"On The Money" Meals!

I want to start a new weekly segment about school lunches, so I'll be calling it Friday Lunchbox. Every Friday, I'll share the actual lunches that I packed for my daughter for school.  I wouldn't say my daughter is picky really, but she is 5 and she doesn't seem to like a ton of different foods even though I have tried! She doesn't want soup or things like spaghetti in her lunch. Although she has taken macaroni and cheese and chicken nuggets (of course, haha). I'm going to keep trying some different things but it will mostly be cold foods. I use Easy Lunch Boxes which fit perfectly in her lunch box with room for a drink and an ice pack. I ordered a pack of four Easy Lunch Boxes from Walmart.com  (not an affiliate link) and Rubbermaid Litterless Juice boxes which I purchased on Ebay but you can find anywhere. I use the flattest ice pack I have which is only about 1/2 thick but it is pretty large so it covers about half the size of her lunch box. I ...

Hi there! I'm back! Today I'm sharing my latest Goodwill Outlet haul. If you haven't heard of Goodwill Outlet stores, you need to see if there is one in your area and go check them out! I have a blast going and digging through the bins to see what I can find. At $1.29/pound for clothes and $0.59/pound for homegoods even the regular Goodwill Store seems expensive! Sometimes I can't seem to find much, but most times I come away with a cart full of goodies and I rarely spend over $20! This time I bought 27 things. I play piano, so I bought this 40's music songbook just to play for fun. This book is so neat! It has classic Christmas carols and then decorating and food ideas for those carols. For instance, the song "White Christmas" has decorations mostly in white and white or light colored food items. This is great for different Christmas decorating ideas or parties! This is an older book, but I love home decorating and just enjo...

Our local Wal-mart reduces any left-over rotisserie chickens to half price after 8:00 PM. So I can snag a chicken for $2.59. I bought one the other day and picked all the meat off. With the meat, I made Chicken quesadillas twice, a chicken bacon ranch pizza and chicken fried rice. I saved the carcass for this recipe! I have also been saving leftover vegetable scraps. I mean the stuff that you would normally throw away. The top of a pepper, onion scraps and skins, carrot tops, etc. I had about two cups of vegetable scraps.  I threw everything in the slow cooker and filled it to the top with water. Add a little salt and pepper to taste, or fresh herbs or whatever you like! I cooked in the slow cooker for 20 hours. You can do as little as 4 or as much as 24! This part took a few minutes but using a fine mesh strainer, ladle the broth to get out all the little pieces.  When you are done, you will be left with a deep, rich colored broth! I put min...

Do you know those name-brand cups that have jello with fruit in them? Dole makes some but there are other brands, too. My husband really likes these for his work, but if you buy the name brand cups, it's usally $2.59 for 4 cups. That's insane. I can buy a box of jello for about $1 (if you buy the name brand it's about a $1 but the store brand is a good bit cheaper) and a can of fruit for about the same and get double the amount of cups for less than the name brand! I usually get about 8 cups when I make these. These are SO easy to make and so refreshing. My husband likes strawberry flavored jello with diced peaches. So all you need is a large can of fruit and one large box of jello. You will also need 8 small containers with lids. These are the Glad brand and there was 8 in a box for about $2.00. But you will be reusing them so you will save money in the long run. First, I dice up the fruit.  Then I place a small amount in each cup. It's fille...

We recently were able to go on a camping trip. We have not been camping with our two kids and wanted to take them before it got too hot out. We went tent camping which in my opinion, is a totally different experience than camper camping. I would love to go camper camping, but right now, we have a tent, so these tips are geared more toward tent camping with small children. We have two kids ages 4 and 2. 1. Visit your local Dollar Store before you go. They have so much that is helpful. And who wants to spend more money than necessary! Here are some things I bought from the Dollar Tree that I found helpful.       1a. Buy some inexpensive toys to keep the kids occupied. We weren't always doing things in the campground with the kids. Sometimes my husband would go fishing and I would stay at the campground with the kids, and sometimes they just needed something to do while I was cooking or setting things up. The biggest hit was off-brand Play-doh. This stuff was as goo...