The Sweet Life On A Budget

  We have a Meal planning is essential to eating healthy, keeping the grocery bill down, and maintaining your sanity throughout a workweek.   In addition to meal planning, I try to prepare meals as much as possible over the weekend.   This helps to lower my stress during the week.    However, if we have a busy weekend, I try to plan simple or crockpot meals.         Meal Preparation Plan None NOTE-  1- Click on the picture and get a link to a post sharing the recipe.  2- Although all prices were correct at the time of the blog postings, the current cost of preparation of these dishes may be higher due to inflation and/or location.      Breakfast Options:  Cereal Yogurt Breakfast Bars Monday Salad with  Grilled Steak Tuesday Pasta Homemade Gravy Meatballs Salad Garlic Bread Wednesday Pizza Salad  Thursday Chili Chips Friday Sandwiches Fruit Carrots Saturday Bratwurst Fries Salad Vegetable Sticks  w/ Dip Sunday Mississippi Pot Roast Baked Potatoes Cole Slaw M- Salad T- Pasta W- Pizza Th-

  The Frugal Five With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us to live a frugal life.     1- Meal Planning  We have been a little relaxed on the meal planning and as a result, our eating out habit has returned.     This week I am determined to eat at home all week.    I inventoried what we had left over from last week, and built a meal plan around that.   This week's game plan- easy and simple meals.       2- Strategizing Meals for the Weekend We had another swim meet this weekend and it was over meal times, so we packed drinks, breakfast, and lunch again.     Since we need to get up so early and swim meets can be exhausting, we do not feel like cooking dinner when we get home.    This weekend, I planned ahead and gave my crock pot a workout.    I prepared the ingredients on Friday night

  The news is full of headlines indicating that energy shortages are on the horizon for most of the world. Over the decades, we have become reliant on the coolness of our air conditioners and have forgotten how we survived without them. It is now time to rediscover how to stay cool without our AC. Our 5 part series provides ideas on how to beat the heat this summer without the AC.     You Are What you Eat During the summer months, I try to cook outside or batch cook during the early morning or late evening hours. Grilling outside and cooking enough protein for at least 2 meals will help to reduce the heat in the house.    Eating chewing peppermint helps to open up the airways thus producing a cooling effect. Sometimes, I use essential oils and diffuse them into the air to open up my airways in the summer. In addition, if you eat spicy foods, the capsaicin in these foods will cause you to sweat. Since sweating is a natural cooling mechanism, your body will cool down.     Finally making

  We have a Meal planning is essential to eating healthy, keeping the grocery bill down, and maintaining your sanity throughout a workweek.   In addition to meal planning, I try to prepare meals as much as possible over the weekend.   This helps to lower my stress during the week.    However, if we have a busy weekend, I try to plan simple or crockpot meals.         Meal Preparation Plan None NOTE-  1- Click on the picture and get a link to a post sharing the recipe.  2- Although all prices were correct at the time of the blog postings, the current cost of preparation of these dishes may be higher due to inflation and/or location.      Breakfast Options:  Bagels  Yogurt Breakfast Bars Monday Bratwurst French Fries Cole Slaw Tuesday Pizza Salad Wednesday Breakfast for Dinner Sausage Eggs Pancakes Fruit Salad  Thursday Tacos Salad Chips w/ Salsa Friday Sandwiches Fruit Carrots Saturday Pizza Salad Sunday Steak Twice Baked Potatoes Grilled Vegetables M- Salad T- Pasta W- Pizza Th-  Chili

  The Frugal Five With inflation on the rise and our salaries not being able to keep up, it seems like we have taken a pay cut and must be more careful with our money.   The Frugal Five is a series where we celebrate our daily or weekly activities that help us to live a frugal life.     1- Dinner at Home We have been eating out a lot lately, but this week we made an effort to eat at home.    One of the best meals this week was a quick chicken stir fry.    We used the Instant Pot and experimented with making rice.  In addition, we cleaned out the refrigerator of the fresh vegetables that were getting old.    The Chicken Stir Fry was the best Stir Fry we have ever made!   I call this a win, win, win!     2- Packed Dinner and Lunches for the Swim Meet We had a swim meet all weekend and it was over meal times, so we packed our food and drinks.    Given how expensive eating out is, we saved quite a bit of money by doing this.      3- Free Training and CEU Credits This week the PaTTAN office

  The news is full of headlines indicating that energy shortages are on the horizon for most of the world. Over the decades, we have become reliant on the coolness of our air conditioners and have forgotten how we survived without them. It is now time to rediscover how to stay cool without our AC. Our 5 part series provides ideas on how to beat the heat this summer without the AC.     Water to the Rescue Sweating is the body's natural defense to combating the heat, so staying hydrated is essential to maintaining your core temperature. I enjoy drinking ice-cold drinks in the summer. Keeping your drinks to water or herbal tea is also helpful.    Since your blood flows close to the surface of your feet, ankle and toes, cooling down this area is helpful to cool your entire body. I like to soak my feet in a shallow bowl with a cool herbal water mix. My mix includes Epsom salts, eucalyptus, and/or peppermint oils.    Taking a cold shower and going to bed with a damp head helps to keep yo

  We have a Meal planning is essential to eating healthy, keeping the grocery bill down, and maintaining your sanity throughout a workweek.   In addition to meal planning, I try to prepare meals as much as possible over the weekend.   This helps to lower my stress during the week.    However, if we have a busy weekend, I try to plan simple or crockpot meals.    Our crazy schedule continues and last week was a little too overwhelming to be able to write up our meal plan.   If I am candid, the meal plan went out the window by Wednesday.   I am hoping to simplify our meal plans for the next few weeks, so we can eliminate the expense of eating out.       Meal Preparation Plan None NOTE-  1- Click on the picture and get a link to a post sharing the recipe.  2- Although all prices were correct at the time of the blog postings, the current cost of preparation of these dishes may be higher due to inflation and/or location.      Breakfast Options:  Egg McMuffin  Yogurt Breakfast Bars Monday Jam