Garage Sales and Thrift Stores

Our family doesn't buy clothes new from the store very often. We go to a lot of Garage Sales and Thrift Stores. You can get great clothes almost brand new sometimes! Here are a couple of things we got recently...


I got this green skirt at a Garage Sale for $0.25!

Here is a fun shirt I got for $0.75!

OK, this is the best bargain I have gotten lately. I found these two prom/formal dressed for $10 and $15! They still have the tags on them. They were never warn!

My mom and dad just went to the Thrift Store today and found some great little kid clothes.

This was $1.49.

This was $2.99.

This was $1.99.

This was $4.99.

And this was $1.99.

You can't always find exactly what you are looking for, but you just might get lucky.

Free Audiobooks online

My mom found this great site online. It's called LibriVox. It's a site that has free audiobooks to listen to. It's all volunteers that make them and they only have book that were published before 1923, because those books are no longer under copyright. It's a great place to listen to older book like ones by William Shakespeare. It's all free! Check it out.

~Cynthia

Gardening

Our family has had a garden for the past two years and this year isn't any different. We just planted our garden this past week. We all got out there and worked hard. All except mom, but she is pregnant so she has an excuse. Gardening is a lot of work, but well worth it in the end. What we plant...

Tomatoes
Cucumbers
Peppers (jalapenos, sweet red and sweet yellow)
Green Beans
Zucchini
Lettuce
Radishes
Carrots
Basel
Chives
Mint

These are the main things we plant. Gardening is a lot cheaper then buying all that food at the store and it's something that the whole family can take care of and help with. We really enjoy our garden.

I love to make salsa with the tomatoes we get. I make really, really, really good salsa! We eat a lot of salsa in the summer. :-)

~Cynthia

Spelling

We have been using Spellingcity.com for quite awhile now and my kids love it. I use the Spelling Power book for our lists. I just did the spelling power placement tests to figure out where in the book to start each child and then we just enter the lists onto the Spelling city site. You just set up your own account and keep track of the kids lists.

All the games they play then use their spelling words from their list. And it works for all ages.

It's been a fun way to do spelling and a motivator for my slow poker to hurry up and finish his work so he can go play spelling on the computer.

Tuca's Whole Wheat Rolls

Well this is absolutely our favorite roll recipe. My sweet friend Tuca would make these rolls for our family each time we had a baby. So I always teased her we would have more babies just to get her rolls. Finally I told her I just needed the recipe because it was hard having all these babies.

Put the following ingredients in your bread machine pan (2 lb. size machine) in this order:

1/2 cup honey
dash of salt
1 stick of butter (melted)
1 cup whole milk, warm (80 F / 27 C) (about 40 seconds in the microwave)
1/2 cup cold water
2 eggs (beaten)
3 cups unbleached flour
2 3/4 cups fresh ground, whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp. dry bread yeast

Do not mix the ingredients, just put them in your bread machine pan. Place pan in machine and set it for the "dough cycle". You should check the machine after about 5 minutes to scrape down the side with a spatula to make sure it's all combining.

When the dough cycle is done, dump dough onto a floured surface, and cut the dough into 3 equal sections. If you want to make them into crescent rolls, shape the first half into a ball and roll it into a circle (12"approx., like a mid-size pizza dough), and cut into 12 pieces. Roll them into shape, starting with the wide end, and tuck the pointed end under. Repeat the process with the remaining dough. Place these on a greased cookie sheet, let them rise until doubled in size, and bake them in a pre-heated 350 degree oven for about 12 minutes. Check and turn cookie sheet around. Bake for another 2-3 minutes, or until lightly brown on top.

Note: For smaller size rolls, or to make pigs in a blanket, divide the dough into 5-6 pieces, instead of 3.
For smaller bread machines (1 1/2 lb. size or smaller), make half the recipe.


Resist the urge to add any extra flour. I always look in the bread machine and think it's way too wet. But after the kneading process is going for awhile it comes together.


Cut the dough like a pizza, into 12 pieces.
Rolls each of these up.

Make sure your end is underneath or otherwise when it cooks, they will stick up.

Let them rise on a cookie sheet. I think air bake is best.

This recipe makes 3 dozen rolls. Enjoy them!!

Breakfast Casserole

I can't say this is what would qualify in my mind as money saving. But it is fast and tasty.

Breakfast Casserole

2 cans crescent rolls

1 lb. bacon (cooked and crumbled) I just use the bag of Hormel bacon from Sam's, easier

that way, but cooked sausage would be great too.

2 cups monteray jack cheese

5-6 large eggs

3/4 cup milk

3 Tbls. chopped green onions

1/4- 1/2 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. pepper

1/2 tsp. oregano

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

Separate crescent rolls into 4 large rectangles and press into and halfway up sides of a buttered jelly roll pan. Seal all edges.

Sprinkle bacon on top of crescent rolls.

Then sprinkle cheese on.

Combine rest of ingredients and pour on top of cheese.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

Honey Bun Cake

This is one of my favorite recipes. Of course my money saving mind likes it because it makes a whole 13 x 9 pan of cake and because it costs less than 3 bucks for all that. It tastes like Honey bun doughnuts. Love to use this one for pot lucks.

Honey Bun Cake Link

1 box yellow cake mix
2/3 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1 container (8 oz) sour cream (1 cup)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1/3 cup chopped pecans
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pan). Grease and lightly flour 13x9-inch pan, or spray with baking spray with flour.

2.In large bowl, beat dry cake mix, oil, eggs and sour cream with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds, then on medium speed 2 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Spread half of the batter in pan. Stir together brown sugar, pecans and cinnamon; sprinkle over batter in pan. Carefully spread remaining batter evenly over pecan mixture.

3.Bake 44 to 48 minutes or until deep golden brown. Stir powdered sugar, milk and vanilla until thin enough to spread. Prick surface of warm cake several times with fork. Spread powdered sugar mixture over cake. Cool completely, about 1 hour. Store covered.

Here is a link to Chocolate Honey Bun Cake, which looks pretty yummy also.
Enjoy!

Creamy Rice Pudding

Creamy Rice Pudding

1-1/2 c. prepared rice (we like Jasmine rice)
2 c. milk, divided
1/3 c. sugar
1/4 t. salt
1 egg, beaten
2/3 c. raisins (optional)
1 T. butter or margarine
1/2 t. vanilla extract
Optional: 1/8 t. nutmeg or cinnamon

Stir together rice, 1/1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes until thick and creamy. Blend together remaining milk and egg and stir into rice mixture. Stir in raisins, if desired. Continue to cook an additional 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in butter and vanilla and spoon into serving dishes. Sprinkle with nutmag or cinnamon, if desired. Makes 4 servings. (When we make this we make a double batch. We make this for breakfast. It's really cheap and easy to make. Enjoy!!!)

~CGNarnia

Recycling and saving money at the same time!

What do you do with all those Walmart, Target, etc, white plastic sacks? Well we just use them for bathroom trash can liners. This is my kind of recycling.

I don't have to remember to take any bags to the store to put my groceries in to help the environment, and I didn't have to buy any at a dollar a piece. And I don't have to buy bathroom sacks. Free bathroom trash can liners... Savings, savings. Love it!!

Renting Movies

Movies are always fun. Sometimes our family goes to the Dollar theatre, but we hardly ever buy brand new movies. We rent them. We rent them at the RedBox's or at 7-eleven. RedBox is $1 rental and so is 7-eleven. It's a great way to save money and still watch new movies. RedBox is a great way to see if they have the movie available. You can look online and reserve them at the location you chose. They have more and more RedBox locations all the time. One other thing we do is rent movies from the library. It doesn't cost anything, unless you don't get it back to the library in time (one week).

~Cynthia

This way we can make our own popcorn, have Lemonade or Soda and it's WAY cheaper!

Free Haircuts

This is one of the big money savers in our home. I just give my husband and boys their haircuts. This saves us 50 dollars or more each time, and it's at least every 3-4 weeks. I just buy a set of clippers at Wal*mart for 10-20 dollars and they last about a year or more before they start to get dull, and give them all haircuts on the back porch. Even during the winter, we just try and catch a warmer day to do them. They even have little instructional videos with some of the clipper sets, and I have seen instructional videos at the library if you are looking to start.

We girls go to supercuts training studio and get free haircuts. (They are on the north side of the city but easy to find.) Here's their phone number to call and get information on free cutting times and how to get to their location 840-1086 . I always go really early in the morning, at least 20 minutes before they start their haircuts, that way I don't have to wait in line.

Chicken or Turkey Pot Pie

Chicken Pot Pie, or Turkey Pot Pie

4 Tbs. butter
1/4 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. thyme
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 cups chicken broth or turkey
1/2 cup milk
2 cups chicken , cooked and cubed (or turkey)
3 large potatoes diced and boiled for about 10 minutes
1 bag frozen mixed vegetables

Preheat oven to 400. Melt butter in a large skillet over low heat and stir in flour, and seasonings. Cook until smooth and bubbly. Remove from heat. Stir in milk and broth. Heat to boiling , stirring constantly for one minute. Stir in chicken and veggies. Pour into a 13 x 9 inch pan. And top with crust recipe below: Then bake 375 for 40- 45 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Crust
2 cups Bisquick (might need a little more to get the right consistency)
1 cup milk
2 eggs beaten
Mix together and spoon all over the top.

We found this to be a great cheap recipe. I add a few more potatoes to stretch it a little. And I used cooked chicken I bought on sale and the broth from that. I also like a little more seasonings. But it's a big casserole dish for pretty cheap.

A Grissom trip to Braums

Well this is an unexpected one I didn't think I would blog about, and I really wish I had brought my camera to show you a great picture. But we went to Braums this evening after Cynthia's drama play and of course what is the cheapest way to eat ice cream with a large family, Buy a 3 pint tub and ask for lots of spoons. The kids just decided on one kind they would all like and sat at the same table eating it right out of the container. Way cheaper than buying individual ice creams and they thought it was so fun.

A Grissom Trip to McDonalds

Well thought we would share what we do even when we eat out. A trip to Mcdonalds could easily be a bigger expense than we should spend on it, so here's what we do. The kids all pick one thing off the dollar menu, ( a double cheeseburger or chicken sandwich usually). I split one for my two littlest ones, because they can't eat a whole burger.

We all drink waters, which are free and healthier for us. And we split a fry, (and if you had ever watched the movie "Super size me" you would only eat a few fries too).

So a whole trip to Mcdonalds to feed our family of 8 people (not counting daddy) would only cost 10 to 11$. Verses if we were to eat happy meals and the whole shebang, it would surely be close to 25$.

Cloth wipes

We have just recently started to cloth diaper the little kids. And I was given some cloth wipes along with a bunch of free diapers. We wanted to make some more cloth wipes, so here is what we did.

We used two soft receiving blankets and ironed them and put them right sides together. Then we took our example wipe (measuring about 6 inches by 8 inches) and used that as our guide. Then we cut wipes out just slightly bigger than that size. Cynthia sewed them right sides together, leaving a little place to turn it inside out. Then we turned them inside out and flat ironed them. Last step she went around and sewed a zig zag seam around the outside of the top, closing up the whole as she went along.

Cloth diapering has saved me a bunch of money so far. But so has the wipes. I was going through one huge box of wipes every month. Now we just use these soft cloth wipes. We were able to make 12 cloth wipes out of the two receiving blankets. I would definitely say that cloth diapering and cloth wipes saves money. Especially if you are going to use them over and over again for multiple kids. We recommend fuzzi bunz for diapers.

Popcorn Snack

Well of course popcorn is a cheap snack, but we have found this nice handy Whirly pop that makes Kettle corn. This gives us a cheap snack but different too. We found our whirly pop at bass pro shop in the camping area, about 25-29$ is what it cost. But you can find them online http://www.wabashvalleyfarms.com/ or I have seen them at Target around the christmas holidays. Definately makes a cheap fun snack and worth the money.

Kettle Corn

1/8 cup oil

1/2 cup popcorn

1/2 sugar

Salt

Put oil and popcorn in the whirly pop and turn on medium heat. When you start to hear the popcorn pop, open lid carefully and quickly put in sugar and close lid. Stir it around with handle, then wait until it starts to pop again. And stir the handle until it won't stir anymore. Then dump out hot popcorn in a bowl and salt it to your liking.

Lots of Yogurt and Granola

We love yogurt for breakfasts or snacks and this recipe makes a lot.

Grandpa Bears Best Granola (taken from Two Sisters cookbook)

Wet ingredients
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
3 Tbls. molasses
4 tsp. vanilla
1/2 tsp. salt

Dry ingredients
8 cups rolled oats
3 cups rye flakes (optional) If rye flakes are not used, add 3 cups extra rolled oats.
2 cups unsweetened shredded coconut
1 cup wheat germ
3/4 cup raw sunflower seeds
3/4 cup raw cashew pieces
1/2 raw sesame seeds

1. Heat the wet ingredients until the butter is melted.

2. Mix all the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

3. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.

4. Bake the granola on cookie sheets in a 350 degree oven for 20-30 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.

5. Cool thoroughly before storing.
(I rarely add all the extras past the rolled oats. As this makes the cost go up. So I just replace those ingredients with rolled oats.)

Yogurt Recipe

1 gallon milk
1 8oz. container of plain yogurt
2 cups powdered milk
1 cup honey or maple syrup
1 tsp. vanilla

Pour 1 gallon milk in large pot, put on a lid. Bring milk to 180 degrees. (I am too impatient, so I don't put a lid on it, and crank the heat up fairly high and just stir the bottom of the milk with a flat metal spatula, so it doesn't scald or burn on the bottom.)

Turn off heat and set plain yogurt on the counter to come to room temperature. (I never do this either, I do try and take out the yogurt when I first start the whole process)

While milk is cooling, add powdered milk, honey, and vanilla.

As milk gets close to 112 degrees, prepare jars by warming them. (I never do this)

Let milk cook to 112 degrees, add container of yogurt. If the yogurt is still cold, temper it by adding some of the warm milk to the yogurt first. ( I again am too impatient, so I set my pot in a bigger pan with ice in it and stir it. And the temperature gets down faster, then add my yogurt)

Once the yogurt has been mixed into the milk, pour into jars. (It takes 5 quart mason jars at our house) I put lids on my jars or plastic wrap.

Place in slightly warm oven overnight with the oven light on. Not a hot oven, only warm. If you did this during the day you could occasionally go and turn on your oven for 30 seconds or so. I just turn mine on until I hear the burners are on for a few seconds and then turn it off. But if its overnight the oven light keeps the oven kind of warm.

When yogurt is done in the morning refrigerate.

Five or six loaves at a time.

I use my bosch mixer for this recipe. It is big enough to handle it.

This is how I cut my bread. It is just a bread slicer guide. You stick the bread on and it has grooves that show you where to put your knife through. I just bought mine at a thrift store. I have seen many at the thrift stores. I just use a bread knife to cut it, so it doesn't smoosh it. I have seen cheap bread knives like the one I use at The dollar tree, for a buck.

We make our own wheat bread. The recipe we use makes 5 loaves at a time. One recipe and cooking time lasts us all week and beyond. Yes we eat lots of peanut butter and jellies. I freeze my loaves of bread and use them whenever we need them.

I use my Bosch mixer and this recipe:

2/3 cup honey

2/3 cup oil

5 1/2 cups warm water

3TB. SAF instant yeast

1 1/2 TB. salt

16-18 cups fresh whole wheat flour (I never use more than 16 cups though)

3 TB. dough enhancer

Combine the oil, honey, yeast, dough enhancer, salt, warm water and 5 cups of fresh whole wheat flour in bosch mixing bowl. Allow this to sponge for 5-15 minutes while you prepare your pans. Add to the above mixture additional flour until the dough begins to clean the sides of the bowl. Knead for 6 minutes in a bosch mixer. Be careful not to allow the dough to become too dry by adding too much flour at this point. Oil your hands and form dough into loaves, rolls, pizza crust or pastries. Let it rise until doubled in size (30-60 minutes) and bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Bread is done when it sounds hollow when tapped on the bottom and the bottom and sides are golden brown.

This is Debbie Bartons recipe and I bought my wheat grinder and bosch from her. She is a wonderfully, sweet homeschool mom and she is always at homeschool convention. You can check out her website at http://www.sonrisewg.com/ I get the dough enhancer, bread bags and wheat from Debbie. I buy my yeast at Sam's though, it is a little cheaper, and you get two big deals of it (though it is not SAF yeast it is Fleishmans).

Cheap snack crackers

Well we find that Saltine crackers are the cheapest crackers around. But we get tired of them just plain, so we modified a recipe and use it on Saltines.

Cheap snack crackers

3/4 cup vegetable oil

2 1/4 Tbls. dry ranch dressing mix

1/2 Tbls. lemon pepper

1 Tbls. dill weed

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 and 1/2 boxes of saltine crackers

Mix the first 5 ingredients together to make a dressing. Place crackers in a bowl, and pour dressing over the crackers. Toss to coat all the crackers. Cover and let sit overnight. Mix again if needed, and it's ready.

The original recipe that I modified this off of, had twice the liquid and seasoning ingredients and used a bag of pretzels, a box of cheese crackers, a bag of oyster crackers, and a deal of goldfish crackers. So you could still make some cheap other variations on this one, if you wanted too, using these other ingredients.

Feeding the Freezer

In our house it is hard to cook dinner everyday. So I like to do what I call "feed the freezer." Some people call it batch cooking. It's where you do a bunch of cooking and freeze meals to use for another day. This method works well with making "all of one sort of meat", such as cooking up a bunch of chicken and making meals out of it. Or making a bunch of ground beef meals. I would love to "once a month" cook but find this method works better for me. As my little ones just can't seem to function without me for a whole day while I am cooking.

This week a friend told me about a great sale price on bone-in-chicken. So I stocked up and have made my first batch of meals out of it. I boiled the chicken and made broth, seasoned the broth with sauteed onions, celery, and added some chicken bouillion. Then I deboned and chopped up the chicken. I froze the broth with some chicken in big ziploc bags and made 5 meals of chicken noodle soup. I will just boil some egg noodles on the day we eat the chicken noodle soup and add them to it. Quick and easy meals, ready to go for another day. And I had 3 small ziploc bags of chopped up chicken leftover to freeze ready to pull out for another meal. I will probably use this chicken for quick tacos and just have to make some mexican rice or refried beans to go with it.

I froze the ziploc bags full of soup on a flat cookie sheet so it would be easy to stack later.

So that's 8 meals of cooking mostly done. I plan on making fresh rolls or biscuits on chicken noodle soup day, as that will make a nice fun extra. And maybe experiment with a few new recipes for cornbread for variety.

I am in the midst of trying to downsize our food budget. So in our household for the month of January and maybe beyond, we are declaring 1 day a week as chicken noodle soup day, and 1 day a week as beans and cornbread day. That is 8 dinner meals out of 30 for the month that are extremely cheap. I would say I have cut my dinner food budget almost by a 3rd, just by doing these two things. But I will forge on and try and share other things we do.

***So a great tip to share would be buy meats on sale and plan, make meals out of them.