I did a lot of frugal things today that I am proud of! We had several varieties of "past their prime bread" - parts of 2 different loaves of bread and half a bag of hot dog rolls, so I made my own bread crumbs! Never did that before but read about it on a Dave Ramsey grocery budgeting FB page I am on, so I figured I'd give it a whirl. I got about 4 cups of bread crumbs out of it and it was so easy!

One of my Christmas presents from DH was a special pan where you can make different "pockets". You use pizza dough or pie crust dough for the top and bottom, and then you can fill it with whatever you want, and bake in the oven. So I made a batch of pizza dough in my breadmaker instead of buying store-bought dough.

I also got a mini-loaf pan for Christmas, and made 6 mini loaves of raisin bread.

I organized and took inventory of my kitchen freezer and the deep freezer in the garage, and I have quite a bit of stuff that I had forgotten about. Tomorrow I will make my meal plan for the next week and a half or so, trying to use a lot of that food. I don't think I should need to buy anything next week other than milk, produce, and maybe some lunch meat. I have a huge stock of homemade and frozen muffins, pancake, and egg muffins for the kids for their breakfasts. I can't believe I forked out the money for those pre-packaged muffins and frozen pancakes for so long!

I have gotten so into making food from scratch, eating less processed foods (although we still eat our fair share, but every little decrease helps!) Not only does it save me money, but it's healthier too!

Not too much to report on the finances front, just plugging along We did decide to go to Disney world in February. I have cashed in a lot of my vacation time, enough to pay for more than 2/3 of the trip. Also, I bought Disney gift cards at Kroger when they were giving 4x the fuel points, and then used those to pay for the trip (plus earn cash back on my credit card and then paid it off with the vacation time). By doing it this way, I'll save almost $200 in gas and earn $40 cash back. I realize that we could/should have used the money I'm getting to pay down more debt, but I'm working REALLY hard and sacrificing a lot of time with my family. We're looking forward to this trip together!


I've done an awesome job staying within our grocery budget (trying to stick to $400-500 a month). Instead of buying frozen meals for lunch, I'm making whole boxes of pasta and then portioning and freezing them myself. I'm planning our meals out for each week and only buying what I need for those meals. Tonight was bowtie pasta with light alfredo sauce and bacon, and green beans. Why have I never put bacon on my pasta before?? So delicious!!

I didn't update my debt for October because I had the charges for the Disney gift cards on my account and in't be paying them off until next Friday. I didn't want to see the increase and get depressed. Will update when I do my November balance check!

I bought 2 whole roaster chickens instead of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. Roasted them and got 9 cups of shredded & chunked chicken out of them to make pulled bbq chicken sandwiches, casseroles, etc. Then I used the bones and made my own broth! never done it before so I was a little nervous, but I think it turned out fine. I got 6 cups of broth to freeze (6 bags of 1 cup each) and enough left over to freeze 4 ice cubes worth in case I just need a little bit for something.

Also got a good deal on pork shoulder so hubby can make pork bbq next week. I'll probably freeze a bunch of that even though he usually doesn't want to... I don't mind eating bbq every day for a week, but the kids get tired of it after day 2 so then we always wind up either eating more than we should so that we don't throw it out, or just throwing some out. I'll freeze some and not tell him Will be great for pulled pork quesadillas, one of our favorite meals!

So I've taken control of both my weight and my finances... somehow, taking control of one area of your life makes you realize you can control a lot of it, and all good things spiral from there! So my co-workers at my 2nd job ordered out lunch today to celebrate the graduation of one of our students. Instead of joining them, I stuck to what I brought from home (a chicken lasagna that I had thrown together from leftovers and frozen) and saved myself both money and calories. I've lost a pound in 3 days and paid off another $1200 in debt with Friday's paycheck Can't get better motivation than that!