The Meal Planning Hassle {Home Life}

The never-ending necessity... It's like Laundry; you do it one day only to have to do it again the next.  It's exhausting. Especially when you have to fit it into a budget.

It makes me tired just to think about it.

What's for dinner?

If you can wing it with contents of your cabinets, freezer, and fridge then power to you! I need to have a plan. I cannot just wing it. It stresses me out.

And trying to decide what to make?! I still have issues like I talked about in this post from over a year ago. Do I cook for something I will enjoy, or something everyone else will? Granted, the family needs to eat too.

I gave up and stopped planning. What we spent on groceries pretty much doubled. We ate fast food and processed pre-packaged way more than we had been. Of course, at the time I wasn't focusing on the budget too much anyway. But, I needed to start figuring out food and lowering the expenses there because it was starting to hurt expenses in other areas.

Trello

I needed to get back to meal planning. I needed to have an easy answer for the "what's for dinner" question. So I started using the meals we were making and created a list in Trello.

As we went through the meals I would check them off so we had some variety until we ate from the whole collection and then uncheck them and start over.

It worked for a while. But I quickly grew tired of the process. I wanted to not have to be the only one making the decisions, but none of the meals sounded good to the other members of the family.

A friend had posted, on Facebook, about a freezer prep and planning site with meals to make for the month. I could fit the subscription into the budget, but the number of meals to pick from overwhelmed me, and fitting food for one month into the budget of half a month was not an option. I would have to at least go every two weeks.

Meanwhile, the question still lingered. Every day. What's for dinner.

These are the things I have started using to help alleviate the meal planning hassle recently and it's been working for the last few months.

5dinners1hour

I came across another meal prep option, in video form. The people were prepping meals in 30-45 minutes for the entire week. I watched several videos in a row and was impressed. The concept was similar, the price was the same. I decided to give it a try and if we didn't like it I would cancel the subscription.

The meals were pretty good. It was different than we were used to. But they fit into our normal (not inflated) paycheck budget. Plus we've tried new things. Things we wouldn't have even thought to attempt before! Just this weekend we had salmon. Both of us have had bad experiences with salmon. It was not something we would have thought to try. But we did, and we enjoyed it!

Even the husband was joining in on the prepping of the food! If you want to check it out, it is 5dinners1hour.com.

The question was still there. What's for dinner?

But the kids enjoy looking through the pictures and help planning the meals. They like helping do the work on prep day (we do it on Sundays). Sure it takes us longer to prep 5 dinners than an hour (we use mostly fresh ingredients), but it has been amazing.

Ibotta

I started using Ibotta again to help with the costs. Since it's a rebate program, the return is not as fast. Plus a lot of the items are pre-packaged which does not make it into our home as often. But, with snacks for the kids, cereal in the morning, toilet paper, and craft supplies it does indeed add up. I've had a few gift cards come through for Walmart, and used to buy things we needed! It's not points based but actually change. I prefer that so much more!

You can check it out through my referral code https://ibotta.com/r/vvggcw another bonus is it doesn't cost anything to sign up!

Zaycon

Have you jumped on board the Zaycon train yet? We first got some ground beef. It was amazing. The meat comes in 40lb increments, so make sure you have room! It was yummy meat.

They just had a 99 cent per pound chicken sale. I had to jump on that. When you pay regularly 1.99 per pound, 99 cents is amazing!

Check them out through my referral code: https://zayconfresh.com/refer/zf341341 
I only get credit if you buy something.

As of now, Zaycon's doors are closed. Sad as it was awesome meat.

Click List

Our local Fry's Foods (Part of the Kroger family) offers click list pick up. 

I don't use click list to order my food. I use it when I am planning to make sure I stay within budget. It keeps a running tally of the price. I can see whether items are on sale with the ad. 

Then when I am in the store I have the app on my phone and it has them listed in aisle order in the store. Perfect to make the trip go smoothly and quickly. I just go in order of the aisles as I shop! It's been life changing!

What do you do?
I'm still working on ways to keep my budget down or to stay in my budget. It's a constant learning game. What are some strategies you use to stay within your grocery budget?

Budgeting Back to School {HomeLife}

I kind of have been working on the back to school budget. Woah. Back to school what?!? It's only May!

I know. I actually worked on the budget back in February.

It was the "kinder round up" which prompted me deciding to start it then. Especially since Samara starts kindergarten in the next school year!

Our school year here in Arizona (and I am fairly certain it is most of the state) starts at the beginning of August. The district in which we live starts in the middle of July. It is a modified year-round, so our summer is shorter, but we get longer breaks.

Starting the budget for it in February gives 5 months to save up for buying the supplies, clothes and other necessities. It is easier to save earlier than to start saving later. Plus it is a bonus to plan for the cost non-sale items and have money left over.  I think after this next year I'll start saving right after the start of the year instead of only the 5 months I gave myself this year (this is all in theory anyway. I may forget! Ha!).

I'm fairly thankful our school has the supply shopping lists for each grade posted on the website. I don't know what my parents did in the time of no internet. I remember getting the shopping lists at school, was it at the end of school for the next year or at the beginning of the school year I do not remember. But I need so much more time than that to plan. It must be my type A personality. I'm just thankful I can access it anytime.

I used the list from the website and entered each item into a spreadsheet. I used google sheets because it's easy to access from my phone and computer straight from my google drive. The columns from there are the total of the item, running total to spend, what I spent per item, running total spend and the difference. Here is an example of the columns...

I did this for the optional items as well. If we can save up for those we would try, but I am not too worried about those.

To find the cost of the items, I went online and checked out Walmart, Office Max, and Target for their current cost of items. I'll be honest, some costs carried over from previous years and I didn't bother to check those. I tried to make it as up to date as I felt necessary. I'll see next year how much it changes.

I took the final tally and divided it amongst the paychecks between then and the start of the school year. And each kid has their own budget, they each get their own line.

It helps to keep up with what you spent the previous year. I did this for when my first started kindergarten as well and discovered I underbudgeted for some of his clothes. The difference for things like his backpack made up for the amount I was short (I only spent half), but I have since adjusted those overspent amounts. Tabs at the bottom help keep track of it.

This year I plan on working on keeping the kids with a capsule wardrobe (yup. love those things) to limit the number of clothes they have and so I do not need to spend too much money on things for them (and don't forget not having loads of laundry). Luckily, for now, they still have shirts that fit. Pants, shorts, and undergarments will be the biggest expenditure for clothes.

I'm excited. I love shopping for school supplies and new clothes.

I'm sure the way I do it is either harder than it has to be or too simple.

How do you budget for the school year?

Getting back on Track with Cleaning {Home Life}

You know those mornings you wake up and enter the main living area of your house and it is spotless? No? Me neither.

I wake up in the master bedroom to a disaster (still). The rest of the house just seems to follow suit, though it is not nearly as bad as the bedroom.

Things sort of fell to the wayside after fall break from school. I have been playing catch up since. But in all honesty it really hasn't been too bad.

Yes:
~The kids have way more clothes than they can wear in 2 weeks (forget trying to wash that many clothes).
~I have way more clothes than I need (and thankfull I don't wear them all, laundry would be aweful)!
~The kids have toys they haven't played with since being babies, and yet those still get scattered around the house.

About a year ago I took a free challenge (sent over email) with Kendra Hennessy over at Mother Like a Boss called the Reluctant Homemaker Boot Camp. She now has it as a paid course. It makes me sad as I wish I could go through it again. (I am not recieving anything for this post. no affiliate, no free courses, this is not an advertisement)

It was amazing. I needed it like a kick in the butt to get me up and doing things after my mother-in-law passed away to be able to even try to stay on top of things. We were the 'wait until a big even at the house before we started cleaning' type cleaners. The thing that helped me the most was establishing a simple cleaning schedule for the week. Not icluding yearly or monthly tasks, just what needed to get done during the week. Forgetting all those printables you can find off pinterest. My schedule was tailored for me.

I had a friend visit a few weeks after implementing my schedule and she had even complemented on the cleanliness of my house (I had no idea how bad it was before, aparently.)

Anywho. I wrote down all the areas I needed to clean during the week. Only things I needed to do, not necessarily the kids. And I didn't manage to fit in the master bedroom which is probably why it is still a clutter disaster! Hey now, I have gotten rid of quite a bit of stuff! Work-in-progress....

I picked days that would be easiest to clean those areas, and restricted myself to 30 minutes (some weeks it was more some it was less). I was cleaning the baseboards just to find something to clean for my designated 30 minutes that week. When it starts out not a grimey mess, it takes less time to clean! (mind blown moment for me! Yay aha! moments! Ha!) Seriously, it was amazing the difference!

I even had laundry days devoted to each person in the house (except husband, he is in charge of his own laundry). I had cleaned off the top of the dryer during my laundry room cleaning day (it also houses the cat box) and was able to start using the top of the dryer for my laundry station.

My house wasn't spotless. Don't get me wrong. But it was much nicer than the mess it was before.

And, then I stopped for a while. And my house became the disaster area it was before I started.

But, we are getting back on track! I'm jumping back on the cleaning schedule train and it has made such a big difference in my house! This (coupled with other things) has actually saved me a bit of time during the day so I can do things I would rather do (like writing this stuff for you!) and sewing, and working on decluttering my craft/office space!

I don't have a multi-level house. It's not a super huge house (but not super tiny either). That said I want to share with you what I do for my areas. (Not that it is necessary for you, you have a completely different life in a different house!)

The areas I wrote down and decided I needed to focus on for my family:

Living areas - More specifically, the carpet. Lets face it. Kids and carpet do not mix well. Add to it we live in an area surrounded by dirt! I should vacuum more than once a week. But I vacuum once a week. The kids have to make sure all their stuff is picked up by the time we reach vacuum day or it's getting tossed.

The kids bathroom, Master bathroom. Everything that goes with cleaning a bathroom. And, I only have one little boy! I focus on each bathroom on a different day. As time passes I might start combining these two.

Kitchen - wiping down the dining table, washing placemats, sweeping and mopping the floor, and the stove, declutter counters, clean out uneaten food from the fridge. I try to sweep every evening. For several years (excpet last year when I was keeping up with the schedule) we had ants invade our kitchen around the start of our monsoon season. I try to do dishes every night too. If there is room in the washer I will fill it with the spoon rest and coffee pot. After it finishes running I open it and leave it open to dry more and will put it away while the kids eat breakfast. I also wanted this as close to trash day for yucky food coming out of the fridge so it wouldn't sit in the bin too long.

Laundry Room - why is it that clothes and towels always seem to pile up in here? I will do an extra load if necessary or move those things to their proper hampers. I focus on the floor with sweeping and mopping. Our a/c and heater intake is in this room so I will dust around it and make sure the filter is ok. I also clean the cat box and make sure the cat's bowls are clean. It's not a big room. More like a hot halway with wa washer and dryer included. I wanted this one closest to trash pick up for the cat box reasons.

I divided these amongst the weekdays, since the weekends are super busy.

Monday - Vaccuum (main living spaces and kids rooms)
Tuesday - Kids bathroom
Wednesday - kitchen
Thursday - Laundry room
Friday - master bath (trash day)

Next I fit in the laundry. There was nothing specific to it. It's just the way it fell and the way it stayed.

Monday - N
Tuesday - S
Wednesday - K
Thursday - Me
Friday - Towels
Saturday - Sheets

It's taken us a few weeks to get back into the habit of keeping things off the floor for the vacuuming day and getting caught up with the buildup from the last 6 months. But, it has started to feel decently livable and comfortable. And I am not spending all day playing catch up cleaning. I am limiting myself to 30 minutes so I can do other things. If it's not done I will come ack to it next week. And I am getting better at putting things away instead of leaving them out so I don't have to waste time on that when I spend the time cleaning.

This, coupled with meal prepping on Sunday (I will talk about that later), has made a huge difference in the amount of time I have during the week. I am still learning, but it has been great!

When do you do your cleaning? Were you like our "before", did you clean it when it looked dirty, or do you have more of a schedule?