Bacon Ranch Chicken and Potatoes

I love shopping at Sam's Club because we have a large family and use a lot of stuff in general, but they also have great deals in general. During a sale a few months ago I stocked up on frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts.  Well being a sleep deprived mommy I ended up in Sam's Club a week later and stocked up on a few more bags. So now I am doing a lot of chicken dishes to open some room in my freezer for other things. I was running out of ideas on what to do with all of this chicken so I turned to Pinterest to get a few new ideas. I ran into a Bacon Wrapped Ranch Chicken recipe that sounded yummy but I don't like bacon wrapped things. So I thought I would just cut up the bacon and chicken and go from there. After cutting up the chicken I realized I needed to add something else to the baking dish and decided on potatoes.

After cutting up the chicken and potatoes I sprinkled on a package of Ranch Dressing mix.

While the chicken and potatoes were cooking I cut up the bacon and cooked that up on the stove top.

I made sure to drain the bacon because I didn't want to add all of that bacon grease to the dish.

Once the chicken and potatoes were cooked all the way I pulled it out and covered the top with Ranch dressing and cheese and topped with the bacon. I placed back in the oven to let the cheese melts. The end result was nothing short of AMAZING. The kids loved the dish (and really that is what matters when you are cooking for a large family), the husband loved the dish, and of course I did as well. I will be adding this to my line up this month.

The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep

While chatting with a friend from high school on Facebook about our children and how hard it is to get them to sleep at night another one of her friends mentioned a book to help get their child to sleep. The book is called The Rabbit Who Wants to Fall Asleep: A New Way of Getting Children to Sleep and it is written by a Swedish Psychologist (Carl-Johan Forssén Ehrlin). CBS News did a segment on this book and she gave it a try and has had great results. Here is the link to the video if you want to see it. 

With nothing to lose (but the $11) I went on Amazon and ordered it. Man, I love Prime because that book arrived the very next day. Seriously, if you don't have prime you should get it. I also suggest using Amazon Smile too. This way you can help out a non-profit organization of your choice while shopping.  

So this package was dropped off by UPS at 7pm and Liam was hyper as can be. Like bouncing off the walls hyper. I grabbed his little hand and took him to bed. We laid down and he was rolling all over the place. I was very doubtful that this book was going to put my son to sleep. I could see how it could work but really didn't think it would. You can clearly tell the book is using suggestive terms and is emphasized with how you are saying those works. At the beginning of the book it gives directions on how to read certain words. Bold words are to be emphasized while italicized words are to be said in a calm and slow tone. The book also tells you when to insert your child’s name into the story.  

After a while, they met the beautiful and wise Heavy-Eyed Owl again. Heavy-Eyed Owl told Roger the Rabbit, “I can see that you are tired, Liam, and that both of you are very close to falling asleep, now.”

Roger was very tired and slowly nodded his head, said yes, and felt how right Heavy-Eyed Owl was.  

I am well on my way to falling asleep now, you thought.

“Good night.” Said the wise Heavy-Eyed Owl. You are now shutting your eyes and yawning yourself to sleep. 

We are now half way thru the book and Liam is still acting wild (but rubbing his eyes). I realized I left the TV on with the sound of mute for light. So I flipped the TV on and turned on the bedside lamp. I really was hesitant about doing this because the light is a little bright and I wasn’t sure how this would help him go to sleep. I continued to read the book using soft and calm tones like the directions told me too. I was doing this all while Liam rolled on top of me and played with my hair.

Then something amazing started too happened. Liam started to settle down and rub his eyes more and more. At this point we were almost to the end and I really wished there were a few more pages because Liam was almost asleep. I think if we had turned the TV off at the beginning or at least earlier than we did he would have fallen asleep. I closed the book and gave him a kiss and walked upstairs to get him some water he asked for. By the time I got back down stairs he was out cold. I was amazed that a book could calm my crazy, wild child and actually encourage him to sleep.

This could have just been a fluke so I will continue to read the book each night to see if it continues to work. I will post an update at that time. If nothing else it will be a nice change up from the normal story of Winnie the Pooh or Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site.

Life Is Crazy with a Family of Six

Life has been crazy this last year. Many times I wanted to start a new “frugal” blog but just didn’t have it in me. Not because I wasn’t being frugal but because I just didn’t know how to write a blog on all the things I did to save money for my family. Life is crazy in a house of six people so I rather share our life’s ups and downs and all the stuff in between. I am sure you will learn some new tips and tricks on how to save money, get a few laughs, and probably shed a few tears (I hope not too many though). Because in a house with six people life can be crazy.

Not My Boobies: using donor breastmilk

When Layla was born I knew almost immediately I had no want to try and breastfeed. Don't get me wrong, I know the importance of breast milk but she is my 4th child and I tried and tried with the first three but couldn't produce enough to sustain life. If you would have told me eat dirt mixed with a magic powder and you will produce I would have done it in a heartbeat.

My oldest child lost so much weight (beyond the normal weight loss a newborn loses) he was almost diagnosed with failure to thrive at 6 weeks. I remember sitting in the lactation consultant's office everyday for hours at a time. We would weigh him before feeding and again after. We would weigh his wet diapers (or lack of). Finally she looked at me and said I needed to supplement.  I knew this was not something she took lightly but it was the best for the baby. She gave me this supplemental nursery system, it was a small vile connected to a tube. I was able to breastfeed and formula feed at the same time. I did this for an additional 3 months and finally gave up. When my daughter was born I went straight to the supplemental nursery system. I fed her this way for roughly six months and then gave up.

When my so third child was born I really wanted to breastfeed. I figured I was older, more responsible, and just able to cope with it all better. How wrong was I. I cried and cried because my son was screaming because he was hungry. My breasts were sore and nipples were scabbed over. It wasn't a pretty or soothing experience. There wasn't this bond I expected. It was just sadness. After three months I made the choice to bottle feed him. I hated that choice but again, it was what was needed for my son.

My fourth and final child was born and once again I said I would breastfeed her no matter what. But after being up for 24 hours giving birth to her I was exhausted and a sudden peace came over me when I realized I had nothing to prove to myself or anyone else. Formula is just fine. My older three kids thrived on it and did great. Why should I put myself through hell and back again when in the end I will end up bottle feeding. I looked at my husband and told him to feed her a bottle. He wasn't sure what to do and my midwife even tried asking me if I really was sure with that. But I was, I felt at peace with my choice and it was a calming feeling.

Almost right away formula feeding was difficult for her. she would spit up with every formula we tried. We tried the sensitive stuff, soy, the Gerber formula (the protein is partially broken down) but she would spit up to no end. We also had several scary episodes of choking and starting to turn blue. I knew something wasn't right but I listened to the nurse practitioner  (small town no pediatricians were available) when he said she would out grow it.

Now I regretted the decision to formula feed her. I knew breast milk was designed for human babies and she was not doing well on formula. I was so lucky a friend suggested using a donor for breast milk. I really wished I knew about breast milk donors before. Maybe I wouldn't have beaten myself up so much with my other babies. I used a group on Facebook called Human Milk 4 Human Babies and found a wonderful donor who had an excess of milk and just didn't have the room to store it anymore. Thank goodness I had an extra freezer or this endeavor wouldn't have worked.

As you can see my freezer was FULL. But it did not last long, maybe 3 months and I was back to meeting my wonderful donor who had more than enough to supply my baby girl and feed her son. But eventually her supply slowed and she did not have enough to send milk to our daughter. I was grateful to find another local mom who had a supply that was close to its freezer life. I picked up her stash and organized what little I had left from my previous donor and what she had by date, this way no milk went bad. 

At one point I was able to pay it forward and supply a new mom with a few bags of breast milk to feed her newborn while she desperately tried to get her supply to come in. It wasn't much but I know it meant the world to a new mom when her baby was so hungry and you couldn't fix it. 

I will forever be grateful to these ladies who not only fed their wonderful babies but supplied something I was unable to give my baby girl. We are still having issues with choking and spitting up but we are working with the nurse practitioner to resolve them. All I want is a happy and healthy baby. Sometimes formula works and sometimes it doesn't. I try not to get involved in breast is best debates because FOOD is best for babies. It doesn't matter if it comes in a can, boogie, or a bag. Feed your babies to the best of your abilities and know they will do just fine. 

Cooking the Frugal Way

As we have gone to a more frugal life and really implement the changes we wanted to make our biggest issue was our food budget. Before we would make meals that were elaborate and super yummy, but really expensive if you did it too often (and that is what we did). We have learned how to stock up on meat and it not cost too much money (read this post I wrote a few months ago.), but we were still spending so much money on food. I am learning how to use coupons to stock up on things we use all the time like deodorant and toilet paper, but other things that cost money and we use often like mayonnaise, ketchup, and mustard. I don’t want a stock pile of 45 ketchup bottles because I don’t even think I would use that in my life, but a few bottles here and there at a great price would be nice.

The last few weeks we have been getting back to frugal cooking and I LOVE IT. I did not grow up with a lot of money and I remember always having yummy meals on the table and I never knew how much it cost to put on our table. Now as an adult I knew they were meals that were filling but less expensive to make.  Here are a few of the recipes I LOVE and have been go to meals the last few weeks.

I have a family of 5 so my recipes are set for approx. 8 helpings. You can cut it in half if you would like, or add to it if you know you need more to feed your family.

Hamburger Rice

2.5lbs ground hamburger

2 cans Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 cup milk

3 cups of uncooked rice

Brown the hamburger and add seasoning if you want. Once your hamburger is cooked add the cream of mushroom soup and milk and mix it all together. While you are browning the hamburger you will want to cook your rice per the directions for your rice. We use a rice cooker so that makes things easier for us. When rice is done you will scoop the hamburger over the rice and your dinner is served. This is one my children’s favorite meals and they go back for seconds each time.

Poor Man’s Pie (Sheppard’s Pie)

2.5lbs ground Hamburger

2 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

1 Cup Milk

2 cans Corn

5 cups mashed potatoes.

2 cups shredded cheese. We use Colby Jack or Cheddar Cheese

Brown the hamburger and add seasoning if you want. Once your hamburger is cooked add the cream of mushroom soup and milk and mix it all together. Layer this on the bottom of a casserole (baking) dish.  Drain the corn and layer this over the hamburger mixture. We use instant mashed potatoes in our house for meals like this, but you can make “real” mashed potatoes if you want. When you have your mashed potatoes you will layer over the corn and top with the cheese. Place in the oven at 370 for about 30 minutes. Make sure the cheese is melted and let your dish continue to cook for a few minutes; just don’t let the cheese burn.

You can use green beans in place of the corn.

Poverty Hamburger

I got this recipe from Pinterest, so here is the pinned post. 

Paying with Cash and a Little Dave Ramsey

Like millions of people in the country my husband and I have debt. We both have student loans, credit cards, care loans, etc. WE HATE IT, we don’t want to owe people money. Over the last year we have been making sense of all our debt and coming up with a plan on how to pay it all off, not just the minimums and then some. This is a big adjustment for our family because we are used to eating out, driving new cars, buying things we want over just the stuff we need, ok really we live beyond our means.  It is time to change this because we are in our early 30’s, we have a family, and we want to teach our children that they can have the better things in life if they save for it and pay cash.

We started the Dave Ramsey program last year and I was not a big fan of the whole program, but we did take a few good things away from it. The biggest thing we took away from it is the need to budget our monthly expenses, as well as some yearly expenses and pay cash for most expenses. For example, we have budgeted $450 a month towards our groceries. We will take $450 cash at the beginning of the month and place it in an envelope. When we run out of cash in that envelope we are done for the month. That sure does put the pressure on to make sure you plan things out and stay within a budget. But, if we do well at budgeting and planning things out and we have extra money left in the envelope we can choose to keep the money in that envelope to make things easier the next month, we can put it in the savings account, or take the few extra dollars and place it towards the debt we have to pay off.  

Some expenses we have each year that we usually don’t plan out or save for until the end of the year are Christmas gifts, holiday dinners, and even car repairs.  We know it will be about $500 to get new tires on our car and that will need to happen in the next year or so. So we have a sinking fund for this, we took the $500 and divided it by 12 and each month we will put that amount ($42) in an envelope. This way we have the money and there will not be an issue or freaking out about where the money will come from when we need new tires. We will use this same method for Christmas gifts and such for next year. Again, this way when it comes time to buy gifts for everyone the money (and budget) is there and there is NO STRESS. We use this same method to plan a vacation a few years in advance, this way our family makes awesome memories and see the world but the stress of finances are not there and when we are done we will not have any more debt from that vacation. In 2012 we took an AMAZING vacation to Florida and then a cruise to the Bahamas. We visited Clearwater to see Winter the Dolphin, and a few days at Universal Studios before and after the cruise. It was amazing and completely paid for before we even left home.

Another important thing we took from our brief jump into the Dave Ramsey world is an emergency fund. We all have emergencies that come up, but as soon as we have an emergency fund this emergencies won’t be as stressful.

I am so excited to make these changes. I think by cutting out the debit cards and having cash on hand for things we need to buy will keep us in line. It is so easy to swipe a card and $5 here and $3 there really do add up before you even realize what is going on.

Our goal for 2015 is to save approx. $10,000 and pay off about $10,000 in debt. I will keep you updated on how this is going during the year and some of the things we have done to help meet this goal. I hope you all can keep me in line. 

Coupons… Where do I start?

My family has changed how they eat over the last few years and we rarely eat boxed dinners or foods with a ton of preservatives. So I never paid attention to coupons because I never thought they would be good for my family. Now I realize I should look at coupons and figure out this whole game of extreme couponing. Maybe not to the extreme as some of people take it, but I wouldn't mind a small stockpile of toilet paper, deodorant, and the other things we use often. But where do I start? Someone please help me out.

I see coupons for $1 off toilet paper, but when the original price is $9.99 how and that heck do I get it for free like you keep seeing other people? So over the next few months I will update you all on my quest to save money with coupons. I know it is possible and it is time I sit down and figure it out.