8 Simple Budget Friendly Recipes

I have some simple budget friendly food ideas to share with you today.  None of these meal ideas are revolutionary, but they're all meals that are quick to prepare and are crowd pleasers.  That's a winning combination in my book.

I usually fix dinner 6 nights a week and then I try to cook lunches on the weekends for my family.  It saves us a lot of money and we'd rather pick up some quick take out for dinner when Friday/Saturday roll around.

I think I first mentioned last year that I was making a serious effort to not waste food.  We eat leftovers for lunches, eat the same meal two nights in a row and utilize our freezer to save any produce that in danger of going bad.  My system isn't perfect, but I've really improved in this area and we waste very little food.  Yay!

1. Avoid buying premade desserts
A dozen cookies is anywhere from $8-12 and you can make them at home for under $4.  Pies and cakes are at least $12+ and all of that adds up fast.  I understand there are times you have to go the store bought route for school functions and for allergy purposes, but if you have the option homemade is usually cheaper.

I made My Most Famous Recipe chocolate chip cookies and rolled them in mini M&Ms before baking them.  The result was bakery worthy looking cookies that were so good!!

2. Prepare extra meat at dinner time and save the leftovers for easy lunches

We love this Member's Mark Pulled Chicken from Sams.  It's $9.96 and we can get two dinners and two lunches out of it.  I like to make different sides when I eat it for lunch to make the meal seem fresh.  I roasted baby carrots and an onion this day.  It was such a good meal!  We try to grill an extra burger or two, extra chicken breasts, make extra roast, etc. so that we have leftover meat.

3. Breakfast for lunch or dinner

My family loves Hammy Cheesey Eggs with toast and fruit.  I will slice up deli ham or slice up the little precooked fourths of a ham from the store for this.  It keeps in the freezer and you can just take out what you need.

4. Make a big bath of soup or chili for the week

When the weather cools off I try to do one soup a week to eat for 2 dinners and several lunches.  We had chili a couple of weeks ago.  I'm anxious to try a new soup with tortellini and italian sausage this week.

5. Prechop and wash veggies for easy snacks

I usually spend one day shopping and chopping to prepare for the week.  I haven't been in the mood for chopping everything little for salads lately.  These veggie trays have seemed much easier.  I've also found that my family is much more likely to grab veggies for a snack if they're prepped and ready to grab in the fridge.

6. Rotisserie Chicken Breasts

My Sams sells a four pack of rotisserie chicken breasts for $3.98!!  That's $1 cheaper than the whole rotisserie chicken and it's our favorite part.  I try to stock up on these when I find them at Sams because you just can't beat that deal for fully cooked chicken.  We use it for dinners and lunches.

7. Rotisserie Chicken Leftovers

I added it to lunch boxes.  Packing lunches saves us so much money.  The whole family does it.  My son love to dip his chicken in honey mustard and my daughter prefers hers plain.

We used up rotisserie chicken in quesadillas for lunches at home.

We also made BBQ chicken bowls with the rest of the leftover chicken plus some leftover homemade potato wedges.  I just popped all of it in the skillet to heat it up.  It was delicious and no food went to waste!

8. Cook once; Eat several times

I made this Life Changing Lasagna recipe last week.  It was so good!  We ate one dinner from it and then Fletcher and I both had it for lunch 3 different days. 

What tricks do you use to same your family money on meals??

Leather Earring Giveaway

Chances are if you see me in person or if you see a picture of me, I'm wearing my favorite ADVdesigns leather earrings.  They've been my favorite for a couple of years now.  They are the perfect accessory for busy moms and busy ladies.  They're so easy to wear.  My friend Amber has the best earring business.  She's from Arkansas and is a super hard working mom.  I LOVE her shop and love her designs.  I wear them every day.

I've got a really fun giveaway going on over on Instagram (@polkadottyplace) this week.  It runs now through Friday at noon.  Head over there to enter.  Make sure you're following me and @advdesignsco to enter to win.  Tag a friend for a bonus entry!!  Must be in the US to win.

Here's a sneak peek at the Fall line at ADVdesigns.

If you don't want to wait for the contest to end to get earrings, you can use the code Whitney20 for 20% off your order right now!!

In full disclosure, Amber sent me these new Fall earrings to wear, style and help promote her new Fall line.  Aren't they gorgeous!?!  I'm excited for the feather looking tear drops and for the tassel earrings.  I've purchased lots of earrings from her for myself and for gifts, but these were a gift.  I'm thrilled to promote her small business and share something I LOVE with you.
 

There are a million ways you could style them, but here are a few ideas:

A few ways that I've worn my ADVdesigns earrings in real life.  They're perfect for casual and dressy looks.  They're SO light weight.  You'll forget you're wearing them.  I love the patterns, the solids, the metallics and the textured earrings.

 Now head over to instagram to enter to win!!  Good luck!!

ISU Homecoming 2019

We had a really fun homecoming 2019 weekend!  My parents came in town Friday night and we hosted a fun tailgate for Kevin's students and co-workers before the game on Saturday.  The weather was perfect!  It was chilly and wonderful.   We layered our ISU gear and were ready to go.

We grabbed breakfast at McDonalds.

We got there around 10:00 to set up our tailgate spot.  This is our third year to do it and we have our routine down.  We've finally collected enough chairs, coolers, tables, tents, etc. to make it all happen.

I plan the food, my mom helped and Kevin did all the grilling.

We walked around to check out all the ISU things on display.  The kids loved "driving" the race cars.

Sycamore Sam is always a fun sight to see.

 We played games and hung out before the game.  Both of my parents are ISU alums so it's a fun event for them to come to.  We look forward to it every fall.

The kids loved all the space to play and the students were really great to play with them.

I set up the tailgate buffet a little different this year.  I only filled the containers half full and then refilled as needed.  This way we kept lots of food back from being touched and didn't waste any.  It worked out great.  

I added blue sprinkles to our snicker doodles and the caramel apple dip was a big hit.

I brought along my neutral pumpkin and my Indiana cutting board made the perfect football charcuterie board.

We got to watch the team warm up as we strolled through tent city.

 We painted our nails blue to be extra festive.

It was the perfect Fall day!!

Kevin was busy holding down the grill and tailgate so I was glad to have some extra hands to help me with the kids.  Isn't this picture sweet!?!  Papaw & Fletcher. 

The game was BORING so we only stayed until half time.

This was Fletcher's first football game and both kids did great.  They ate popcorn and we did our best to stay warm in the shade.

We came home, took naps and enjoyed watching Notre Dame win that night!!

Yay for college football :)

Life Changing Lasagna

I know this title sounds dramatic... Life Changing Lasagna

But, it's true.  This lasagna recipe will change your life.  I have always loved lasagna.  I used to request that my mom made it for my birthday dinners growing up.  I could eat it regularly now.  Everyone at my house loves it except for Olive.  Maybe one day she'll come around.

This recipe is so easy, so yummy and so easy to double to share with friends.  It comes together really quickly.  I posted a similar recipe a couple years ago and then decided my recipe needed a revamp.  So here's the new and improved recipe.  I have one trick to share with you that will save you SO MUCH TIME.

Ingredients:

1 box oven ready lasagna noodles*
1lb ground beef
1 yellow onion diced
1 T Montreal Steak Seasoning
Several splashes of Worcestershire sauce
24 oz cottage cheese
salt and pepper
2 eggs
1 T parsley or oregano or italian seasoning
2 c mozzarella cheese
1 c parmesan cheese
3/4 c water
32 oz Your Favorite Spaghetti Sauce (We love Ragu Tomato Garlic Onion

*The oven ready lasagna noodles are the game changer!  You DO NOT have to boil them ahead of time.  Put them into the lasagna straight out of the box.  The extra water you add into the sauce will help these noodles cook to perfection.  It's saves you a ton of time to not have to boil, drain, rinse, cool and then layer sticky noodles in a pan. 

Directions:

Brown the ground beef with the onion, Montreal Steak Seasoning and the Worcestershire sauce.  We like chunkier ground beef so I don't break it up a ton.  Drain and then mix it with the spaghetti sauce and water in the same skillet.  Bring it all to a boil and then let simmer.

Combine cottage cheese, salt and pepper, eggs, seasoning and parmesan cheese in a bowl.

Layer a greased 9x13 pan.  Meat + Noodles + Cottage Cheese + Mozzarella cheese.  Repeat until you run out of ingredients.  I can usually get 3-4 layers out of this recipe.  It makes one 9x13 pan with just a couple of noodles left over.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.  My husband likes his cheese browned so if you like yours less browned go with a bake time of 35-40 minutes or cover with foil until the last few minutes.

This recipe is easy to double.  I made twice the amount of meat I needed and popped the extra in the freezer.  The next time I go to make lasagna I will be thankful I did the meat ahead of time.  It reheats really well and is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Hope you enjoy this lasagna and have a wonderful weekend!!

Sharing Our Joy for #3

We have had the best time sharing our joy about Baby #3 with family and friends. 

I've always documented our announcements (Baby #1 and Baby #2) so I'm doing my best to keep up the trend for Baby #3. 

Kevin:
Kevin & I found out together.  We've never looked at the pregnancy tests together so that was an exciting thing to do late one night.  It was hard to go to sleep after getting news like that.

We had a fun date night already planned the following evening.  We got to celebrate!

Kids:
I baked some 3 sugar cookies for my kids and my family.

We let Olive pick where we went to dinner and she picked Hibachi. 

I put together a fun surprise package for the kids to give to them after dinner.  It was waiting for them when we got home.  I included big sis/big brother books, 3 sign, framed ultrasound picture, a 3 Musketeer bar, baby dolls, bottles and a lime since that was the size of the baby last week.

We took the clues out one at a time.  The kids were excited to figure out the clues.

We gave them all the clues and then had to spell the news out for them.  They were excited, but also a little confused.  They just wanted to play with their babies.  A little while later the news sank in and they kept saying they were excited to tell people our surprise.

Extended Family:
We headed down to visit our families last weekend and share the news.  We put Olive and Fletcher in charge of telling everyone.  Most people were shocked which made it a really fun big surprise to share!

We told my parents who were excited for grandbaby #10.
We told Kevin's parents who were excited for grandbaby #7.
Our siblings were really happy for us.
And all the little cousins were thrilled for another cousin.

Social media:
We took some pumpkin pictures with 3 pumpkins a couple of weeks ago.  They turned out perfect for baby announcements.  The kids had no clue what we were doing and were just happy to be picking out pumpkins.

Thanks for sharing in our joy!!!