Delectable Banana Bread

Now that fall is upon us, I’m back into baking mode!  I love baking bread, cakes and cookies but we don’t have air conditioning so here in the South that means summer is a barren wasteland for all things homemade baked goods.  It’s just too darn hot to run the oven!  But summer also means lots of fresh fruits… some of which just don’t get eaten before they start to go bad.  In the spirit of saving money, I try to stick fruits in the freezer before they spoil too much so we can use them up when we get a chance.  This is how I came to have 8 blackened bananas in a gallon baggie in my freezer.

We always seem to have 1 or 2 bananas that just don’t get eaten before they start to go bad and I hate to waste them.  I remember when (ok showing my age here…) you could get bananas for $0.25/lb and now they average about $0.59/lb.  I hate spending that much but I actually like bananas so I try to buy them when they go on sale.  But with just 1 or 2 bananas leftover every few weeks you can’t do much so when I get one that is turning I stick it in a gallon baggie and pop it in my freezer. Then I just add to the baggie each time we have extras until I get 6-8 very ripe bananas. 

And then this delicious bread happens.

For this recipe you need about 3 cups of banana which is between 6-8 bananas.  BUT if you don’t have enough and are really craving banana bread you can substitute the missing portion of banana with applesauce.  I have made it with up to one cup of applesauce and it was just as banana-y as if I had used all banana!

First you want to combine your sugar and butter until it’s light and fluffy.  I don’t know the why behind this step but I do it, its pretty easy.

Next, you add the eggs and bananas (and applesauce if you choose). Mix well.

Finally, sift together your dry ingredients. (I will fully admit I totally skip this step – hey I have a toddler to get back to!) Then mix the dry ingredients with your banana mixture until just blended together.

Grease your loaf pans well.  I like to use butter and a paper towel to coat the pan but cooking spray works just fine.  If you have trouble with sticking, make sure to coat the corners really well.  Then fill your pans with the mixture until they are about 1/2-3/4 full.  I usually get 2 loaves with this recipe. One large and one medium sized.

Then bake for 45-60mins or until the centers come clean when you stick a knife or toothpick in. (My medium sized loaf took about 45mins and the larger loaf took closer to 60mins.)  Let them cool in the pan for about 10 mins and then remove from pan to finish cooling. Slice and enjoy with some butter or ice cream! Ready to start baking?  Here’s the recipe:

Delectable Banana Bread

3 cups	Banana, mashed (about 6-8 ripe bananas)
2 cups	Sugar
1 cup	Butter
4	Eggs, beaten
2.5 cups	Flour (I use all purpose)
2 tsp	Baking Soda
1 tsp	Salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

With electric mixer, cream the sugar and butter together.  Add the bananas and eggs and beat until well mixed. (You can substitute the banana with applesauce if you don’t have quite 3 cups.)

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt. Blend the dry mixture with the banana mixture until just mixed.

Pour into 2 greased loaf pans.  Bake for 45-60minutes or until a knife or toothpicks comes out clean from the middle. You can also watch for the edges to start to separate from the pans – mine sometimes don’t do this so I always use the toothpick method.

Cool in pans for about 10 minutes then remove from pans and let cool.  Enjoy!

Frugal tip: If your family can’t eat both loaves before they go bad – not a problem in my house – you can freeze one loaf for later use!

Getting a Handle on Spending

I came clean a few weeks back on our total debt and our deadline to pay it off, but I didn’t really discuss how we plan to pay it off.  Honestly, I really didn’t know how we would.  I figured we would start a snowball type plan to get it done but I didn’t know where we could get any extra money to do this with.  I spent the last 4 weeks focusing on our grocery budget because to me it was the easiest place to cut.  I knew we were overspending in this area and I was right!  The extra $200 a month is a great start but I want to be more aggressive in getting this done.  You Dave Ramsey fans out there might call this getting “gazelle.” 

I’ve read Dave’s books and looked into his methods. I know they work for a lot of people and I know some of it can work for us. The one thing I was struggling with was how to live on a cash only basis.  My credit union that I’ve had an account with for over 30 years has no branches here in the state so cash can’t be taken out to be re-deposited at specific times to pay bill categories.  But I liked the thought of having “envelopes” and having set amounts for those categories.  I needed a way to keep my accounts electronic while still tracking specific category spending.

Enter You Need A Budget – or YNAB.

This is an actual screenshot of my budget in YNAB.  The “budgeted” amount is the total amount I’ve placed in that “envelope” for the month, the “outflows” are what I’ve actually spent from that “envelope” and the “balance” is the amount left to spend in my “envelope.”  This is all separate from my checking account yet helps me track my allocations without the money ever leaving the account.  I can also track the spending just like you would with a check register – remember those?  The best part is you can load the program on as many devices as you like!  I have the free app loaded on my Android phone that let’s me quickly see how much is currently in my envelope AND enter transactions as they happen to immediately update the totals across all devices. 

For example, I’m at grocery store A and I check to see I have $100 left for the week in that category.  I shop and I spend $75.  I enter that amount on my phone before leaving the store and immediately my husband who is at store B can see on his app that we now only have $25 left for groceries and adjusts his spending accordingly.

Since I started using the program about 4 weeks ago, I’ve been much more aware of what I’m spending and where.  I get a paycheck and immediately prioritize where the money gets allocated.   Then I don’t worry about if we have enough to get gas or go out to eat because I can always see exactly what I’ve already earmarked for that purpose.  If “Murphy” happens, and he always does, you can adjust your categories as needed but still know you have enough to cover everything.  I can’t say enough about YNAB it is the easiest and most liveable plan I’ve ever used.   And in the short time I’ve used it we have “found” over $400 to use toward our snowball this month!

YNAB has a FREE trial – and I mean completely FREE for 34 days – so you can see if the program is right for you.  They also have free online classes to help you customize the product for your needs.  I just bought the program before our free trial ended because I love it so much!  It has made budgeting…. FUN! Yes, I actually said that.   So try YNAB by using their free trial, and if you like it, please come back here and click through my link to get yourself a $6 discount on the program. (out of full disclozure - I might also get a $6 bonus if you do!)

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 4

This is the last week in my grocery challenge to trim $200 from our grocery bill and I am happy to report – I DID IT!!  The goal was to go from spending roughly $600 per month to just $400 – about a 33% reduction. The total I spent for this month on groceries (including household and baby items) was just….

In my budget, that is a savings of 37% or an actual $222.09!  I will be putting this extra cash to paying down our debts and to hopefully get us to our goal even sooner.  To me that total above is simply amazing.  Amazing because I always thought I was a smart shopper before. Amazing because I didn’t think we had anywhere to scrape extra dollars like that from. Amazing because it was so much easier than I thought it could be! 

I even saved money this week when I was feeling overwhelmed and tired and didn’t really get the greatest of deals.  This way of shopping and the simple act of using coupons is really saving our family money and is sustainable.  That is the important thing to me -  that this will be something I can achieve consistently if I keep at it.

This week I spent $90.13 between 2 stores – under budget by almost $10.  So without further ado… where did I shop and what did I get? 

First we went to Target – now I admit we mostly went here to get a deal on Starbucks coffee and ended up with other things entirely. This is my problem going to “big box” type of stores where they have more than just grocery items – BUT -  they do tend to have better prices on the household and baby items. I guess it’s a tradeoff and I just need to get more willpower not to scour the entire store!  So, back to the shopping… we went to pick up Starbucks beans that were on sale AND had a $5 gift card offer.  Most of the bags were gone, completely cleared out.  The ones that were left were blends Mr. Wee doesn’t like so we didn’t get any coffee.  Bummer!  By the way, did you know there are smartphone apps that will pay you to snap a pic of empty shelves and upload them?  Holy crap I would make so much money around here…. if only the apps were compatible with my phone! (iPhone users – check out gapNsnap if you are interested)  So what did we buy here then?  Baby Wee was out of Hylands Teething Tablets – best invention ever – so we picked those up using a Cartwheel offer.  We also used a Cartwheel and Target coupon to purchase Plum Organic baby food packets.  Finally, they had a sale on a giant jar of Jif for $5 – normally the same jar runs $6.99 at the grocery store.  Total spent: $24.99, total saved: $6.37.

The bulk of our shopping was done at Kroger.  I will admit I had been in a sort of love affair with Kroger the past few weeks after getting some great deals.  This week, I even decided to skip looking at my local Ingles ad because I was certain the better deals would be here – mistake.  Ok, I did still get some good deals here this week but I’ve become slightly disenchanted.  I got caught up in the 10/$10 promotion but found many of the items cleared out from the shelves… other shoppers informed me they had been empty since the day the ad came out.  Maybe they restocked during the promo, maybe they didn’t.  Either way, I was disappointed.  I was able to get greek yogurt, frozen veggies, organic mac n cheese, pasta and condensed soups (yes, I know making them is healthier but time is sometimes a premium!) for $1 or less when combined with coupons. I also stocked up on organic chicken broth for soups for fall!  Overall I spent $65.14 here and saved $33.94 – a 36% savings.  After the last few weeks of saving 40% or more, this felt like a fail.  But I still saved money – that is the most important thing to remember!

Next week I plan to recap some of the biggest things I’ve learned over the last 4 weeks but if you want to start saving now, I really want to encourage you to check out the banner link to my affiliate below:I know I’ve mentioned Grocery University in previous weeks of this challenge, but I cannot stress enough how great this program has been for our family!  I bought the program figuring I would at least recoup the cost of the program with a tip or two, so what was the harm?  The program costs $9.97 and over the last 4 weeks I’ve saved $222.09.  Seriously, how can you not love that?  Some of the tips are common sense or things you might know if you’ve been on a tight budget, but I think there are at least one or two tricks your family might benefit from in there too.  I encourage you to check it out!

What does your grocery budget look like? Could you stand to trim it?

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 3

Disclosure policy: This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive compensation if you make a purchase using this link.

Here we are over halfway into my mission to cut our grocery budget by $200 this month. I am finding it easier and easier to save money at the store without making huge sacrifices and so I know I will be able to continue sticking to the new grocery budget and maybe even challenge that a bit to get it down even further!  Again I came in under budget and spent just $80.42 between 3 grocery bills. That puts the monthly total at $287.78 at week 3!  

I knew this week would be a challenge because we needed quite a few “big ticket” items for the house like toilet paper and detergent.  I knew this week would be a challenge because we needed quite a few “big ticket” items for the house like toilet paper and detergent so I decided to get a little creative and “shopped” from my fridge and pantry first.   I was shocked at what we already had on hand… especially in our little freezer.

Freezer Inventory:
Meats – keilbasa, 3 chicken breasts, sausage log, homemade sausage from the neighbors, ground chicken, 8 filet mignon, bacon, 4 sirloins, cube steak, 5 pork chops, chicken thighs, 2 cooked chicken breasts.
Vegetables – lima beans, sweet carrots, peas, corn, broccoli, peas & carrots, mixed veggies, cauliflower, tater tots, crinkle fries, chopped green pepper, chopped onion
Fruit – mixed berries, blueberries, black bananas
Cheese – swiss, parmesan, 2 bags of cheddar, mozzarella
Drinks – rum ,gin, tequila, moonshine, Tastefully Simple Ruby Orange Slush, breastmilk
Random – 4lb butter, ice cream, sugar cookies, yeast, pork gravy leftovers, bean & cheese burrito, chicken tenders, taquitos.

Yes… allllll of that fit in this tiny freezer you see in the picture.  I was vaguely aware of the contents but I was even taken by surprise on a few items.  This was more than enough to feed my family for the week if not for a few weeks!  Some things may not be our first choice but we definitely would not starve.  Let’s not forget I still have my fridge and pantry to find additional ingredients and round out the meals!  So where else did I shop and what deals did I get?

First I scoured the internet for deals on toilet paper.  Hubs is kinda picky about this one because of our septic tank and the best deal I could find was through Amazon.  We ordered Scott Extra Soft Double Rolls (36 rolls) for $19.74 shipped. We used subscribe & save, a $1 digital coupon and our Amazon Prime membership to make this item a decent deal. It works out to about $0.55 per roll and I’m pretty good with that price. This purchase will last us a while too so spread over 2-3 months the cost isn’t bad at all!

Then we went to Wal-Mart where I stocked up on toothpaste, new toothbrushes (for our upcoming trip!), mouthwash, deodorant and aluminum foil.  I spent $25.25 here on house/grocery items and saved about $4 using coupons. I have decided I really need to stay away from Wal-Mart though because I spent an additional $35.72 on shoes for baby and a hooded zip sweatshirt for me.  That came out of the clothes budget so technically doesn’t count for the grocery totals!

Last up was Kroger. I used my Kroger card and digital coupons and saved $22.58 to make my total bill $35.43!  Again I saved 40% on my main grocery trip!  I shopped a lot of the mega savings event items and managed to get deals like General Mills cereal for $1.49, Tide for $3.99 and my lovely raspberries for $0.99!  We also purchased staples like milk and eggs.  Kroger is quickly becoming my new favorite grocery store even though it’s a bit further to drive!

Let’s tally up some totals for the past 3 weeks, shall we?  I’ve spent a total of $287.78 of our grocery/household budget.  Without using the tips learned from the Grocery University program, I would have spent $400.65 on those exact same items.   I’ve saved $112.87 so far on the items I’ve bought.  I’ve also spent approximately $162.22 less than I normally would have spent from this budget at this point in the month!  That is a huge savings in my book!

Creative Grocery Savings

So I mentioned in my last post that I purchased 9 various Pillsbury items and got a free gallon of milk on an in store promotion.  Those items were on sale and I used coupons as well (some of which doubled!), bringing the total down considerably.  I think using coupons on top of store sales is an easy way to save but is there another way to maximize those savings?  YES!

Since our grocery ads come out on Wednesday and we only purchase a Sunday paper, I do my ad browsing online.  When I went to my store’s website, I discovered that they offer a section that has printable coupons and then had something called SavingStar.   Basically it’s a way to link your store card to earn cash back on items you purchase.  You just choose which offers to load to your card and then swipe your store card at checkout and you are done – no reciepts to upload!  I noticed that several of the offers were similar or the same as the coupons I had BUT they could be used in addition to the coupons and store sales giving me triple savings on certain items!

So let’s look at those Pillsbury items again…

Regular Retail Price of 9 items: $17.60
Ad Price for 9 items:                       $15.00
Instant Brand Svgs at Register:   -$2.00
Value of Free Gallon of Milk:       -$3.79
Coupons w/ doubling:                   -$4.40
Total Paid for 9 items:                $4.81

Today I received notification that my SavingStar savings had been added to my account.  I received $2.20 cash back related to the same Pillsbury items above. 

That makes my total cost for those items: $2.61 or about $0.29 per item!  Well really 10 items for about $0.26 each if you count the gallon of milk we also received!  That is an 85% savings!

SavingStar also loads one item every Friday that will be FREE if purchased by a certain date.  Last week that item was Reeses’ Peanut Butter Cups – oh the deliciousness!  And yes, the full cost was uploaded to my account so it was FREE!  That just made them all the more delicious!

To see if your store participates with SavingStar just go to http://savingstar.com to check!

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 2

This marks week 2 of my quest to lower our grocery budget by $200 for the month.  (See week 1 here!) I am very happy to report that I came in well under my budget of $100 for the week, paying just $72.81 between two stores!  That puts us at a total of $207.36 for the month – just $7.36 over my goal for this point. I am confident we can make that up over the next 2 weeks.  So where did I shop and what savings did I get?

First up was Kroger.  I spent $17.56 here.  We generally don’t shop here much, but when I was comparing prices at our local stores they had the best prices for meat.  Hubs requested steaks for Sunday night dinner which was NOT in my budget at all.  There were a couple options at Kroger that I thought I could make work but Hubs wasn’t impressed with those and wanted the $20 steaks instead – these came out of ”his” grocery budget.  In our family budget, we include a “his” grocery budget for items I might have him pick up on the way home and that is not figured into the general grocery budget.  What I did get was a pork loin for $1.99/lb that we will turn into a couple meals of pork chops and a pork roast (total $9.07).  I also picked up a head of green leaf lettuce and a tube of Butt Paste for the little. I used our Kroger card and a $2 coupon for the Butt Paste.  The diaper cream probably could have been purchased for slightly less elsewhere, but we weren’t making another trip.  Overall with the card and the coupon, I saved 36% off the total bill.

Then we finished up our trip at Ingles, our local grocery store.  I paid $55.25 for $93.99 worth of groceries – a 41% savings!  I had 3 coupons that doubled (from $0.40 to $0.80), a few higher dollar coupons ($1+), a Catalina for $3 off the total, and used an in store “coupon” for a free gallon of milk (a savings of $3.79).  The rest of the savings came from using our store card for sale prices.  We stocked up on baby water which was on sale for $0.88/gallon – the first time I’ve ever noticed this on sale and we go through about 1 gallon per week.  We also stocked up on taco shells (3/$2.75 after coupon).  I got 9 various Pillsbury cookies, biscuits, and cinnamon rolls – used 3 coupons that were doubled, got $2 off instantly at the register, and got a free gallon of milk! (with the combined savings I paid about $1 per item)  My “big ticket” item was lunch meat for the hubs that cost $5.50/lb.  The store had a BOGO promotion going and then I also used a $0.75 coupon making them about $2.38 each!

I feel like we did pretty well in the savings department this week!  I would love to reach a 50% or more savings on a trip, but overall 40% is still great!  In total we should have spent $120.89 and spent just $72.81. That’s almost $50 back in our pockets… or to paying off debts! I also have rebates coming from a few smartphone apps because of certain grocery purchases we made!

Today the hubs asked me why we haven’t been doing this all along.  I thought I didn’t have the time. I thought we didn’t have access to coupons we would use. I know now I didn’t have the right tips & tricks in my arsenal to make it happen.  With some new tips and perspective,  a few minutes cutting/printing coupons, and a few more minutes organizing my list and matching up menus, deals & coupons getting this savings is easier than I ever thought it would be.  Why haven’t we been doing this all along?

Asian Lettuce Wraps

So I mentioned that one of my “good deals” at the grocery store this past weekend was antibiotic and hormone free ground chicken.  I have never bought this before because its generally too pricey but this week it was less than the ground beef!  So what to make?  We have a favorite ground beef recipe that I decided might just work with ground chicken.  I was right and it was delicious!  Its similar to a very popular restaurant chain’s lettuce wrap appetizer… so if you like those, you need to try this recipe.

Asian Lettuce Wraps:
1 Lb Ground Chicken
1/2 can Water Chestnuts, chopped
2-3 stalks Celery, chopped
1/2c. Brown Sugar – not packed
1/4c. Soy Sauce
1 Tbs Sesame Oil
3 cloves of Garlic, minced
1/2 tsp freshly grated Ginger (can also use 1/4 tsp ground ginger)
1/2-1 tsp crushed red pepper (the full amount is SPICY!)
Salt & Pepper to taste

Mix together the brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger & red pepper and set aside.  Brown the ground chicken with the water chestnuts, celery, minced garlic, salt, pepper and sesame oil in a skillet over medium heat.  Drain the fat and place back in the skillet.  Add the brown sugar/soy sauce mixture and stir to coat.  Simmer for 3-4minutes to blend the flavors.  Serve over rice or wrapped in your favorite lettuce leaf. 
Recipe slightly adapted from Six Sisters’ Stuff.

This recipe also works very well with ground beef and has become a favorite in our house. The hubs actually requests it weekly, although it doesn’t get made quite that often!  The next time I make this I’m thinking of adding roasted peanuts to the mix.

If you make this, let me know if your family likes it!

Cutting the Grocery Budget–Week 1

My goal for this month is to cut our grocery budget by $200.  That is a huge amount but we were also spending a huge amount.  This week it will probably look like we aren’t doing so hot in the savings department because I spent $134.55… just $15.45 less than my original spending of $150 per week.  BUT… we stocked up on some things that *should* save us on grocery costs throughout the month and it’s still a savings for the week!  Oh, and I think I should mention that our “grocery” budget includes personal care items.  I also should mention, we have taxes here on groceries and it ranges from 5-7% depending on the item so that is included in my monthly budget as well. So what did I buy and what “deals” did I get?

First up was Sam’s Club.  Love ‘em or hate ‘em, warehouse clubs can be a great place to find deals. Personally, I prefer Costco but we only have Sam’s in our area.  There are deals to be had but you need to really check the prices at your local grocery stores to know if you are getting a good one or not.  For example, Campbell’s tomato soup runs $0.79+/can at the grocery store and at Sam’s I can buy it in a 12pack for $0.66/can.  We do not make a weekly trip here and generally buy just a few choice items when we do go.  So stocking up on a few items for the month, we spent $68.76… ugh… ok let’s break that down a bit with our price so it doesn’t hurt so much…

We bought:
5lbs of 90/10 ground beef – $3.65/lb (6+meals & cheaper per lb than the 80/20 at the grocery)
2 32oz flavored International Delight coffee creamers – $2.03 each (my vice)
3 Classico Pasta Sauces – $1.82 each
2 Simply Orange Orange Juice – $2.94 each
4lbs Butter (in sticks) – $2.87/lb or
2lbs Starbucks Beans – $8.99/lb (Hubs is a coffee snob and this runs us $13/lb at the grocery)

Next we went to Walmart.  Yes, I know allll about the evils of Walmart but for things like personal care items, they have the best prices in the area.  I spent $6.50 here and saved $4.25 using coupons! (That’s an almost 40% savings!) I will add that going here I also bought things I didn’t need that were *not* grocery budget line items so are not included in the total.  This will always be the downfall of shopping in a supercenter type setting.

We bought:
Carefree pantyliners – $0.44 (used $0.50 off coupon)
Stayfree pads – $1.86 (used $1 off coupon)
TRESemee Hairspray – $1.98 (used $2 off coupon)
Caress Body Wash – $2.22 (used $0.75 off coupon)

Finally, we went to Ingles (our local grocery store). We spent a grand total of $59.29 on just grocery items and we saved $31.96.  That’s right, we got $91.25 worth of food for just over $59!!  (A 35% savings!)  I’m not going to detail my entire grocery list here but our savings came from a few places.  First, we used our store card to save $25.76.  Big ticket items included in this savings were hamburger buns for $0.68, ground chicken for $3/lb, grapes for $1.40/lb and 33oz of olive oil for $6!  I used store card savings on some Gerber baby items that were 2/$3 or 3/$4 and stacked that with $1 off coupons bringing those down to $1 per meal or snack saving about $0.60 on each.  I also got catalinas for $1 off more Gerber items and $3 off my next shopping trip! (Catalinas are the coupons that print at the register with your receipt) In total I used $6.20 in coupons.

So did I save the 90% that you see on the extreme couponing shows?  Heck no!  But I do think I learned some helpful tips that will get us to the $400 or less monthly grocery budget. (Thank you to my affiliate, Grocery University)  I also think saving 35-40% off is a pretty good first effort. 

A few things I have learned from this first venture out? 

• The tips I learned from Grocery University have already saved me more than I paid for the download – seriously, go buy it now! 
• My local grocery store runs their ads from Wednesday to Tuesday every week so I can plan for my weekend shopping trip by looking at the online ad. 
• Running to town to pick up the “big city” newspaper (in our case, the Knoxville News Sentinel) is worth it for the extra coupons they offer. 
• I have a ton of coupons for non-food items and not so many for food items – I need to focus more on the food coupons when printing them from online. 
• I need to make a price list so I can better judge if items are a “good deal” or not – especially when shopping at Sam’s club. (ex: I should have bought the soup!)

What is your favorite grocery shopping tip? What was your biggest grocery shopping deal?