12 Creative Ways to Save

I have 12 creative ways for you to save money today!  Everything feels more expensive these days so I hope you find a couple of new ideas to save yourself some money. I'm doing the usual consigning things we out grow or no longer use, use apps for all the coupons and stock up when I find things on sale.  Here are some creative ways to save money:

1. Order kid's meals!  They are usually under $10, come with an entree, side and drink and sometimes dessert.  Culvers is the perfect spot to try this trick out.  You get a generous meal and can add a family cheese curd to share.

2. Buy cat toys at Dollar Tree.  We found the cutest cat chip bags at Dollar Tree for $1.25 each.  They are crinkle toys and have cat nip in them.  I'm saving them for Pumpkin for his birthday in June.

3. Borrow when you can.  Leo had a character day at school and instead of spending $40 on an Amazon costume for him to wear once, we borrowed a costume for free.

4. Homemade birthday treats!  We love Nothing Bundt Cakes, but I do not love paying $30ish per cake for a dessert.  I made homemade buttercream and added some extra ingredients to a boxed cake mix.  They cost me about $5/cake to make at home.

5. Birthday treat bags instead of a birthday party.  Leo is young and was happy to bring in birthday treat bags for his whole class instead of a big party.  We spent around $35 for treat bag supplies which is way cheaper than hosting a class party.

6. Party supplies at HomeGoods + homemade treats.  HomeGoods had the cutest Reese's Pieces party decor this Spring.  It worked perfectly for our Reese's Pieces loving guy.

7. Say YES to free fun!  Go for a walk, play outside, go to a park, meet friends at a local school park, invite friends over to your house to play, etc.

8. Teachers, I know it's tempting to buy all the things for your classroom, but opt for the free class incentives when you can.  My class has LOVED the following free class rewards.

Reading Mouse and the Motorcyle & watching the movie in class.

Water color painting anything they want.

Extra recess.

Pajama Day.

Bring a stuffed animal to school day.

Stinky feet day - go shoeless in your classroom.

9. Going out to breakfast can add up quickly.  Instead, grab some new breakfast foods to try at home for much cheaper.  We did Aldi canned cinnamon rolls cut up into bites for a cinnamon roll bite casserole.  The kids loved it and it cost me around $4.

10. Splurge on something at the grocery store and it's still a lot cheaper than going out to eat.  Grab a pack of giant muffins at Sams for $6 and enjoy them for a fun breakfast treat for several days.  These giant blueberry muffins are our favorite.  They aren't expensive, but they were a fun thing to add to our weekly shopping trip.

11. Save gift cards for a fun dinner out!  My parents gave the kids Azzip gift cards for Easter.  We used them last Friday night for a delicious dinner out.  We only had to pay $6 for our meal that night.

12. Switch some of your name brand products out for store brands.  I tried this Equate contact solution since my usual Renew Contact solution is now $12/bottle.  I loved the Equate version and it's just $5.82!  What a great swap!  I'm also enjoying several ELF beauty products. I'll have to do a make up saving recap for you soon.

Let me know some creative ways you are saving money these days!

Easy Oreo Frosting

Homemade Oreo Frosting sounds delicious right!?!?

Olive requested chocolate cupcakes with Oreo frosting for her birthday.  How could I say no to that??  I had never made it before, but figured I could use my homemade buttercream recipe as the base and add in Oreos.  I was right!  It was delicious!

Here's my recipe for Perfect Buttercream Frosting.

It's so easy and so good for cupcakes, cakes, graham crackers, cinnamon rolls and more.

I love to used a box cake mix and top them with homemade frosting.

I bought a bag of mini oreos for the frosting making sure to save one mini Oreo for each cupcake and then crushed the rest.

Tip: Crush the Oreos really fine if you are wanting to pipe the frosting on to the cupcake.  I failed to do this and my icing got clogged in the piping bag.  I ended up just spreading the frosting on with a knife.  It tasted delicious even though it looked different than I planned.

Everyone approved!  

Who could you make these yummy cupcakes for?? 

Maybe take them to your 4th of July parties later this week?

Homemade Chocolate Buttercream

Happy Monday, Friends!!  Hope you had a wonderful weekend.  We had a really great Spring Break week - enjoyed some time at home, traveled and celebrated our favorite 3 year old.  I'm working on lots of fun posts for you this week.

Top of the list: Homemade Chocolate Buttercream

I decided I'd try to make my own chocolate frosting for the chocolate cupcakes that Fletcher requested.  I consulted my sister, my mom  and Pinterest to come up with a recipe.

You remember my favorite PERFECT BUTTERCREAM recipe from 2014??  It's been my go to icing for almost 5 years.  I love it.  People love it.  I can't recommend it enough.  This recipe is very similar. 

Chocolate Buttercream Ingredients:
 1/2 c room temp butter/margarine (I use margarine)
1/2 c crisco
4-5 c powdered sugar
1/4 t vanilla
2-3T milk (I use 2%)
4 T cocoa powder

Directions:
Cream together butter and crisco until it's well blended.  Scrape down sides of the mixing bowl.  Add in powdered sugar.  Add in milk on tablespoon at a time until you get the desired consistency.  I like my icing pretty firm so it sets up nicely.   Scrape down the sides again and you're ready to go!  This recipe makes 3-4 cups of frosting.

You can make this icing ahead of time and refrigerate it.

It's delicious on cake, cupcakes, or cookies.  The best part is that it's so easy!

I also have a REALLY delicious chocolate cake mix to recommend for you today.  I picked it up on a whim and it was so good.  I had several people ask me what kind it was.  It's called Betty Crocker  Super Moist Triple Chocolate Fudge Cake Mix.  It's so good!



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My Favorite Christmas Recipes for Families

Anyone else doing some baking this week??

I'm hoping to make some cookies for neighbors, teachers, friends and fireman.  It should be a yummy week.  I'm planning to do some sugar cookies, monster cookies and chocolate chip cookies.

Here are my favorite Christmas recipes that are fun to make with your kids!  My kids love to help me in the kitchen.  Most of the time they are pretty helpful.  Minus the times when Fletcher dumps a container of sprinkles in the kitchen or when they want to lick all the utensils.  Overall, they're sweet helpers.

1. Rice Krispie Treats
I love finding the Christmas Rice Krispies this time of year.  I found ours at Meijer.  Olive buttered our pan, measured the ingredients and helped dump everything in while Fletcher napped.  Then he was happy to be a taste tester when he woke up.

Tip: Save a handful of mini marshmallows to sprinkle on top once you get the cereal and melted marshmallows combined.  We shared these with our neighbors.

2. Chocolate Chip Cookies with Christmas sprinkles is an easy way to make a regular cookie feel really festive.  I use my favorite chocolate chip recipe and dip the dough in sprinkles before I bake.  

Real life: Fletcher insisted on helping me sprinkle long after the cookies were baked.  Sprinkles went everywhere... yikes!  Future baker!?! 

3. Christmas Snicker Doodles
Add red and green sprinkles to your favorite Snicker Doodle mix.  I've tried lots of recipes and the very best Snicker Doodle I've ever made is this Krusteaz box mix.  Every time I take these cookies somewhere people end up asking me for the recipe.  They're so easy and so good!  My family loves them, too.

They stack so nicely for gifts.  We're delivering these to Fletcher's teacher and Olive's bus driver.

Here are a few more dessert recipes from the archives.  They're all delicious!

Chocolate Dipped Pretzels

Reindeer Cookies

I made my GO TO RECIPE for MONSTER COOKIES
They're always a crowd pleaser.
I just swap out the M&M color to match the event - holidays, game days, etc.

I made some sugar cookies and used all the Christmas sprinkles we had.
You can use any sugar cookie recipe
and top them with my Perfect Buttercream.  They'll be delicious!

Tell me what you're baking for Christmas!

Fireman Fletcher Turns 2

We headed out of town this past weekend to celebrate Fletcher's birthday with our families.  We had a party with Kevin's family on Saturday and my family on Sunday.  They were so much fun.  Fletcher totally knew the parties were for him and he loved them.
 

I made the same desserts for each party.  I planned the menus around all of Fletcher's favorite foods.  He happily taste tested as I baked.

Match stick pretzels.  White chocolate and red sprinkles.

Chocolate Chip Cookies with m&ms.  My recipe here

Funfetti with homemade buttercream.  My recipe here.

Fletcher had firetruck gear to wear all weekend long.  He was so happy!  I've never seen him so excited about clothes before.   These are all Carters from Kohls.

Olive did really well with all of the birthday attention going to Fletcher about 95 % of the weekend.  She was genuinely so excited for him and kept telling him Happy Birthday.  This was the first year for that to happen.  I just loved it!

I feel like this could be a whole series... "Hi I'm Fletcher and I'm just here for the food."  We ate burgers and all the usual sides.  Olive said a sweet prayer and the weather was gross.  Glad we were able to do everything indoors.

Fletcher opened gifts with minimal help.  He wanted everything opened to play with ASAP.

The most exciting portion of the evening was when he got surprised with his very own Lightning McQueen car.  It's really cute.  It is maller than usual motorized cars and all the controls are on the steering wheel making it perfect for younger kids.  Both of my kids can drive it and I'm sure they'll be fighting over it in no time.  He's terrible at actually steering, but as long as he's got a straight shot he's fine.  Here's the link to it --> 
Power Wheels Lil Lightning McQueen

We're always so lucky to have family come to celebrate our kids.  It's definitely not easy for us to plan all the party details from out of town and get on the road with two little kids.  But, we feel like it's worth it to get to be surrounded by family.

Great Grandparents!

More Great Grandparents.

Fletcher was smiling EAR TO EAR the whole evening (minus bedtime).

Celebrating with cousins!

Olive's biggest request for the evening was... can you make sure I get to hold baby Carter??  Done!

What a fun evening celebrating Fletcher!

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