Sunday Supper: Pumpkin Pancakes

July 10th, 2006
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I am sorry that the Sunday Supper section is coming to you on Monday. We have had a busy weekend with our son’s birthday party, my mom’s birthday party, and then a day trip to the beach. My husband is off of work for the week so we are enjoying some family time. This is also going to be the perfect time to accomplish some of those looming household projects (that never seem to get done).

Tuesday is grocery day, for our family, so this Sunday I relied heavily upon my pantry. I love recipes that are made of pantry ingredients and these pumpkin pancakes really fit the bill. I have them pictured here on my latest Goodwill purchase. A beautiful china plate (with a matching serving bowl) for only a quarter each! These pancakes were enjoyed by the ENTIRE family, including our seven month old daughter. We ate them outside and let the kids go to town with the syrup. Eating outside gave my son the opportunity to run around in the sprinklers and get all of that sticky syrup off of him.

I hope your family will enjoy these as much as we do. I prepared these with nonfat vanilla yogurt and made a batch of powdered milk so we wouldn’t have to use up our gallon of milk. I have recently added a pitcher of this to our fridge after reading about the benefits of it on Hillbilly Housewife and using the milk so often for our Magic Milkshakes. I highly recommend keeping a batch of this on hand in your house. I use this for all of our smoothies, shakes, and anything that needs milk as an ingredient. No one has complained yet and I honestly can’t tell a difference in taste.

Enjoy!

Sunday Brunch: Pumpkin Pancakes

Ingredients
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, ¾ cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, 3 eggs, 1 cup sour cream, 3/4 cup milk, 1 cup pumpkin, canned

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda and spices. In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, adding yogurt, milk and pumpkin puree. Mix well. Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and stir until just blended. Spoon the batter onto a preheated, oiled griddle, using 1/4 cup batter for each pancake. Cook pancakes slowly over a low-medium heat for approximately 4-6 minutes, flipping after 3 minutes.

Makes eight servings.

**If you want a really sweet pancake, substitute the cup of sour cream for one cup of French vanilla yogurt and decrease the sugar to a ½ cup.**

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Friday Freebie: Freely Treating Yourself

July 7th, 2006

Today is our son’s fourth birthday! It is hard to believe that he is already that old, but time with him is passing so quickly. Since we are having a day of celebration, I will keep this post brief.

I think, as moms, we just don’t treat ourselves enough. Worse yet, we feel guilty about it. Sometimes I just feel like I am on overload with guilt- guilt from not keeping up with things around the house, guilt as the laundry mounts, guilt for not spending as much time as I would like with family…Just a big ugly dose of guilt. It is sad that we put this on ourselves and we need to realize that moms are human just like everyone else. Maybe I stand alone in this guilt, but I just had to mention why I think it is important for women to give themselves a break from it.

Every Friday, I have been trying to treat myself in some small (and free) way. Friday doesn’t have to be your day, it is just the day that I enjoy & look forward to the most. Here are some examples of things that I indulge in on Fridays:

1. Official Foot Soak Friday day. I purchased (a brand new boxed) Conair foot spa for my feet from a yard sale that I went to (only $5). Since I got this, Friday has been my official day for soaking my feet. I fill it up with water and soak my feet while I read a library book. A girlfriend suggested maybe adding powdered milk to the foot soak bath, to help soften the skin, so I am going to give that idea a try today. You don’t need a fancy foot spa for feet soaking- a dish tub works just as good and achieves the same results.

2. A long soak in the tub, with a glass of wine, and a magazine that helps me to escape (celebrity magazines always go over really well). I fill the tub with bath oil and just unwind.

3. Good music & a cup of homemade hot chai tea.

4. If I can get out of the house for the evening, I love to go to Barnes and Noble and just look at the books & magazines. I bring a small notebook and just write down the books that I really would like to read. This goes into my Wish List or I hit the library and pick them up there.

5. A movie- and this one is just for me! Lifetime movies on television or I pick a good chick flick up at the library.

Please feel free to share things that you do for yourself- it will help inspire me (and hopefully you) to be good to yourself!

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Works-For-Me-Wednesday: Giving the Gift of Magazines (Frugally)

July 5th, 2006

Welcome to this week’s edition of Works-For-Me-Wendesday. Swing by Shannon’s blog for more great ideas (and I mean More with a capital “M”) for you & your family!

This week I am going to clue you into giving another frugal gift. For each holiday & birthday, I try and get someone a gift subscription to a magazine. Do I purchase these gift subscriptions from those handy little slips in the magazine? Of course not! Those prices are ridiculous! Instead, I make most of my magazine subscription purchases off of Ebay. Ebay, you say? Why, yes! Ebay has dirt cheap subscriptions and I think magazine subscriptions are the perfect gift. They get a whole year’s worth of magazines and you get these magazines for little to no money. For example, I got someone in my family a gift subscription for three years for only $3.97. This magazine retailed for $14.97 per year. This person was *super* happy and I was *super* happy because I didn’t spend an arm and a leg buying them a gift.

Just a couple of little helpful hints about purchasing magazines through Ebay. First, make sure you include the gift recipient’s address. Don’t forget to include this (I usually include this in the notes section or however the listing descibes I should include this information) or the magazine will come to you (and that would be so silly!). Also, make sure that you read the reviews of the seller. Don’t buy from someone who has lots of negative feedback or from someone that has no feedback. You want a Power Seller or someone who is known for providing services as described and who has gotten rave reviews from their buyer. Finally, make sure that there is no shipping and handling on the magazine. For example, I was buying a gift for someone and the subscription price said $1.99 for a year’s worth of O! Magazine. What a great deal, right? Wrong! The seller wanted $19.97 for shipping the magazines. What a rip off!

Some of the more obscure publications are not available, but the basics are usually easy to find. Just search under the magazine name!

If you don’t want to pay for magazines at all, read my blog entry on getting free magazines (or this other entry that includes some more great information). What am I getting for free right now? Spin, Interview, Family Fun, & Antiques magazine. How cool is that?

If you are new to the world of The Motherload, be sure to visit my past WFMW entries for even more great ideas!

Solution for Cheap Trash Bags
Programming Your Cell Phone
Free Up Pantry Space: Make a Snack
Weeding Through Your Child’s Art Work Creatively
Using the Coffee Maker With Ease
Making Your Spice Rack Usable
Maximizing Space

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Fireworks Galore

July 5th, 2006

Were the fireworks crazy where you live? I decided to hit Walmart last night (because all of their perennials were marked down so low that it was nuts!) and when I got home the sounds were deafening. I brought my husband out, to show him the plants I got for a mere three dollars, and we noticed some weird black things buzzing by. What were they, you might ask? Why, they were bats! Bats by the dozens, swooping so low to the ground that they were almost touching the grass. I have only seen more bats than that at the zoo, and they were confined within glass. I was so freaked out that I ran into the house, and made my poor hubby drag all of the plants in, because I was afraid they were going to attack me. We figured that the sounds were throwing them off, as much as it was throwing off the rest of our family. Know what makes for good quality family entertainment that doesn’t even cost you a dime? Why, watching numerous crazy bats flying down to the ground at six zillion miles per hour. How was ya’lls evening?

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My First Purchase (Using Ebates)

July 5th, 2006

In May, I blogged about using the Ebates Rewards program to get cash back on your purchases. When you join the program, you automatically get five dollars (upon making your first purchase). I had the opportunity to finally activate my membership (and get my five bucks) because my mother’s birthday is coming up (Note: Mom if for some reason you are reading my blog, please stop here or you will find out what your gift is).

In past entries I have discussed my single cup coffee maker. I have had some mixed feelings about the coffee maker. My husband got me it as a gift (because I make REALLY bad coffee!) and it is really great, but the pods are so dang expensive. As soon as I got it, I looked up how to make my own pods, but the process was a little too extensive (even for this frugal diva!) I then decided to purchase a MyPod, which is a great idea, but was somehow horribly flawed. It resulted in an overflowing cup of coffee that was one part coffee to ten parts water. I then tried to remedy this by only putting enough water in to just make one cup, but then this resulted in sputtering and explosives coming from the coffee maker. Then my coffee maker was just plain not working, then I called Senseo to complain (customer service, in short, said that it would be weeks or months before I would actually get a new unit). Then the dang thing started working again….but the pods are too expensive.

Any-who, I decided to look into some less expensive options that would work for the coffee-impaired. I read that the French Press is the way to go if you want a good cup of coffee, with minimal effort (or hopefully brains!) I figured I could use one of these ,and still use my single cup coffee maker, to save on the cost of the pods.

My mother is a big tea drinker and she works during the day so I ran across this travel French Press that you could use while you are on the road. Isn’t it so *cute*? I decided to get her one and one for myself (read above paragraph about why I truly deserve this or some of my past entries on some rough times with the kids, in case you thought the coffee incident wasn’t enough, which it was!). Because I downloaded that little Moe Money dude (I think he is a former rapper?), that told me that there was a fifteen percent discount for first time customers of HSN (use coupon code: C56574 exp 08/31/2006), that there was an Ebates two percent cash back discount, and I also pocketed my five dollars (from initially setting up the account). How cool is that? The cost worked out to be $19.03 (per mug), which included the shipping and handling for each of them! Not too shabby!

This will be my official Christmas gift, if it turns out to be a hit, for all of the coffee drinkers in my life!

My Ebates account has already been credited and I am looking forward to my Big Fat Check! Whoohooo!

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Festivals & Carnivals

July 5th, 2006

This week in Festivals & Carnivals….

The Carnival of Debt Reduction (#42) is up at Blogging Away Debt. Our Solutions for Cheap Trash Bags was included this week.

The Carnival of Family Life (#8) is back in its hometown at The Pink Diary. Our blog entry on Simon Mall’s Kidgits Program was included this week.

Raising 4 Boys hosted the Carnival of Personal Finance #55 (which was no small task given the holiday weekend). Included within this carnival of finance was our Sam’s Club Review (if you haven’t read it- it truly is a must read!)

The Festival of Frugality took a vacation this week and will be back, in full force, next week.

This week’s good reads….

Pragmatic Finance has a great blog entry on Discover Cards current rewards. Most notably, for parents, is the five percent back on tuition costs (including preschool!).

Supermom in NY has three tips for people trying to get themselves out of debt. She has a particularly useful one on utilizing money orders for people who are not cash savvy.

Tired but Happy has a great blog entry on the public school systems. She is exploring charter schools (just like our family!) and offers some great options for parents when choosing the public schools.

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Monday WAHM Spotlight: Tupperware

July 3rd, 2006

Thanks to Katrina for being part of our Monday WAHM for MomAdvice.com. We wish her much success in her business and with her family.If you are interested in being featured, we will be selecting a mom for each Monday of my blog. You can read more and apply. Email confirmations are sent to each mom if they are chosen. I still have many people to reply to on these so please be patient waiting for my reply. I promise to get back to you guys soon! Also remember to do your own research on these companies. If there are obvious red flags on BBB, I do not post them. Check my scam article to find out more about the potential dangers of work-at-home businesses.Thank you to Katrina and her WAHM business, Tupperware, for taking the time to apply and be a part of my Monday feature!

Name: Katrina Sailers

City/State: Lone Tree, CO

Name of Company: Tupperware

Two or Three Sentences About Your Company:

Tupperware is a well established direct sales company. This month we are celebrating 60 years of our amazing home party. Tupperware offers kitchen and cooking solutions to help you save time, money and space with our new innovative and traditional products.

Two Tips for Moms Trying to Work-At-Home (these tips can be how you stay organized, how to be successful, how to get started- anything that you feel would help someone just starting out):

My first tip would be to find a company and product that you have passion for and can be excited about. This will help you stay motivated when the hard times come.

My second tip would be to set up business hours for yourself, as if you were going to an office. This will help you stay focused and flexible within your family’s schedule.

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Sunday Supper: To Die For Pot Roast

July 2nd, 2006

I am running out of ideas for polls (which I usually do on Sunday) so I thought that I would share what is on our dinner table each Sunday. This will hopefully give you some ideas for your own dinner table, and it will be fun for me to share my endless supply of recipes.

This Sunday we dined on, “To Die For Pot Roast.” I think I ran across this recipe on Recipezaar and it has been making a regular appearance at our house ever since. This roast is delicious- it is juicy and it makes an amazing gravy, which I pour on top of a mound of mashed potatoes.

When looking for a roast, I just use the cheapest cut of meat available at the store (whatever is on sale or chuck roast) and it turns out perfect ever single time. Slow cookers are great at tenderizing tough cuts of meat. Still too tough? Cook the heck out of it for another two hours and it will be falling apart.

We dined on this roast, mashed potatoes, & sweet baby peas. Our dessert was a slice of the Starbucks Banana Pound Cake. The perfect ending to a yummy dinner!

Just a note, this recipe was included in my One Month of Slow Cooking article. If you are looking for a way to keep your kitchen cool this summer, those thirty recipes will certainly help!

To Die For Pot Roast
Serves Eight

Ingredients:
1 beef roast – any kind
1 package dried brown gravy mix
1 package dried Italian salad dressing mix
1 package dried ranch dressing mix
1 cup water

Place beef roast in slow cooker. Mix the dried mixes together in a bowl and sprinkle over the roast. Pour the water around the roast. Cook on low for seven to nine hours.

Nutritional facts per serving (daily value):
Calories 441cal, Protein 28g, Total Fat 31g, Sat.4g, Chol.104mg, Carb. 10g

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Cheap Baby-Making

July 1st, 2006

Yes, I realize that some people can make babies for FREE (lucky folks!), but there are those of us out there that have a harder time getting pregnant.

With my son, we had absolutely no problems getting pregnant. He came exactly when we wanted and there was no stress associated with getting pregnant. Getting pregnant with baby #2 was much harder than I could have ever anticipated. We tried for two years to get pregnant and God had a much different timeline then we could have ever imagined. During that time I tried everything (other than any invasive fertility treatments) under the sun to get pregnant. I was desperate to get pregnant and was open to just about anything to achieve it.

I wanted to share with you ladies, a couple of resources that I found to be invaluable during this time, and how we finally ended up getting pregnant with our daughter.

Fertility Friend is a GREAT website and was just what I needed to figure out exactly when was the optimal time to try. A girlfriend had suggested it to me and since then I have been telling anyone & everyone about this site. It is a free service (you can, of course, pay for extra membership goodies) where you can chart everything into one place. The chart then will highlight the days that you should try, based on the information you have put in it, and it helps you to actually try when the trying is good…so to speak! Thanks to my girlfriend, Xtina, for sharing this information with me!

If you are a habitual tester, you will find this website to be of great value. Save On Tests is a great discount spot to get your ovulation & pregnancy tests. Purchasing these tests (even the Walmart off-brand) was becoming w-a-y too expensive. I decided to look into finding another resource for these tests. Save On Tests just sells the strips and they offer great inexpensive package deals that can really help save you a lot of money. For example, 25 ovulation test strips is only $10.25! That is such a bargain! They also offer ovulation & pregnancy tests in one package deal. These are so much more affordable than anywhere else and you will feel a little less guilty testing so often if you aren’t paying an arm & a leg for your tests. Just a note, the packages that are the cheapest are JUST the strips. You are not paying for the little plastic thingiemabobs that they come in. It does not make it any less effective, just a little messier. They do offer the plastic test cassettes, but you do have to pay a little more to get those.

Finally, investing in a copy of, “Taking Charge of Your Fertility,” will help you greatly in trying to achieve pregnancy. This book is, what I have termed as, the fertility bible. It has information in it about how your body works and understanding the signs and timing of ovulation in women. I highly recommend this book to any woman (not just those who are trying) because it can help you in NOT getting pregnant too.

A lot can be said for simply sitting back and waiting for God’s timing. Was God’s timing good for us, after waiting this long for a baby? Yes! Would our timing have been quite as good? Probably not! Even though, God had wonderful timing, it did help me to feel more proactive, in our situation, having these tools at my disposal as we were trying to get pregnant.

Yes, I know what you are thinking! The answer is yes. I really am that frugal!

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Friday Freebie: Simon Mall Kidgits Program

June 30th, 2006

Today I wanted to discuss the Simon Mall Kidgits program. If you have a Simon Mall, this is definitely a program to take advantage of. For a mere five dollars you receive a child’s t-shirt, family-friendly & money-saving coupons from mall retailers, birthday club & gift redemption for kids, a mailed newsletter publication with games & educational elements, & other membership exclusives. Each mall offers something different (as do their retailers), but I will share with you what we receive each month for our five dollar membership.

Each month, we head to the customer service desk and pick up that month’s worth of coupons. In our packet is a free Chickfila kid’s meal & a 1/4 pound of jelly beans from the South Bend Chocolate Factory. We take these coupons and get our son’s meal with them (he eats free) and my husband and I get something to eat. After we eat that, we go pick up his jelly beans (these get hidden for a treat the next day). We then head over to our mall play area and he plays his little heart out with the other kids. On our way out, we then head over to the DQ, located within our food court, and get him his fifty cent kiddy cone. He has the best time and eats for free once a month.

In our packet are additional discounts for other retailers. There is usually a five dollar off coupon for Stride Rite (which can be used for his back-to-school shoes), a free 8×10 for the Picture People (no sitting fee), buy one pretzel get one free coupon, and twenty percent off cookies at the little cookie place. Each month they change, but I can usually expect to see these coupons pretty regularly in my packet.

You can apply to be part of this program online or request an application at the Customer Service desk at your mall. If you would like to see what coupons are offered in your area, just visit this link and it will bring up the month’s current offer.

Many thanks go to my girlfriends who finally convinced me that it really was worth five dollars a year!

If you are interested in more freebies, please visit the following links for even more great offers!

Free Samples
Free Money
Starbucks Coffee
Baby Freebies
Free Baby Goodies

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