About Food

I seem to discuss eating and food quite a bit with family and friends.  

It seems that everyone wants to eat healthier and more frugally.  

I'm writing this stuff out because I want to share it with you and family and friends.  

This is a compilation of things I have learned over the years and have implemented into our life.  

There is a LOT of information out there, but I've tried to sift through it and find facts and focus on what we believe.  

We tend to believe that whole food and real stuff is better than processed or low-fat.  

I've also spent a lot of time figuring out how to make the most of our dollar.  We live on a single income and we feed a family of four and try to do it as healthy as possible.

I'm not writing this to make myself sound great or like such a good mother.  Or even to tell you that you should do these things.  

I just want to share what we are doing and maybe you can get some ideas for your family.

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What we are doing to eat healthier-

• We are eating more whole foods.  Now, we are by no means going paleo, I love my breads and pastas! We are eating lots of fruits and vegetables.  Right now, because it is summer, there are a lot of our favorites "in season."  During the winter months, we eat a lot of fresh broccoli and carrots and many frozen veggies.  
• We cook at home most of the time.  I like to know what is in my food and what I'm eating.  I've done a lot of research over the past several years about food, and it can be alarming what you read.  I've tried to make changes here and there to eat as healthy as we possible can.
• Not only do we cook at home most of the time, I make more things from scratch.  This goes back to knowing what is in my food and knowing that it is healthier.  Also, most times, it tastes better!
• I worry about processed foods, but I also worry about chemicals/pesticides on my fruits and hormones and antibiotics in my meat.  
• I still buy commercial fruit, but I wash it very thoroughly.
• I try to incorporate vegetarian meals into our weekly plan.  Some of ours are: purple hull peas and cornbread, tortellini and white sauce, bean burritos, pasta primavera, and vegetable soup.
•  We eat very little beef these days.  We usually only buy ground beef when we are making burgers.  We do buy steak on occasion to grill.  For most recipes that call for ground beef, we use ground pork.  We had used ground turkey in the past for lower fat content, but I found the difference was not very substantial.  Also, growth hormones are not permitted to be used in pork.  Hallelujah! I know when I buy ground pork that it at least does not have the extra hormones in it.  The same can not be said for most chicken/beef that you buy.
• When buying chicken, I look for packages that specifically say "no antibiotics or growth hormones."
• We eat a lot of tilapia.  I try to have fish on the menu once a week.  Between fish and vegetarian meals, it reduces our dependence on meals with meat in them.  I buy a big bag of frozen tilapia from Walmart.  I'm not 100% sure of it's origin and what chemicals may be in it, so that is one thing I need to do some research on.  Other fish choices we do are: meals with shrimp, salmon cakes, pan fried salmon or a meal with tuna in it.
• When buying deli meat, I have began buying Hormel Natural Choice deli meat.  It does not contain preservatives, no nitrates or nitrites added(these are thought to be cancer"ish"), no artificial ingredients, minimally processed, no msg added, raised withough added hormones, gluten free, AND I think it tastes better than the other deli meat!
• We do have some processed foods in our pantry, but I have noticed that they sit in there for a pretty long time! We just do not eat them as much anymore!  With all the fruits we have for snacks, we rarely eat the crackers and such.
• I also stay away from food dyes and high fructose corn syrup.  I know there is conflicting studies about whether food dye is harmful or not, but I am trying to limit the amount of chemicals that my children ingest.  So, I will err on the side of my preference.  My kids always want cereal that is sugary and has food dye, but I rarely buy it.  They usually get Honey Nut Spins, which is Walmart's version of Honey Nut Cheerios.  As far as high fructose corn syrup, that stuff is in so many things!  Thankfully, many companies are realizing that we don't want to eat that kind of stuff.  I have noticed a lot of products are now touting "no HFCS" and this makes me very happy.  I'll eat sugar all day long, but I don't want HFCS. 
• We buy whole milk these days.  This article explains our reasons why.  Also, I was buying our milk at Braums so I could get milk without artificial growth hormones.  I'm happy to say that Walmart's Great Value milk now states that they have pledged not treat their cows with rBST, so now, I am buying milk from there again.
• We eat full fat products like butter and mayo.  We do eat them in moderation.  I just believe that they are better for you.  They have less ingredients than the low fat versions.
• We eat eggs.  I eat a lot of eggs for breakfast.  They are chock full of good things for your body. I'm also one of those people that cannot tolerate sweet things for breakfast. It raises my blood sugar too much.  The protein in the egg levels me out and I feel so much better.
• I try to buy breads and pasta that are made with whole grains.  And to get the best effect, I buy 100% whole grain bread and pasta.

I'm gonna stop there a minute and say, I'm not a 100%, full-fledged health nut.  I still make cakes and cookies with white flour.  I have switched to unbleached flour, but it is definitely not whole wheat flour.  I did try it for a while, but it is definitely something that is hard to get used to when you have baked with regular flour all of your life.  I sometimes do a 3:1 ratio with white flour to whole wheat flour.

I also love white sugar.  I don't buy many sweetened drinks, but I do make my own sweet tea and lemonade and yes, I use white sugar!

What we are doing to eat more frugally-
I have spent a lot of time over the years trying to figure out how best to stretch our dollars.  

• I make a monthly menu for our family and then I make my grocery list from that.  I find that this helps me to not be distracted at the store to just "stock up" on unnecessary items. It helps to even make a weekly menu if a monthly one is too ambitious for you.

With that said, I do try new products, but not all the time. 

• I only use coupons if it is for a product that I already use.  I find that generic brands are often cheaper than a brand name product with a coupon.  

With that said, we buy mostly generic products.  Walmart's brand, in my opinion, is just a good, if not better than major brand products.  This has saved us TONS of money. 

• I ad match at Walmart.  I love using the Aldi ad for waaaay cheap produce prices.  You don't even have to have the ad with you to use for ad matching!

This has really helped us save money AND eat healthier!

• By cooking more at home and more whole and simple, we have saved a lot of money.
• I use the "envelope" system for our groceries and it works so well for us.  We make a family budget and have a section for groceries.  Each time we get paid, that amount goes in the envelope.  We rarely go over because I have a good idea of how much we need to eat well for our family.  AND if we have money left over at the end of the pay period, I set it aside for family fun stuff like bowling or something!

What I'm eating to help with my IBS- 

I still have a lot of trouble with stomach pain, but I am trying so hard to battle it!  There are few things that I have found that do help:

• I eat less.  If I eat large meals, I am in severe pain.  So, I just eat less.  At restaurants, Tim and I will share and entree, or I will order from the kids menu.  At home,  I just give myself very small portions.
• I have stopped drinking soda.  I have quit cold turkey because I was always bloated with a capital B.  It was so uncomfortable and painful and made me hate the way I looked.  I did not stop because of caffeine or sugar.  I still drink coffee and sweet tea for those things! I truly feel TONS better since quitting the carbonation!

How I stay organized-
I know that as busy moms, it is so easy to get off track.  These are a few things that really help me to stay organized:

• Menu planning.  I can't tell you how much this helps.  Go, do it NOW! I love having my menu planned and having shopped for the ingredients!  It makes dinner time go so much smoother!  I'm one of those people that used to start thinking about dinner right before it was time and it was so stressful.  Plus, I didn't always have on hand what I needed!
• Always have sides like frozen veggies and russet potatoes on hand.  Or even a box of instant mashed potatoes.  If I have things like this on hand, I can usually come up with a meal at the spur of the moment that is yummy and healthy and quick!
• Prep for dinner at least a few hours early if you can.  Or prep certain things on Sunday for the whole week.  If you know breakfast will be hairy, cook a bunch of pancakes up and throw them in the freezer for a quick go-to breakfast.  If you know you will need chicken for meals during the week, cook it on Sunday.  And then you can shred it and divide it up for the meals.  Cut up fruits and veggies so they are easily accessible and ready for a snack or meal.

A look at the budget

**I have so much going on in my head right now, so I'm posting this. I've had it ready to go for awhile, and hopefully it will be useful to someone out there!**

Seriously, isn't this what our government should have done a long time ago?!


And isn't funny that I am writing about budgeting right before Christmas?! Funny, no?


So, I've been wanting to write a post on this subject for a while.  I'm not sure why it has not came to fruition until now. 


In our home, I'm the budget master.  When Tim and I got married, I was 22 and he was 37.  Obviously, he had lived a lot of life before we had married.  He had a career and had paid bills.  
I had too, but it was just limited to my time living alone while in college.  


Needless to say, being a newlywed and young and someone who had been raised by a perpetual penny-pincher, I was tight with the money.  Very tight.  We started off our marriage with credit card debt and I was determined to one day pay it off.  And let me tell you, in this day and age, it is hard.  Especially if you are trying to pay off debt and you don't have any savings hardly either.


Thankfully, with Tim's job in education, he gets a raise every year.  Plus, I am blessed with a husband who has grown in his career, so his salary has grown over the years as well.  This along with my budgeting has been the secret to our success in paying off our debt.


We have definitely had our struggles besides those early years when it felt like check to check living.  My health has been a struggle.  I've had around 7 surgeries and 2 babies in the past 6 years.  Those things definitely will rack up some medical bills.  We put our house on the market in July 2009 when Tim got a new job in a new town.  It finally sold in March 2011 and that was after paying a mortgage and a rent for 9 months.  Those were some hard times people.  StressFULL.  


But we made it through.  I will tell you what has worked for us:

1. We set goals.
2. We trusted in God.
3. We made a BUDGET.  Seriously people, budgets work.

And that is mainly what I want to talk about-  If you don't have a family budget, you should. 

I have every penny we spend accounted for in our budget-  

• We have savings in our budget so that money goes straight to savings. (And that is another subject- you need savings too, you never know when you will need it).  
• I budget for our groceries and household items.  It took a couple of pay periods of figuring out how much we spend on things to come up with a good figure. 
• Gas for our vehicles, newspapers, and even stamps are in our budget along with our monthly bills! I estimate a little high on bills that fluctuate, such as electricity, to make sure there is plenty of money to spare.
• If a bill is less than normal or we have extra money left over, it goes straight into our savings.

Now, I'm not saying that we don't spend money or go out to eat or things like that- we do! I do set some aside for things that would fall into an "entertainment" category.

At present, we have paid off credit car debt and one vehicle.  Next on the list is my student loan debt.  We don't have a mortgage currently because we are still deciding where we want to live in town and when we want to buy.

We also have some big things that we are currently saving for.  I am so thrilled that we are finally to this point I have been working so hard on for the last 8 years.  

I want to be on a solid financial foundation always.  I want to teach my children about money and budgeting.  We live in such crazy economical times and we can't depend on family or government to "bail" us out.  I want to have savings for the future.  I honestly believe that we cannot depend on things like Social Security for our futures.  We have to take control and look ahead for what we will need.

The reason I wanted to write about this is because when I read posts about how others had made budgets and had success, it truly inspired me to be vigilant about ours.  If there is even one family that this post helps then it would make me so happy.  If you have any questions on what we do or how to make a budget, please email me! My contact info is in my "About Me" section at the top.

I also did a little research and found this article that breaks down in more depth about how to create your own budget.

In which my head explodes.....almost

Well, I'm glad I waited a bit before starting this post.  I had to call AT&T today and I really feared that my head was going to explode.  It has been awful.  I really don't even know who to blame.  When we moved, we called AT&T to set up service and bundle with phone, Internet and DirecTv.  That was the end of July.  Our bills from AT&T and Direct are still separate and they both always transfer me back and forth when I call.  Sometimes, they tell us it is fixed, and other times they tell us other things.  What can I do?  AT&T won't let me talk to a supervisor, they always tell me that they can have on call me.  That has yet to help the situation either.  We are at our wits end.  Now, they are saying we have an unpaid balance with Direct, but when they transfer me to Direct, they say that that is not the case but they can't bundle us because that is up to AT&T.  It is like a dog chasing its tail. 

Soooo, on to nicer things.  I have wanted to visit an Aldi store for a couple of years now, but it has never been close to where I live.  We have one 15-20 minutes up the road now.  So, this morning I visited for the first time!  I have read things about Aldi on several "frugal" blogs and I wanted to check out the prices.  They don't have as vast of selection as Walmart or a large grocery chain, but the prices are great!  Also, you have to bring your own bags to carry everything home in. 

This is what I got for $55 today....

Pretty good haul!

And...

My nephew turned 9 recently and his party was yesterday.

I remember when he loved Spiderman like this little guy does now...that's my brother holding my little guy...

Happy 9th, J!

And..........and!..........

My best friend and future sister in law found her wedding dress this weekend!!!!!!

I can't show it, but it's GORGEOUS!!!!!!!!

Can you tell she loves it?!!!!!

A (Not So) New Phenomena

$1 Toys!  We have had the greatest fun lately with these inexpensive gems.  So, go ahead, splurge on dollar toys.  I promise your kids will have a blast!