Do you ever feel discouraged or bored on your frugal journey? I do sometimes. For this reason, I love reading roundups of frugal activities. They inspire me with new ideas to save money and keep me on the path. Sharing them with you also keeps me accountable, so thanks for reading! This post contains affiliate […]
30 Days of Beans
I love a good monthlong challenge and have done quite a few through the years. For the next month, I’m going to do 30 days of beans – eating some type of legume as my protein source for at least one meal each day. A month is just long enough to establish new habits, but […]
Eat the Freezer Challenge
When my small (apartment-sized even though I live in a large house with a ton of people) freezer looks like this, it’s time for an eat the freezer challenge. Not only can I get my freezer cleaned out, but I can save some money on groceries this week too. One of the ways I’ve been […]
My solution (for now) to avoiding food waste
Recently I shared that we’ve been wasting far too much food around here. Groceries are my second-biggest monthly expense (after my mortgage). Therefore, avoiding food waste is one of the fastest ways a family can save money. I sat my two oldest still-at-home kiddos (19 and 17) down and asked them to help me brainstorm […]
Recent frugal wins (and fails)
First, the frugal fail! Recently I’ve been guilty of throwing away too much food. (The horror!) Food waste, according to this study from Penn State, costs the average American family $1,866 annually. Ouch. I needed to get a handle on this, quickly. For a few weeks after we moved into the new house, I had […]
Meal Plan Monday
Because food is my biggest expense after housing, meal planning has been an important frugal habit. In order to keep myself accountable for meal planning and hopefully share some family friendly, frugal and fast (my ”name what matters” in Lazy Genius parlance) meals, I’ll start posting Meal Plan Monday each week. I have the day […]
Misfits Market Review (and a coupon code)
Are you a fan of grocery delivery services? I’ve been using InstaCart for years and love it. I’ve also experimented with another: Misfits. Here’s my Misfits market review, along with a coupon code for you to use if you’d like to try it. What is Misfits market? Misfits Market offers seasonal, organic produce and claims […]
Diet Cult(ure): Why I Stopped Doing Trim Healthy Mama
Preview: Why I stopped doing the Trim Healthy Mama diet after successfully losing weight on the plan. Ask a mother what her favorite smell is, and she’d likely answer as I do: newborn baby. What parent hasn’t sunk their nose into the soft fat folds of their baby’s neck or their downy soft hair, and […]
Simple Healthy Cookbooks: my favorites for food on the table in record time
If you’re like me, you want three things. One, to feed your family healthy and delicious meals. Two, to not spend all day slaving over a hot stove. And three… self-cleaning kitchens. I can’t help you with the third thing! But I can recommend my favorite simple healthy cookbooks to help you with the first […]
7 ways to cook dinner faster and easier
One of the most important things I do to save money is consistently get dinner on the table, 7 nights a week. In this post I share a few tricks I use to cook dinner faster and easier. Eating out with a large family is expensive. We can easily drop a Benjamin any time we […]