Frugal Friday: Saving Money on Weekend Trips

Last week we took a trip to The Creation Museum. The museum is about 5 hours from our home. We had a slim budget and in order to do the extra attractions like the planetarium we had to cut corners somewhere.

After researching our destination, this is what I did:

1. Plan out Snacks for In-the-Car snacks. I purchased peanuts, teddy grahams, pretzels, grapes and drinks. Not stopping at the gas stations or rest stops for snacks saved us lots of money.

2. Pack the snacks in individualized servings and into brown paper bags with each child's name. You can include small toys and stickers to make the bags more interesting. Just make sure that the children know to eat in increments, or they very well could eat everything at once.

3. Allow children to take their own book bag with things to do on the trip. Focus on items that your trip may inspire a new interest. Since we were going to the Creation Museum I packed books about Noah's Ark and Dinosaurs. I packed a few little toy dinosaurs that we already had. I also printed out coloring pages and activity sheets from the internet featuring Bible characters and dinosaurs. This can easily be adapted to your destination.

4. See if you can find a hotel at your destination that sells their rooms as a package that includes the room, breakfast, and your tickets. We were able to find an extremely nice hotel that provided a hot "Welcome Home Dinner," a swimming pool, a hot breakfast in the morning, and all four of our tickets for right around $150. That saved us quite a bit of money since dinner and breakfast was included.

5. Take water to drink in a reusable container to the actual destination.

6. Pack a picnic lunch and have a picnic there.

7. If you opt to, give your children the amount that they can spend on "stuff" and let them work out how they are going to budget their spending.

8. Make a meal to come home to that can easily be popped into the oven as you unpack from your trip.

9. Remember to have fun and not stress out. Focus on making memories with your kids, it's not likely that they will remember that they didn't eat a restaurant meal.

Find more Frugal Solutions at Frugal Fridays!

Budget Stretcher: Eating from your Freezer

We planned a trip last week to The Creation Museum, and at the last moment our free room and board fell through.

After a quick regrouping, a check on our budget, and a google search for affordable hotels in the area we managed to make the trip.

As a consequence, our food budget is slim this week.

I decided to challenge myself to only get a few basics and see if I could feed us from our freezer pantry for the next ten days.

Surprisingly, I think it's doable.

Here's what I did:

1. Make a list of everything in your freezer and pantry. You can't cook it, if you don't know you have it.

2. Break this list down into categories like: Proteins (meats), sides, basics, breads, and pantry. You should start to see possible meal combinations come together.

3. If you have an ingredient and not sure how to use it check for recipes online. My favorite is Recipezaar.

4. Make up a menu, and note ingredients that you don't have on another sheet of paper (this becomes your shopping trip).

5. Plug your meals into your calendar. For example, Wednesday is very busy for us so I am not going to try to make something complicated or too time consuming that day.

6. See what you can make from scratch without buying. This week, I saw that I would need tortillas. I could purchase some, but I also found a recipe to make homemade ones. I'm going to try that.

7. Plan to repurpose leftovers, even if it's just for lunch the next day. If you make a roast chicken one evening, try making chicken enchiladas later in the week with the leftover meat.

These are the meals that I came up with to get us by until payday:

Dinners

*Fantastic Beef and Broccoli Lo Mein
*Ground Pork Tacos, Corn and Spanish Rice
*Carribean Chicken Breast, Quinoa, Normandy Blend Veggies
*Greek Style Roasted Chicken Legs, Potatoes and Capers, Crusty Bread, and Brussel Sprouts
*Sloppy Lentils, Homemade Hamburger Buns, Corn Coblets
*Chicken Pot Pie and Salad
*Brown Beans, Corn Bread, and Fried Potatoes
*Creole Kidney Beans, Rice
*Chicken Stir Fry, Rice
*Tuna Salad on Homemade Bread

This was my first time participating in I'm an Organizing Junkie Menu Plan Monday, peek into other menus on her site every Monday.

Funny Food

We just love these little potato face smiles from McCain Foods.

Who can help but smile when these little faces appear on your plate? With all natural ingredients they meet our food standards.

What a cute way to add some fun to a Tuesday evening meal.

Recipe: Brownies from Scratch

Did I really mention a brownie recipe and forget to share it? Forgive me dear readers!

The following recipe is so simple you will never have to use a box for brownies again:

Pantry Brownies

1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla (try not to use imitation)
1/2 cup flour (I use whole wheat with great success)
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Preheat oven to 350°F and grease an 8 inch square pan.
2. In a bowl combine melted butter and cocoa and stir until cocoa is dissolved.
3. Add sugar and mix well.
4. Add eggs one at a time and stir until well combined (Great for your little kitchen helpers to do).
5. Stir in vanilla, flour and salt until you no longer see any flour **do not overmix**.
6. Spread in pan and bake for approximately 25 minutes. **DO NOT OVER-BAKE**
7. Test with a toothpick (or whatever you use). If it comes out moist with crumbs, that's okay, you don't want it to be clean. Try to refrain yourself from digging in and let them cool completely before cutting into squares.

** For double recipe, bake in 9x12 pan and add 5 minutes to baking time.**