Do you need good but inexpensive Easter gift ideas for the kids? Here are 27 cheap but cute Easter basket ideas to save you money this Easter. These Easter basket ideas are cute, fun and easily customizable for each recipient! [Read more…] about 27 Cheap But Cute Easter Basket Ideas
Kids
10 Organizing Secrets – Easy Organizing Ideas You Can Use Today!
Have you ever wondered why organizing seems so easy for some people but not for others? Discover the top 10 effective and easy organizing ideas that will transform your cluttered space into a tidy and well-organized one. Learn the secrets of highly organized individuals and start implementing their tried and true methods today! Say goodbye to chaos and hello to a stress-free environment with these expert tips.
Easy Organizing Ideas
Organizing idea #1: Never stop picking up.
- Try picking up during TV commercials or while you are waiting for something to boil on the stove. You will be amazed how much you can get done in five minutes.
- Have the entire family spend five minutes picking up the family room or living room before they go to bed. Set a timer for young kids so they don’t get overwhelmed.If your family members go to bed at different times then have each member pick up his or her items before bed time. Once this becomes a habit, you will be amazed how much easier organizing becomes.
Organizing idea #2: Stop making messes.
- Keep a trash can in every room. No one likes carrying one small piece of trash from the family room to the kitchen so it usually ends up on the floor. Keep small trash cans everywhere. In our office we have two trash cans, one next to the desk for throwing away regular office trash and one next to the shipping table for throwing away envelope tabs, extra invoices and other shipping trash. If you need two trash cans in a room put them in there. Make it easy to keep things clean.
- Throw that sticky food wrapper straight into the trash. Don’t lay it on the counter to make another mess that needs to be wiped up later.
- Don’t lay that dirty spoon on the counter. Rinse it and put it in the sink or dishwasher.
- As you’re undressing, don’t throw your dirty clothes on the floor or on the furniture. While they are still in your hand, put them in the hamper or if they’re still clean, hang them up.
- Keep the hamper close to where you undress at night. If it is convenient, you will be more likely to use it and it’ll be easier to stay organized.
- Before you leave the bathroom, hang your wet towel on the rod. Don’t drop it on the floor or leave it in a pile.
Organizing idea #3: Think ahead and organize for the future.
- What are you having for dinner?
- Are the kids’ papers signed and ready for school?
- What clothes are you wearing tomorrow?
Organizing idea #4: Never, Never Procrastinate.
- Keep straightening and organizing things all the time. For example, when you put away groceries and you see that the cans of soup have fallen over, take two seconds to restack them.
- When you put linens or clothes in their drawers, make sure everything in those drawers is neatly stacked.
- Pick up as you go. Each time you walk through a room, pick up something.
- Stop thinking about it! Just do it.
Organizing idea #5: Don’t give up. Practice makes perfect.
- Train family members to rinse their own dishes and stack them in the sink (or better yet to put them directly into the dishwasher). It may take a while to develop this habit. For kids, you may want to do something like charge each member a dime for every dish not rinsed or make them responsible for doing all the dishes for a week.
- Remember Thomas Edison? What if he had given up after his first 5, 10, or 100 light bulbs? Where would we be now if he had thrown up his hands and quit at his first failures? The same is true with getting and staying organized. Keep practicing and you will create a productive new habit.
Organizing idea #6: Attitude, Attitude, Attitude.
- Stop dreading getting organized and taking care of your home and start taking pride and pleasure in it. Think of an organized home as a special gift of peace and pleasure that you are giving your family. A disorganized one causes turmoil and frustration. Besides — You probably spend more time worrying about it than it would take to clean it.
Organizing idea #7: Use rooms for their intended purposes.
- Don’t let kids get undressed in the family room – that’s why they have bedrooms.
- Eat food at the kitchen table or bar, not in bed. This alone can save a huge number of messes.
- Fold laundry in the laundry room immediately after taking it out of the dryer and put it away immediately.
Organizing idea #8: Be a wise steward of your time.
- If you see something that needs to be clean, clean it as soon as possible.
- If something doesn’t need to be cleaned, don’t waste your time. If there is no dust, don’t just dust because you dust every Saturday.
- Don’t overbook yourself volunteering at schools, churches or charities. Learn to say “no”. Notice that I didn’t say don’t do these things at all, just control how much you do so they don’t take over your life.
- Don’t overbook your children with their activities, either.
- Get rid of fruitless activities. Many of us spend way too much time talking on the phone, watching TV, shopping unnecessarily or killing time on the computer. These are all time robbers when you devote a lot of time to them.
Organizing idea #9: Keep on top of things.
- If you do small cleaning and organizing tasks every day, you’d be surprised how much you can accomplish. In ten minute increments, you can do each of the following: wash the dishes, vacuum, file a pile of papers or clean your purse. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes for each child to pick up and organize his room before bed and to lay out his clothes for the morning.
- Don’t let the laundry, dishes, toys and paperwork get out of control.
Organizing idea #10: Don’t be afraid to let go.
- Don’t become so emotionally attached to your stuff you can let it go when it is no longer useful and not needed any more.
- The less mounds and piles of things and stuff you have the less time you need to spend organizing it, finding a place or it and taking care of it.
[organizing]
[dining]
50 Breakfast and Snack Ideas for Picky Eaters
Sometimes, it can be a challenge to get kids to eat, but here are 50 breakfast and snack ideas that are sure to give plenty of options for picky eaters!
Breakfast and Snack Ideas for Picky Eaters
Many of our readers ask, “How do I get my kids to eat? They are so picky and I’ve run out of ideas…”
It’s in a kid’s nature to be picky. It’s funny that kids will frown upon anything new. Our children will eat the same thing almost every day and then one day say, “I don’t like sloppy Joe’s”. Our oldest son eats pizza but does not like sausage pizza. One day recently, he tried the sausage and loved it. He said that he loved the little meatballs. When Mike told him it was good to see him eat sausage, he suddenly wouldn’t eat it. Later, we decided it was better to let him call them meatballs if that’s what it took to get him to eat it! Let this be a lesson to you – If you give the kids zucchini bread, just tell them that it is “bread”! 😉
Kids’ eating habits could send a family to the poor house! Between pop-tarts, fruit chews, juices boxes and containers of cool applesauce it would be easy to spend the entire month’s grocery budget in one week. Here are some tips to help you find something they will eat while hanging on to some of that cash in your pocket.
Breakfast:
Are you being squeezed? – The USDA recommends two 8 oz. (1 cup) glasses of milk per day for a child. If you give your kids more than two cups a day, everything over the 2 cups is just calories, and expensive calories at that. The same is true of juice. The USDA recommends 5 servings of fruits and vegetables a day for kids.
Did you know that for children under age five, 3/4 cup of juice is one serving of fruit? How often do you fill a glass to the top with juice for your child only to find that the child doesn’t drink most of it? Limit the amount of juice served to one or two small glasses a day and serve the rest of their fruit and vegetables in whole form. Whole fruits are more healthy for them than juice.
French Toast Sticks – After cooking french toast, cut each piece into 4 strips. Kids love to dip these in syrup.
Present oatmeal in a fancy glass such as a sundae dish. Place some homemade granola, fruit, honey, brown sugar or nuts on top.
Stir any of the following into oatmeal:
- sugar
- cinnamon and sugar
- brown sugar
- butter or margarine
- molasses
- maple syrup
- applesauce
- chopped apples
- dried apples
- raisins
- berries
- bananas
- chopped peaches
- jam or jelly
- plain or fruit yogurt
- wheat germ
- dark brown sugar and 1 drop of maple extract make oatmeal taste just like the store bought instant oatmeal
Snack Ideas:
Have a snack sitting at the kitchen table for the kids when they come home from school. This way they won’t be grouchy in the afternoon from being hungry. This will also prevent them from digging though the kitchen cabinets looking for something themselves and messing up your neat, well-organized pantry. It is also the perfect time for you to sit and visit with them about their day at school.
To discourage bad snack habits, don’t buy unhealthy snacks or keep them in the house.
Present your snacks with a plate, placemat, napkin and maybe a flower from the garden. This way your snacks always look inviting.
Have jars sitting on the counter with sunflower seeds, raisins, granola, prunes or peanuts for the children. If they see healthy snacks they’re more likely to want them.
Try these snacks on your kids:
- Fresh fruit
- Hard-boiled eggs
- Apples, cut into quarters, with core removed
- Popcorn balls
- Popcorn
- Bagels
- Muffins
- Dried apples or bananas
- Breadsticks
- Oranges, peeled and quartered
- Pumpkin bread
- Banana bread
- Zucchini bread
- Bananas
- Crackers and cheese
- Frozen grapes
- Veggies with ranch dressing
- Celery sticks, spread with peanut butter
- Cherry tomatoes
- Cheese
- Strawberry leather
- Cookies
- Puddings
- Yogurt Popsicles
- Homemade granola bars
- Beef jerky
- Pretzels
- Tortillas with cream cheese
- Peanut butter snacks
- Yogurt with fruit or wheat germ added
- Milk
- Chocolate milk
- Homemade hot chocolate
- Creamy Orange Shake
- Milk shake
- Smoothies
- Apples, quartered and cored with 1 tsp. peanut butter on each quarter
- Bananas sliced in half and spread with peanut butter
- Bread or toast cut into quarters and spread with jelly, jam, peanut butter, spiced honey or honey butter
- Crackers spread with peanut butter and jelly or jam
- Place some peanut butter and honey on a pancake and roll up for a snack. This is great for leftover pancakes.
Quick and Easy Snack Mix
If you need a really fast snack or treat for company or a party, go to your dollar store and buy a couple of boxes of caramel corn. Add things like candy corn, raisins,dried fruit, nuts, pretzels or any other candies and things you would like.
Be sure to hit after Halloween or Christmas sales to find candy to use to make this snack mix.
Hello. I just thought I’d share a tip I learned recently about oatmeal (after seeing your post of breakfast tips). We find re-heated oatmeal unappealing to serve again as a cereal. But the thrifty in me hates to throw it out. I learned recently to put it in pancake batter.
Just mix your batter normally and add in the oatmeal to the finished product. You may need to add just a touch of milk, but I rarely do. This actually makes the pancakes heartier as well as using up something that may otherwise go to waste. The same gal that told me of this trick also adds it to bread dough. I haven’t tried it yet, but look forward to doing so soon!
Rachel
[dining]
This Delicious Ice Cream Pie Recipe Is So Easy!
Indulge in a delectable ice cream pie recipe that can be easily made and frozen at home! Why spend money on a store-bought version when you can whip up this tasty treat for a fraction of the cost? It’s perfect for sharing at parties and get-togethers, or simply enjoying anytime you crave a sweet and refreshing dessert.
This easy ice cream pie recipe makes a delicious and cool dessert perfect for any occasion! It’s super easy to make with a few minutes’ work. Then pop it in the freezer and it will be ready within a couple of hours. It’s perfect for parties or for a special treat anytime. This ice cream pie is a cool treat that is great in the summer, but also wonderful to serve for holidays!
There’s no reason to spend too much for ice cream pie at the ice cream shop. It’s super easy to make yourself.
How To Make The Ice Cream Pie
Start with a crust of crushed Oreo cookies blended with butter. The off-brand version of Oreo cookies works just fine! Then press the crust into a pie plate.
Next, you will layer ice cream with your choice of ice cream toppings, nuts and whipped cream. You can make it as simple or as fancy as you like. Feel free to use alternating ice cream flavors for more ice cream layers.
You can use any toppings you like, like chocolate, butterscotch or caramel, or if you prefer choose your favorite fruit flavors. You can also layer with any other toppings that sound good to you like miniature marshmallows, chocolate chips, miniature candy bars, nuts, coconut and more!
Whichever toppings you choose, you’re sure to love it! This easy ice cream pie recipe is simple to make ahead of time and store in the freezer when you need to grab something fast!
[dining]
10 Tips To Save Money On Clothes
Learning to save money on clothes is one significant way to cut your spending and get out of debt. These easy tips will help you reduce your clothes budget!
10 Tips To Save Money On Clothes
We get so many questions about how to save money on groceries but very few about how to save money on clothes, even though many people spend two or three times as much per month on clothes than they do on their groceries.
I was talking to a woman recently who was bemoaning the fact she had just lost her job and didn’t know what she was going to do for medical insurance. Then she started talking about how much she loved her clothes and couldn’t give up buying them. She had a large collection of shoes, purses and tops. She owned over 150 pairs of pants.
It hadn’t even dawned on her that if she had taken the money she had spent on all those clothes she could have easily paid for many years worth of insurance. It’s time we start rethinking our clothing budgets.
Try these tips to save some money on your clothing budget:
- Stop shopping for clothes because of the “high” it gives you. When you use shopping as a drug, you no longer think rationally about how much money you’re spending.
- Stop shopping for clothes because it builds your self esteem. Yes, clothes do make us feel good about ourselves and there is nothing wrong with that, but you don’t need 150 pairs of pants to do that. Shopping for self esteem is trying to fix an emotional problem with a physical solution and that will get you nowhere. That makes as much sense as discovering that your car ran out of gas and trying to solve the problem by washing it to try and make it run again. You’re working on the wrong problem.
- Plan your family’s wardrobes. Don’t just buy a cute top and take it home hoping you’ll find something to go with it. If you need a suit jacket, get one you can wear to the office or that you can wear casually with jeans. Do you really need five pairs of black pants? Instead of buying another pair of black pants, why not buy a white blouse that will go with that pair of pants and skirt that you already have but that doesn’t match anything else?
- One way to save money on clothes is to take care of the clothes that you do have:
- If things aren’t dirty, wear them again. The less you wash things the longer they last. (Of course, I don’t mean underwear.)
- Hang up the clothes you can wear again when you take them off. So many kids and adults just drop their clothes on the floor when they take them off and later throw them in the laundry so they don’t have to hang them up. Not only does this cause you twice as much work, It puts unnecessary wear and tear on your clothes.
- Learn basic sewing. Basic sewing is easier than you think. Don’t get rid of that shirt because it is missing a button. Don’t throw out your daughter’s jeans because they have a hole. Take two minutes to sew a button on the shirt or an appliqué on the jeans. (Yes, it really does take two minutes to sew on a button. Time yourself next time. You’ll be surprised.)
- Use the clothes you do have well. If jeans have a hole that can’t be fixed then have the kids wear them for play clothes or cut them off for shorts. If that dress of yours is getting outdated, take out the shoulder pads or add shoulder pads (depending on the style),or take up or let down the hem. Update your outfits with different accessories.
- Hang clothes on the line or rack to dry when possible. Dryers create a lot more wear and tear on the fabrics and usually destroy all elastic.
I do live in the real world and know that most people, like me, love clothes so I’m not saying don’t ever buy anything new. If you’re serious about controlling your spending or reducing debt then don’t let your clothes shopping get out of control. You can save money on clothes and still buy clothes.
Remember: Stop buying clothes to satisfy your emotional needs. This will save you not only money, but also time, energy and the stress of taking care of all the clutter those extra clothes will cause.
Additional Tips To Make Your Clothes Last Longer And Save Money:
- If you are having a hard time removing the stains around collars and cuffs, try using abrasive hand cleaner or shampoo.
- When dealing with stains, try using the same product on your clothes that you use to clean the part of your body adjacent to the stain. For example, use shampoo to remove collar stains, use your face cleanser to remove make up stains or use the soap that your husband uses on his hands after working on the car to remove grease and oil. Of course always spot test everything first so that you don’t ruin the garment with the cleaner.
-Jill
[organizing]
10 Meals in 30 Minutes or Less
It is possible to prepare tasty and nutritious meals in 30 minutes or less without spending a fortune eating out! Grandma knew the secret and you can, too!
10 Meals in 30 Minutes or Less
I was having dinner at my son’s house the other night and my daughter-in-law had made “old fashioned” baked potatoes. You know– in the oven and not the microwave. Boy, they were good. It seems so many things taste better slow cooked in the oven.
The funny thing is that it is still possible to prepare these meals in 30 minutes.
We started talking about how much longer it took to cook them in the oven compared to the microwave. That started me thinking. Yes, it does take longer in actual cooking time but it is often easier to cook in the oven and it is usually possible to prepare meals with 20 minutes or less prep time.
How Cooking In The Oven Can Actually Be Easier
When I bake potatoes in the oven, I work for just 5 minutes to get them ready and in the oven an hour before dinner. Then I just forget about them until dinner is ready. When they are finished, all I have to do is set them on the table and dinner is served.
When I microwave baked potatoes, I tend to start cleaning them and preparing them at the same time that I’m trying to make a salad and heat up the veggies. While I’m doing all of that, I have to remember to keep checking on the potatoes and turning them. If I am cooking several potatoes, I have to put a few in the microwave at a time. When each batch is done, I have to pull them out and add more, all of this at the same time that I am trying to prepare the rest of the meal.
Even though we have faster methods of cooking our meals, meal preparation has become more frenzied and hurried than years ago. With the introduction of the microwave and the idea that you can prepare meals in 30 minutes, most people do nothing to prepare or plan their meals at all until 30 minutes before they are planning to actually eat, which makes the cooking take. long longer.
So 30 minutes before dinner you find yourself trying to thaw something, cook it, and slap it on the table and at the same time talk and deal with tired, hungry, cranky kids. Let’s not forget how exhausted you are at this time of day, too.
We need to warm up our ovens and start using them again the way our grandmothers used to do. Here are some tips and ideas that prove that cooking meals in a conventional oven instead of a microwave can be just as quick and easy, not to mention how much more delicious they taste and smell. You might be surprised to find out how easy it is to make meals in 30 minutes or less.
I think we underestimate the power of coming home and smelling something yummy cooking. We automatically seem to relax, feeling that “all is well with the world”. I really think it can change the whole atmosphere of your home for the evening.
I am not living in a dream world. You can prepare meals in 30 minutes the way our grandmothers did. I hear some readers saying, “Our grandmothers weren’t ever as busy as we are so they had time to cook large meals.” I can hear our grandmothers chuckling at that statement. My husband’s grandmother had to help on the farm from early in the morning until evening. She took care of a large home garden, canned, cleaned house every day, did laundry without a washer or dryer and still provided meals not only for her family, but up to 20 farm hands as well. She had to do it all without a refrigerator, microwave, or a grocery store and the nearest water was a mile away from her house.
My mother-in-law would go to work as early as 7 am and work until 9 pm 6 days a week, but she still managed to make three large meals each day. If you’re thinking, “That’s great if you want to spend all your spare time in the kitchen,” consider that they spent less time in the kitchen than we do with less of the conveniences and still managed to have well balanced delicious meals each day.
What was their secret? They had never heard of 30 minute meals. Even if they had they would probably have laughed and wondered who would spend so much time preparing a meal? They knew that the key to preparing a meal in 30 minutes or less wasn’t how fast you could cook, but how organized you were. You can easily have a meal on the table in 15 minutes if you are organized and plan ahead.
Making quick and easy meals the old fashioned doesn’t mean microwaving and frying everything to have a quick meal either. Slow cooking something in the oven not only makes things taste better but is quicker with less prep time.
Our grandmothers’ secret to meals in 30 minutes:
- Keep your meals simple.
- Be organized.
- Decide what you are preparing the night or the morning before.
- Thaw anything you need the night or the morning before.
- Prepare as much of the meal as you can during the slow time of your day and when you are most refreshed. (This is very important.)
- Slow cook meats in the oven or in a crockpot.
- Keep your kitchen clean so you have an uncluttered work area.
Easy Dinner Ideas And Recipes
Here are some ideas about what to prepare. These aren’t elaborate gourmet meals. If you are too busy to cook dinner, then you are to busy to make gourmet dinners. Stick with the basics and keep it simple like our grandmothers did and you will be able to make meals in 30 minutes.
Slow cooked roast: Place a roast in a crockpot or pan. Peel five potatoes and carrots and drop them in with it and turn on the oven. This takes five minutes. Clean and cut broccoli, celery and cucumbers for a salad — five minutes. At dinner time, chop lettuce and tomato for the salad, adding the already prepared veggies. Then put the meat and the fixings on a platter — five more minutes. Voila! Dinner in 15 minutes.
Stew: It takes me seven minutes to cube meat*, peel five potatoes, carrots and onions, toss it into a pot and to season it. At dinner time, I put bread or dinner rolls on the table — one to two minutes and I have dinner in nine minutes.
*Ask your butcher to cube or slice all your meat for you. They usually charge nothing or just a few cents per pound. It saves not only time in cutting but in clean up too.
Chicken: Toss a chicken in a pan or crockpot — two minutes. Clean potatoes to put in with chicken or to bake in the oven — three minutes. At dinner time, warm a veggie — two minutes. Slice some fruit — three minutes. Dinner in 10 minutes.
Lasagna: Put noodles in a pot to boil — one minute. Brown the hamburger. Get out the cheese, tomato sauce, and the rest of the fixings; Mix the sauce while the noodles boil, 7-8 minutes. Layer everything — two minutes. Cover and put it in the fridge for dinner the next day or that evening.
Put the lasagna in the oven to heat while you get out of your work clothes, check the mail, etc. Set the table and cut a salad — five minutes. Dinner is served; 15 minutes.
Beef stroganoff: Make your beef stroganoff in your crockpot. (If you don’t want to use a crockpot, this recipe usually takes very little time, even when you’re just stirring it up in a pan.) Dump everything but sour cream and noodles into the crockpot. This takes three minutes’ work and then you can simmer all day on low.
Clean carrots, celery sticks, and broccoli for a relish dish (five minutes) and put it in the fridge. At dinner time, boil egg noodles (5-7 minutes). While they are boiling, add sour cream to the sauce and set the table. Total time: 15 minutes.
Chili: Mix everything in a pot the night before. Depending on what you put in, it should take 5-10 minutes. Simmer throughout the next day.
Soup: Do the same as with the chili.
Mexican Food- Almost all Mexican foods take less than 30 minutes to prepare. Enchiladas and tacos are super easy.
Casseroles– You can make so many varieties of casseroles. You can always find several that your family will love.
Breakfast– Throw some pancakes or waffles on and add some sausage or scrambled eggs and breakfast is ready for dinner in minutes.
These are just general examples of ways to prepare quick and easy meals in 30 minutes or less. It isn’t really a matter of time as much as it is a matter of being organized and getting things done before you are too exhausted to think.
If you have meats thawed and the ingredients on hand, most things can be tossed together in about the same amount of time it takes to order and wait to get your food at a fast food place.
Also, remember when you have your oven going, try to cook more than one thing in it. For example, if you are going to be baking a casserole, bake a pan of brownies, muffins or baked apples at the same time.
-Jill
For lots of quick and easy meals that you can make ahead of time, check out Quick and Easy Menus On A Dime, which is full of pre-made menus and recipes for meals in 30 minutes or less. Make it easier to put dinner on the table and get out of the kitchen faster!
[dining]
Easy Homemade Milkshake Recipe – Candy Bar Milkshakes
This easy homemade milkshake recipe is a tasty way to enjoy a gourmet tasting milkshake in minutes without having to spend the high price of a specialty milkshake out!
Milkshakes are usually delicious, but it’s so expensive to buy them at a specialty ice cream store. Don’t waste your money spending too much for someone else to make it when you make it yourself for a lot less in minutes.
Here’s an easy milkshake recipe you can use to make homemade milkshakes that taste just as good as the expensive specialty milkshakes. Thi recipe includes chopped bits of candy bars, so it is a perfect way to use leftover candy after holidays like Valentine’s Day Halloween or Christmas.
A milkshake is really just a mixture of ice cream and milk, so it’s easy to make a basic milkshake just by blending together your favorite flavor of ice cream and some milk until you get the right consistency. This candy bar milkshake recipe calls for chocolate or vanilla ice cream, but you can easily modify it by using your favorite flavor of ice cream.
You can use any kind of candy bars you like, so feel free to experiment! You can also add your favorite fruit like cherries or strawberries. If you keep the consistency thick, you will end up with something like a homemade blizzard. If you prefer your milkshake thinner, you can add more milk.
For more easy milkshake recipes and recipes for homemade smoothies, check out Dining On A Dime Cookbook, Volume 1 and Volume 2!
[dining]
More Milkshake And Smoothie Recipes:
Homemade Shamrock Shake Recipe – Chocolate Mint Milkshake
Cheerio Marshmallow Treats Recipe
[dining]
Easy School Lunch Ideas – Healthy Options For Picky Eaters!
Do you rack your brain trying to make lunches your kids will eat? These 15 cheap and easy school lunch ideas will save you lots of money and time while satisfying your picky eaters!
Easy School Lunch Ideas
It’s that wonderful time of year that lightens your heart and fills your soul with peace & tranquility. No, I’m not talking about Christmas! I’m talking about school starting!! Yes! Yes! Yes! It’s a bitter-sweet time for most moms. Bitter because you’re back to hectic mornings, finding everyone’s books and papers and trying to get them out of the door on time… because you now have 180 lunches to make over the next nine months if you have one child and 720 if you have four — But hey, who’s counting?
It is sweet because the peaceful quiet that penetrates the house is like gentle music to your ears and you can take a lovely relaxing bubble bath without what sounds like the whole US army trying to break down the bathroom door. Well, now that I think about it, I haven’t known many moms that had the luxury of a bubble bath in the middle of the day but I can dream, can’t I?
I can’t help you find time for that bubble bath but maybe I can help you with those 720 lunches by sharing some healthy and easy school lunch ideas.
Here are some easy school lunch ideas and snack ideas that will satisfy all of your picky eaters:
School lunches don’t have to have exotic ingredients to be healthy, so don’t overthink it! A well balanced lunch including some protein, fruit and veggies and carbohydrates is healthy and kids need a lot of energy throughout the day.
- To keep drinks cold in lunch boxes, pour a small amount in the bottom of the container (not glass) and then set the cap loosely on top. Put it in the freezer overnight. The next day fill with the rest of the drink. The ice should slowly melt all day long, keeping the beverage cool.
- Have the kids pre-package chips and cookies in baggies on the weekends. Store in a basket. Grab one as needed for lunches. This is one of the school lunch ideas that will save you the most money.
- Make a large batch of puddings and gelatins on the weekends. Pour into individual containers and refrigerate.
- Save the ketchup and mustard packets and napkins you don’t use from the fast food restaurants. Use them in lunch boxes.
- Puddings – sprinkle with marshmallows, coconut, nuts, chocolate chips, butterscotch chips or peanut butter chips (for chocolate pudding) or berries (in vanilla pudding)
- Banana bread, pumpkin bread or zucchini bread
- Tuna, egg or chicken salad sandwich
- Tuna salad and crackers
- Sandwiches made from last night’s dinner meat (ie. roast beef, chicken, turkey)
- Pickles
- Ants on a log – celery with peanut butter inside and raisins on the peanut butter
- Hot dogs
- Canned fruit
- Carrot sticks, celery sticks or radishes with Ranch dressing
- Homemade granola bars or cookies
Here is a recipe for easy homemade granola bars you can use to save money on an easy lunch filler!
You will also find more easy school lunch ideas below in this post and in our post 50 Breakfast and Snack Ideas for Picky Eaters.
[tasty-recipe id=”46400″]
If you like these easy school lunch ideas, check out our Dining On A Dime Cookbooks, which are filled with quick and easy recipes to make your life easier!
[dining]
Save money on school lunches or any time the kids need to pack a lunch! Use these easy tips for preparing school lunches for the week in 30 minutes on the weekend.
Save $600 on school lunches this year!
These days in America, it seems that everyone is so busy that preparing school lunches is liable to push a typical mom right over the edge. When you have to choose between making school lunches or spending that extra 15 minutes in bed, it seems like buying ready-made school lunches at the store is a no-brainer, but your budget doesn’t agree.
The average mom packs $3.00 worth of pre-packaged goodies into each school lunch she sends to school with her kids. (That works out to $1080 for 2 kids.) What mother hasn’t wondered if those lunches are even getting eaten and if there’s an easier way to save money on school lunches?
Try these easy school lunch ideas and tips for things you can do in 30 minutes or less on the weekend to save money on school lunches and make preparation a snap!
Easy School Lunch Ideas To Save Money!
- Those snack bags of munchies cost a lot! Make your own by pre-packaging chips, pretzels, animal crackers and other snack items into sandwich bags on the weekends. (Have the kids help!) Store them in a big container or basket and just throw them in the lunch box in the morning.
- Let the kids create their own Pizza lunch kits- Toast bread and cut out little circles with a biscuit cutter. Add small containers of pizza sauce, cheese, and other toppings.
- Make fruit gelatin and pudding and put in small plastic containers for the week. Make a large batch of granola bars, cookies, pumpkin bread, banana bread or muffins. Divide them into zip top sandwich bags and freeze so that you can grab one or two when needed.
- Brownie bites are simple to make. Bake brownie mix in mini-muffin pans and put three “brownie bites” in a sandwich bag for each child’s lunch. They freeze well too!
- Fill thermos (not glass) half full with juice the night before and freeze. In the morning, remove from freezer and fill the rest of the way. The juice will be cold when the kids are ready to drink it and it keeps their food cold too.
- Clean vegetables, slice into pieces and bag. Preparing a weeks worth of veggies at a time for lunches and snacks saves money and time.
- Purchase cheese in blocks, cut into pieces and put in sandwich bags.
Are We Really Depriving Our Kids?
Are we really depriving kids by not buying them enough stuff? Are you overwhelmed or do you struggle with guilt about whether you buy enough for them?
Are We Really Depriving Our Kids?
By Jill Cooper
I often hear ladies complaining that they want to stay at home with their kids but that they “have to work since it is so expensive to raise kids these days”. One of the main questions I get asked about frugal living is “won’t I be depriving my children if I spend less?” Maybe I can answer that question with a few questions.
How am I depriving my children by having them drink water for every meal instead of juice and soda? Isn’t one thing doctors are always complaining about is we don’t drink enough water? Cutting out just one glass of soda per person per day for a family of four would save $547.50 a year and make them healthier.
How am I depriving my children by having them eat an apple or homemade granola bar for a snack instead of a bag of chips? Obesity is a major problem among children in the United States. If you cut out just one bag of chips a week you would save $104.00 a year and make them healthier.
How am I depriving my children by having them walk to school or to a friends house instead of my always driving them there? Lack of exercise is a big problem. You would save time and wear and tear on your car by having them walk and make them healthier at the same time.
How am I depriving my kids when I don’t buy them every toy they see and want? We wouldn’t dream of giving a baby on baby food all the chocolate that he wants because we know it would make him sick. His body can not tolerate that much chocolate even if he desires it.
In the same way, an older child can’t emotionally deal with the overload of toys. I as an adult become stressed just from trying to buy a bottle of shampoo. Have you ever noticed how many options you have? Trying to make a decision can be overwhelming. Do I get it for thin, fine, dry and damaged or colored and permed hair? The list goes on and on.
In the same way when a young child looks at piles of toys, he can become very stressed over choosing which one to play with. If you watch, you will notice that they tend to play with the same couple of toys over and over. If you didn’t give them all the toys they asked for and bought one less brand new toy at $10 a week, you would save $520.00 in one year and you would help relieve them of some stress.
It is no wonder our children stay confused. We insist that they should eat healthy yet we take them out to eat 3-5 times a week at McDonald’s. We give them a bag of carrot sticks in their lunch because it’s healthy and then give them a bag of chips when they get home from school to get them off our backs.
We want them to have strong character yet the moment they whine or cry for another toy or some candy at the store we give in out of guilt. We are afraid that if we don’t give them what they want, they won’t love us so to rid ourselves of uncomfortable feelings we say yes. How can we teach them to be strong in character when we are so weak?
How could our society and way of thinking have gotten so mixed up that we think a child is deprived if a mom chooses to stay home and not go to work? We have come to believe that moms should work outside the home so that children can have the most expensive clothes, education or material things. (Note I didn’t say best but rather most expensive since the most expensive doesn’t mean the best.) If a mom goes to work so a child can have all those things it’s not considered depriving the child of anything but it’s mom. Which do you think does a child more harm- being deprived expensive things or it’s mom?
For you stay at home moms: Before you become too puffed up with pride be aware that too many social, church and school activities can deprive your kids of you just as much as working. Do all things in moderation.
Better to give your kids your values you have than the valuables you can’t afford.
For lots of easy and practical ways to save money and get out of debt, check out our Dig out Of Debt e-book and learn more about how to keep more of your money.