Countdown to the Holidays! Chow Down

Christmas is coming, Christmas is coming!

We all have extra shopping to do in December, let's help ease the burden and chow down! I challenge you to do less (regular) grocery shopping in December. Eat what you have, go 'freezer diving', get creative, and save some money!

I have the habit of putting  leftover sauce into the freezer. Plus I usually stock up on the meat that's on sale for half price at my store. I know I have another half a bag of black beans, plus a few 'cans' in the freezer. And I REALLY need to finish that box of rice I bought... too long ago.

Is your food storage in a similar state? Will you accept the Challenge?

Chow Down Challenge:

1. Wait as long as possible to go grocery shopping this month and buy as little as possible. (I'm talking about regular grocery shopping, not Christmas Dinner.)
2. Use up what you already have. Get creative. Dig to the bottom of the freezer and the back of the pantry.
3. Save some money.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me on the Homemaking Diva Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HomemakingDiva or by email at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Coundown to the Holidays! Getting it Together

Well, they DID actually have turkeys in stock yesterday morning, yay! So now I have two. One is defrosting in my fridge for Thanksgiving and the other is waiting patiently in my chest freezer for Christmas.

If you're cooking a turkey this year, it's time to get it thawing :) And  while you're putting the turkey in the fridge, you might want to clean it out. Not clean-wash, clean-declutter. Well, you can clean-wash if you want to. I'll be cleaning out my fridge today to make room for Thanksgiving.


While I was in town yesterday I also picked up bread at Westons - so much cheaper than the grocery store. They bake the name-brand bread and deliver to the grocery stores. What the stores don't sell the day of, gets returned, and I can get one-day-older bread at the Westons thrift store for less than half price! I was nice and grabbed two squished loaves as part of my purchase - they can be for stuffing.

Today is Thanksgiving grocery day for me. I'm going to look at my Thanksgiving Planner and pull the recipes for the dishes I picked. Then I'll check the fridge, freezers and pantry for what I already have and make a grocery list for what I don't, then it's off the the store! Shouldn't be too much. I already did a 'normal' grocery trip. This is just holiday 'touch-up'.



Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me on the Homemaking Diva Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/HomemakingDiva or by email at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Countdown to the Holidays! Planning for Sanity

Thanksgiving is going to be here soon, so I'm doing my best to be prepared. Hopefully by the time you read this, I will have purchased my turkeys. I am bound and determined to find some at a good price, so I will be going to Walmart for a THIRD time, first thing at opening this morning (I'm writing this last night). You'd think Walmart would realize that they should stock up on items that are on at a really good price; I mean, if you keep running out of the turkeys that are on sale, maybe you should start ordering MORE?? Maybe?

Sorry. Rant over :)

I did sit down and finalize my Thanksgiving menu and update my planner page.

• White Bean Dip and Veggies
• Turkey
• Stuffing
• Gravy
• Garlicky Smashed Red Potatoes
• Nutmeg Green Beans
• Marshmallow Salad (family tradition)
• Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

I've got the basics covered and a bit of my weird upbringing thrown in. The plan is to make the dip, chop the veggies, and make the marshmallow salad on Sunday. And the pumpkin pie can be baking somewhere around when the turkey's half done.

My favorite trick (and one you'll love too!) is to make the mashed potatoes (whatever kind you like at your place) EARLY. Then put it in the crock cooker with a little butter over the top on 'keep warm' until dinnertime. One less thing to do later. Just be sure to test run your crock pot first (you can make a potato chowder if you want afterwards) you don't want scorched potatoes on the big day! I got that tip from Leanne Ely who got it from Flylady.

I've got a few things to do each day from Thursday to Monday (including tidying the house in babysteps) so I'm not doing everything at once. Sounds like a plan to me!

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Countdown to the Holidays! The Turkey Hunt

 It's October! Can you believe it? Neither can I! But it is, nonetheless.

October is time to officially kick off your holiday planning. And I'm not just talking about Christmas. There's Thanksgiving (and even Halloween) thrown into the mix, too. (Plus Hanukkah, or whatever else you celebrate at the end of the year.)

Head's up, Canadians! You have just one week until Thanksgiving! Turkeys are on sale, pick one up ASAP. Ninety-nine cents a pound for a frozen turkey is a good price. If you can afford it, pick up two and you have Christmas dinner handled also! That's my plan. I'm heading to town tonight. There are two stores that have turkeys on for ninety-seven cents a pound, so I'm picking up two turkeys. One for Thanksgiving and one for Christmas.

Later this week, I'll do the rest of the groceries. But I don't want to be going to 7 grocery stores the last weekday before Christmas hunting for turkeys EVER again! (That's what happened last year - boo!)

I like to keep my holiday meals simple and make up a 5-day plan (or so) I just recycle and tweak the last one, most of the time. I spread the meal prep and house cleaning over 5 days and then I only have a little bit to do each day. That'll be the job for tomorrow.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

 Please comment here or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Five Ways to Save Money - In the Bathroom

Nobody wants to light five dollar bills on fire, so here are some helpful hints to save some money:

1. Soap is soap: This one is directly 'stolen' from Flylady, the idea is that you don't need a different kind of soap for every single thing. Leftover shampoo, conditioner, hand soap, etc. can be used for cleaning the sinks, tubs and toilets. I keep bottles of hand soap and laundry detergent when they're "empty", add some water, shake it around and use that to 'swish my toilet (with a brush and some elbow grease).
2. Don't buy shaving cream: This one's for the ladies. Use shampoo or conditioner to shave your legs. I've been using conditioner to shave my legs for about a year now, and it works perfectly fine. The only difference I notice in the shower is that it's much easier to fit everything on those little shelves with one less bottle. You can use the same as you use on your hair, buy cheap stuff especially for this purpose, or use up a shampoo you didn't like.
3. Don't buy makeup remover: I paid $10.49 plus tax for a 125mL little bottle of L'Oreal makeup remover. Can we say expensive? NOW, I use Johnson's head-to-toe baby wash. A 444mL bottle runs somewhere around $7.00 plus, I water it down. I fill my L'Oreal bottle about 1/3 full, and top it off with water, shake and I'm ready to go. If it's safe for baby's eyes, why not mine? (Plus I have semi-sensitive skin, and no problems).
4. Use what you have: This always applies. We all have those stashes of "nice" creams and stuff for "special" occasions. Go ahead and use them. You are special all on your own, you don't need an occasion. 
5. Try cheap: Touch and go with this one. I've done the cheap-o Q-tips and was not impressed, so I only buy brand name for them. But I buy the cheaper "Daisy" razors, no name cotton balls and cotton pads. If it's something you use a lot, buy a small package of a cheaper version or brand and see if it'll work for you.

Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Love,
Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Frugal Hospitality

Some of you may remember last time I told you that I was going to try and be especially frugal for the next while as we just invested in a sectional.

On Sunday, we decided to invite my in-laws over after church. This is frugal for us because we often end up going to a restaurant for lunch. But that meant I needed to figure out what to make. :)

Brunch is always a delicious and frugal choice. It doesn't get much cheaper than eggs and toast. Especially since I get my bread from Westons for 99 cents! (They're the bakery that makes the bread for the grocery stores. Whatever the grocery store doesn't sell gets returned to Westons and sold in their 'thrift store'. Bottom line, the bread is one day older and a heck of a lot cheaper. I go when I can and get some for now and some for the freezer.)

I almost made lasagna for dinner, but that meant buying a ricotta, and the day ended up being way too hot to turn on the oven. I decided to make burgers. I originally didn't want to because I'd just pulled the ground beef from the freezer and knew it would be VERY cold on my hand mixing it up later. But then my brain clicked and I decided to let Todo do it. Todo is my stand mixer... we named it that because it's shape reminds us of two droids from Star Wars, one of which is called TODO-360. (Yes, I'm weird.)

But aside from the fact that I've named my stand mixer, it really IS handy and makes a good burger. I used the Basil Burgers recipe from my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook and the regular 'blade' in the stand mixer. Want to know ANOTHER ground meat trick? Doesn't matter if it's meatballs, meatloaf, burgers, or something else. Mix all the 'stuff' together first, THEN add the ground meat. Everything goes together faster and more evenly.

So we had burgers for dinner, and I had everything on hand for them. Score more frugal points!

We all enjoyed each others' company and tried out the new sectional while watching some episodes from Shark Week :)

None of it cost me a cent!


Thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!


Love,

Valerie :D

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

It's HERE!

Our new sectional was delivered this morning. It's our first major investment piece, built to last but expensive. It's our splurge from DH's bonus, but still... spending that much makes me want to amp up my frugal-ness, at least for a while. :)

Here are some frugal ideas:

• Don't buy new until you've used the old. We have several pieces that we've bought but not put together yet. A couple bookshelves, my bistro set that I got for $5 (Thank God for Canadian Tire Money), mini-blinds that need to be installed, painting that needs to be done (just some touch-ups here and there). So the house doesn't get anything else, at least until we've put together and used these things. And yes, we're working on it - I put together  my new desk chair on the weekend.
• Eat out of the freezer. I'm all stocked up, I buy a club pack or two of the meat that's half price most weeks, so I have lots in the freezer. Last night I made Frittata, because I already had everything I needed for it.
• Do a project, for 'something to do'. There's not much in the way of entertainment where I live, at least not that I'm interested in. Movies, restaurants, and shopping is 95% of it. Next time we're 'bored' and looking for something to do, time to work on a project! Build that bookshelf, clean the fish tank, work on setting up the guest room (currently storage room).
• Watch the movies you have. We're into movies, and we like to buy new ones a fair bit, but there's a medium-sized pile of movies we haven't watched since we bought them. We need to watch them before we buy more.

What are your frugal ideas?

So anyway, thank you for joining me, and I hope I can help you! It really is fun to be a Homemaking Diva!!

Please comment or send your questions to me at homemakingdiva@hotmail.com

Have great day!

Valerie :D