DIY Project - Kid Proofing Your Dining Chairs in 30 min, for $4.00

Recently, while visiting friends, we noticed that they had an immaculate house despite having 3 kids under the age of 4. How is that even possible? We had long given in to the idea of not having nice things until our youngest is about 7.

One of the dirtiest parts of the house is our kitchen chairs. At 2, our little Squishy is old enough to sit on his own and eat, but man does he make a mess! (Okay, part of this is our fault for having dining chairs with white cloth bottoms). Our friends have absolutely beautiful dining chairs that they covered the bottoms of in clear vinyl. When the kids are old enough, just remove the vinyl. 

This project took us about 20 minutes for 4 chairs and cost about $8.00 (you shouldn't spend more than $4 though!) buy your clear vinyl from either the walmart fabric department or at Joanne's using the 50% off coupon they send out every month. This was a last minute idea for us and we rushed out to get the vinyl without price checking. 

The vinyl wipes off so easily! Even if you forget to wipe the chair right after the meal and the food dries. 

If your fabric chairs are already gross, remove the fabric and wash. Then cover with vinyl. Worst case scenario is that the fabric won't come clean in which case you spend another $4.00 on new fabric.

Needed Items:

Screwdriver

Vinyl - about 1 yard for 4 chairs

Staple Gun - not absolutely necessary but it will make this really easy.

This is so easy, it barely needs a tutorial. Just flip your chair upside down and see how the fabric seat is attached. In this case (and all Ikea chairs) there are 4 screws that connect the seat to the chair. Unscrew those and remove the seat. The fabric is attached by an elastic string. If you want to wash it, peel it off and throw it in the wash. If it's still new and clean, grab your vinyl (we didn't even measure, just eyeballed it- 1 yard of vinyl did 4 chairs with quite a bit extra left over) and fold it around the seat, stapling the edges to the wooden back of the seat.

Then screw the seat back onto the chair and you're all set! It was super easy. It took us less than 30 minutes to do all 4 chairs (most of that was time was trying to hunt down the staple gun). They look great and stains wipe right off. Now if only there was a way to protect the wooden chair back from Squishy's maple syrup covered hands.

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Tools of the Trade: Batch Cooking (Electric Griddle for about $17!)

Batch Cooking: Tools of the Trade ( Electric Griddle for $17!)

Jon's family owns this gorgeous beach house in Maine that we've been lucky enough to visit a few times. On the last trip, we found this enormous electric griddle under the counter. We ended up using it every single day! Pancakes, french toast, sausage, scrambled eggs... We could cook a huge breakfast for a crowd in just a few minutes with minimal dishes!

I did a little research and found out how affordable they are. You can get one from Walmart by clicking here for $17.

Using the electric griddle, I can double my favorite pancake recipe (Joy of Cooking Cookbook) and make 40 pancakes in about 8 minutes. We eat a few for breakfast and then freeze the rest in batches of 3. I wrap the stack of 3 in wax paper and then put several wax papered stacks in a gallon freezer bag. When I want to reheat, I microwave for 90 seconds. 

They taste just as good reheated as they did the first day! 

If you have the money budgeted to spare, this is a great investment to save you some time for years to come. Before purchasing, make sure you think about the size of this griddle and make sure you have room in the kitchen to store it without cluttering up your kitchen.

Menu Planning: Step by Step Part 3 (Using Mealboard)

If you haven't already read the first part of this 3 part series, click here to check it out. This is a very basic, step by step instructional for how to be a successful menu planner. Part 1 covers the first steps (using both paper systems and MealBoard), part 2 covers how to set up your paper menu planning system, and part 3 tells you how to set up MealBoard and use it if you would rather have an automated ios program do all the hard work for you. 

The reason why menu planning is so important is that you can save an enormous amount of money without actually sacrificing the quality of your life. Let's say you eat out 3x per day for every day on a week. We'll assume an average of $4.00 for breakfast (bagel and cream cheese with a coffee), $7.00 for lunch (sandwich, chips and a drink) and 12.00 for dinner (chipotle or diner). You would spend $322.00 in a week to feed two people, or $483.00 to feed three people. Through menu planning, I can feed everyone great meals that they love for between $100.00 - $120.00/week. For two people, that would be a savings of $10,504.00 per year and for three people, that would be a savings of $18,876 per year. Now likely, you don't eat out for every meal. But if you really track your grocery spending carefully, unless you're menu planning, I bet you'll find that it's easy to spend $200.00 or more per week to feed your family.

This doesn't have to be hard though! It's actually really easy! Click here to complete the important first steps (#1-4), then come back to finish your system on MealBoard!

Step by Step Menu Planning Using MealBoard:

5. Download MealBoard (only available on apple products at this time) for a price of $2.99 (if you don't have that money budgeted, consider doing your meal planning by paper- it takes longer and I think MealBoard is well worth the price but you should never spend money that you don't have, even if it's just $2.99.

6. Start adding simple meals! For simple breakfasts, create your own recipes... Bagels and cream cheese, milk and cereal, yogurt and granola, oatmeal and raisins. If you work, plan simple breakfasts for the morning and save the eggs and pancakes for your days off. When you create a recipe, add the ingredients for that recipe (I.e. milk and cereal would list ingredients as milk and cereal) add a recipe for leftovers with no ingredients listed so that if you plan to eat last nights dinner for lunch the next day you can add that to your calendar without adding anything to your shopping list.

7. Start collecting recipes. Now the fun part starts! Head to the recipes section and then the import button. It will give you several choices for recipe sites (almost all of the popular ones are there and they're always adding new ones. Taste of home, Kraft, Martha Stewart, Spark Recipes, and Allrecipes are my favorites.

Browse for a bit and import any recipes you like the sound of. When you import a recipe, the entire recipe will import. It will add the photo, ingredients, and directions to your menu board. It will ask you to choose a category to file it under and you can clarify an aisle for any ingredient it doesn't recognize (I.e. If it says Philadelphia cream cheese instead of just cream cheese it won't recognize it as a dairy product. 

8. Figure out how you're going to handle lunch. Will you take leftovers in from dinner? Make sandwiches or salads to bring in? Will you buy lunches? Buying lunches out is still menu planning if you're making the conscientious decision to do that. For instance, if you pack a drink, trail mix and an apple and make the decision to buy a $3.00 six inch subway sandwich every work day, you'll be spending about $15.00 out per week in lunches. Likely that's about what you spend now on one lunch. 

9. Create a recipe for whatever you decide for lunch. Don't worry about directions, just enter ingredients. For instance- turkey, muenster and pickles on rye. Then list "lunch snack #1", and "lunch snack #2" as an ingredient. This lets you know to pick up two items at the store that you can use for lunch snacks all week. Word to the wise, if your new at this or on a budget, don't plan 5 different lunches for the week. Plan 2 with three interchangeable snacks (yogurts, granola bars, trail mix etc). You can repeat the lunches and save on ingredients. You can also fill in with leftovers if they fit into your plan. If you drink something other than water, don't forget to add that to your ingredient list. Don't worry about making a side dish and dessert for each meal. We just keep the freezer and pantry stocked with veggies (.49 for cans at Wegmans, and .99 for frozen bags). We usually add a salad to a day, and the ingredients are listed with enough ingredients to make salad for 3 days.

10. Take a look at your schedule and start assigning meals or recipes to different days. Make sure that most of your recipes are quick and easy unless you're a seasoned cook. 

11. Add preparation into your schedule book. Note the day you need to prep the slow cooker, the day you need to make ahead the freezer casserole, and the days you need to thaw meats. I freeze any meat I won't be using by the next day and then follow a thawing schedule. 

12. Once you're done, switch to the shopping list tab and ask it to sync your list for the week you want. Go through your kitchen and check off anything you already have. Delete all checked items.

13. Go through your list and add estimated prices (round up to the nearest dollar), while you're adding prices, ensure that each ingredient is listed in the right aisle for your store. Once you assign a price and an aisle to an ingredient you won't ever have to do it again. This is a program that gets better the more you use it. The first few weeks, menu planning still took two hours. Now it takes about 10 minutes. It's rare that I have to add prices now. Check out the top of the app- look at the total price for all groceries. Is that number workable for your budget? If not, figure out if you can substitute ingredients for store brands, eliminate unnecessary ingredients, or buy in a club pack to share with next week's menu. If you still can't make that number what you want, eliminate one of your recipes and switch to a cheaper one (it doesn't get cheaper than homemade macaroni and cheese with steamed broccoli or rice and beans... actually, pretty much anything meatless). 

You can then email your menu and shopping list to family members (add it to your blog, whatever...) or print it out for the fridge.

 Before you get to the store, you can go into settings and arrange your aisles so that they are listed in the order that you would hit them in your store. Head to the store and just check things off as you grab them.

14. Tips and Tricks: If you're packing lunch, you need a small cooler and at least 2 ice packs. It's imperative that you remember (or your husband!) to bring in your cooler at the end of the day, put your ice pack back in the freezer and empty your cooler. I would have a minimum of 2 ice packs per person available in case you forget one day. 

For the first week weeks, utilize post it notes to remind you to thaw food, prep food and take your lunch to work. (To this day of I don't leave Jon's lunch hanging on the door knob or leave home post it note reminding him- he won't remember to take it).

Good luck! Come back and tell me how much money you saved!

Menu Planning: Step by Step Part 2 (By Paper)

If you haven't already read the first part of this 3 part series, click here to check it out. This is a very basic, step by step instructional for how to be a successful menu planner. Part 1 covers the first steps (using both paper systems and MealBoard), part 2 covers how to set up your paper menu planning system, and part 3 tells you how to set up MealBoard and use it if you would rather have an automated ios program do all the hard work for you. 

The reason why menu planning is so important is that you can save an enormous amount of money without actually sacrificing the quality of your life. Let's say you eat out 3x per day for every day on a week. We'll assume an average of $4.00 for breakfast (bagel and cream cheese with a coffee), $7.00 for lunch (sandwich, chips and a drink) and 12.00 for dinner (chipotle or diner). You would spend $322.00 in a week to feed two people, or $483.00 to feed three people. Through menu planning, I can feed everyone great meals that they love for between $100.00 - $120.00/week. For two people, that would be a savings of $10,504.00 per year and for three people, that would be a savings of $18,876 per year. Now likely, you don't eat out for every meal. But if you really track your grocery spending carefully, unless you're menu planning, I bet you'll find that it's easy to spend $200.00 or more per week to feed your family.

This doesn't have to be hard though! It's actually really easy! Click here to complete the important first steps (#1-4), then come back to start your paper meal planning system!

To create your paper planning system:

Set Up A System

Step #5. Find an old binder, fill it with a menu schedule. You can print one here from Passion for Savings Blog. Fill it with blank pages for shopping lists or print these blank shopping lists by clicking here from Cornerstone Confessions. Do you use lots of cook books? Have a page with a recipe index including the recipe name, cook book and page. If you'd rather just print recipes from the internet, print away and then add them to the binder. You can organize them alphabetically or into categories (chicken, beef, pasta etc).

Paper Preparation

6. Get out the menu schedule sheet for next week and add dates. Separate each day into 3 sections: B L D (breakfast lunch dinner). Take a look at your schedule for next week and make small notations of things that will affect your meals (early days at work, event invitations, overtime etc).

Breakfast

7. Start assigning breakfasts. Think simple! If your working, keep to simple breakfasts. Try Milk, cereal and bananas; Oatmeal and raisins; or Bagels and cream cheese. Keep a stash of either protein bars, or granola bars in case you over sleep and need something to grab while dashing out the door. We don't assign things like juice. If we want to have juice in a week, we'll just get a jug and drink a little at will.

Lunch

8. Choose your method for lunches. You can either pack, buy or plan to take leftovers. Planning to buy lunches is still menu planning because you have a set budget and your incorporating a set amount into your menu budget for those meals. A great way to handle that is to know you don't have the organization skills yet to pack a lunch in the morning, and to bring a drink, an apple and a bag of trail mix to work and then hit Subway for a $3.00 6 inch sub every day. $15 in a week for planned eating out isn't bad! If you have a big family, you may not have enough leftovers for lunch the next day unless you double the recipes. If you plan to take leftovers, think ahead. For the first week, since you don't know how many leftovers you'll have with each recipe, have a few days where you can enact the above subway plan if needed.

Dinner

9. Plan your dinners. This is my favorite part! I love meals eaten together. Choose a mix of recipes. A simple easy dish, a recipe that you guys already love, a brand new recipe, maybe a complicated recipe for a cooking date night one weekend (or a family cooking night!). Unless you're a pro, don't plan recipes for a main dish, side dish and dessert. We've been doing this for a while and still rely on frozen veggies, canned veggies, salads, and pantry staples for meal accompaniments. Often, I don't even feel the need to plan the veggies. I keep the freezer and pantry stocked with veggies ( about .49 cents per can and .99 cents per bag at wegmans) and buy something delicious and in season at wegmans for their club pack price. This week, I got a giant club pack of grapes that we've been snacking on all week. Pick out your 7 dinners but don't assign them dates yet. Just a heads up, recipes that have many ingredients (not counting spices) tend to cost more.

Preparation and Planning

10. If you're using printed recipes, pull them out of the organized section- you'll keep them up front while you're making them this week and then refile them after. Browse through the cookbooks. Mentally note any ingredients in your head that would go bad quickly and that won't freeze. I want you to only have to do one grocery trip for the week, so if any of your recipes have ingredients that don't last or store well, plan for them on the first or second day of the week. I'm a food safety nut so I freeze any meat that I won't use right away. If you're the same, then plan on freezing meat right away and make notations on your schedule of what to thaw on what day. I.e. You're making chicken potstickers on Tuesday and grilled steak on Wednesday. So mark a notation on Tuesday to thaw steaks in fridge before making pot stickers. Some fridges might need two days in order to thaw (that would be my fridge set to the lowest setting... the food safety nut). If you're planning on a freezer casserole for a busy night, pick a day to make the casserole (like a day off or on a day that you're already cooking with that meat). If you have a slow cooker meal planned, mark a notation the night before to mix ingredients in the crock and leave in the fridge, so all you have to do is insert into crock pot and turn on in the am. Then mark a notation to leave yourself a post it note on the door the night before, because you know you'll forget to start it if you don't have a reminder.

*HINT* If you're an avid coupon user, this would be a good time to pull them out and decide what ingredients you can get cheaply. If you aren't already using coupons regularly, skip that for now until you can easily menu plan. We shop at wegmans with consistent low price lists (they change seasonally to reflect the lowest prices of items popular for that season). I'll occasionally coupon, but I mostly use the CPL list to plan. You'll still save tons of money by eating in every day, even if you don't coupon or use flyers (as long as all of your meals aren't lobster, filet mingnon and beef wellington). 

Create your Shopping List

11. Write categories on a blank piece of paper (meat, dairy, deli, produce, canned, etc) or use the link on step #5 to have a preprinted list. Think about where the ingredients are in your grocery store. List those areas. Start adding the ingredients from your recipes (even if you think you already have that ingredient!) to the correct category. If you come up with a duplicate ingredient, just add it to the first entry like in the photo below. Check through your kitchen and cross off any ingredients you already have.

Pricing and Budget

12. If you have a pretty decent idea as to what things cost, estimate the costs of each item by putting a small number to the side of it. If you aren't sure, estimate up. Add up the costs of your groceries and decide if that's a manageable number for your budget. If it's not, take a look through the list and decide where you can save. Is there an ingredient that can be cut? Can you cut out mushrooms or similar ingredients from a recipe? Is there a substitute that can be made (purchasing store brands for cheaper or buying in a bulk pack to use the ingredient next week as well)?  Is one of your recipes particularly expensive? Can you substitute that recipe out? Can you go meatless one day? After you're all done and you have a final price, add that amount in large numbers to your grocery list. That's your goal amount. We're almost always under our goal amount and if we aren't, something will be getting cut. Our grocery budget for two adults and one child, plus 3 additional children during the days (breakfast, lunch and snack) is between $100-150, depending on what our monthly budget goals are. We average $120.00/week.

Grocery Shopping

13. Head out and buy those ingredients! Store things so they will last until they are needed. Post your menu and schedule on the fridge so you can refer to it every day and ensure things will run smoothly. 

Tips and Tricks

14. If you're packing lunch, you need a small cooler and at least 2 ice packs. It's imperative that you (or your husband!) remember to bring in your cooler at the end of the day, put your ice pack back in the freezer and empty your cooler. I would have a minimum of 2 ice packs per person available in case you forget one day. 

Good luck! Think of me when you're chilling in Disney World spending the money that you saved!

Menu Planning: Step by Step Part 1

Do you love the idea of saving a boatload of money through menu planning, but every time you try, it seems to cost you more money? You've come to the right place! No complicated coupon cutting, you don't even need to shop the ads! This is a very basic, step by step instructional on how to start menu planning. This post will be broken into three sections. Part 1 will be the first planning steps. Part 2 will continue with the next steps for those who would like to create their own paper menu planning system. Part 3 will continue for those who would like to use MealBoard, an amazing iPhone app that does all the work for you. You can find out more about MealBoard here, and we'll cover it extensively in Part 3. 

Your grocery budget has the most potential to reduce your budget and is also the hardest to reduce because it takes an enormous amount of preparation. If you do it wrong, you'll spend $120/week for 21 meals and then spend another $400 in a week eating out every day because you didn't plan appropriately. It doesn't have to be hard though! Follow these steps to do it the right way and make a significant cut in your budget.

You'll notice that many of these steps have nothing at all to do with groceries. That's because meal planning effects your daily life and it's necessary to have organization in other areas of your life before meal planning becomes a possibility. What if you don't have that organization? Don't worry! I can help!

Assess your life. Seriously, this is the most important step. Some lifestyles are impossible to menu plan for, or at least traditionally. If you work 12 hours a day, hang out with friends every day after work and just make it home in time to crash for the night and start again the next day then menu planning may not be for you. Maybe your weekends are different though? Maybe you can plan to eat at home or pack a lunch just on the weekends. Or maybe you're like us, with a pretty regimented schedule and time in both the morning and afternoon. If you're not like us, don't give up! We menu planned when I worked evening shift, Jon worked day shift, we never had the same day off and were seriously overwhelmed. 

Figure out what the toughest part of your day is. What's the obstacle standing in your way to eating at home every day. Do you just not feel like cooking when you get home from work? Consider using the slow cooker and freezer meals that you can plan ahead for.

Figure out how many days you can reasonably eat at home. A number that fits both your budget and your schedule. Figure out where you're coming from. Have you been eating out 7 days a week? Do you know how to cook? Do you have raw meat phobia (don't laugh... I hate raw meat and it took a long time for me to be a full time eat at homer because of that!). If you're coming from a mostly eat out lifestyle, start small. Plan to eat at home 3x/week (mostly on your days off). If you don't know how to cook, start with mostly convenience cooking (my popular post on 15 minute meals would be a great thing for you to check out by clicking here). 

                                                                                 

Keep a schedule. Either written or on your phone. As soon as you have an engagement (an invitation to a BBQ, scheduled overtime, even a crazy deadline that you'll be stressed out for), write it immediately in your schedule. You're doing this so that when you menu plan, you'll be able to peek at the week ahead and know what days you need meals for. For example, the day you have a BBQ, you'll just plan to make a side dish to bring. On the scheduled over time day, you'll either pack a dinner to bring with you, or you'll decide to set aside $10 to eat out that day. On the stressed out crazy deadline day, you'll either have a freezer casserole ready to go if you plan to do the extra work at home, or you'll plan to pack a dinner that day (even something that you don't have to make like a can of cheddar broccoli soup, oyster crackers, an apple, and trail mix). If you have a family, keep everyone's engagements together. You can sync schedules with your family using something like google calendars or COZI, a free family calendar.

Have a family meeting and make the decision (or don't) to commit to this for two weeks. This doesn't mean that you turn down last minute invites because you don't want your thawed ground beef to go to waste. This means that when you break down and suggest to your husband that you just call in for a pizza rather than making dinner, he reminds you of your goals and doesn't rush to dial dominos. The reason this is important, is that you don't want to waste $100.00 on groceries if you know you won't commit to eating at home. This is why you start small if you haven't been eating at home at all. Make this an easy to reach goal.

                                                             

Decide how you will track your menus and shopping list- by paper or electronically? If you choose paper, this will take longer and be considerably more work, but if you enjoy it (like a hobby), that may be the motivation for you to continue. If you want to do it electronically, and you have an iPhone, take a relaxing breath. You're covered. You have MealBoard, which is the most useful app that I've ever seen (and the only reason I refuse to give up my iPhone!) We'll go over the steps for both paper and Mealboard in the next two posts.

Coming up... Creating a Paper Menu Planning System 
Want to make sure you don't miss the next post in this series? Subscribe by email in the box to your right and I'll reach out to you when it's posted. 

A Few of My Favorite Things: Laundry Organization

A few of my favorite things…

Laundry Organization

 

I'm not a fan of purchasing organization and storage products in an effort to organize yourself (read more about that here). I'm a firm believer in establishing the daily habit first and then "prettying it up". Meaning that when I hang my clothes up for tomorrow, they just get arranged on a hanger. It's been this way for months. Now isn't the time to purchase a pinterest worthy garment holder. I can do that when I don't even have to think about laying my clothes out the night before. Establish the habit then invest in it.

However, if this is an already established habit and your looking around for some good deals to spruce up your laundry room (or laundry closet if you're like me), check out my polyvore creation...

Click here for the original board where you can find stores and prices as well.

I love the Tide Bra Bags and have used them for almost 4 years now. I purchased two (each holds two bras) and with almost daily use, they've held up great. It makes it easy to wash bras in the laundry with your regular wash and have them stay perfect and well formed.

The retractable clothes line is a great way to save a little money in the summer by giving the electricity a rest.

The tabletop ironing board is great, especially if you have a front loading washer and can just leave it set up over the washer and dryer.



Head here to look at prices or to purchase...

Time Saver Tip: Lay Out Your Clothes The Night Before

Time Savers Tip:

Lay your clothing out

the night before

 

If you know me at all, you know that I'm a huge fan of FlyLady. I fought a long and hard battle to become organized, I wasn't born that way. FlyLady was instrumental in that battle and to this day, I find myself repeating her mantras. My two favorites are "Imperfect housework still blesses your family" and "You can do anything for 15 minutes".  You can find out more about how Flylady changed my life here and you can head over to the Flylady's website by clicking here.


One of the foundations that FlyLady teaches is to lay your clothes out the night before. Every once in a while, I cheat and don't lay my clothes out and the difference in the morning is considerable. There's something so motivating knowing you can safely click that snooze button for 10 more minutes, because everything you need is ready and waiting for you when you wake up. I shower at night, so I can get ready in 10 minutes. About 3 months or so ago, I started laying out my husbands clothes too. He loves having his stuff ready to go, and I love that the closet stays organized and easy to use (which actually makes laundry an enjoyable chore). Last month, I started stuffing t-shirt bags (So easy to make!... Click here for a tutorial) with gym shorts, a t-shirt, socks, underwear, and a towel to go running in.

There are a million beautiful pinterest-worthy ways to lay your clothes out, but I'm a fan of free and easy. The most important thing is to make it a sustainable habit, after that's done, you can pretty it up with dress forms or garment racks.

We keep it simple, we each have a hangar... at the old place, the hangars hung on two hooks on the back of the closet door. At our new place, we haven't gotten around to adding the hooks, so we just designated the center section of the closet for our hangars.

We fold the pants over the bottom bar of the hangar, hang the shirt over top, hang sweaters, cardigans etc over that, tucks the socks into the shirt (the pressure of the shirt and pants keep the socks in place, boxer briefs usually get tucked in here as well), Bras and panties get hung over the hanger hook.
Shoes get set out below the hangar.

To give myself a break on the weekends, I normally take a few extra minutes and lay out clothes for the weekend as well (since my schedule on the weekends is more lax).

Give it a shot! Then when you've made it a routine, check out these "pinterest pretty" ways to leave your clothes out the night before.

Photo Credit: thelittlestthing.com

 

 

photo credit:

http://3coffeesaday.blogspot.com/2010/01/i.html

 

 

photo credit:

http://www.parents.com/parenting/clean-your-kids-closet/?rb=Y#page=2

 

 



Stationary Station: Old Fashioned Gratefulness

Stationary Station

Old Fashioned Gratefulness

Jon and I fight over who gets to get the mail. We both love it. There's so much promise in a full mailbox. There could be anything in there! A letter, a package, a notification that we won a major award... Anything! Of course, 98% of the time, it's just bills and flyers. Maybe it's because we love getting letters so much that I take every opportunity I can to send letters out.

If I need to say thank you, or I'm sorry, or "You Rock!" my favorite way to do it is with a hand written card. Despite my obsession with all things technology (thanks for that iPhone), I prefer to keep my address book in a black moleskin address book with a deep back pocket (that's been lovingly doodled on for 3 years). I keep stamps and stationary in the back pocket (just a few cards... I keep my stationary stash with my office supplies).  I can take my moleskin book to the couch and happily write a card, address it, stick on a stamp and put it my outgoing mail folder.

If you send out cards frequently then consider investing in what I consider essentials to my favorite hobby:

An address stamp can be purchased for about $24.00 but lasts forever (I scrapbook in my spare time, so I just use scrapbooking ink).

A wax seal kit (I bought mine from Barnes and Noble years ago in a clearance sale for $5.95)

Here's a few of my stationary favorites:

Click here to head over to my polyvore site for prices and stores.

Cooking Once, Eating Twice. Making Dinners into Lunches.

One of the biggest daily challenges I face is cooking healthy lunches for a group of six including picky eaters, and packed lunches. Jon needs a packed lunch ready by 8am, so we've been packing him leftovers from last nights dinner and then I cook something separate for the kids. The problem is that feeding four toddlers (I run an at home day care), cleaning up after them and then doing the dishes is a lot of time that I'm distracted and they're up to all sorts or (albeit adorable) mischief. I would love to have that extra time to spend with them doing projects, reading books and enriching little minds.



About two weeks ago, we switched to doubling the dinner recipes. It's almost no extra work, and the lunches are great! How many day care centers can say they feed the kids chicken picatta and asparagus? Eventually, the goal is to be doing batch cooking and long term menu planning again, but I'm baby stepping my way back to that (Do you baby step? It means making small sustainable changes towards your ultimate goal so you can easily meet your goals over time. I'm a huge fan.)



For instance, As I write this, I have a giant pot of homemade sloppy joe simmering (grab the recipe here... I don't even like canned sloppy joe sauce, but this stuff is mouth watering delicious). This will be our dinner, and after I'm done serving, I'll pack Jon's lunch for tomorrow and make up our plates. When lunch rolls around tomorrow, I just have to microwave a few plates and I'm all done!



Breakfasts are easy in our house. We eat according to the recommendation of the USDA, a fruit and a whole grain since we have the day care. With this plan, I'm only really cooking one meal per day, and then just quick prepping the other meals and snacks.



Give it a shot, it beats the monotony of turkey and cheese sandwiches every day, or the expense of the Chinese place right next to your office.

The Best Organizer I've Ever Found: And It's Free!

The Best Organizer I’ve Ever Found: And It’s Free!

 

When January rolled around, I realized that my 2013 schedule book would have to be replaced. Everything that I've ever needed or wanted was in that schedule and it was perfect in every way. I thought since I was at home, I would try to find a printable schedule online for free (What in the world did we do before Pinterest?) I found The Confident Mom's Planner here. I'm honestly shocked to say that the entire planner is free (with no hidden catches), and that it's more effective than last years schedule book, which I paid a pretty penny for and then spent hours customizing in ways she's already done.


I'm on my third week with it now and am floored by how much more productive I've become. If you're a fan of flylady (and if you aren't- check her out here), the planner works great with flybabies because it has a separate section along the top for daily chores (aka. Your morning and evening routines). You just fill in the bubble for the day when you've done that chore and move on to the next. She combines the every day chores with special tasks to complete on each day that make this motivating, easy and workable.

Each Page deals with a week (the dates are all pre-printed and holidays are included). There are 16 spots for every day or consistent chores. You can choose the blank version (like I did) and write your own information in or you can choose her pre-filled out version. My daily tasks are :

• Put on make up.
• Take vitamins.
• Switch laundry, fold and put away.
• Lay out clothes for tomorrow.
• Dinner prep.
• Mop the kitchen floor.
• Work out a minimum of 10 minutes (I have a separate gym log, but even in my off days I do at least 10 minutes).
• Load/unload dishwasher.
• Load/ unload dishwasher (2nd time).
• Take out trash.
• Log food.
• 15 minutes of calm.
• 15 minute pick up.
• 2nd load of laundry and put away.

You can list other tasks under each day. I keep a list in my iphone of tasks to be completed (no matter how small- if I cant do it that second it goes on my list). As I run into things that I need to do, I add it. If it's a large project, I break it into smaller components and then add those.  Every night I designate a place for those tasks in my schedule. Then I can put it out of my mind and relax. I give myself a happy face sticker for the days that I completed everything on my list (this works as well for me as it does my 3 year old- maybe even better!). In addition to all of that, you can track water consumption easily and there's a spot to fill in notes (I use this for social events and play dates), as well as a "This Week" section. I'm still experimenting what I'll use this for, right now I'm listing things that I'd like to focus on for the week that I feel like I've neglected lately.


I've been incredibly happy with this and purchased a supplemental pack to go with it ($6.00 for family organizer sheets (such as baby sitter info, apps to look into, gift planner, medical info, quick contact sheet etc.) In actuality, I didn't particularly need any of those things, but she could have sold blank paper for $6.00 and I would have purchased it to support her because she did such an amazing job on the planner.


Go grab your own copy from The Confident Mom here and tell her I sent you!

Meal Planning Made Easy With MealBoard: Meal Plan and Shopping List in 10 Minutes!

Spending Too Much Eating Out?

I just made our meal plan for next week including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. I created a shopping list. Then I checked our cupboards and checked off anything we already had. I organized the shopping list by aisle. Then I organized the aisles by how I would approach them in my favorite store. I assigned prices to each of the items and totaled the cost of my shopping. Then I changed a few meals to change the total cost to ensure that I stay within my assigned budget. Here's the kicker: I did all of that in less than 10 minutes.

No Time To Plan Ahead?

Welcome to MealBoard! I've used MealBoard since I opened my own daycare. It's genius. It used to take me about three hours to do all of the above every single week. I heard about MealBoard and thought for $2.99 (ios) it was worth a shot. In the first few weeks it still took me 2 hours to make meal plans and enter the meals into MealBoard. After those first few weeks though, all of my "stand by" meals were already in the system. One particularly busy week, I hadn't had time to meal plan at all so I just repeated last weeks menu and it was done in 2 minutes. For the last several weeks, I've been able to do all of the above in less than 10 minutes. Now I'm on easy street! I just need to add any new recipes I want to try out and I'm done!

Do You Keep Buying Things You Already Have?

Mealboard lets you create meals (I.e. Baked Chicken Thighs, Carrots and Salad for dinner), list the ingredients, import the recipe from places like allrecipes and a few other places. You can then assign prices to the ingredients (either by the item, such as .49 for a can of corn or by the unit, such as 1.99 per pound of ground beef) and aisles in the grocery store. Head over to settings and arrange your aisles with a swipe of your finger the way you would approach them in the store so that they list in that order. Do you need to go to different stores? If you always buy flour and chocolate chips at Aldi's but the rest of your groceries at Wegmans, no sweat! You can also assign stores to items so that you can separate the shopping list by store. If you buy extras of items, they add to your "Pantry" and the next time that item is needed it will tell you right in the shopping list how many you have in the pantry. It will give you total prices of everything you need to purchase and even separate it into the cost of whats in your cart and whats left to buy.

Automate! Make It Easy With MealBoard!

What if you use coupons? No sweat! You can add your coupons as well! What about the items that you need that aren't in meals? Easy. You just add the contents of your stockroom (You do have a stock room right? Read more on that here) and it stores them all in the pantry. When you run low in the pantry just add it to your shopping list and you know how much to stock up on. If you aren't the one doing the grocery shopping, no problem! You can email or print your menu plan or ingredient lists.



I've used this since September 2013 and love it. I can't believe how much it can do and how easy it makes life. It's one of the best investments you can make for $2.99!

Creating a Routine or Schedule for your 4-6 month old

Creating a Routine or Schedule for your 4-6 month old:

Gently get your life back and create a routine that both you and baby can live with!

 

 

 



After our little Squishy Face was born in August, my carefully planned routines took a nosedive off a cliff and took my sanity along with it. That was also when I realized that I may have been harboring some deeply hidden control freak tendencies. Those first few weeks were a combination of sheer amazing and horrendous that only a new mom can understand. But then, little by little, it got better. I noticed he had a pattern even if the times weren’t the same, he followed a predictable pattern of eat, diaper, sleep, diaper, eat, diaper, play. I found that if I timed things right, I could do what needed to be done and use his natural patterns to help me.

 

At around 4 and a half months, we decided to put our little boy, who ate and slept on demand, had never slept in his crib and napped wherever he happened to be playing at the moment, on a schedule.  We didn’t use cry it out, or baby wise, or any method of “training”. We simply came up with a schedule based on research of the sleep and feeding requirements of his age, that worked for our hours and implemented it. If he cried for a bottle before his “time” for a bottle, we tried to distract him, if it didn’t work- we fed him the bottle and adjusted the schedule for the rest of the day. Within a week, he adjusted beautifully to the schedule and was asleep during naps within 10 minutes, rarely cried for a bottle, and sleeps through the night with only one wake up. Since he’s in day care for 6 hours, 3-4 days per week, the schedule during those hours aren’t as easy to adjust to since they aren’t constantly reinforced but it’s clearly going in the right direction.

 

I was able to fit my daily chores around his schedule and then both of us can get used to our routine. Since my days off rotate constantly, it was important to me that the routine didn’t change with whether I was working or not. When I’m off, I keep Michael home with me, but the times and activities are the same regardless of whether I’m off.

 

 

This is an example of the schedule that works for us: Use 0 as whatever time you normally wake up, then add the hours as shown. For example, if you wake up at 6am- then 0 is 6am: Wake up and Get Ready.  1.5 hrs: Nap 1.5 Hours and Chores is 7:30am (1.5 hours after your wake up time).  3hrs: Feeding is 9am (3 hours after wake up time).

 

 

0 hours: Wake Up and Get Ready

Squishy wakes up, gets changed and gets a 6 oz bottle. I switch the laundry while he watches the mobile, and put those clothes away. I give him a bath and dress him. He comes into the bathroom with me while I bathe, dress, and get ready for the day. We keep a few toys next to the bathtub in the master bath and I lay him on the fluffy rug in there.

 

1:30 Hours: Nap 1.5 Hours; Chores

 I bring Squishy down, change his diaper, and lay him in the pack and play with the music on and the lights off for a 1.5 hour nap. I make breakfast and eat. I make boxed lunches for Jon and I (since Jon goes in early and I work in the afternoon, I make Jon’s lunch now for tomorrow), I make dinner (which I’ll eat at 12pm before work, and Jon will eat tonight) and put it in the fridge. I straighten up the middle level of the house (which is my level, Jon handles the top and bottom levels), Switch the laundry and put away (usually his cloth diapers for this load). I clean the kitty litter box every day (which makes it a really easy chore! If I miss just two days, it’s my least favorite chore). If it’s scheduled, I make a menu plan for the week and leave Jon the list to take to the grocery store). I’m usually done with my chores right around 10:30am. Depending on my mood, I’ll either relax on the couch and read , or I’ll “pick a spot” and spend ten minutes decorating, organizing, or cleaning a random spot in the house.

 

3 hours: Feeding – Baby Food and 6 oz bottle

I grab his baby food from the fridge, and heat it for about 4 seconds. I make his bottle and warm it. I wake him up and talk to him/ play with him for a few minutes (so I’m not shoveling apples into a sleepy groggy baby), then sit him in the bumbo and feed him as much baby food as he wants. Then he switches to the bottle and finishes eating. I clean him up (and more often than not- clean me up), change his diaper, and pack the bottles and diapers up for day care (If I’m working that day). If I’m working, Michael gets dropped off at day care, I stop by the gym on my way home and run through my 20 minute work out, come home and eat my “dinner” at lunch. Then I go get ready for work.

 

If I’m off that day, then I bundle up Squishy and put him in the stroller, we head out running (well as close to running as I’ve gotten post baby-maybe a fast yet awkward jog). If I get bored with my neighborhood (this frequently happens), then I take him to the mansion communities, or the parks, or outdoor shopping centers. When we get back, We do baby yoga (instructions can be found here) or I do exercises and then help him mimic me. Then we alternate working on new skills and “relaxed play”. I’ll interact with him, read him books, or help him practice rolling over or sitting up for a few minutes, then let him lay and chew on his hand for a while (his favorite!), or bounce in his bouncer. While he’s doing relaxed play, I can take a few minutes and tackle anything extra I need to get done (or go back to reading on the couch!) The key to a happy routine to me is to expect his naps to be “my time” and awake time to be “his time”. If I happen to have a few minutes to get something done during “his time”, then great!, but I make sure that anything that needs to be done is done during nap times.

 

 

6 hours: Nap- 1.5 Hours

If I’m off, than I change him, and put him down in the pack and play with the music on and the lights off. I do my fly lady mission for the day (15 minutes), spend about 30 minutes on my weekly chores (cleaning out the fridge, and cleaning the bathrooms), then I read, blog, work on craft projects, anything I want (lately I bake massive amounts of yeast bread).

 

7.5 hours: Feeding- 6oz bottle and Errands

If I’m off, then I feed him 6 oz, change his diaper, and tackle any errands we have (normally the library or the post office since Jon’s been doing the grocery shopping lately), as he gets older and more alert, I’d like to start going to locals sights- butterfly gardens, and battlefields, petting zoos etc. I figure there’s more for him to see in this world than his pack and play and my living room J. Lately I’ve been using this time to read up on child development and research.

 

 

10 hours: Nap- 1 Hour

If I’m off, I change him, and put him down for a nap in pack and play for an hour. We eat dinner, then I lay on the couch and do nothing. It’s one of my favorite parts of the day. If I get really motivated, then I might play on pinterest for the hour.

 

11 hours: Feeding- 6 oz bottle and quiet play.

If I’m off, I feed him a 6 oz bottle, change his diaper and cuddle him, or read him a book, or Jon will play the guitar for him. I try not to get him involved in anything super rambunctious since we’re approaching bed time.

 

12.5 hours: Bedtime and Laundry

I change his diaper, put him in his warm Pj’s, and put him in his crib for bed. I turn on the sleep sheep to “Rain” and turn the lights off. I go and wash his cloth diapers for the day, which takes about ten minutes. By the time I come back in to check on him he’s usually passed out. I cover him with a thin blanket and go hang out with my awesome husband.

 

15 hours:  Dream Feed

If he has a diaper rash, we wake him up, change him, and feed him a 6 oz bottle. If he doesn’t have diaper rash, we “dream feed him”, which means we leave him in the crib asleep with the lights off and we carefully put the nipple of the bottle near his mouth. He sucks in the nipple and drinks naturally without waking up. We have him drink anywhere from 4 to 6 oz and then sneak back out.

 

 

16  hours: Our Bedtime

 

 

19 hours: Night Feed

 He usually wakes up between 3am and 6 am hungry. On the advice from the pediatrician, we feed him if I have to work the next day, so I can be back in bed in 30 minutes. If I’m off the next day, I cuddle him, or rock him, and then put him back to bed, he may be up in another hour to get a bottle, but it helps in the eventual goal of sleeping through the night without waking. When I first get up to feed him, I switch the diapers in the laundry so they are drying. When he’s had his bottle and I’ve changed him and put him back down, I can take the diapers out and leave them to be folded in the am.

 

Short Term Salary Replacement Ideas

 

 



Recently, when we had our first child, I had to be unpaid during family and medical leave for about 6 weeks. Since we had plenty of time to plan for it, it wasn’t as traumatic as one might expect. However, why lose that money if you don’t need to? We used the opportunity to declutter the house of things we no longer use, need, or want.

 

I went through the house, room by room with Ebay’s iPhone app. I used the app to scan the barcodes on anything I didn’t want anymore and could complete listings in less than two minutes!  I scheduled each listing to run for 7 days, and to start on Sunday at 10pm (statistically the highest bidding time). I would choose priority mail shipping only, so that when I brought my packages to the post office, I wouldn’t have to wait in line and I could use automated postage machine. There are size requirements for using the automated machine, so if your packages are large, you’ll have to wait in line.

 

During the week that items are active, I would take my bag of shipping supplies around to each room and box up things when I had a few moments. I would stick a post it note on the box labeling its contents. In my schedule book, I would add “address ebay packages” for Monday after all sales have been made, and “Post Office- mail ebay packages” for Tuesday.

 

Some examples of things we sold:

DVD’s- especially Blue Ray

Clothing- sold in “lots” of similar sizes, types, and brands.

Crafting supplies.

Hobby Gear- Metal Detector, Radio Equipment, Random Gear from past hobbies.

 

If you have something that’s particularly large that can’t be sold on ebay (or isn’t worth it when you consider shipping costs), consider selling on Craigslist. BBQ Grill, Coffee Table, Bunk Beds that are no longer wanted? List it on craigslist, include a picture and it will sell in a few days. Always consider safety when selling on Craigslist. If you’re buying on Craigslist and it sounds like a deal too good to be true, it probably is. If someone’s selling a 2011 Taurus in perfect condition for 3,000 dollars cash only, I would be suspicious. Remember, you can always dictate the meeting location, I would suggest meeting them in the parking lot of the local police station. If it’s something where they are coming to your home to pick up a very large object, ensure that you have plenty of people at home and that you have a way to defend yourself if necessary. Pepper spray costs about $10.00 and can easily be stored in your pants pocket. We use Craigslist all the time, so my intention isn’t to scare you away from it, just to advise you that Craigslist is riskier than Ebay and to consider ways to minimize that risk or realize that Craigslist isn’t for you.

On a final note- Consider the way Ebay can work for you in future purchases. We needed a 12 oz stock pot for soap making. I wanted to pick it up that day, but the few I could find locally were extremely expensive. I lucked out at Khols and found a set of 2 (12 oz and 16 oz) on clearance for $35, down from $90. I purchased them, but I didn’t need the 16oz pot, so I listed it on Ebay where it sold for $43. This paid for the cost of both Pots and shipping, giving me my pot for free. I’m a big fan of freeJ

 

In the end, by selling on ebay, we made about $1,800 over two weeks for about 6 hours of work total. Not bad considering all we did was declutter!

Four Basic Tools Essential for Organization

Now that I’ve thoroughly explained that buying organizational tools is NOT the way to organize your life (you can find that post here). Let me tell you about the four organizational tools that are essential to my daily life. I would suggest completing your decluttering for a few weeks before you buy anything at all, to break you of the habit of associating buying with being organized.  

 

1. My schedule book: In an age of iPhones and ubiquitous technology (which I’m normally all about), my schedule book is bound paper. It goes everywhere with me and tracks my finances, my chores, my events, my work outs, memories, my menu plan, and helps me plan ahead so I’m never operating in “red zone”.

 

2. A laundry sorter: I got my laundry sorter here, at Target for 34.99, It keeps my laundry pile from being overwhelming. It holds four loads of laundry and I can sort as I go which helps make switching the laundry go quicker and encourages me to look forward to it.

 

 

3. Lunch bags and ice packs: In my opinion, barring any major expensive hobby, the biggest leak of your finances is most likely eating lunches out at work. You can read more on how much money you waste by eating lunches out here.

 

4. Financial Bag: This is an easy to carry bag (I’ve used both flyladys’ “office in a bag”, found here, and more recently Thirty One’s bag found here), that has checks, envelopes, stamps, and a copy of your budget outlook. I can throw in bills from my inbox and take this anywhere to balance my budget, pay bills (most are paid online, but having checks handy helps to pay infrequent bills.) Having the ability to handle the finances out of the house, gives me extra time at home to do the things I really want to do.