but I think a little pattern on the burlap would soften it up a bit. 

Any suggestions on what I should stencil or what color you think would look good?

I linked up:

Tuesday:

Creatively Living

Vintage Wanna Bee

Homework

A Bowl Full of Lemons

Cherished Bliss

Wednesday:

Ginger Snap Crafts

Friday:

Redoux

Go big or go home... Rit Dyed Sheets

I have a big bottle of Black and a couple packages of Pearl Gray Rit Dye for awhile now. I have scoured blogs for folks who have used it, looked on the Rit Dye website for tips and tricks, and stared at this bottle longing for the courage to just do it! I didn't want to start small, I mean, why dip your toe in when you can just dive right in and get the possible initial shock out of the way, right?!

We used to have a king size bed, but it took up too much room in our bedroom so we downsized to a queen. We have some king sized sheets left over that I have some plans for but they were a taupe color and I wanted them to be gray. To match everything else in our room.

My husband is so supportive! He helped me and stuck around the whole time, saying, "You are crazy, you really do some crazy things and I like that." haha! Thanks, babe! We decided that dying them in the washing machine ran the risk of our other clothing getting stained and we were not so interested in that. We decided to do the bucket method using a huger Rubbermaid container that held some of my bags out in the garage. We followed the tips and tricks on the website referencing the bucket method and here is documentation of our shenanigans:

Here is the color of the sheets before they were dyed:

Here they are sopping wet in our "bucket"

Here David is measuring out the water with a left over bottle that he had from some washer fluid.

I seriously worked up a little sweat churning and stirring these sheets in the dye bath for half an hour!

We rinsed them with the garden hose...

Here is Mr. P all wrapped up in our new gray sheet!!

This photo really gives the best portrayal of the color.

All in all, I'd use Rit again, it was super duper exciting and I kinda felt like a teenager out past her curfew. This large amount of fabric was a little challenging, but I adore the color. The gray is even on the sheets for the most part, on the fitted sheet there are a couple patches where the color is a bit darker, I'm not too sure what happened, maybe I didn't stir the dye up well enough in the beginning?? I don't really think this will affect the over all project though. I am one happy camper and I'm ready to get onto the next phase of this little project. Stay tuned.

Have you ever dyed anything fun with Rit?

Inspiration for the day: Do something big, especially if it scares you. The reward or the lesson will be greater than you ever imagined! xo

Lauren D.

Mudroom under $100 - part 2: A recycled kitchen cabinet turned mudroom storage hutch

So, we all remember what my tiny entry way looked like, right? If you didn't see it in this post of part 1, here is a reminder:

I identified that I needed storage in our entry way:

(From part 1)

What do I need to store in my entry way? Shoes, jackets, dog leash, poo bags, shopping bags, incoming and outgoing mail, family binder (meal plan, cleaning plan, bills), reusable shopping bags, shopping list, keys... I'm sure this list will grow in the future as this becomes a usable space.

I love the challenge of making things that look very nice (and function very well) out of quality inexpensive materials. My go to place is The Rebuilding Center. I had the recollection that upper cabinets are about 12" deep and that is about the amout of space we could spare in our narrow entry for storage. I always have to have a little chat with myself before I go, "Now Lauren, be open to what you might find. Don't let your vision be too narrow and if you can not find something that you believe will be just right, they'll have a whole new inventory next week."

Well, I went, I searched, and I found! Only $10 for this upper cabinet!

Pardon the photos, y'all know how impatient I am at starting new projects and this cabinet was all taken apart and ready to paint the night I bought it. But you get the idea.

There's the cute little planter turned shoe rack back there!

ew. But such incredible detail!

Wide insides!

I got to work sanding, priming and painting. I decided to go with black since the walls are so light and our kitchen floor is black and white checkered. Plus it helped that we had a can of Behr Mickey Mouse Ears (black) in the garage left over from a previous project. I was so excited about this find that I even woke up bright and early, earlier than Preston even, to get this baby finished.

I soaked the icky hinges in all kinds of cleaner in an attempt to de-gunk them, then spray painted them white in contrast to the black. 

I bought legs from Home Depot for $20, which was steep in my book, but I was ready to get this entry under control and I wanted something simple. The ones I purchased are 2"x2"x6" wooden screw in legs and the screw in plates (sold separately). This way our cabinet would be raised above the trim and we would have more room for storage underneath. I also painted the legs black.

I put it all back together and my husband anchored it to the wall by screwing it into the studs for ultra support, and here's the finished product!

There is still so much more that needs to be accomplished in this entry area, but we will save that for another day! Thanks for checking out my musings.

What is your favorite up cycled home improvement project that you have scored on the cheap?

I linked up to A Bowl Full of Lemons!