Friday, June 13, 2014

My Monthly Menu Plan and more...

Money Saving Mom

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

Daily Walk Bible

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Here's What's New

:: My Monthly Menu Plan

month of meals

Ashley emailed the following tip:

I recently explained how I put my menu planning on auto-pilot, and some of you were interested in seeing my monthly menu plan.

This list of recipes below is one month’s worth of dinner meals for my family. On weekend evenings, we have frozen pizza or deli sandwiches. For lunches, we eat leftovers or macaroni and cheese.

1. Chili
2. Tuna helper
3. Quesadillas
4. Mushroom casserole — 9.55
5. Saucy chicken — 5.116
6. Spaghetti hotdish — 2.121
7. Chimichangas- 2.129 or Chicken enchiladas — 1
8. Tilapia — 1
9. Fried chicken w/ mashed potatoes
10. Creamy hashbrowns- 5.216
11. Pesto-mozzarella chicken breasts — 1
12. Tacos
13. Pasta with white beans — 1
14. Southwest chicken & rice — 1
15. Pizza casserole — 3.49
16. Chicken breast w/ cheese & spinach — 1
17. Tuna helper
18. Baked potatoes
19. Bacon-wrapped chicken — 1
20. Ranch potato salad — 2.106

After most of the recipes you will see a number that tells me where I can find the recipe.  The number in front of the decimal point stands for the cookbook the recipe comes from (I know which book is which number), and the number/s after the decimal point are the page number.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have 3 monthly menu plans and after 3 months, I start over again with the first month — which means I never need to make a weekly meal plan or stress over “what’s for dinner”.

I also have 3 monthly shopping lists made up with all the non-perishable ingredients I need for each of the month of meals. I do one large shopping trip each month and then pick up a few perishable items like milk, eggs, and fruit on the other weeks.

This meal-planning method has worked very well for our family and I hope it might help you, too!

Have you ever tried monthly menu-planning? How did it work for you?

photo source

    

:: My Morning Routine: Day 6

My Morning Routine

How's your new morning routine going? I'm encouraged at the slow and steady progress I'm making each day in following my New Morning Routine. I’m far from where I want to be, but I’m going to focus on the forward momentum I’ve made this week — instead of being discouraged at how far I am from where I’d love to be!

Here's how Day 6 went for me:

6:30 a.m. — My alarm goes. And I turn it off and go back to bed. {Yes, I know… I feel like I’m the worst example this week when it comes to early rising and discipline. But maybe I’m an example of how to give yourself grace when you’re tired or something?? ;)}

7:10 a.m. — I get up and realize it’s 7:10 a.m. — yikes! Gratefully, I have a quieter day today schedule-wise, so I’ll just jump in and make the best of the day, even if I’m getting a late start. I head downstairs to clean up the kitchen and living room.

One child wakes up and immediately starts whining. So I send them back to bed until they can have a better attitude.

7:30 a.m. — I’m finished cleaning up the kitchen, so I go back upstairs and clean up our room, make our bed, and go to gather up the laundry in the hampers so I can start a load. I’m excited to realize we don’t have enough laundry to run a load — yay!My Morning Routine

I write out a to do list for the day. While doing so, I realize that I’m supposed to go grocery shopping today. So I go back downstairs and clean out the refrigerator to make room for the new groceries and make sure we don’t have any “science experiments” made up of old leftovers growing somewhere in the back of the fridge.

8:06 a.m. — I make some coffee and grab my Bible and books and go back to sit in my comfy chair in our room to read my Bible. Silas follows me upstairs and asks if he can sit on my lap and snuggle. So while I read my Bible, write in my Blessings journal, and read 3 short chapters from Pursue the Intentional Life, I have a little buddy cuddled up on my lap. And I soaked up every moment of it!

My Morning Routine

8:43 a.m. — Jesse comes in our room and we chat for a bit while I’m cuddling with Silas. I finish with my Bible time and Jesse makes bacon and eggs for breakfast and then the kids and Jesse eat breakfast while I read a chapter from The Saturdays aloud.

Then I head out to the garage to run on the treadmill while listening to my Scripture memory passage (Romans 1) on the YouVersion Bible app. And then it’s time to open the laptop and start on my morning computer work.

How did you do on your morning routine today? Let us know in the comments!

 

    

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

:: Free in my mailbox: Holes & The Mouse and the Motorcycle

Free Books From PaperBackSwap

PaperBackSwap is one of my favorite resources for getting books inexpensively–or even free! You only pay postage to swap books you already have on hand for books you'd like to add to your library.

You start out by signing up and adding 10 books to their system. Once you've added your 10 books, you'll get 2 free credits. And then every time someone requests a book of yours and you send it out, you'll get another credit. Most books only cost one credit–even big hardcover volumes.

I recommend that you add books to your wishlist, instead of looking through the books they currently offer. You'll get an email notification when the book is available and have 48 hours to respond and request it. I've been amazed at some of the really nice almost-brand-new $20 and $30 books we've added to our library this way!

In fact, just this week, I got copies of Holes by Louis Sachar and The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary — both books I found as recommendations from the FREE Summer Guide to Reading for Families — using credits I earned from PaperBackSwap. I can’t wait to add these titles to our reading line-up for the year!

Related:

    

:: Swagbucks Helped Us Prepare for Baby #2

new decorations

Today's Swagbucks success story is from Rachael:

With Baby #2 due in early June, we had to get quite a few items. We not only needed items for the new baby, but we needed to get my son into his big boy room.

We had gotten many of the “big” items through Christmas and baby showers, however there were quite a few decorations and small items that were wanted, but not necessarily needed. We decided the decorations would just have to wait until we could rack up enough rewards through Swagbucks and other rewards programs to afford them.

In 3 months, I have earned roughly $60 in Amazon giftcards through Swagbucks which put a dent in the “extras” for my son and baby girl on the way. I have been so pleased with how quickly and easily I was able to rack up on Swagbucks over the past few months with simple tasks:

1. Daily Poll: Though it only rewards 1 Swagbuck, it certainly helps in getting to my goals.

2. SwagbucksTV App: I try to watch roughly 50 points per day in videos on their mobile app. I sometimes miss this goal, but I try to make it a point to attain my goal as often as possible as this is where I get most of my points.

3. Bonus Points: Many times their mobile app will send notifications when there is bonus points available on Facebook, Twitter, or their blog. I love the notifications as it helps me keep up with new bonus points available. Although not a steady source of Swagbucks, these certainly help in filling in the gaps for days that I don’t hit my goal.

    

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