Last January (2011), I shared some of my thoughts and plans after having re-evaluated our household budget. Having a plan in place to change even just a handful of our practices or habits has helped keep our budget on track throughout the year. I thought I'd give an update on last year's goals and brainstorm areas where I still want to improve.

My goal last year was to budget tightly enough to save for the "extras" that pop up in life -- like a new baby, vehicle repairs, medical things, etc. (Speaking of "medical things", Joshua's surgery this week went well [praise GOD!] and he is home recovering. He'll have a second surgery in February, and should be able to return to work in April.)

My plan for 2011 included:

Continue having 1 vehicle -- did this all year and are continuing :)

Continue having only basic phone service (no cell phones or long distance) -- same

Continue having Netflix (no TV, no movies, and no other movie rentals or purchases) -- Canceled Netflix in August, 2011

Continue menu planning -- did better, but not 100% on this

Discontinue restaurant/take-out eating (none, vs. the 6-8 times per year for the past couple of years) -- We ate out (as a family) twice, Joshua got take-out twice, and we got hot dogs at Costco 4-5 times, so... not really an improvement, but not too bad :)

Go to Costco every 2 weeks instead of every week -- we averaged shopping every 10-14 days, so much better than weekly! :)

Spend only $420/month on food/household/toiletries -- this has increased to $500/month; I'm just not sure what else I want to cut when it comes to groceries...

Continue to keep the heat at 64 or lower -- we did this, but getting the furnace repaired (by the landlord) ended up reaping much bigger savings, yay!

Wash towels and whites in cold water instead of hot (use a few drops of bleach instead) -- I went back to hot water for whites/towels, 1 load per week

Take shorter showers (this is a hard one for me!) -- I've been taking fewer showers, not that that's a good thing... ;)

Get Ruth potty trained (she's in Pull-Ups) -- did this in February, yay! :)

Go back to cloth diapers for Moshe (used disposables during December) -- went back to cloth diapers full-time and continued, aside from a 2-day break (just while flying to Ohio/to Seattle to visit my family)

Take a year-long break from buying stuff (we have so much already!) -- I *mostly* did this. Joshua got me a few gifts, though! :)

Shop around to see if we can get a cheaper car insurance rate -- looked into this but didn't make any changes

Recycle anything possible -- done

Call trash service and downgrade to smallest, customer-provided can (saving $7/month) -- did this, and have been able to fit our trash in the tiny can every week! :)

Get landlord to fix dripping faucet in bathroom -- fixed

Figure out how to pay bills online to save stamps -- found a couple I can pay online without extra charges :)

Continue blogging -- I mostly did this, in my bad-blogger way...

Get my recipe e-book finished -- Definitely did not get this done. I let too many things be my excuses/reasons not to make time to work on it...

Eating Well, Spending Less in 2012

I don't know how many times we've gone over our household budget and...

...the only category it seems we can realistically fiddle with is the food/household items budget.

While I don't think I can actually reduce this year's food budget (can we say growing kids?!), I want to do more without spending more.

Specific ways I plan to accomplish this:

1. Continue to spend nearly all of our food/household budget money on food (instead of things like diapers!), which is one of the ways we eat well and stay within-budget.

2. Continue to go grocery shopping every 2 weeks (or even less often). This practice, especially, means I have to plan ahead -- which is a good thing.

3. Continue to plan menus, focusing on using fresh food at its peak, not wasting anything, and eating lots of affordable foods like beans and carrots. :)

4. Resist buying foods that are expensive but don't provide good nutrition.

5. Do more freezer cooking, and not just for "special occasions" like surgery or having a baby.

6. Introduce new kitchen tasks to the children as they grow older. Yehoshua will be 8 in April, and Eliyahu is 6 -- they could be more helpful and independent if I took more time to teach them to cook. Starting beans in the crock pot, making a pot of oatmeal for breakfast, or getting carrots ready to cook are some of the things I'd like to get them doing more regularly and independently! :)

7. Finally perfect a homemade chicken broth (from the bones after making roasted chicken). I've attempted a few times and didn't care for the results. :(

8. Try to limit desserts more than we already do. Desserts tend to be unhealthy and expensive, anyway. :)

This month's Eat Well, Spend Less series posts are on the topic of New Year's Food/Kitchen Resolutions! Check out what these ladies are sharing:

Jessica at Life As Mom: Teaching My Boys to Cook

Aimee at Simple Bites: Food Resolutions

Katie at Kitchen Stewardship: Yogurt, beans, and chicken broth

Shaina at Food For My Family: Overall Kitchen Organization

Katie at GoodLife{eats}: Variety with whole grains

Mandi at Life...Your Way: The Key to Changing Your Diet for Good

Carrie at Denver Bargains: Reducing Kitchen Waste

Amy at Kingdom First Mom

Jessica at Good Cheap Eats is hosting Kitchen Tip Tuesdays for me this week so I can be available for Joshua as he undergoes surgery on Tuesday.

Head over to Good Cheap Eats to read Jessica's post and others' tips or to submit your own tips and links! :)

These Parmesan twisted breadsticks are so good!! They are light, fluffy, cheesy, and garlicky! I love the bits of melted Parmesan cheese inside and the salty, buttery garlic flavor.

I also love the fancy twisted presentation. These breadsticks will dress up a simple dinner nicely. When I make them, they're everyone's favorite!

And, since I make the dough in my bread machine, it's not too time-consuming for me to make these breadsticks. (Bread machine directions are included in my recipe, as well as making by hand.)

I buy shredded (NOT grated) Parmesan cheese in bulk at Costco for special treats like these breadsticks. Real shredded Parmesan cheese is one of my favorite "food luxuries"!

When I buy a big bag of Parmesan cheese, I re-package it into sandwich-size Ziplock bags. Then, I put the small bags into a large Ziplock freezer bag and freeze them. (Double-bagging like that keeps the cheese nice and fresh!) The small bag thaws quickly when I pull it out to use.

Freezing in smaller portions is one of the ways I'm able to shop in bulk for nearly everything, yet still keep a variety of ingredients on hand and minimize food waste. :)

I had planned to make meatballs for the spaghetti, since meatballs are one of Joshua's favorites and I rarely make them -- but time ran short (oops -- I mean, I was running late on dinner as usual!) and I just fried and seasoned the meat and added sauce. I cooked frozen green beans and we had our "three things" dinner -- spaghetti, breadsticks, and green beans! It was perfect.

I cooked the meat and sauce in my cast iron skillet. I've been remembering to use it more often since it's supposed to help boost iron levels in foods, and my midwife gave me the "get more iron" talk last week. ;) The simmering tomato-based sauce tasted a little "irony" to Joshua, but I didn't notice a taste difference. But, I don't trust my taste buds too much these days since my nose is constantly stuffy (pregnancy-related). :)

Anyway, the bread sticks. Make them! They're amazing. :)

The 3 randomly-selected winners in the Cultures for Health giveaway this week are:

Carrie (wholesomewomanhood@)
Amy (chiltonthompson@)
Amy (amydeihl@)

Many thanks to Cultures for Health for offering this giveaway! :) If you were one of the winners, I've already emailed instructions on choosing a culture to try! :)

The 5 randomly-selected winners in The Money Saving Mom's Budget book giveaway are:

Angela (LibraryGirl@)
tlcmom@
Rachel (drhotalen@)
Shannon (jellybeansjunk@)
teeners9@

If you were one of the winners, I've already emailed you so I can get your mailing address to send out your book! :)

In the event that a selected winner doesn't respond to my email, an alternate winner will be chosen and will hear from me through email. :)

Thanks for participating in the giveaways, everyone! :)

We're having an exciting week at our house. It's been snowing off-and-on since Saturday morning!!! Snow is exciting when it's a maybe-once-a-year event, and the kids have been playing in it for hours every day.

The very first day, the boys built two snow men (one shown above) and had fun rolling huge snowballs. The next day, they started on a snow fort in the back yard. The following few days were too cold to pack any snow, so they just tramped around in it and searched for icicles. :)

Joshua stayed home from work yesterday and we had a fun "snow day" together at home (we still did school though), topped off by losing our power about 5pm for a couple hours.

I had made a big lunch (macaroni and cheese and veggies) and dinner was just going to be a cold-cut sandwich. So, we ate our sandwiches by candlelight and then sent the kids to bed with their flashlights. :)

For lunch, I found leftover baked potatoes and leftover chili in the fridge from earlier this week, and combined them for a yummy, filling meal. I need to plan to have these together more often! :)

Tonight was scheduled to be our bi-weekly shopping trip, but instead of the snow melting today as predicted, it's just piling higher! (I think we're up to 10+ inches at our house now, with a frozen layer of slush at the bottom.)

So, I'll adjust the week's end of my menu plan and hold off for a bit on shopping -- probably at least until Sunday or Monday. I pulled the milk I froze out of the freezer, and we're still good on eggs, cheese, and most everything else. I have fresh carrots and celery, and we're eating frozen veggies and canned fruit.

I'm so thankful to not have to go out when the weather is bad -- OR in the crowds that were out getting groceries last week when the weather was predicted to get snowy and icy! :)

I have some projects to work on while Moshe's still napping, but my plan is to get back online tonight to share a new recipe/pantry meal when the kids head to bed. Barring power outages or exhaustion. ;)

As I've been working on freezer meals, I thought of a few freezer tips to share. :)

Separating frozen foods:

Freeze foods in a stack with TWO LAYERS (of waxed paper or something) between each item in order to remove the items individually. I've learned this the hard way (no pun intended) when trying to separate frozen hamburgers that I had placed a single layer of waxed paper between.

Two layers = easy separation, peel off waxed paper. One layer = possibly impossible to separate.

The same goes for freezing casseroles in a dish and planning to remove the frozen casserole from the dish: put two layers in the dish before filling for easy removal. :)

Steel wool scouring pads:

Store your in-use steel wool scouring pad ("Brillo" pad) in a ziplock bag in the freezer between uses to slow rust. Also, don't rinse out the pad unless necessary (not at all if possible) because washing away the soap speeds rusting.

(For the record, I no longer use steel wool scouring pads; I use Bar Keeper's Friend on our stainless steel cookware.)

Storing small or bagged items in the freezer:

For the little bags of nuts, dry yeast, ground flax seed, wheat germ, or other such items that are best stored in the freezer, use a wire or plastic mesh basket to hold all the odd shapes and sizes of things -- and keep them from falling out! :)

Stacking food in the freezer:

Maximize freezer space by stacking same-size items together.

When I'm stacking frozen fruits or veggies, I like to stack them in a "pattern" of sorts -- corn, green beans, peas; corn, green beans, peas. This prevents me from needing to move too many bags of food while trying to get to the kind that ended up all on the bottom! :)

Next week (January 24, 2012) Kitchen Tip Tuesdays will be hosted by Jessica at Good Cheap Eats.

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Dust-free KitchenAid mixer bowl + 8 more tips (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
2. Freezer food labeling tip (SnoWhite at Finding Joy in my Kitchen)
3. Tip for freezing grated cheese (Anne Jisca at Anne Jisca's Healthy Pursuits)
4. Spice organization (Liz & Doug at Pocket Change Gourmet)
5. Handmade pasta tips (The Local Cook)

I love to tease Joshua when he compliments my cooking. "I used a secret ingredient." ;)

And one of my secret ingredients? Homemade kefir. It makes a great buttermilk substitute and turns out the best biscuits and pancakes! And since kefir keeps so long in the fridge, I pretty much always have some on hand when a recipe calls for buttermilk (or even just plain milk, in baking recipes).

I've also found that my kefir grains are pretty hardy. I'd been using my current kefir grains for about a year when I got pregnant with baby #5, morning sickness hit, and Joshua cooked dinner every night for a month. (Or two. I don't really remember because I was, umm, napping!)

One thing Joshua didn't do -- and I didn't do either -- was to care for my kefir grains. I know, I know. Those little "babies" I'd been tending, even taking them with me on the airplane when I went to visit my family in May... were then left in a jar on the counter for several weeks. Every time I thought about giving them some fresh milk, I wondered if they were even still alive and then just didn't touch them.

Finally, probably about 6 weeks later, I pushed past the "I'm a bad kefir-mom" feelings and took out 2 little kefir grains and started giving them fresh milk every day. It did take about 2 weeks for them to revive, and even longer for my beautiful thick creamy kefir consistency to return. But it did! They're alive! I'm so glad. And next time "life" gets too crazy to make kefir, I'll put them in the fridge to rest like I should have done.

Giveaway this week (3 days only!):

Cultures for Health is a company located here in Washington state and they offer starters and cultures for a variety of different healthy foods -- like milk kefir, water kefir, sourdough, yogurt, buttermilk, kombucha and more! Cultures for Health also offers supplies for cheese making, sprouting, and other fun stuff.

Cultures for Health offers 9 different kinds of yogurt starters, including some that will culture right on your counter (like kefir), skipping the tedious warming of milk and monitoring temperatures. (I know some people say that homemade yogurt is super easy, but I beg to differ!) :)

The giveaway (3 winners!):

Go here to enter the Cultures for Health giveaway. Giveaway is open Monday, January 16th, 2012 through Wednesday, January 18th, 2012. THREE random winners will be given the opportunity to choose a culture of their choice from Cultures for Health! :) (Disclosure: I am an affiliate with Cultures for Health. But I love opportunities for you guys to win something I love!)

Use this code to get 10% off your order at Cultures for Health placed January 16-20, 2012: TR2012

New to kefir? Go watch my short video showing how simple it is to make!

I've also written about:

How I use kefir in recipes

Smooth and Creamy Maple-Sweetened Kefir (one of our favorite drinks!)

Photo tutorial for making homemade kefir

How to make homemade yogurt (and why I make kefir instead!) 

All my freezer cooking last week? It went great. All my blogging plans for last week? Not so great. ;) I think I underestimated how much time I'd be spending cooking and how much food I'd need to make if I wanted to have enough left for 2-3 freezer meals after we ate dinner! :)

I'm not planning much freezer cooking this week, since I have other things I need to spend time doing before Joshua's surgery next week.

We're going grocery shopping on Thursday, which will be 2 weeks since our last shopping trip. I don't think I'll need to spend much, but I do need to get a few things to hold us over for the following 2 weeks. I'll share the items/prices after the shopping trip! :)

This week's menu plan:

Monday

My mom's meatloaf, baked potatoes, peas

Tuesday

Hearty beef and lentil chili, garlic bread, green beans

Wednesday

Creamy macaroni and cheese, leftover chili, green beans

Thursday

Teriyaki salmon, brown rice, and stir-fried veggies (I made bean sprouts for this!)

Friday

Pizza, cooked veggies (and I am doing "real" pizza, not the biscuit crust kind!!)

Saturday

Beef and spinach quiche, green beans, corn

Sunday

Not sure -- depends on Ruth's birthday meal requests :)

Lunches: Bean burritos or leftovers

Breakfasts: Oatmeal or fruit smoothies

This week's menu actually is mostly planned from my pantry/freezer (unlike last week!).

For our family, this pantry challenge is a continuation of fewer shopping trips, getting my freezers organized, and starting to make and store some freezer meals. So far, we're doing okay on the shopping, the freezers are pretty organized (and I know exactly what's in there), and I'm feeling more ready for the challenges ahead now that I've got a good start on my freezer meals.

Be sure to visit the other bloggers who will be chronicling their January pantry challenges:

Balancing Beauty and Bedlam
The Finer Things in Life
Getting Freedom from Debt
Good Cheap Eats

Forgive me if I'm silly for having just figured this out, but... :)

As I was making a cup of coffee last week, I suddenly realized that I could add ground spices to the coffee as I was brewing it!

I started with cinnamon and coffee, and made a delicious cup of... cinnamon coffee!

Then yesterday, I made a chai spice blend with some freshly ground allspice and cardamom (in my suribachi), nutmeg, cloves, and cinnamon. Mmmm... it tasted wonderful!

There was no powdery residue in my coffee, since my coffee-making method uses a paper filter. Using ground cinnamon and other spices might not work so well in a French Press. Try cinnamon bark chips or coarsely-ground spices instead? :)

Anyway, I'm just a little excited that I can take a bag of "plain" coffee and vary the flavors according to my mood... so easily! :) And, my "homemade" flavors tasted so good -- much better than a lot of the flavored coffees I've tried. :)

My favorite way to make coffee is with the AeroPress coffee/espresso maker Joshua got for my birthday last year! You can read my AeroPress review here. :)

See also: Cozy and Warming Chai Tea Lattes for a Winter's Day (No snow yet this year in Seattle...)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post!

1. Cookie baking tips (Willa at Armstrong Family Fare)
2. Sweet potato puree tips (Heather at Feel Good About Dinner)
3. Make-Your-Own (DIY) tips (Adrienne at Whole New Mom)
4. Snowflake birthday party tips (Christy at One Little Word She Knew)
5. Essential sauces tips (The Local Cook)
6. Tomatillos tip (Jenny at Entrusted With)
7. Individually freezing bacon w/o cookie sheets (Gwen at Gwen's Nest)
8. Cooking and baking tips (Cheryl at The Bz House That Love Built)
9. Tenderizing chicken (Living So Abundantly)

Last week I mapped out my freezer meal plan. I love having meals in the freezer, because it makes menu planning (and dinner prep!) so much easier!

My problem is that I like using the meals more than I like making them. ;) So if they're there, I tend to use them... unless I'm planning ahead for a specific event (like the birth of a new baby) and making myself be a good girl and save the freezer meals for later. :)

Our new baby isn't due until the end of March, so normally I wouldn't have started my freezer meals quite yet. But, as it happens, Joshua will be having two major surgeries (craniotomies) before that time, so I decided to jump-start my freezer meal cooking and hopefully be ready for whatever happens post-surgery. :) (The surgeries are to treat two different conditions -- Trigeminal Neuralgia and Superior Canal Dehiscence. This You Tube video describes what Joshua experiences from having SCD.)

Anyway, my freezer meals will certainly come in handy over the next few months! I'm looking forward to getting the freezer stocked with prepared (homemade!) foods again. :)

My favorite freezer meal resources/tips:

My FoodSaver. We've had ours for 10+ years and it's so handy for storing food compactly and fighting freezer burn. I wrote more about why I like having a FoodSaver here! :)

The "mold" technique -- freezing casseroles and then removing from the dish. (I then use the FoodSaver to seal the "squares" of food.) Same size = easy stacking! Plus, I'm not wasting space by storing dishes in the freezer (not to mention the cost of disposable dishes!).

The "straw" technique. For softer foods like cookies or burritos, or individually-wrapped foods (like burritos, chimichangas, egg rolls, etc.), I double-Ziplock-freezer-bag them, using a straw to suck out the air in each bag. My freezer burritos stay fresh a long time in the freezer this way!

Life As Mom's freezer tips. Check out her site for lots more variety -- she's an expert! ;)

My freezer meal plan includes mostly main dish meals. If I have time, I'll do some of the make-ahead pantry foods (like granola!). Most likely I won't do any desserts, due to time and expense. For breads, I'll just use my bread machine as-needed. We actually haven't been eating a lot of bread these days. (We often have fish and rice is a good side for that. Joshua takes beans or leftovers in his lunch rather than sandwiches.)

And the best part of my plan? I'm planning these meals into our weekly dinner menus so I can just make a super big batch and freeze the extras (hopefully 2-4 meals' worth). I'll be spending extra time on "dinner prep" each night, but I won't be spending the whole day in the kitchen. Well, okay, I will -- because we do our school work and everything else in the kitchen too. ;)

Main dish freezer meals I'm making (frozen before baking unless noted):

Quiche (I made this crustless to save time)
Beef and Bean Enchiladas (add extra sauce)
Easy lasagna (add extra sauce)
Saucy Broccoli Chicken Bake (under-cook the broccoli, put a layer of rice in the bottom)
Chicken gravy (to serve with biscuits or rice)
Spinach rice casserole
Italian Beef and Beans (to serve with pasta)
Cheesy Chicken Vermicelli
Tuna Noodle Casserole
Creamy Macaroni and Cheese
Freezer-friendly bean and rice burritos
Breakfast burritos
Three-cheese baked spaghetti (add extra sauce)

Other easy meals from my freezer:

Crock pot BBQ chicken (serve with buns or over rice)
Salmon burgers
Pan-fried pollock (serve with rice)

Soups for the freezer:

Beef Vegetable Soup
White Chili
My Mom's Chili
Veggie Bean Soup with Spinach

Breakfasts or other:

Whole wheat berry pancakes (cooked; re-warm in toaster)
My mom's granola
Cinnamon Crunch Granola
Chewy oatmeal chocolate chip granola bars
Easy baked apple oatmeal
Maple Rosemary Bean Salad
Grilled chicken breast (for on pizza, quesadillas, etc.)
Cooked pinto beans

See also: My freezer meal plan and updates from before Moshe was born! :)

I'll be using lots of the groceries we got last week -- starting with the more perishable things like spinach and broccoli. For my weekly menu plans, I'm just picking things from these lists that I haven't made yet, and then making as large a batch as possible. :)

This freezer cooking is going to be my "big" project over the next 2 weeks! I hope to get the majority of it done in that time, and then in late February after both surgeries are over I'll evaluate what I want to make/add before the new baby's born! :)