Meal Plan Monday

One of the things that I really appreciate about meal planning is its' flexibility.  It may not seem that way when you see a list of what I am planning to make for dinner for each specific night of the week, but it really is flexible.  When something comes up, like Jer having a after work Christmas party that he told me about at the last minute, or my daughter spiking a super high fever right before dinner time, you can adjust your meals to fit your needs and still be able to eat at home and not have to go to the drive thru or eat cereal for dinner.  All that is to say that we didn't quite stick to our plan last week, so you'll see a few repeated meals this week. 

Here's this week's menu: 

Meatless Monday - Leftovers (Jer will be gone for dinner, so we'll do meatless later in the week)

Tuesday - dinner with our small group

Wednesday - BBQ Chicken Pizza - from last week (and I'm attempting to cook a whole chicken for this and Friday's meal, and then make homemade broth on Thursday)

Thursday -  Black Bean and Corn Quesdillas (this is our favorite meatless meal!)

Friday - Baked Chicken Chimichangas (planning to double recipe to put some in freezer)

Saturday - Chicken Soup (with homemade stock) and Homemade Bread

Sunday - Crock pot Pork Chops with baked potatoes (from last week)


Check out more great meal plans at Organizing Junkie!

How to Have a Frugally Green Christmas - The Tree and Decorations

Photo by Smaku

(Sorry about the lateness of this post.  Life has been happening to me lately. :) Thanks for your patience.) 

The debate of Real vs. Artificial Christmas Trees is one that can divide friends, families, even couples.  I am a Real Tree girl myself.  I cherish the memories of walking through rows of snow covered pine trees looking for the "perfect" tree with my parents and two younger sisters.  When my youngest sister left for college 3 years ago, my parents bought a pre-lit artificial Christmas Tree.  My sister still refuses to be at home when they put it up.

Now that I have my own family, my hubby and I have been traveling to a local Christmas tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree each year. 

Real vs. Artificial
Like most arguments, you can find support for either side of this debate. On the one hand, an artificial tree is a one time purchase that you can use for years and years to come, and if you get a real tree you are cutting down a living tree in order to use it for a few weeks and then dispose of it.

However, I believe the Real Christmas Tree wins this argument hands down. 

- Artificial trees are made mostly of PVC which is a petroleum product.  The production of this type of plastic releases one of the most toxic chemicals, dioxin, into the environment.

- Although artificial trees could be purchased and used for 20 years or more, I read statistics that stated that most trees are discarded anywhere from 6-9 years after they are purchased.  And guess what they do when they are no longer being used?  Sit in a landfill without breaking down because they are made of PVC. 

- Some artificial trees can contain levels of lead that are unsafe for young children to be around. Lead is used as a stabilizer for PVC and over years of use artificial trees can release lead dust which can land on the branches, on the floor, or on presents below the tree.1

-Artificial trees require resources both for production and for shipping them, and many artificial trees are made in China. 


Real Christmas Trees benefit the environment while they are growing and they are also a renewable resource.  The best way to get a live tree is to find a local tree farm.  This eliminates the need for the trees to be shipped (except for you bringing it back to your house) and you can be assured that the tree you are cutting down will be replaced by a new tree being planted, the tree farm has to stay in business after all.  Live Christmas Trees can also be recycled.  Around 90% of Christmas Trees are turned into mulch each year.2 

Go to the National Christmas Tree Association to find a Christmas Tree Farm near you!

Simplify

Now as far as Christmas Decorations go, I am of the opinion that less is more.  I think this is definitely an area that you can try to simplify this year.  Use what you have. Try making homemade decorations.  Use nature for decorating.  If you must buy decorations, consider buying used. Check out your local thrift store. I was recently shopping at the St. Vincent DePaul thrift store and was impressed by the large section of Christmas decorations they had.  

What kind of Christmas Tree will you be getting this year?  What are your favorite frugal, nature inspired, or homemade Christmas decorations?  (I need some inspiration!)   

For more great frugal ideas check out Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom!

Sources: 1, 2

Meal Plan Monday

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving spending time with your families and loved ones! 
Christmas is right around the corner and to try to prepare a little bit for the busyness of the season, I want to make a recipe each week that I can double and put in the freezer. 

Here's this week's menu:

Meatless Monday - Baked French Toast with homemade hash browns

Tuesday - dinner with our small group - making Crock pot Enchiladas

Wednesday - BBQ Chicken Pizza (planning to make 2 and freeze one un-cooked like frozen pizza - we'll see how it turns out)

Thursday - Turkey Burgers on homemade rolls

Friday - Steak Stir Fry with veggies

Saturday - Dinner party at a friend's house (so excited for a night out without the kids!)

Sunday - Crock pot Pork Chops with baked potatoes 

I also want to stock my freezer with easy breakfasts or snacks, so I'm hoping to make some more pumpkin muffins (these were sooo yummy), and also these amazing looking pear and cream cheese muffins this week!

Check out more great meal plans at Organizing Junkie!

Winner of the Re-Usable Gift Bags!

 

And the Winner of the Re-Usable Gift Bags is:

 

Result: 15 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

 

Rita!

 

Thanks everyone for entering!   

 

I'm having some technical difficulties, my wireless internet isn't working so I have to sit in the corner of our office plugged into the modem and it keeps going out every few minutes. Arrggh!!  I will be in contact with the winner as soon as I can and hopefully back online and able to post again next week. I had a Thanksgiving post planned and still need to finish up the post for How to Have a Frugally Green Christmas for Friday, but those may just have to wait until next week. :(  Sorry about that, but I hope you all have a fabulous Thanksgiving! 

I am so thankful for my God who saved me and loves me more than I deserve, and for my awesome family whom I love and cherish more than words can express! Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Meal Plan Monday

Be sure to check out my Giveaway for Re-usable Gift Bags! There are not very many comments yet, so you have a GREAT chance of winning!!

It was nice to take a little break this past week. Even though I was still making dinner it just seemed a little simpler and not so much of a chore. I'm not completely sure why, maybe it is all about the attitude I have about it. If I think about it as being simpler and easy, then it seems less stressful to me.  Hmmm, funny how that works. 

We're heading to my family's house for Thanksgiving, so this is another easy week for me! :)  (Thanks Mom!!) 

I made these Pumpkin Bars to take when we went to dinner at our friend's house last week.  Then when we were coming home we left the pan on the back of our car. Oops!  I don't know which I was was sadder about - loosing the pan or the leftover bars!

Here's this week's menu: (sorry for the boringness and lack of links!)

Meatless Monday - Spaghetti with sauce and veggies

Tuesday - dinner with our small group

Wednesday - sandwiches or on the road

Thursday through Sunday - at my family's house

I'll be back next week ready to get back into meal planning and sharing yummy recipe links with you!  In the mean time, remember to check out my giveaway!

Check out more great meal plans at Organizing Junkie!

How to Have a Frugally Green Christmas - Wrapping Gifts & A GIVEAWAY!!

This is the third post in the series How to Have a Frugally Green Christmas. Read the first post on gift giving, and the second post on Christmas cards.

Photo by di_the_huntress

When you think about Christmas, one of the main images that probably comes to mind is the beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree. I remember as a child getting up on Christmas morning before everyone else and just sitting in the dark and staring at our Christmas Tree with the Christmas lights on and all of presents under the tree.

And I also vividly remember the huge trash bags that we would fill with wrapping paper, boxes, bows and packaging when we had finished opening our gifts. And I think our family was fairly conservative in this area. We saved gift bags, bows, and ribbon to reuse for as long as they still looked fairly decent. My dad would always open his gifts carefully so we could fold up his wrapping paper and use it again. We saved all our boxes and reused them year after year. It's kind of a joke in our family, because when you open a gift and the box is for a crockpot, you know that's not really what's inside.

Photo by jennandjon

In America, we create an additional 1 million tons of waste during the holiday season.1 One million tons. Now, that includes more than just gift wrap, but that is a lot of trash. Most gift wrap is not recyclable because of the type of paper it is made out of, or it has dyes or metallics or other decorations that make it un-recyclable. So it all ends up in the trash.

But, it kind of defeats the purpose if you give a gift and the person knows what it is right away, right? So, how can we wrap our gifts and still be frugally green? If every family in America wrapped 3 gifts in re-used or re-usable material instead of new wrapping paper, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.2 Here's how you can do your part!

1. Re-use gift bags, wrapping paper, bows, and ribbon. Be careful as you are unwrapping your gifts and try to salvage gift wrap that could be re-usable next year. You will save yourself the cost of buying all new wrapping paper, ribbons and bows. If every family reused just two feet of ribbon it would save 38,000 miles of ribbon and could tie a bow around the entire planet.2

2. Use alternative gift wrap. Save the comic pages from the Sunday newspaper for the next few weeks and use that to wrap your gifts. Or find old calendars with pretty pictures or magazine pages for wrapping smaller gifts. Your gifts will look unique and memorable.

3. Use recycled wrapping paper. Like Christmas cards, this is a more spendy option, but still a more earth friendly choice than traditional gift wrap.

4. Use re-usable gift bags. Last year my sister made me a bunch of re-usable gift bags for Christmas. It was such a great gift, and I'm so excited to use the bags to "wrap" my gifts this year. To me, this is the best option. It may cost a little more money than gift wrap up front, but will save you money in years to come, and there is no waste. You can keep the bags within the family and keep using them year after year, or if you are giving a gift to someone outside of the family you can make the bag a part of the gift. See below for your chance to win a set of your very own gift bags!!

Here's a tutorial if you would like to make your own gift bags.
Or if you want to buy them, check out Etsy for lots of different options.

Simplify
If you have simplified your gift list, then you will have fewer presents to wrap. Also, gift bags make wrapping presents MUCH easier! You just put the gift inside the bag, tie the ribbon and you're good to go! No struggling with large rolls of wrapping paper. No measuring, cutting, folding, taping. No last minute rush to get the presents wrapped and under the tree (Oh, does that only happen in my family?) Less stress and still beautiful presents!

GIVEAWAY!!!

Would you like to have your own set of reusable gift bags to use for wrapping presents this year? Like I said, my sister made me a set of bags last year, and she graciously made a set of 5 assorted bags, with coordinating ribbons, for me to giveaway to one lucky reader! Below is a picture of the bags, if you want to see an example of what they would look like all set up and pretty see the picture above.
To Enter:
Simply leave a comment below and tell us one of your favorite things about Christmas!

Also, there are two ways you can earn additional entries:
1. If you are a subscriber or follower of my blog, or sign up as a new subscriber or follower, you get an extra entry! Leave an additional comment saying you are a subscriber or follower.

2. If you blog about this giveaway on your blog, you can have another extra entry. Please leave an additional comment with a link to your post about this giveaway.

Giveaway ends on Tuesday, November 24th at 10:00pm EST. At that time a winner will be chosen by random.org and will be announced the next day!

1. planetgreen.com
2. recycling.stanford.edu

For more great frugal tips check out Frugal Fridays at Life as Mom, and Finer Things Friday at The Finer Things in Life.

Homemade Spray Starch

photo by get down

One of the ways that we have cut back on our budget is by eliminating dry cleaning. We used to have my hubby's work shirts dry cleaned every week. It was really nice to not have to worry about washing and ironing his shirts for work everyday.

But, dry cleaning, especially for dress shirts, is an unnecessary expense when you can easily wash and iron your own clothes at home. And now that I know more about the chemicals used in dry cleaning, I would still choose to launder his shirts at home, even if we had room in the budget for dry cleaning.

Dry cleaning uses a chemical called Tetrachloroethene (it also goes by tetrachloroethylene, perchloroethylene, or PCE) and is most commonly known as PERC.1 You can be exposed to PERC simply by bringing dry cleaned clothes into your home because the clothing can off-gas the chemical into the air, and even, though less likely, through your skin by wearing the dry cleaned clothes on your body. PERC is labeled as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency1 and must be handled as hazardous waste.2 Not something that I want in my home or for my husband to be wearing.

So, I have been washing and ironing Jer's works shirts for him. (That's love!) I used to use store bought spray starch, because he liked the feel of the stiff starched dry cleaned shirts. But then when I ran out, I just didn't buy any more. Just recently, as part of my homemade kick, I thought about making my own spray starch and found lots of recipes online. I mixed up a batch and used it to iron his shirts, and am really pleased the the results.

Homemade Spray Starch
2 cups cold water
1 Tbsp corn starch

Yep! It really is that easy. Mix it together and then put it in a spray bottle and shake it up until the cornstarch is dissolved. Make sure you shake it each time before you iron too. If you want it to be even more "starchy" you can add more cornstarch. I would be a little afraid of residue on my clothing though. This spray really does make ironing easier, especially when the shirts have been sitting in a laundry basket for a week (blush). And his shirts look nice and crisp without being overly stiff. Also, when I iron his shirts all at the same time for the week (which doesn't happen as often as I would like, but is ultimately my goal) the shirts stay looking nice and freshly ironed even after hanging in the closet for a few days.

Plus, could it be any cheaper?! Basically the cost of a Tablespoon of corn starch - for my box of corn starch was about 4 cents. Compared to the $2 can from the store that you often can't even use all of it because the nozzle gets plugged - you can't beat that! And no can to throw in the landfill when you're done.

If you use homemade spray starch along with homemade laundry detergent, you are well on your way to a frugally green laundry routine!

Happy ironing! (If that's even possible) :)


1. thedailygreen.com
2. Wikepedia.org