If you’re a frequent Amazon shopper, you may have noticed that item prices fluctuate often and sometimes by a bundle of money. If you want to nab the best price for an item, try an Amazon price tracking site. [Read more…]
Setting Goals for Success
I am a firm believer in the importance of setting goals. Some people believe that creating personal goals is boring and stifling, but I find it to be a liberating experience:
- Goals provide a sense of accomplishment. It is truly satisfying to cross a goal — no matter how small — off a written list! At the end of the week, month, or year, you can see just how far you’ve come.
- Goals give you purpose. Have you asked yourself, “What should I be doing right now?” or “Is there something more important or more urgent that I should be doing right now?” Know that what you’re doing is exactly what you truly need or to be doing at that moment.
- Goals reduce your stress. Write down your goals — and the dates by which you want to accomplish them — and you don’t have to worry about keeping it all straight in your head . . . or missing something.
- Shared goals bring people together. Setting goals with your spouse, your kids, and your peers unites you in a common purpose and establishes you as teammates working together.
Make It From Scratch: Baby Food
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
Baby products come with major sticker shock. Of the many hefty baby expenses out there, one that really adds up over time is baby food.
When my son started solid foods at four months of age, I was baffled by the fact that a minuscule jar of mashed bananas — on sale! — cost more than a full-sized banana from the produce department. For standard Gerber fare, my supermarket wanted to charge me, on a good day, $0.50 per portion of Stage 1 foods, $0.60 per portion of Stage 2 foods, and $0.75 per portion of Stage Stage 3 foods. The Beech-Nut foods usually hovered around twice that price!
There was no way I was willing tho shell out that much money for groceries when a simple solution would allow me to have high-quality baby food for so much less — making my own baby food. [Read more…]
Favorite Products for Banishing Kitchen Chaos: Part 2
Check out Part 1 of this series! Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
Big Containers
Baking is a breeze with these babies. A bag of flour fits with room enough for a scoop into a single one of these 5.5-quart containers. They’re great for storing your flours, sugar, rice, and more. Smaller containers are handy for confectioner’s sugar, coffee, pastas, dry beans, etc. They’re attractive enough — with a small enough footprint — to leave on the counter. [Read more…]
Favorite Products for Banishing Kitchen Chaos: Part 1
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
Cooking can be a refreshing and relaxing experience . . . but not when you’re pulling out your hair trying to find everything you need. Digging through a vat of pot lids, hauling everything out of the freezer to find tomorrow night’s roast, and trying to get everything away so that your kitchen doesn’t look like a war zone can make the process something to dread.
A disorganized kitchen is stressful and wastes your time every minute that you have to do battle with it. I’ve discovered and come to love the following tools for keeping my food and equipment organized, which in turn saves my time and sanity. [Read more…]
Quick Tip: Slicing a Loaf of Bread
A bread knife is a great tool in the kitchen, but it’s caused some major loaf carnage in my kitchen. Sometimes the pressure required to slice homemade or bakery bread — especially when it’s toasty warm — can flatten a previously lovely loaf. Sometimes, wrangling the knife can make it extremely challenging to get even slices of the right thickness and a smooth cut. Even under the best circumstances though, I wind up with piles of crumbs on my counter . . . wasted bread! [Read more…]
4 Ways to Pack for a Trip at Lightning Speed
Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
How familiar is this scenario? It’s 10:00 at night, you’re leaving early to travel, and you haven’t packed a thing.
Back when I was single, my less-than-ideal approach to packing would involve miming my way through each day of my vacation to figure out what I needed to take and packing each item as I went along. Mentally walking through a long weekend though was incredibly time-consuming, and I’d still head out in the morning muttering, “I hope I remembered everything.” It was often the daily essentials I didn’t think about — comb, razor, toothpaste — that would be most likely to be forgotten.
Now with a husband — who seems to require more accessories than I do! — and a kid, I definitely can’t stick with the old approach. To keep my sanity and save a massive amount of time, I’ve whole-heartedly embraced the following tips for getting our family’s packing done in a snap: [Read more…]
Budget Leeches (and How to Stop the Bleeding): Gifts
Check out Part 4 of this series
The Problem
The holidays have come and gone, and your mind is no longer fixated on the whirlwind of shopping for and wrapping presents. Just as you settle down to relax, your December credit card bill arrives, and it’s a doozy! [Read more…]
Budget Leeches (and How to Stop the Bleeding): Cell Phone
Check out Part 3 of this series!
The Problem
Voice and data charges can be massive, especially if your plan covers more than one phone user. Even basic plans can easily run a single user $50, $100, or more per month. Are you really getting your money’s worth? [Read more…]
Budget Leeches (and How to Stop the Bleeding): Cable T.V.
Check out Part 2 of this series! Note: This post contains affiliate links. Read my policy here.
The Problem
You’ve got every channel imaginable at the tip of your fingertips. Maybe for that first year of service, you think you’ve landed yourself a pretty sweet deal for your television, phone, and Internet service! Then year two rolls around and you get the jaw-dropping bill . . . [Read more…]