Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Happy New Year, everyone!

New Years has been going alright so far for us.  We were treated to some wonderful fireworks being set off in our area last night (we live about a block from a lake and are outside city limits, so neighbors tend to have fun).  Both natural and man made displays as the Northern lights were out as well.  I tried to take a picture, but my camera just doesn't have the filters that I need to take actual night pictures, so all I got was a lot of pictures of black nothing and a really nice shot of my gutter *laugh*.

Saving money actually worked out decently well this week.

1.  I made some new throw pillows for our couch in the den.  I made them tan on one side and navy blue on the other so they could go with multiple design schemes just by flipping the pillows over.  The tan fabric was actually unbleached muslin that I took off of a bolt I have and the navy blue was from a strip of leftover fabric I had from making my son a quilt a couple of years ago.  The tan side is seen above. I used stuffing from some old pillows that were past their prime, well washed of course before I unstuffed them, to stuff the new pillows along with some fiber fill I had to help make the stuffing non-lumpy.

I also made a tablecloth out of the unbleached muslin for the trunk in the den.  It's wrinkled in the photo because I was more concerned with getting it on the table then smoothing it (oops).

2.  We pretty much stayed home this week.  Any shopping that needed to be done, and the bare minimum of shopping at that, I had my husband pick up on his way home from work.  It saved gas doing it that way and it saved potential money in that it kept me away from clearance sales at the stores.

3.  When my birthday cake failed the first time, instead of running out and buying more ingredients, I dealt with what I had and made it work anyway.

4.  I baked bread, banana bread and my birthday cake.

5.  I got the last of the renewal paperwork for my son's insurance sent off, so that's done for another year and hopefully the renewal will go through quickly.

6.  I went and spent some time on Recyclebank where I watched videos, took quizzes, etc.  In about an hour I had enough points to redeem for three free magazine subscriptions (two for my husband, one for me).  I love getting free magazines, so I was happy to get those.

7.   I mended a couple pairs of my jeans that had developed holes in the knees.

8.  My husband fixed a dresser we'd gotten for free.  The bottom needed to be rebuilt, so he ripped the bottom all apart, replaced two of the feet (using some very old and weathered looking 2x4 pieces he'd found and cut down) and glued some trim together that had split.  Once he'd glued it all back together and repaired it correctly you'd never know that there is weathered 2x4 pieces making up part of the structural integrity of the dresser.  I then cleaned it up and oiled it and now I have a dresser for the bedroom again!  No more Rubbermaid containers!  And the repairs cost us nothing as my husband used materials we had around the house to make it all work.

9.  When I moved the new full sized dresser into place in the bedroom, it freed up the bottom of my old antique dresser.  My husband found that the desk top to the antique dresser was built more as a travel desk than an actual desk top, so keeping it up on the dresser bottom was actually hurting the desk top.  So, I didn't want to put the desk back together.  I wasn't quite sure what to do with the desk bottom and moved it out into the den, where I got an idea.  I finally put it next to my old dresser in the den and am using it to hold some future projects and some cloth.  It will come in handy as between it and my other dresser, I should be able to free up my hallway closet to use only as a linen cabinet, which will definitely be a welcome change.

10.  Here's another "saved money by not spending money" story.  Land's End sent me a 10.00 credit on my "anniversary" (a year since I signed up for their newsletter I'm betting).  I went onto the site and did find some things that were under 10.00 (not much), but once shipping was included they just weren't worth spending the money.  To get free shipping I would have had to spend 50.00 and I knew that I didn't have that type of money, so I just walked away.  It was the smart thing to do.

And there you are folks.  Some ways I saved money this week.  How did you do?

Pound Cake

 This is a recipe that actually stems from my very own cake wreck.

I wanted pound cake for my birthday so I found an old recipe in one of my cookbooks that looked promising and followed the recipe to the letter.  About an hour later I tested the cake for doneness outlined in the recipe and then went to put the cake out on the cooling rack. Only to meet with disaster.  The cake fell apart as it came out of the pan and batter oozed out everywhere.  Turns out the cake was about 60% uncooked.  I managed to scoop up the pieces with a bench scraper and put it all back into the pan and even though I knew the cake would look awful, I threw it back into the oven, knowing with the lack of leavening in the recipe that I wouldn't have to worry about it falling or anything.  An hour and a half LATER at fifty degrees over what they wanted for a cooking time and the cake was finally done and dense as a brick.  I decided to punt in the way my step mom suggested and saved the failed cake (which did taste decent) to use as trifle fodder later.

And then I returned to the kitchen, pulled out five recipes for pound cake and what I had left for ingredients and I used food science to get the job done.

So, you'll notice that this recipe contains leavening agents where traditional pound cake recipes don't.  This is because this recipe only contains two eggs where a traditional pound cake recipe gets any lift it has from lots of eggs (five or more I found).  I then boosted the leavening power by adding soured milk (you could also use buttermilk).   Don't worry the cake is still plenty dense, plenty sweet and plenty good.  It just requires a ton less eggs.  It also requires less butter than the recipes I found (and less than the first one I made), but still comes out plenty rich.

Pound Cake

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 2 eggs, room temperature
• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup buttermilk or soured milk*

Procedure:

1.  Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2.  Grease and flour a 9x5 inch loaf pan.

3.  In a medium sized mixing bowl or on some waxed paper sift together the flour, baking powder and baking soda.  Set aside.

4.  In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, salt and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.  Add eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition until smooth.

5.  Stir the flour mixture, a little at a time, into the butter mixture, alternately adding buttermilk or soured milk until everything is incorporated and the batter is smooth.

6.  Turn the batter into prepared loaf pan.  Bake 50 to 60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. 

7.  Let sit in pan on an off stove burner (or on a cooling rack) for 10 minutes.  Take a thin metal spatula or a thin bladed butter knife and run around the perimeter of the cake.  Turn out onto a cooling rack.  Let cool completely. 

8.  Once cool, take a plate and place over the bottom of the cake, pick up the cooling rack (cake and all) and invert the cake carefully onto the plate.  This will, yes, give you a cooling rack lines on the top of your cake, but it will also give you a cake that is in one single piece instead of potentially falling apart on you flipping it over before you cool it.

*To make soured milk:  Pour 1 1/2 tsp. lemon juice or vinegar into a measuring cup, then add milk to the 1/2 cup line.  Allow to sit for five minutes.

Menu Plan Monday: Menu for Week of 12/28/15

Well, due to money being super tight to the point of near panic inducing, we're going to be doing a lot of "no spend except for essentials" weeks here to try and get us through, somehow, until our tax return comes in come February.  Which, I'm PRAYING that the tax return isn't terrible this year (we made so little last year that our tax return was just sad) as I have four thousand dollars I somehow have to cough up to pay off my husband's one bill for his teeth by April or all the effort I've done to pay down said bill will be for naught.  Deferred interest charges will kick in at that point and right now it's at three thousand dollars and climbing as the interest rate for the card is high (like 27% interest).  And right now I'm just worried about making the mortgage payment and utilities for next month.  Ever feel like you're living in a perpetual state of panic?  That's me right now.

At least I was able to just put the worry aside of the holidays.  I purposefully stayed away from the computer and the worry inducing bank website and just actively decided to not give myself heart palpitations over money for the week of Christmas.  I needed a break and it actually worked out because by doing that I didn't find out how much my husband had spent on me for Christmas or where he'd bought my Christmas gift, so I was able to be surprised on Christmas when I opened his gift *laugh*.

This week I have a birthday to field, but luckily it's my own, so that makes my life a bit simpler as I don't really need princess decorations on my cake or anything ;).

It seems like I always cater to the kids on birthdays and get the same boxed cake mix my son will eat with the same chocolate Pillsbury icing he likes to go with it and my daughter loves it too, so it always just made life a bit easier.  This year, the idea of eating that makes my teeth hurt, so I decided to go a different route for my birthday cake. 

Menu Plan for Week of 12/28/15

Monday:  Leftover ham and beans (made these yesterday).

Tuesday:  Puffed pancake with fried ham and canned peaches (puffed pancakes were something my dad would make growing up sometimes...it's a Swedish thing I think.  I believe they are known as "Dutch Baby" as well).

Wednesday:  Tacos

Thursday:  Taco casserole (use leftover chips in bags in cabinets)

Friday:  Pork roast, sauerkraut, kale (sounds odd, but it's all traditions to welcome in good luck and money in the New Year...yes, I am being THAT superstitious right now)

Saturday: Pizza

Sunday:  Turkey meatball soup with spinach  

To Bake:  Pound Cake with Lemon Custard (birthday cake), bread, orange beignets (for breakfast on Saturday).  Maybe muffins for freezer.  Baking days:  Various (bread today, beignets on Saturday, etc).


Desserts:  Birthday cake, jello with whipped topping, white cranberry orange hot chocolate (recipe I'm messing with), ice cream with mint chocolate sauce (another recipe I'm messing with).

Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

You know, times like this I really wish I could transmit smells through the internet.  The house smells so good as a pot of beans with the leftover ham bone from Christmas dinner is simmering away on the stove.  My husband and I are really wanting to eat dinner *laugh*.

Well, some of the goals for last week got accomplished and some didn't. Due to us being sick I didn't get a chance to make Christmas napkins, but then my mother-in-law gave me Christmas napkins, complete with napkin rings for my Christmas gift.  So, the goal got accomplished and I didn't have to do anything.  Win win ;).  I am still tweaking the winter themed activity post, as I'm having a hard time finding winter motivation when we haven't had much snow at all, but plenty of cold weather, so it's been kind of a "meh" type of winter for fun.  I am working on it, though *laugh*.

The kids and I did watch Christmas movies and listened to Christmas music, cookies got decorated and we all had fun, so I can't really complain too much.

This week I have some things to do, for sure.  I put away the Christmas decorations yesterday and those boxes need to be hauled back out to storage this week if I can get to it and then I figured out that the Christmas throw pillows I had on the couch were the only throw pillows I have for the couch at the moment.  My son's speech therapist has been using them during therapy for different purposes, so making throw pillows is now on my "to do" list for this week.  I thought of just using the Christmas pillows and make slip covers for them, but decided against it as the pillows took a beating a bit this year and they are already looking more flat than they were at the beginning of the Christmas season.  I don't see the throw pillows lasting very long with day to day wear and tear happening on them, so I'm just going to make new instead as I can make them tougher.

So, onto the main goals for this week:

Sewing Goals:

• Make throw pillows for couch in den.  Figure out a good design for pillows to match with different decorating schemes throughout the year.
• Make new cover for trunk in den (I've been using a baby quilt as my main cover for the trunk, but it's really starting to fall apart so it's time for a back up plan) or at least work on a design for one.

General Goals:

• Check ingredients for birthday cake and make sure everything is available to make it.
• Finalize shopping goals for January.
• Make goals for January.
• Tweak winter menu plan for the month if needed.  Make a list of needed items and add to shopping goals for January.
• Deep clean children's rooms, vacuum under beds, clean out closets (I'm looking at my daughter on this one), etc.
• Catch up on laundry (this goal is sent up with a prayer that my son will let me do this without too much trouble).
• Scrub bathtubs and clean bathroom sink tops.
• Fold and store blankets in a more organized fashion (this is a challenge due to lack of linen cabinets in the house, but we need all the bedding we have, so I'm kind of trying, once again, to make a better storage system).
• Work out cleaning schedule for a week and give it a shot.  See how well it works.
• Work on grocery budget for the next couple of months.  Try to shave some off of it if possible to cover shopping goals for the month as they are needed to fill in holes in the pantry and such.
• Haul Christmas decorations out to storage for the year.

Baking/Cooking Goals:

• Work on recipe ideas and see how they turn out.  Share if they do.
• Due to changes in schedule, figure out new schedule for baking days and possibly plan on more labor intensive meals because of having more time.  Plan on baking at least one thing during the weekend so that daughter can help bake (thus getting some practice in with measuring things).
• Make granola (trying this out on my son with feeding therapy).  Find a container somewhere in the house to store it in (the hard part *laugh*).

So, there you are folks.  My goals for this week.  How about you?  What are you up to?

Frugal Friday (well Saturday): Money Saving Weekly Recap

It was another week of sickness around here this last week, unfortunately.  My daughter managed to come down with a cold the day after school let out and spread it like the plague before she got well (she's GREAT at that).  So, I had a very out of it husband during Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and I was getting cranky and depressed by the end of it due to lack of sleep and just generally being tired from fighting the cold off (which thank goodness it at least seemed to come and go quickly for me).  The husband and children loved their gifts that I made, which made me feel good.  We managed to get gifts hopefully to where they needed to be for people to get them and others had already gotten theirs, which was good.   I found out I am going to be an Aunt again.  It was a mixed bag of good and bad...although really isn't that life in general?

Anyway, when it came to saving money this week, there was some silver linings in the clouds!

1.  My friend Stephanie gave me her freebies for Fred Meyer she'd accumulated over the last couple Freebie Fridays (one of which is seen above).  I'd missed the Mentos gum coupon because I was busy, so it was a nice boon being able to get those (thanks, Stephanie!).  I also was able to get two free cans of Sheba cat food, one with the E-Coupon and one with a coupon on the actual can letting you try one for free.  One of my cats likes said cat food, the other one doesn't.  Since the one who doesn't like it is the one who is the size of a aircraft carrier, I'm not too upset that she doesn't want to eat it and leave it for our light weight and scrawny-in-comparison feline *laugh*.

2.  Rifftrax.com sent us an e-mail Christmas Eve and gifted us a free 10.00 credit, no strings attached to use on the site, the only catch was that you had to use it before 12/31.  We love Rifftrax around here so we were thrilled with the gift.  We used it to get enough .99 shorts to fill up two DVD's worth of laughs for us.  This, by far, was one of the coolest gifts I've gotten as a holiday freebie from anywhere, so it was definitely a high point of the week.

3.  I got my latest Smiley 360 mission coupons and went to the store to get some free chocolate covered pretzels.  While my son won't be able to have them (peanut cross contamination), the rest of us still ate a few out of one bag and then I'm planning to save the other bag for later in case of party needs or if something else comes along where they will be useful with my daughter or husband.

4.  My mother-in-law gave me a giftcard to Fred Meyer for my birthday.  She sent it to me early, which worked out well.  I used the giftcard to buy some last minute groceries while my son was in OT earlier in the week.  I was even able to get some enchilada sauce on reduced for .99 for big cans (one of my shopping goals for next month actually) and a few other items I needed.  Walked out of the store paying 2.99 after giftcard was applied.  Not exactly a thrilling use of a giftcard, but still very much appreciated.  Thanks, Stacey!

5.  This is another one of those "saved money by not spending money" types of things.  I avoided going to the main stores today to avoid buying Christmas clearance items I don't need.  I realized that while I REALLY wanted to go and get wrapping paper on clearance that I still have plenty left in my stockpile for next year, so why waste even a few dollars going and getting more?

6.  I realized, finally, that I REALLY needed a few new pairs of jeans.  I have some Old Navy pairs that are five years old and barely holding together and just finally realized that darning them wasn't going to save them as the material was too thread bare.  So, I went to the used store today and found two nearly brand new pairs of jeans for 5.00 a pair.  That I can afford.

7.  We did go to Lowes earlier in the week and got some LED's to replace the ones that burned out in my daughter's room (the lighted garland I hung up to replace them are just regular Christmas lights) for 5.00 and some change.  I took down the Christmas decorations today (with the exception of the wreath, the swags and a few other minor items that can be left up past the new year without worries of my son beating on them too badly) and put up the new LED's in her room as she likes to have the lights to make her room fancy.  This way, if she wants her room lit up a bit, at least it won't consume too much electricity.

8.  I sat down and planned out what I want for my birthday dinner and cake this year and added it to the menu plan for next week.  I am not planning on us spending money eating out for my birthday this year as we don't have it, so I figured out what I had and and what everyone would eat.  I think I have a decent plan of action, anyway.

9.  I realized that I was going to need to get another big spool of white thread from Jo Ann Fabrics here soon as I've got some projects I have to get done and am actually running out of white thread (I was surprised to realize this, actually *laugh*).  I decided to wait until coupons came in the mail to see if there was any sales that would help me save some money on the purchase.  The "save 50% off regular priced thread or buttons TOTAL purchase coupon" will definitely come in handy next week!

10.  Since the kids are on break, we've been staying home a lot lately, which is not only saving me money by keeping me out of the stores, but also is saving us money by us not consuming gas.  We do end up taking drives to keep my son from going too stir crazy, but we have tried to keep them relatively short, but entertaining.

For instance we went to a local neighborhood twice last week to see the Christmas light displays.  This neighborhood goes ALL OUT for Christmas complete with airing their own radio station with Christmas carols and the houses all of have lights set to timers to play in time with the music.  It's super impressive to watch and the kids had a blast watching all of the lights.  And it was free with the exception of the gas.

We also went to Sears and just walked through their Christmas section.  This up till now has been a really fun trip for my daughter as she always loved the light up motorized animals and stuff they'd have in their mini "Christmas village" area.  Unfortunately, Sears didn't have any of those things set up this year, so my daughter was a bit bummed out, but she did have fun looking at their Christmas section anyway...it was just a much shorter trip than in previous years.  Lowes made up for it though with the giant inflatable Christmas things they had set up.  We were a bit perplexed by the giant "Billy the Singing Big Mouthed Bass" with the Santa hat on, but whatever floats people's boats I guess *laugh*.

11.  I did end up having my husband pick up something for dinner a few times this last week as we were baking cookies and cleaning and such, but we made sure that we kept the purchases smart and down on a decent monetary level so that they would keep us within our weekly grocery budget.  And because we spent the money smart the purchases we made will last a few more meals for us for over the Christmas break.

12.  My son's speech therapist finally got the assisted technology she'd been waiting for in the mail Christmas Eve and came over today to start my son on his assisted technology evaluation.  Once this is done she'll be able to write up the grant paperwork to turn into his insurance and we should be able to get a dedicated device to help him communicate for free with the program he's training on installed on it.  It's been a long hard road to get this evaluation done for him (we've been hammering on the schools to get this done since he was three), so to finally be looking at him being able to train to communicate better...it gets me teary eyed, honestly.

13.  My brother sent us his usual gift card for Christmas this year (and I don't mean "usual" as a bad thing as I request one every year :) and per usual he was way more generous than I feel I deserve with it.  I used it to buy computer devices for both my son (back up communication device in case something should happen to the dedicated device once he has it) and for me (as my laptop crashes and freezes pretty much constantly).  I would have loved to have saved the giftcard for food items, but a back up "voice" for my son?  Is about as important to me as breathing right now. 

And there you are folks.  My money saving attempts in a nutshell this week.  How did you do?

Shortbread

So, say you are reading this blog on Christmas Eve because you are desperate to find a simple, cost effective and tasty home made cookie recipe for a get together or just for family snacking tomorrow. Well, here you go folks. You can't get simpler than Scottish Shortbread. Three ingredients total, this recipe takes no time to put together. Takes a bit more time than a normal cookie recipe to bake, but worth it.

And if you want to make it really fancy? Dip one half of each cookie wedge in chocolate. You're welcome ;).

Shortbread 

Ingredients:

• 1 cup butter, softened (2 sticks)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, sifted

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Beat butter and sugar until creamy and smooth. Traditionally you work the flour in with a wooden spoon until it's all incorporated and you have a stiff dough. I just dump the flour on top of the butter and sugar mixture in my stand mixer and mix until combined and the dough comes together.

3. Divide dough into three parts. Working with one part at a time roll out to about a 5-inch circle on a ungreased baking sheet (I just use parchment paper to make life easier). Score dough with a knife lightly into wedges (think making mini pizzas here). These are just marking lines, so don't cut through the dough, just mark the top of the dough with the knife. Then take the tines of a fork and pierce through the dough all the way through along the score lines. This will make break lines for your cookies later on after they are baked.

4. Take the tines of the fork and press into the edges of the circles all the way around to make a decorative look to the cookies and then lightly pierce the dough with the tines of the fork at random on top of the circles (once again, this is decorative).

5. Bake at 325 degrees for 25 minutes or until cookies are faintly golden brown (they are going to be really pale looking...I overcooked mine because I forgot to set my timer...oops).

6. Remove from oven and let sit for about 5 to 10 minutes to set a little bit and then move to a wire rack or a towel to cool. While still warm, if you desire, break cookies along the score lines and then move individual cookies to racks or to a towel to cool.

Honestly, I like to leave mine in the cool looking circle and just break them when they are cold. If you want a nice straight line, take a knife and line it up with your score lines and press as you break the cookie with your other hand.

Store in covered containers. I've managed to keep these for a few weeks without them going stale on me, but they've never lasted longer than that.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope you all have a GREAT holiday!

Pepparkakor (Swedish Spice Cookies)

When it comes to family traditions growing up, my family had a few of them.  Some of them I've held onto and this is one of them.

I've had gingerbread cookies over the years, but nothing beats Pepparkakor like this recipe that was passed onto my mom by my dad's mom when the two of them married.  My grandmother's parents were fresh off the boat from Sweden and raised my grandmother in their traditions and because of that my dad was raised with a lot of Swedish traditions (for instance, in my family we always opened gifts on Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day).  One of those traditions was Pepparkakor at Christmas. 

Consider these cookies like gingerbread.  But so much more flavorful.  I love to eat these without any frosting on them at all normally and I dip them in milk or coffee (I put frosting on them this year though to appeal more to my husband's pallet and also to give my daughter sprinkles duty as putting sprinkles on cookies is important at Christmas and we painted the other cookies, so I had a gap to fill).

Note that these cookies contain cardamom.  Cardamom is really expensive to buy, but if you don't have any in your cabinets (I've used the same jar for years, honestly and even though it's a lot less potent than it used to be, it still works for me), feel free to use nutmeg instead.  It won't taste quite the same, but it'll get the job done.

Also, this recipe makes a REALLY soft dough, so refrigerating before making the cookies is definitely recommended.  I tend to put it in the fridge the night before I'm set to bake them and let it set up good and hard before I roll.  You can do it without refrigerating first, but it's a lot harder to get the dough to not fall apart on you.

Pepparkakor  (Swedish Spice Cookies)

Ingredients:

• 1 2/3 cups AP flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3/4 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground cardamom (or nutmeg)
• 6 TBS butter or margarine (3/4 of a stick)
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 tsp. grated orange peel (fresh is best)

Procedure:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  Sift the flour, soda, salt,  ginger, cinnamon, cloves and cardamom into one bowl or onto waxed paper.

3.  Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  Beat in molasses and orange peel.  Stir in flour mixture 1/3 at a time, blending well to make a stiff dough.  Refrigerate for several hours or overnight until stiff enough to roll.

4.  Roll out dough to 1/8 inch thickness.  Cut out cookies and place 1" apart on a lightly greased baking sheet (I just use parchment paper instead).  Bake in 350 degree oven for 7 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned on the edges (it's hard to see because the dough is so dark, but I usually pull them at 10 minutes with my oven and call it good).  Remove to a towel or rack to cool completely. 

Top with your favorite frosting, if you so desire.