Friday, March 31, 2017

Healthy Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Fries and more...

As most of you know, I completely revamped my lifestyle and diet about 7 months ago. And it's totally changed my life in some really profound ways. I've tried a lot of new things as part of that — including […]

Intentional finance. Intentional family. Intentional business.

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

Healthy Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Fries

As most of you know, I completely revamped my lifestyle and diet about 7 months ago. And it’s totally changed my life in some really profound ways.

I’ve tried a lot of new things as part of that — including vegetables for breakfast! — and have found some recipes and food combinations that I absolutely love.

These Healthy Oven-Baked Sweet Potato Fries have become a family favorite. They are very simple to make (only two ingredients!), you basically can’t mess up the recipe (well, you probably could, but you’d have to try pretty hard!), and they are packed with nutrition!

A word of warning, though: these are crazy addictive. And when you know that they are healthy, it’s hard not to just keep eating and eating them until half the pan is gone. Ask me how I know! 😉

Here’s the very simple recipe…

    
 

Brigette’s $87 Grocery Shopping Trip and Weekly Menu Plan for 6

Aldi

1 8-oz pkg Deli Sliced Muenster Cheese – $1.89

1 2-lb bag Shredded Mozarella Cheese – $5.89

1 2-lb bag Shredded Cheddar Cheese – $5.89

1 1-lb bag Oven Roasted Turkey Deli Meat – $3.19

1 box Honey Crunch Oats – $1.49

2 boxes Raisin Bran – $3.58

2 cans Green Beans – $0.98

1 can Baking Cocoa – $2.19

1 pkg Sliced Pepperoni – $2.19

1 gallon Whole Milk – $2.27

2 64-oz cartons Orange Juice – $3.38

1 bag Nacho Cheese Chips – $1.09

2 1-lb bags Fresh Asparagus – $2.98

1 pkg Romaine Hearts – $1.99

2 pkgs Broccoli Crowns – $2.38

1 bag Flat Leaf Spinach – $1.49

2 heads Cauliflower – $4.58

2 bags Mini Sweet Peppers – $3.98

1 bag Radishes – $0.99

1 16-oz jar Organic Olive Oil – $3.99

1 dozen Eggs – $0.89

1 pkg Zucchini – $2.49

1 2-ct pkg Tomatoes – $1.69

1 bunch Bananas (2.19lbs @ $0.39/lb) – $0.85

2 16-oz cartons Egg Whites – $3.98

1 Pineapple – $0.99

1 pint Grape Tomatoes – $1.89

Total: $69.19


Harris Teeter

3 15-oz bags Galbani String Cheese – $7.03, used 3 $1.00/1 printables from galbanicheese.com – $4.03/3 after coupons

1 4-lb bag Dixie Crystal Sugar – $2.50, used $0.55/1 Dixie Crystals Granulated, Poly Bag Brown or Powdered Sugar – 3-26-17 SS; Includes Granulated, 4 lb or Poly Bag, 2 lb Only; DND (exp. 04/30/17) (doubled) – $1.40

2 Quaker Real Medleys – $2.50, used $1.00/2 Quaker Real Medleys Oatmeal – 3-12-17 RP (exp. 04/23/17), plus receive $2.00 rebate back from Checkout 51 – $0.50 MM after coupon and rebates

3 boxes Kellogg’s Special K Nourish – $5.97, used 3 $0.50/1 printable (doubled) – $2.97/3 after coupons

1 Atkins Harvest Bar – $1.00, receive $1.00 rebate from Checkout 51 – FREE after rebate

2 boxes Horizon’s Organic Fruit Snacks – $3.98, used 2 $0.55/1 printable (doubled) – $1.78/2 after coupons

10 Yoplait yogurts – $3.70, used 2 $0.50/5 printable (doubled) – $1.70/10 after coupons

3 pkgs Trident Gum – $2.08, used $1.59/3 printable, plus receive $1.50/3 back from Ibotta$1.01 MM after coupon and rebate

Meal Deal:

     1 pkg Hormel Bacon, used $0.50/1 Hormel Black Label Bacon Product – 3-12-17 SS (exp. 05/08/17) (doubled)

    1 16-oz Half and Half

    1 10-ct box Seattle’s Best Hazelnut K-cups, used $1.00/1 Seattle Best Coffee K Cups – 3-19-17 SS; Includes 10 or 16 ct (exp. 05/19/17)

    1 pkg Thomas English Muffins

    1 dozen Eggs

~$7.99 for all 5 items after coupons

Total after coupons and rebates: $18.36

Weekly Total for all Groceries: $87.55

Weekly Menu Plan

We have lots of fruit leftover from previous weeks that need to be used up!

Breakfasts

Cereal x 3

Toast, Smoothies x 2

Oatmeal with Apples x 2

Lunches

Veggie Omelets, Fruit x 2

Baked Potatoes with Broccoli and Cheese x 2

Leftovers x 3

Dinners

Bacon, Egg, and Cheese Sandwiches on English Muffins, Roasted Broccoli

Taco Salad (this is a weekly staple at our house since the children continue to beg for it – I can’t complain since it is SUPER simple to make! We use ground venison for taco meat), Fruit Salad

Chicken Gravy over Basmati Rice, Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower, Tossed Salad

Sub Sandwiches (I’ve been craving these for some unknown reason :)), Fresh Veggies with Ranch Dip

Grilled Chicken, Grilled Asparagus, Garlic Cheese Biscuits (I don’t have any Bisquick so will have to come up with a homemade concoction to substitute)

Upside Down Pizza (I’m going to use pepperoni instead of hamburger), Green Beans, Fruit Salad

Leftovers

    
 

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

   

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Wednesday, March 29, 2017

I'm giving away a free laptop! Enter to win! (last chance!)

Just a reminder! This giveaway closes on March 31, 2017. Have you entered yet? Yep! I'm giving away a FREE laptop! Why am I doing this? Because as a veteran blogger, I want to inspire people to reach their goals. […]

Intentional finance. Intentional family. Intentional business.

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

Here's what's new:

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I’m giving away a free laptop! Enter to win! (last chance!)

Just a reminder! This giveaway closes on March 31, 2017. Have you entered yet?

Yep! I’m giving away a FREE laptop!

Why am I doing this? Because as a veteran blogger, I want to inspire people to reach their goals. I love being able to encourage both prospective and experienced bloggers alike to reach for the stars and make the most out of their blogs.

For year, I’ve had so many readers reach out to me, asking to learn more about how to become a successful blogger. Blogging is a deep passion of mine, and many of you have expressed an interest in starting your very own blogs as a way to earn extra income for your family. I want to help encourage you and support you as you work to meet your goals — even if you haven’t started a blog yet. 

Very soon, I’ll be launching my new blog, YourBloggingMentor.com — a site completely dedicated to sharing all the ins and outs of blogging that I’ve learned during my past 12 years as a blogger — and I want to share it with you!

But only if blogging is something you’re interested in. 🙂 So, I’m doing this giveaway to help me figure out which of you are interested in blogging or who are already blogging.

I want to make sure to serve you well with the new site and with emails I’ll be sending out with valuable information I’ve learned as a blogger. Because my heart’s desire is to help as many bloggers take their blog to the next level and make a part-time or full-time income from blogging — all the while having healthy boundaries for work/home/family and loving their life!

But Crystal, I’m not a blogger!

That’s okay! You are still welcome to enter the giveaway. Giving us your input will help me better meet your needs as one of my valued subscribers. If blogging isn’t your thing, I want to know!

Nobody wants to get emails that they don’t want, and I certainly don’t want to send you emails you don’t want! Hearing from you helps me keep your inbox clean and your heart encouraged with the content you really want.

How do I enter?

That’s the easy part! All you need to do is fill out the form below, checking the option that best describes your interest or involvement in blogging. That’s it!!

What kind of laptop will I win?

That’s a great question! You’ll get the option to choose one of the two laptops below. Are you a Mac person? No problem! We’ve got you covered. Love PCs? We’ve got a great option for you, too!! Check out the details below:

For PC lovers:

ASUS K501UW-AB78 15.6-inch Full-HD Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7, GTX 960M, 8GB DDR4, 512GB SSD) Glacier Grey

  • Powerful 6th-generation Intel Core i7-6500U 2.5GHz (Turbo up to 3.1GHz). Skylake
  • 15.6 inches Matte FHD display. 1920 by 1080 resolution. Windows 10 Operating System.
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M gaming graphic card; 8GB RAM; 512GB SSD Storage.
  • Gigabit Dual-Band 802.11AC ultra-fast Wi-Fi.
  • 2x USB 2.0, 2x USB 3.0, 1x Headphone-out & Audio-in Combo Jack, 1x RJ45 LAN Jack for LAN insert, 1x HDMI, 1x Card Reader

For Mac Lovers:

Apple MacBook Air 13.3-Inch Laptop (Intel Core i5 1.6GHz, 128GB Flash, 8GB RAM, OS X El Capitan)

  • 1.6 GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 (Turbo Boost up to 2.7 GHz) with 3 MB shared L3 cache
  • 8 GB of 1600 MHz LPDDR3 RAM; 128 GB PCIe-based flash storage
  • 13.3-Inch (diagonal) LED-backlit Glossy Widescreen Display, 1440 x 900 resolution
  • Intel HD Graphics 6000
  • OS X El Capitan, Up to 12 Hours of Battery Life Macbook Air does not have a Retina display on any model.

What’s the catch?

Well, there is none! I simply want to know more about you!

So that’s it! Just fill out the form below, tell us what level of interest or involvement you have in blogging (if any!), and you’ll be entered to win!

Enter the Giveaway for a FREE Laptop!

We want to know if blogging is your thing (or if it’s not!). Let us know and be entered to win a FREE laptop!

A few people commented to say that they had issues getting the form to work. If you experience any trouble submitting the form, I recommend trying the following things to see if that clears up the error:

1) Temporarily switch browsers. Sometimes the error is a glitch in your browser that can easily be bypassed by submitting the form on a different browser. 
 
2) Clear the cache on your browser. This can be easily done by going to the settings area of your browser. Once you’ve cleared your cache, try submitting the form again.
 
If you still have trouble with the form, please email my project manager at Katie@moneysavingmom.com. 🙂

Note: This giveaway will be open through March 31, 2017. I’ll choose and notify the winner via email once the giveaway is closed. I hope you win!

    
 

21 Days to a More Disciplined Life

   

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