Recycle and reward yourself

Occasionally I like to browse the craft sites. I crochet although I have not done much of it lately. I visit the etsy stores and see what is out there. Well today I came across the cutest plastic bag saver. I thought of how many plastic bags are just tossed out every day. I know I myself throw them away on a regular basis. What if instead of throwing them away, you got one of these little cuties and kept your plastic bags in them. When you are going out the door to the grocery store, grab several of the bags! Reuse them and save the planet! Well, it would help anyway. I found this cutie at Grammiescorner at Etsy. No, I'm not making any commission off of this, I just thought it was cute and wanted to share it.

Another option is to sew together some larger squares of fabric on three sides. Take a strip of fabric and make a handle for the top and you have your own easy reusable shopping bag! These can be fun to make too and they are oh, so easy! It would have to be easy for me to do it because I cannot sew. Crochet yes, sew no. As much as I've been resistant to admit it, we do have to do our part to save the earth. Every little bit helps. This is one way to do it and either give yourself a gift or have some fun at the same time! Enjoy!

Frugal Freezer Meal Ideas

When it comes to freezer cooking, it is easy to prepare frugal meals. Many frugal recipes can be placed in your freezer for cooking at a later date. There are many freezer cooking recipes books, and sites you can visit to find out which frugal meals you can freeze ahead.

• Chicken: Buy a large amount of chicken, divide it into freezer bags with the marinade of your choice, and freeze. The chicken will marinade as it thaws and you will have a tasty dish ready. Just add a side salad and some rice.

• Beans and Rice: Healthy, full of fiber, and filling, beans and rice is yummy frugal meal. No need to make any other side dishes because beans and rice is truly a meal in itself.

• Chili: Prepare a simple chili with cans of beans, onions, garlic, tomato paste and chili seasoning. You can add meat if you like but when it is made right, chili with no meat is very good. You can also add fresh tomatoes and other vegetables like bell peppers. Cook the chili, let it cool, and then just freeze.

• Casseroles: Some casseroles like tuna or broccoli and cheese don’t cost much make and can be frozen with ease. When you make a casserole for dinner one night, make two. Instead of cooking the second one, once it is prepared, put it in the freezer.

• Meatballs: Meatballs are another item is not expensive to make, can be doubled and frozen. You can find ground beef on sale often and can buy it in bulk in wholesale stores. With meatballs you can make different types to freeze like simple ones for spaghetti, honey barbecued, or teriyaki.

• Taco or sloppy joe meat: Who doesn’t love tacos or sloppy joes? Again you can get hamburger meat in bulk. The good thing about these frugal meals is that you can cook them or just prepare them and freeze. It really makes creating fun, great, quick meals simple and very feasible.

• Soups: Some soups like chicken noodle or split pea can be frozen successfully. You want to be careful freezing soups with potatoes or cream in them. These types of soups do not always freeze well and will make for a gummy. Mushy meal for the family.

If you are not sure whether or not a meal freezes well, as mentioned earlier, there are many ways to find out if they do. Freezer cooking can not only be frugal but time saving, convenient, and really easy to do.

If you liked these ideas, you’ll love Freezer Cooking Made Simple from The Hillbilly Housewife. It’s chock full of information and ideas that will have your family singing your praises while you turn No Time into No-time.

FREE STUFF!

I found a few legitimate Free offers online that I thought I would share with you. I absolutely love freebies but so many of them are a scam in disguise. I'll list a few that I found here:

Free For Bloggers: Templates and other freebies for your blog.

Free Total Cranberry Cereal for cereal killers :)

Free Hot Chocolate Sample: Just when I thought hot chocolate couldn't get any better!

Free Emergin C: New Emergin for kids

Whites Premium Dog Food: because they gotta eat too!

Free Mighty Dog Pet Food plus a few other goodies

Free Pampers Potty Training Kit: Includes pull ups

Free Viva Paper Towels or you can always buy those shammy things from TV :)

Free Tide Total Care Detergent: Better hurry on this one.

That's it for now folks. I'm going to try to do this weekly, probably on Fridays. Freebie Fridays. How does that sound?

Until next time

Getting my ducks in a row

I've been doing a lot of clearing out of information and such because, as I said, I will be focusing on only this blog and a couple of other things.

I am trying to get the email for this blog in order, so if you would be so kind as to sign up again for the newsletter, I would appreciate it. This time, you will actually GET a newsletter. :D

I plan to put in some helpful articles, humor, recipes and money saving ideas. Thanks for hanging in there and don't forget to sign up again for the newsletters as it's a new form.

See you soon!

New resource and picking new winner

I have just found the neatest resource for everything on tips to clean every room in your house to the newest "Freezer meals made Simple" For those of you that don't know it, I am a freezer cooking freak. It saves so much time and money. You can access more information at The Hillbilly Housewife. For Today only they are having a special!

I picked a winner for the Baby Signs Package but never heard from her. The first one to comment to this blog post will get the baby signs package. Deal? Deal!

I'll be eventually moving the blog over to what will be thriftyhomeonline.com and will be on wordpress, but I will keep you posted on that.