Mommies SAVING Money

The last Mommies Making Money post got some attention and that’s when the idea of a double threat hit me.  Mommies Saving Money.  Making money and saving money at the same time would be fabulous, wouldn’t it?

I’m sure you don’t need me to inform you that this economy is in the toilet.  I’m not a stats person, as far as remembering and quoting them goes.  But I do enjoy looking at them.  I like watching the stats for my blogs go up every month, that’s for sure. And thank you very much! :-)  But I don’t like economical type stats.  Or real estate stats.  You look at them, see the arrows and trends pointing downward and you know we’re in a pickle.  No fun, there. 

When I was single I used coupons a lot.  I used to cut them out for Mom when I was a kid… when I got my first apartment, the highlight of my week was running out to get the paper on Sunday, grabbing a My Favorite Muffin, and sprawling out on the floor of my kitchen/living room/dining room, (It was a small apartment!) and clipping.  It reminded me of clipping for Mom, but it also got me excited about being a big girl and saving money.  Getting the apartment guaranteed that I didn’t have any to spend, so making the dollar stretch became the substitute for shopping at the mall.

Somewhere along the lines, though,I started making more money and having extra to spare.  I didn’t continue clipping coupons or shopping for deals justifying that “my time is worth more money than that”.  What a moron.  I thought I was so smart and evolved, and in some ways I was, but do you ever look back in wonder at your own naivete?

Too bad I lost my coupon excitement all those years ago.  But it’s never too late!  I am getting back to the basics and adding coupon clipping and bargain hunting to my money-making-mama strategies.

Pillsbury has $27.30 worth of savings available in September and it’s all the really good stuff… frozen cookie dough, biscuits, cinnamon rolls, pastries, pizza rolls, Progresso products, Old El Paso, cereal, yogurt bars, Yo-Plus yogurt and more!

Kellogg’s has a full rebate on Frosted Mini Wheats right now.

Kraft has Oreo ice cream free with the purchase of $15 of cake goodies.  PLUS they have those super cute Breast Cancer Awareness t-shirts there, sponsored by Jell0, Cool Whip, and Philadelphia cream cheese.

There!  That should get us started.

Do you clip coupons?  Have you always?  Share with us your dollar stretching tips!

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How can you be sure your kids are getting the proper nutrition throughout the day when you send them off to school?  As they get older no one checks to make sure they’re eating anymore.  They could be flushing their sandwiches down the toilet for fun and giving their pudding to a girl they want to impress.  Nobody cares.  I am so glad for school to start back up and for all the relief that this time of year brings.  But now it’s time to worry about a whole new set of issues.  Eating lunch is a big concern for me.  Why do I get so upset and what am I going to do about it?  I am glad you asked!

My Son is 12 and he weighs 62 lbs.  He’s down from 64 lbs at his last physical. My Daughter is 8 and in the 90th percentile at 78lbs.  There is only an inch difference in height between them, despite the 4 years.

My Daughter loves lunch time.  She has been crazy about it ever since the first day of kindergarten when she kept interrupting the teacher asking if it was lunch time because she was real excited about busting out her new Scooby Doo lunch box.  She buys the lunch and, until I put restrictions on her account, bought many of the “quarter extras” available to her such as cookies, cake, ice cream, Sunny Delight, etc.  At the elementary level there are no long lines to wait and plenty of time to enjoy all her food. 

Middle School, however, is different.  The lines are long and the time is short.  My Son complains that if he waits in line for a hot lunch he barely has time to eat it, much less socialize afterward.  Sometimes he grabs something small like a pretzel out of the snack line but the problem is his ADHD medicine is in full effect around the lunch hour not only keeping him focused but killing his appetite.  He is not hungry so there is just no motivation to eat.  He is too anxious to find an open chess table and a willing opponent.

The answer is simple, right?  Make cold lunches.  I got to a point last year, though, where I thought “if he isn’t eating anyway, it is wasteful to make him lunch”.  Plus I was more rattled last year in general and probably looking for an excuse remove “pack lunches” from my daily routine.  So I filled up his account with money assuming he would eat when he was hungry.  Like that old attitude, “it ain’t gonna kill him to miss a meal.  If he’s hungry he’ll wait it line.” 

Bad Mom.

Obviously it is hurting him because he is losing weight rather than gaining.  So cold lunch it is.  It is also time to customize their lunches.  Maybe I wrong to ever be feeding them matching lunches, considering their difference in age.  But the similarity in their size through me off, I guess.

So how do I ensure that he eats his lunch at school? Realize that I can’t and come up with a plan  for getting in the daily necessities.

Our doctor’s appointment was a great lead into a dialogue about eating in general.  She told him that he is almost 13 years old and he looks like he is 8.  (Yikes! Harsh! We usually AVOID those comments!)  She went on to make it clear to him that he is as small as he is not because he is meant to be but because he chooses to be. 

The Langston Food Summit of 2008 was eye opening and productive.

We identified that he is most hungry first thing in the morning and ravenous at night.  Duh!  He skimps on lunch and his meds are worn off by late afternoon.  He is up all night snacking on the wrong things and tearing up the kitchen.  We came up with a simple and encouraging plan.

• Have a bigger breakfast but don’t simply overindulge on multiple bowls of sugary cereal.  Add a piece of fruit, boiled egg, and raisin toast. (these are from his suggested foods)
• Pack a small, simple lunch of things that are fast and easy to eat so that he is more likely to eat while socializing, even though he isn’t hungry.  He said he would love celery sticks and peanut butter, a granola bar, and a Slim Jim or something similar.  Sounds more like a snack than a meal right?  That’s okay.  It is more than he was eating before and it really is just a snack.  Read on.
• Enjoy a big family dinner.  He is a great eater at dinner time, devouring a big salad and pasta or the like.  We eat early because Hubby gets home at 3 or 4pm which is great because having not had much lunch, my Son is usually famished by this time as meds have worn off a bit.
• Here’s our secret weapon.  A fourth meal around 7pm.  This is usually the time everyone gets a scoop of ice cream or mini ice cream sandwich if homework is done and attitudes are good.  He will still get that reward of course, but first he will have a can of Chef Boyardee and a cucumber or something similar.   

I love Chef Boyardee and mac & cheese and all those convenient dinner helpers now that I serve them as the side dish to big salads and crunchy veggie main courses.  For better or worse, this combination is satisfying to him so he can stop snacking and I can close the kitchen at 8:30 and be confident it will not be covered in peanut butter, jelly, toast crumbs, with feet marks on the counters, when I get up in the morning.

I came to see that I was worrying too  much about this one meal of the day that I couldn’t control and decided to turn it into a somewhat balanced snack.  I have plenty of time after school to make sure he gets his proper nutritional allowances for the day.

As for my Daughter, I received a call that first day of kindergarten being notified that after a morning filled of interrupting the class asking, “is it time yet?” she suddenly disappeared.  She was found underneath her desk with her lunch spread out like a picnic, enjoying.  Things have never really changed.
I hope I was able to get you thinking about ways to solve your eating challenges at home and lunch time.  I would love to hear more tips from all of you, too.  So if you have any favorite strategies, please share!

Thanks to a la corey  at Flickr for the hot lunch photo!

How’s that for a topic today?

I entered a contest at the Food Network today.  They want you to submit your favorite 30 minute recipe for the chance to win a whole kitchen full of beautiful Whirlpool appliances. 

I also learned today that granite counter tops have radon in them!  Some folks are tearing them out while others say it is not enough to harm us.  Yikes!  I need to find more info. 

I am going to direct you to my real estate blog where I talked about both of these things along with links to the original sources. 

Click here to find the link to enter the contest and to hear what professionals are saying about the granite scare.

In the interest of time today, I figured I would share some quick, easy, and healthy snacks for your kids. Of course, because Cin is trying the vegetarian thing, I will include snacks for that too!

I found this awesome article at Family Fun Magazine, and I think it’s full of great recipes! Check the article out here. In the mean time, here are some of my favorite recipes from the article, and I really think the kids will think the snacks are a hit, too!

Artic Oranges

Take 4 oranges.  Cut the tops off of them to give them a zig zag look.  Scoop out the seeds, fill with orange juice and a cherry.  Freeze for a few hours.  Let sit for about 5 minutes before serving.  Frozen, Healthy fun!

Ants on a Log

You need celery, peanut butter, and raisins for this one.  Wash and dry your celery.  Fill the center with peanut butter, and top with raisins.

Mini Cracker Sandwiches

Take some small sized crackers, some sandwich meat, and cheese.  Make sandwiches out of the crackers, meat, and cheese.  Serve with apple slices,  and cream cheese dip, or carrot slices and ranch dip.

Share your favorite kid snack recipes with all of us below.

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The vegetarian adventure of me and my family is going very well. I am having some trouble letting go of cheese, but other than that, I am extremely happy with how things are going for me.  As for me, for dinner one day this week I used chopped up tofu in a hamburger helper stroganoff instead of ground beef.  It was really good and no one even noticed!  I served organic salad and tofu helper and no one even batted an eye! 

So I am feeling pretty successful at the moment and I thought I would share my simple three step plan that got me from dinner time fights and bad food to healthy dinners and lovely converstaion. 

1. I started by serving a side salad with just about every meal and having a variety of dressings on hand to make experimenting fun.
2. Once the kids got used to, and in some cases enjoying, the salad, I gradually modified the portions of each until the salad  (or other vegetable dish) was clearly the main course and the meat entree was the side item. 
3. Use a meat substitute.  In the beginning do it with recipes that they are familiar with and enjoy the taste of the pasta, sauce, or other element, so that the change in meat texture is not as obvious.

That’s it!  That’s how I presented my first successful fully vegetarian meal.  What do you think about tofu?  Have you tried it?  Do you have any favorite recipes?