21 Fast cheap and healthy snacks for you and your kids

I'm going to start off by saying that we've always been horrible when it comes to organizing meals other than dinner. We used to have our morning coffee/tea at 9 or 10, then maybe some cereal around 11 or 12 and then stare blankly at the cupboards and fridge around 2 or 3 when we were really hungry. This usually resulted in grabbing takeout, eating too much and then not having dinner until very late at night when the lunch food coma wore off. Not to mention that you really don't feel like doing much when you're very full so a lot of lazing around was going on.

We've drastically changed our eating habits now that Alice is with us, she's tiny and needs to eat small amounts more often since she's constantly on the go and growing. Everything needs to be healthy as well to fuel her little body and brain when she's playing hard. She also doesn't like to sit in her chair for extended periods of time and gets restless and throws her food when she gets bored.

Snacking also works a lot better for me than sitting down and eating a midday meal, snacks are faster to prepare, you can eat them on the go or while you work on things around the house and they keep my blood sugar even as I'm one of those people that gets dizzy and cranky between meals.

So here's a list of some of the things we have throughout the day between meals or as a small lunch.

1. Veggies and dip - Celery, carrots, broccoli, cherry tomatoes and cauliflower with salad dressing. Ranch dressing is our favorite, caesar is tasty as well.
2. Sliced fruit with dip - Apples, oranges, nectarines, peaches, strawberries, mangoes, etc. Try almond butter for apples and yogurt with a bit of honey for the softer fruit.
3. Dry cereal - Cheerios, Honeycomb, Vector, Captain Crunch, etc. Not the healthiest option but pretty tasty.
4. Granola - An even healthier alternative to the cereal, but costs a bit more. Eat it dry or microwave some with water or soymilk for a yummy hot cereal.
5. Yogurt and berry parfait - Vanilla yogurt + fresh berries + sprinkle of granola
6. Popcorn - Air popped or DIY in the microwave preferably. Go easy on the butter! Give it a shake of cinnamon sugar, parmesan cheese or chili powder for a bit of a kick
7. Toast - 12 grain bread with peanut butter or almond butter, add sliced banana or strawberries with a drizzle of honey
8. Pita chips - These easy to make chips are great on their own or with hummus
9. Crackers & cheese - Not the cheapest option on the list since cheese is a bit pricy but better for you than french fries
10. Mixed Nuts - Kids love to break things. Food + safe fun is a great combo. Don't feel like cracking them open and dealing with the mess? Buy a big bag of mixed dry roasted nuts or trail mix.
11. Dry soy beans - Super healthy and fairly inexpensive. We got a big jar from Costco that lasted over a month.
12. Ants on a log- Celery sticks filled with peanut butter or Cheez Whiz, use raisins or dried cranberries as the "ants"
13. Edamame and rice-We always have a bag of frozen, peeled edamame in our freezer. Fry some up in olive oil, garlic and onion, scoop them on top of your rice and give them a salt and pepper or sprinkle of parmesan
14. Smoothies-Make these any way you like! Milk or fruit juice blended with fruit and ice, both kinds are tasty, filling and good for you.
15. Nachos- Throw the chips topped with cheese into the oven for a couple minutes while you chop up some tomatoes and avocado to go on top. Garnish with sour cream or squeeze half a lime over the entire thing!
16. Quesadillas- I like to make a quick version using just 1 tortilla and whatever leftover meat, cheese and veggies are in the fridge. Bake or fry.
17. Grilled cheese with ham. We usually do this when there isn't enough deli meat left to make a sandwich, just 1 slice is enough. Grilled cheese is great with tomato soup.
18. Mini pizzas on a bagel, tortilla or whatever bread you have handy. Toast the bread, spread with a tablespoon of pasta sauce, add some pepperoni or ham, some cheese and then pop it into the oven just until the cheese melts. "Pizza toast" is still one of my favorite snacks.
19. Quick mac and cheese. Cook and drain a half package of pasta. Don't rinse it, just dump it back into the pot, add a teaspoon of margarine, a splash of milk and a handful of grated cheese. Put it back on the warm burner and stir until everything is combined, salt and pepper to taste.
20. PB and jam. A classic for a reason, it's quick, filling and tasty.
21. Sandwich rollup- Basically a sandwich made from a tortilla. PB+jam, veggie cream cheese+deli turkey, fruit cream cheese+sliced strawberries. Make it any way you like!

If you're at home, most of these should be on hand already. Planning a day out? Bring some snacks, save a LOT of cash. Don't forget to bring your own water or Iced tea.

More of a full lunch person? Combine a few of the items to make a full meal: have a fruit, veggie and cheese plate or a smoothie with your sandwich.

What kind of snacks do you rely on?

DIY Laundry Detergent

I've been eagerly waiting to run out of laundry soap so that I could make my own, I found this recipe quite some time ago and it seemed to be the simplest one to make. I actually halved it though just because I only had the one container to store the soap in and it takes me a good 6 months to go through the contents of it anyway. It only took about 10 minutes total to make so that was a plus for me as well!

Here's how you do it!

Orange Cleaner- Made From Orange Peels!

Here's an awesome idea for a non-toxic cleaner that I got from one of my favorite blogs Penniless Parenting, her post on it is here.  check out her site, she has a ton of money saving ideas as well as recipes and other things.

I started buying Bio-Life products, similar to Method products when I was pregnant with Alice and couldn't stand the smell of most cleaning products. Not to mention that I didn't want to subject myself to any potentially dangerous fumes while Ladybutt was still on the inside. The Method products are fairly expensive though at over $5 a bottle and still had a weird chemical smell. I rinsed out and kept the bottle when it was all gone because I intended to use it for a different cleaner recipe but still hadn't been able to find essential oils near where I live.

The orange cleaner recipe is simple, just orange peels and vinegar. So you're actually making use of something that would normally go straight into the garbage.

All you have to do is pack your orange peels into whatever container you would like to use and fill it up to the top with vinegar. Then let it sit for a minimum of 2 weeks, the vinegar will pull all of the orange oil out of the peels, that's the good grease-busting stuff. I just had this small container, if you use something bigger you can keep adding peels and vinegar to it until it's full.

Here's mine after nearly 2 months of steeping, I could have topped it up with vinegar along the way but I honestly kind of forgot about it. I wasn't really in a rush to get to it anyway since I was still using up the last of my "bad" cleaning products. No use in throwing them out and wasting the money!

Pour the liquid out into an easy to pour container such as a bowl with a spout or large measuring cup. I let mine sit for a couple minutes so it could all drain out and then squished at the peels with a spoon to try and squeeze out as much as I could.

I ended up with just under 3/4 of a cup of concentrated cleaner. Not too bad!

I poured it into then measured out about 1 1/2 cups of water and added that. My cleaner still seemed pretty strong and dark colored so I went ahead and topped the bottle up with more water until it seemed right to me.

And here's the finished orange cleaner! Nearly a full bottle of it for the price of less than a cup of vinegar! It has a nice orange smell and you can't really smell the vinegar at all which is great for me because I can't stand that smell.

So far I've only tried it out on a stinky metal diaper pail, the garbage was changed but the smell wouldn't go away. We sprayed it down and wiped it and it got rid of the smell no problem and made the metal nice and shiny. I plan on taking all of the burner plates off of my stove at some point and seeing if this will get rid of the burnt and caked on grease that was left for us by the previous tenant. Hopefully I can get to that within the next week, I'm just always using the stove so I haven't had a chance!

An Update

I thought an update post would be in order since I've only been posting a recipe or DIY post once a week. I also didn't have anything ready to post last night/early this morning.

So here's what we've been up to:

• Our debt repayment schedule is still on track and we're looking to be debt free this spring hopefully
• We're done getting Christmas presents and I have renamed my savings account "The House Fund". It only has $150 at the moment but it's a start. If I go back to work we should be able to have a decent downpayment in a year or so.
• We've decided that we cannot deal with the renting situation for much longer and would like to buy a house. There is too much noise from neighboring apartments, people are smoking in our building, there was dog poo just outside the elevator for an entire day which is strange considering our lease said we weren't allowed to have a cat or dog, repairs are still not done after nearly a year and a half and our rent will be going up again in June. Why not use that money towards a mortgage payment and have something to show for it? We're just in the beginning plans of this but hope to be out of here in a year, we would have to upgrade by then to a larger space anyway
• I'm working on updating my resume and will be out looking for a part-time job probably later this week. We need the extra income to save up for a house and I would like some adult interaction. Jon works from home and makes his own hours so he can hang out with Alice while I'm gone for a few hours a couple times a week. Alice is just now starting to eat a lot more solids and use her sippy cups, so she is finally able to go for more than 2 hours without nursing.
• With the exception of maybe once a week Alice is asleep by 8pm and stays asleep for 3 hours. She still wakes me up a lot at night but it's slowly getting better.
• I'm nearly consistently getting up around 8am now. Alice gets out of bed and plays until she needs her diaper changed and then she comes to wake me up, usually by putting a diaper on my face and yelling and patting at me. It's super cute. We let Jon sleep in a bit since he stays up late working most nights.
• I haven't managed to go out jogging since the initial failed attempt from a while ago but I'm still hopeful that I can start again at some point. I would like to try to get up a bit earlier to accomplish this.
• The basil and tomato plants have finally died off. I now have a renewable source of fresh green onions in my windowsill nearly ready to use. I have a couple of avocado pits that I'm soaking in water just to see if they will sprout. It's a fun project that doesn't cost anything and takes almost no effort.
• We've done takeout just a couple of times and done a fair bit of shopping but nothing we feel guilty about. We don't spend a lot, we don't buy impulse items anymore, most of what we get is stuff we actually need.
• Jon did a bunch of studio upgrading since a lot of software was on sale for very good prices, he can write everything off as work expenses on his taxes
• I picked up a small Ikea high chair from a seller on Craigslist, it takes up about a third of the space the old one did. Now I just have to give the old one a quick cleanup and we should be able to resell it.
• I'm doing even more decluttering. I've decided that I don't need the 3 pairs of high heels I have. There is very little chance I will wear them. They were all fairly pricey so I should be able to get a decent amount of money for them on Craigslist. I love them but I will sacrifice them for the house fund. Same goes for the couple of nice dresses I own, I only really wear dresses in the summer and then it's the same 2 or 3 sundresses.
• Alice has a lot of toys and shoes that have been outgrown so those are all being sold as well. All of the toys that will be left are all things that she should be able to play with for the next 2 or 3 years. She also has a few Christmas presents that will replace the things that we are getting rid of. 
• I have a lot of household projects on the go that I intend to post here on the blog, I'm going to try to post more often. I have to make laundry soap this week so that post will be coming up soon
• Jon made me a little shelf for over my baking/sewing table. It makes it easier to quickly grab ingredients needed for dinner and baking and makes my kitchen look more organized
• The meal plan is a bit different now. I no longer plan a month of meals in advance, I found I was constantly going out to the store to pick up more meat or special ingredients. We've been placing a meat order with the butcher, they have set orders for set prices and we've also been picking up anything canned, frozen and bulk that we need early in the month. Now we just pick up fruit, veg and dairy once a week. We still have a ton of meat left and it's nearly the end of the month so we shouldn't need another meat order until halfway through December. We're also not sticking strictly to the $250 food budget. Last week I only had $20 left which was enough for the fruit, veg and dairy for the rest of the month but we were low on cereal and it was on sale for a very good price so I took out an extra $20 and bought 3 boxes as well as tooth paste and some other items.

I think that's about it for what's been going on around here, we plan on having Christmas at home by ourselves this year so I have to think of a menu for that.

22 Great Meat-Free Meals (Dinner)

Meat is expensive so we try to do a meat-free meal for dinner once a week. We do this a lot more often in the summer when it's hot, we want to eat lighter and I don't want to use the oven or even the stove for extended periods of time. We usually go back to big, hearty, meaty meals once the cooler weather rolls around but this year we're trying to stick with a meat free day once or sometimes even twice a week. We're not fond of tofu or any other meat substitute products so we've incorporated a lot more beans into our diet to meet our iron and protein needs.

So in no particular seasonal order here's our list of  things we've had for dinner so far!

1. Macaroni and cheese (make your own cheese sauce)
2. Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce (or any sauce, Red Pepper, Alfredo, etc)
3. Veggie Stirfry
4. Bean and Cheese Burritos
5. Minestrone Soup and biscuits
6. Homemade pizza (try basil, tomatoes and mozzarella)
7. Risotto
8. Cheese, cracker and veggie and dip platter
9. A big salad and breadsticks
10. Pasta or potato salad
11. Nachos
12. Loaded baked potato
13. Layered bean dip and tortilla chips
14. Bruschetta or olive cheese bread with butter parmesan linguine
15. Mexican rice (black beans, corn, tomatoes,cheese)
16. Bean chili
17. Grilled cheese and tomato soup
18. Spring rolls and a side of steamed veggies and rice
19. Lasagna
20. Cauliflower cheese soup
21. Bean, corn, green onion and tomato quesadillas
22. Pierogies fried with green onions and served with sour cream

That's all that I could think of for now, feel free to suggest other veggie meals for us to add to our rotation!

Make Your Own Makeup Remover

So the day has come that I've finally run out of makeup remover. My Walmart brand bottle has lasted me over a year especially since I don't even wear makeup every day anymore. I've already used up the cash I set aside every month for fun/other spending so buying a bottle would have to come out of the grocery money and I didn't really want to do that. So I checked out the DIY section on Pinterest and found a link to  this "recipe" that uses things I already have at home.

Here's what you need:

• 1 cup water (I used the cold Brita water)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons baby shampoo
• 1/8 teaspoon olive oil

That's it! Just mix everything together and you're done. This made enough to fill my entire bottle as well as a baby cube, I didn't have any tiny jars around to store the rest.

This worked really well, it got all of my mascara off pretty easily. And I wear A LOT of eye makeup!

I realize that not everyone has baby shampoo around but you can get a teeny sample bottle from most pharmacies for just $1 or from the dollar store and each bottle has enough to make probably 2 or 3 batches. Sure beat the $5+ that it costs to get a small bottle of store-brand makeup remover.