Saving On Groceries

So a post I see frequently on some of my Facebook groups for budgeting concerns cheap meals, and or cutting back drastically on groceries. The most expensive expenses for most family are Mortgage/Rent, a car payment and/or the grocery budget! By cutting back on how much you spend in the grocery store, you can use your savings to pay off other bills or let it grow into a savings or rainy day fund!
One of the strategies I use to save money is to have several set meals I make every month without fail that my family loves that are extremely cheap to make! In the Fall/Winter I focus on large pots of tasty soups/stews, chilies, and one dish style crock pot meals which yield many servings, freeze well, and give us a healthy variety without breaking the bank! It's also great to have handy meals ready to go when it's the middle of the week and you just don't feel like cooking anything!
I freeze my soups in FREEZER SAFE mason jars, but you could also use plastic containers. I don't like to use plastic because tomato based soups tend to stain the plastic.
I rarely have issues with my glass jars, because I refrigerate my soups overnight in my crock pot BEFORE I ladle into my jars. The biggest causes of glass breaking would be either temperature shock or overfilling, so avoid that and you'll be good 9/10. The only other cause I can think of would be a defect or small crack in the glass that later breaks under the pressure of the expanding liquid as it freezes.
My family's top 3 freezer favorites are chicken chili, taco soup, and chicken broccoli and rice. Now, I don't really have recipes for these, I just know what I throw in to my crock pot and it turns out amazing so...I'll type a rough recipe for each.

Chicken Chili
1 bag Frozen Chicken breasts
2 small cans green chilies
1 large onion, chopped
1 bag frozen corn
6 to 8 cans Great Northern beans, rinsed and drained really well
Cumin, Garlic powder, Onion powder
Salt & Pepper
Put the chicken in the very bottom of the crock pot and dump everything else on top. Lock the lid and cook on low about 6 hours. When ready to serve, fish out chicken with a pair of tongs, chop or shred roughly and add back to the pot, stir well. Serve bowls of chili with shredded Mexican blend cheese, sour cream, chopped green onion and crushed tortilla chips.

Taco Soup
1 package ground turkey, browned and rinsed/drained
1 large can crushed tomatoes
1 to 2 cans EACH Black beans, Light AND Dark Kidney beans, and Pinto beans, all rinsed and drained well
1 bag frozen corn
1 large onion, chopped
1 packet taco seasoning
Cumin, Garlic powder, Onion powder
Salt & Pepper
Dump everything into the crock pot and stir it around really well.  Lock the lid and cook on low about 6 hours. Serve bowls of chili with shredded Mexican blend cheese, sour cream, chopped green onion and crushed tortilla chips.

Chicken Broccoli and Rice
1 bag Frozen Chicken breasts
1 can cheese soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
Garlic powder, Onion powder
2 bags frozen broccoli florets
2 box instant brown rice
2 cans chicken broth
Dump the cheese and cream of chicken soup into the crock pot and stir it around really well. Add in the frozen chicken breasts and toss them around in the soup mixture to coat really well. Lock the lid and cook on low about 6 hours, until the chicken is falling apart tender. About 30 minutes before your ready to eat, add in the 2 bags of frozen broccoli.
In the microwave or on the stove, make the rice using chicken broth + water. When ready to serve, scoop a big spoonful of rice in a bowl and top with the chicken, broccoli and cheese sauce.

Each of these recipes fills my large crock pot almost to the rim, so we eat supper that night and I get about 8 to 10 pint jars to freeze for future meals. The rice and the beans make these meals really stretch, while at the same time still being reasonably healthy! Also note, I don't add water or broth to my crock pot soups, as the frozen chicken breasts cook, they release their own juices and by the time you're ready to serve, the soups are more than, I guess you'd say soupy, enough.

Mother's Day Tea!

So I know I'm a day late posting this...but better late than never right? I was with my family and I won't apologize for that!
Yesterday I enjoyed a wonderful Mother's Day Afternoon tea party with my mom and daughters.

 We enjoyed tuna salad sandwiches, cucumber sandwiches, bunches of cookies, a delicious lemon cake, strawberry lemonade slushies...mmm so much good food!
Everyone's favorite was my cucumber sandwiches so I thought I'd share the recipe with everyone! We won't mention my mom requested a post showing exactly how I made them =) 

First you need some good whole wheat bread or tortillas, I'm using tortillas today (no sandwiches were leftover and I was out of bread so) good cheddar cheese, some cucumber and tomato slices, deli turkey, and the star....my improvised ranch green goddess dressing!
To make the dressing, start by snipping some green onion from your prolific green onion planter...

Yes, that's an old 2 liter bottle cut to make a planter...and it works! Anywho, toss the green onions in a blender with a block of cream cheese, a packet of ranch dressing seasoning, a handful of fresh parsley, and a little milk to thin out the dressing. Blend until nice and smooth, adding more milk as needed until it coats a spoon but pours like a dressing.
Then to make a wrap, or sandwich, smear a good spoonful on...

Layer on some roasted turkey...

some fresh cucumber slices...

some tomatoes slices...

Sliced mild cheddar...

and wrap it up nice n tight! Add a handful of pretzels and your done. Quick and easy for lunch!

Saving With An Android Smart Phone

So I am part of the Dave Ramsey group on Facebook and someone posted about saving on things other than food, which is the majority of posts from that group. I had originally saw the post in my news feed, and when I circled back around I couldn't find it! But I thought it was a good idea, so I thought I would do a series of posts on how I save money on other things besides food. I thought a good place to start would be cell phones. Now, I know phones are a luxury, but I LOVE mine and I honestly don't see me going without one ever again.
My husband and I purchased 2 Nexus 4's from the Google Play Store over 2 years ago, and it was very pricey. I think the cost was something like $349 each, so $700 total! Can you say OUCH! The phones are unlocked and vanilla Android at it's finest, with no carrier bloatware!
We use Straight Talk by Walmart and love it! We have used Straight Talk with AT&T sim cards for as long as we have had our phones.
We save by paying for 1 year of service on both phones, which drops the monthly price to about $42 each for unlimited data, text, and nationwide talk, so $84 a month for both lines.
But if you look at the overall costs spread out over the number of years we've used the phones, and are continuing to use them I hope another couple of years, it's really worth it.
First and foremost invest in a good rugged case to protect your smartphone investment! My husband and I are currently using this case, and love it! It's two pieces, the first is a hard plastic that securely snaps around the phone and locks into place and the second is a type of rubber than grips around the plastic, to absorb hard shocks from falls. It completely protects, and I can firsthand tell you it works wonders. I have dropped my phone numerous times on accident, my girls have been fighting over my phone and dropped it, at one point a mad child whom will not be named threw my phone across the room, bounced off a wall and jumped across the floor and not a scratch on it, so I recommend a rugged case for any and all unavoidable accidents you might have!
Also, invest in a good screen cover, we use this screen protector, and it's really thick and protects from scratches and scraps to the screen. It's easy to install, and it doesn't effect the performance of the phone, I've had no trouble at all with it picking up finger swipes, so it's another one I recommend from my own personal experiences.
Now, you have your smart phone and you've protect your investment, you need some apps right?
Now a great thing about a vanilla Android device is you can do ANYTHING with your phone. One way my family saves money on apps is through the Amazon App store. They give away a FREE paid app every day, and often at holidays they give away over $100 worth of FREE paid apps! You just can't beat that! You can easily download and install the Amazon App Store to any unlocked Android smartphone by following the instructions here.
There are THOUSANDS of free apps on Google Play, and here is a short list of some of my favorites!
KIDOZ - I can't say enough good things about Kidoz! A safe kid mode for your phone with a parent lock, I've used this app on every android device we own for years now and have had very few issues with it. You set each child a profile and then add only the apps their are allowed access to. Also, Kidoz includes a kid safe browser, videos, and games from trusted sources on the web like PBS and NickJr. You can edit any of these simply by logging into the parent menu. The only time I've ever had trouble was in the first few weeks of the Android system updates, otherwise it work exactly as promised. I HIGHLY recommend it!
YouTube Kids - FREE, and great for the little ones.
GO SMS Pro, Keyboard & Locker - Personalize your phone's texting, keyboard and lock screen easily with minimal ads. I am currently using this FREE butterfly locker from developer ChickenAnt, I also like their under the sea locker, which is also FREE!
Now, even with all the free stuff out there, there are always apps out there I find that I want to buy, but you can really rack up the $$$ quickly buying lots of apps. One way I augment my Google Play Store purchases is by completing Google surveys from the Google Opinion Rewards app. Sometimes it's just $0.10 sometimes it's more, you never know and the surveys are random, so after you install the app, check your notifications pretty frequently. YES Google really pays for surveys, and here is the proof!

This is the reward history of my own completely surveys, so there's no reason to NOT have this app on your android devices!
So there you have it, all my little tips n tricks to save on the cost of smart phones and how to save money after you bite the bullet and invest in one. I truly believe that in the long run they are worth every penny and I hope my post has shown just how affordable they can be!