MPM Update

Meal Plan Monday is coming again and will be here next week! This past week was filled with moving, being with friends and family, selling our house, and quite a bit of traveling!

Also, I wanted to let you know that you should stop by simplemom.net. She is doing an entire week of giveaways and my book, A Month of Meals, was featured as one! So, there is an opportunity to get one if you wanted one, as well as having a chance to win a lot of other great products.

Have a great weekend! More regular posting to come next week...

Is it already Wednesday?

Wow - these days are going quickly! So, the meal plan this week is/was :)

• Monday - we were in NYC so we went out for Thai
  
• Tuesday - leftovers (we have plenty from last week - chili, potpie, curried lentils)
• Wednesday - I was going to make a roast, but will keep the meat in the freezer till when we get back. I just checked it out on the USDA site. Wondering how long you can keep stuff frozen? Check it out here. So, we'll just keep using our leftovers!
• Thursday - having a cook out with friends to enjoy the last night here. We'll either defrost some hamburger to make hamburgers on the grill or, yes, use up leftovers...just depending on how the fridge looks after tonight.
  
• Friday we head out. I'll make egg salad sandwiches for the road and we'll get the other meal while driving.

This week at the store I just picked up eggs, fruit, and bread. It was under $10.

My plan for the summer meal planning - We'll still do meal planning, but it will be for 4 adults and Evee since we will be living with my parents during the internship. Either I will be meal planning or my dad and I will be doing it together. Also, we'll be on a budget, but it won't be like this past year. I hope to pass along some great recipes though! Either way, I'm not going anywhere - I'll still be meal planning, just a bit differently!

Then, when we get back here in the fall it will be Trader Joe's meal plans!!! Yeah!

What? No Meal Plan Monday? :)

It is coming...tomorrow. Today we are hanging out in NYC so no grocery shopping for me!

But, this will be my last meal plan before we move...and really, I'm not planning too much since we head out early Friday morning. Either way, though, I'll be reporting in tomorrow with the plan for the week and sharing about what my planning will look like this summer.

3 Big Questions...Question #2

Like I wrote before, I started writing about this book back in late February! I wrote about Patrick Lencioni's book 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Family. My mom also wrote about this book on her blog and got to each section (the 3 questions) much faster than I did. Here are all of her links and mine if interested.

My overview
My Question #1

My mom's overview
Her Question #1
Her Question #2 (which I'll be addressing today)

So, the first question was all about what makes your family unique.
The second question is what your "rally cry" is right now...basically, what is your current top priority?

This is something that can be accomplished within 2-6 months. Lencioni (the author) says that if it is less than 2 months, it will not be enough time and you won't see progress. If it is longer than 6 months you may end up just putting it off since you "have time".

Also, he talks about the importance of having one goal at a time. Obviously there are a lot of things that you won't stop doing while pursuing this goal. Those are your non-negotiables and things that have to get done (going to work, making meals, taking care of your family :)). But, what is the top priority right now? For most people, I think this comes to the forefront fairly quickly.

It's nice to have a good time frame. For us, doing this in January/early February, we said that our time line will be before we head out for the summer. So, from then till the end of May (a solid 4 months).

Our rally cry is/was (we are just about to the end) to save as much money as possible till the end of May. We set a specific dollar amount that we felt would take intensity to reach, but was also doable.

After you've created your "rally cry" then "define objectives". This simply entails writing out what you will do to achieve your goal.

So, our goal was to have $____ in the bank by the end of May. We wanted to work as much and as hard as possible without compromising peace and simplicity in our home.

To accomplish that goal we would

• Spend as little money as possible - stick to a tight budget
• I added 2 nights of work to the 1 night a week I was already serving at a restaurant (totalling 3 nights)
  
• Clint would continue to be with Evee while I worked extra hours - so we just had to be smart about getting our other things done (Clint's school work and his job, my other job as well as online stuff)
  
• Take any additional opportunity that may come along that wouldn't jeopordize peace in our home. (One did come up soon after we set these goals - for me to watch a little girl at our house 2 mornings a week).
  

We also were able to go through Dave Ramsey's "Financial Peace University " through our church. This ended up being a wonderful added resource for us and helped keep us accountable to saving up money.

So, I'll finish by saying that it's going really well, but I'll wait and talk more about it all when I share about question #3.

Meal Plan Follow Up

I can't believe that it's already Friday! Where has this week gone?! I finally got allergy medicine that seems to be working and therefore feel that I got my brain back into more of a working mode! I've been meaning to do another post on the book 3 Big Questions from when I started writing about in February, yes February. Maybe I'll even post about that today... Really I wanted to share exciting stuff that has happened from using that book, but wanted to finish talking about "the steps" first!

Ok, so, this week we spent $23.63 at Wegmans. So, over by $3.63. The nice thing is that we'll make it well under budget this month due to heading out toward the end of next week. Next week we'll try to use up everything we have.

So, changes to the list and description of price

• I had all the ingredients to make brownies, so we had to buy ice cream to go with it (which was also on sale)
• I didn't add fruit onto the list online, so we got bananas and strawberries again. They were on sale again this week - 2 cartons for $3!
  
• Sour cream was also added to the list last minute before going.

Hope your week is going well!

Meal Plan Monday

Time for Meal Plan Monday again! Hard to believe how fast last week went and that we only have one full week before we leave for the summer!

So, I continue to work to use up most of what we have here already.

Breakfasts - Piece of fruit or smoothie, eggs & toast or cereal
Lunches - Bread & peanut butter, fruit or smoothie (depending on what we had for breakfast), pita and hummus, veggies
Snacks - homemade popcorn, fruit, cookies and/or brownies

Meals -
Monday - Rotisserie Chicken, biscuits and veggies
Tuesday - Soup (leftover Chili from Sunday night)
Wednesday - Tacos
Thursday - Chicken Potpie
Friday - Curried Lentils with beef
Saturday - Hamburgers on Grill
Sunday - Homemade Chicken BBQ Pizza

This weeks' shopping list - Wegmans

• Flour
• Rotisserie Chicken
• Broccoli
• Taco shells
• Carrots
• Butter
  

As always, I'll report in with the spending amount! My estimate is about $20.

And, check out the other meal plans over at Organizing Junkie!

Meal Plan Follow Up

This week we spent $59.68 at Wegmans. I think my estimate was $55. So, we actually went under budget if you don't count the snacks that Clint picked up for going away this week.

So, changes to the list and description of price

• We were just out of popcorn, so I got another bag of that
• Clint's stuff came to about $9. So, really we did well this week.
  
• I also picked up some spaghetti noodles for Evee and I to have for lunches this week.
• Clint needed a new toothbrush - $2

We got strawberries instead apples because they were on sale 2 for $3! So, we took advantage of that sale. Cheese was also on sale - 8 oz for $2.

I just cooked garbanzo beans today finally so that we can make hummus before the pita shells go bad! Tomorrow I'll make the actual hummus, but at least the beans are ready. Then I need to cook up the kidney beans for chili on Friday. Overall, I'm enjoying the dry beans!

Hope your week is going well!

Meal Plan Monday

Today I've looked through everything that is in our cupboards and freezer since we'll be heading out for the summer in about 2 1/2 weeks. Pretty crazy it's coming so soon!

I'm trying to use up everything we have before we leave. Here's what we have to work with -

• 1/2 bag potatoes
• Dry kidney beans
• Dry Pinto beans (just a few)
• Dry Lentils
• Dry Garbanzo beans (2 bags!)
• 1 lg. can crushed tomatoes
  
• Peanut butter
• Pumpkin (canned)
• Frozen homemade pizza dough
• Frozen homemade soup
• Frozen bag of spinach
  
• 3 servings of ground beef
• Frozen peas & corn

So, I need to make a lot of hummus as well as other random dishes. We should be able to use most, if not all, of it up. I've looked ahead and basically planned meals for the time we have here so that I know what we have and what we'll need to get. This weeks spending will be a bit higher, but the week after that should be around $20 and the week after that should just be picking up a few things for the final 3-5 days.

This week we are bringing a meal to a family who recently had a little one and also Clint is gone for a class the better part of the week (Monday - Friday, but only 4 dinners).

Breakfasts - Piece of fruit or smoothie, eggs & toast or cereal
Lunches - Bread & peanut butter, fruit or smoothie (depending on what we had for breakfast), pita and hummus, veggies
Snacks - homemade popcorn, fruit, cookies and/or brownies

Meals -
Monday - Rotisserie Chicken, biscuits and veggies
Tuesday - Tacos (probably meatless with refried beans made from the dry beans we have)
Wednesday - Leftobers
Thursday - Roast in crock pot
Friday - Potpie and broccoli (with leftover chicken from Mon. night)
Saturday - Chili
Sunday - Homemade Chicken BBQ Pizza (hopefully we'll go out at lunch or something for Mother's Day)

This weeks' shopping list - Wegmans

• Taco shells
• Cheese (on sale this week - 8 oz for $2)
• Salsa
• Sour Cream
• Rotisserie Chicken
• Carrots (2 lbs.)
• Roast beef (value pack)
• Can of tomatoes
• Onions
• Whole Wheat Pita shells
• Whole Wheat bread
• Garlic
• Broccoli
  
• Bananas
• Apples
• Eggs
• 1/2 & 1/2

As always, I'll report in with the spending amount! My estimate is right around $50.

And, check out the other meal plans over at Organizing Junkie!

Some new "how tos"

Just thought I'd post them, just in case anyone wanted to check them out!

How to Crochet - for beginners

How to Clean Cloth Diapers

Getting kids to eat healthy

How to Create a Recycle Bin

Then, these are actually some old blog posts made into eHow articles - you may have seen them already!

Plastic Bag Storage

Crocheting Slippers

Homemade Hummus - Recipe