Frugal In Florida

Because April is my Money Month (income taxes, boat insurance, house insurance, flood insurance AND wind storm insurance all come due in the next 45 days ... I need to stay focused on them little green soldiers and be lining them up to do battle for me!   So I've opted to make April a Money Control Month and will be doing things, even more intentionally, to reduce my outlay of cash!  Not to mention, we hosted the Princess and her Hubby's reception late February and I had a real hard time reining in the spending for March 😂 First Up is Friday Nights ... and it's all about Friday Night Pizza! Tada!  I give you  Pizza Bread! This post was shared, originally, several years ago and it was to use what we had on hand. See what an odd assortment of stores I use? Walmart (marked down bread) Pepperoni and pizza sauce from Trader Joe's (both inexpensive and the best tasting, in my opinion) and of course, cheese from BOTH stores!  Frugal Tip: Buy the marked down

It's almost May! Which means a few things special in MY LIFE: My birthday! Not so exciting as it's the 5 3 one! Cinco De Mayo - same day as my birthday! Fort Lauderdale Air Show - same weekend as my birthday! Kentucky Derby! Yup, same weekend as the above 3 things! Uhm ... I am going to need a long vacation after this first weekend in May! We are having a 'few' people over for all  the festivities and you probably already know that I LOVE margaritas ... uh huh ... but not the heartburn at 2am after a few of the ones using the pre-made margarita mix ... Hubby already has the system worked out where he just pulls out the bottle of Prilosec and sets it next to my glass. Pretty pathetic, don't you think? ;-) I had shared this recipe a while ago and decided to make these again since I am having a few friends over ... I mean, heck, I have frozen strawberries, a ton of them,  because I always FREEZE them once they sit for a few days to keep them from going to

Uhm, HI! I've got a confession to make ... I've only been to Starbucks 2 times in my whole life. TWICE! Which kind of makes me a not so very good copycat recipe kind of girl with this here recipe ... BUT  I did test it out on some folks who have had it and they say it's spot on! Funny, first time at Starbucks was in downtown Chicago on a freakin, blustery, late November day ... Hubby wanted to duck in to this little place and I didn't know WHAT to order, it is a little overwhelming, that menu board! So I just ordered a mocha whatever, which come to find out, was a glorified hot chocolate. Perfect for that day! The next time was with my boss one morning, who happens to know about my anti Starbuck visits ... and I got a Vanilla Frappuccino. I had no idea it was basically a frozen desert type thing and was instantly sorry I ordered it as I knew that sugar crash was going to be ugly in the office ... live and learn! Yes, I took a picture and posted

Because April is my Money Month (income taxes, boat insurance, house insurance, flood insurance AND wind storm insurance all come due in the next 45 days ... I need to stay focused on them little green soldiers and be lining them up to do battle for me!   So I've opted to make April a Money Control Month and will be doing things, even more intentionally, to reduce my outlay of cash!  Not to mention, we hosted the Princess and her Hubby's reception late February and I had a real hard time reining in the spending for March 😂 First Up is Friday Nights ... and it's all about Friday Night Pizza! The original recipe comes from  Shutterbean  ... and she puts it down as a low-carb option ... since I'm not so much of an anti-carb girl as I am an anti-GRAIN girl ... I've opted to go with Grain Free ... which, sadly, it's NOT because of the sausage I'm using. I really need to venture in to making MY own, don't you think? So ... you know,  if  you are buyi

Hey hey, Cinco de Mayo is coming up in less than TWO WEEKS and it's time to pull out all your Mexican festivity recipes!  And you know me, I like to keep things simple and this recipe more than fits the bill! It's considered a "condiment" but I can stand at the kitchen counter and eat this stuff by the spoonful! Salsa Fresca aka Pico de Gallo Now. It's really easy for me to chop chop chop as I've got that handy dandy  Vidalia Chop Wizard ! What? You don't have one?? What are you waiting for? Go get one pronto!  This saves sooooo much time chopping AND everything is a nice uniform dice. Go, go go! Go get one right now! $14.99 at Bed Bath and Beyond if you use your little handy 20% off coupon.  Or else you can click that link above for Amazon and if you have Prime, you'll get it in 2 days. Have I stressed how *important* this is (and yes, I am a frugal gal and I highly recommend this little gadget!* (ahem, I didn't realize they've gotten

All three times I've tried to do the Whole30 (and have NEVER EVER EVER made it past Day 14!), I always come across some really great and tasty recipes that are definitely keepers!  This would be one of them! These are perfect since you don't use regular bread, but instead, yummy butter lettuce or baby romaine lettuce leaves come into play here ... This recipe was made for ONE (ME!) but could easily be doubled, tripled, quadrupled and so on if you wanted to serve these as an appetizer for a party or a dinner (or lunch, breakfast, etc.!) Let's get cooking, shall we? 4 lettuce leaves ... I used butter lettuce as that was what I had on hand that needed to be used up 3 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled *look for low sodium/sugar free* 6 grape tomatoes, sliced in half and then cut in half again 1/2 avocado, diced (I need to perfect my dicing and separating skills) 1 stalk of green onion dab of  mayo  (isn't it time you learned how easy it is to make?) dash of

Because April is my Money Month (income taxes, boat insurance, house insurance, flood insurance AND wind storm insurance all come due in the next 45 days ... I need to stay focused on them little green soldiers and be lining them up to do battle for me!   So I've opted to make April a Money Control Month and will be doing things, even more intentionally, to reduce my outlay of cash!  Not to mention, we hosted the Princess and her Hubby's reception late February and I had a real hard time reining in the spending for March 😂 First Up is Friday Nights ... and it's all about Friday Night Pizza! I have no idea how I came across this recipe on  Pinterest , but it's been hanging around for a while and with our Pantry Challenge underway, it was PERFECT that I had everything on hand to make it one night this week! Now, granted, Kalyn does call it a " Low Carb Pizza Chicken Bake " but I just can't do call it low carb ... although, it does NOT have a crust

When I do my meal prep, I always, always, ALWAYS chop up an onion and stash it in a canning jar in the fridge. Just one of those things that WILL save you time during the week, I promise! So, do you want to know HOW I chop these bad boys so dang quick? The Vidalia Chop Wizard . Uh huh. The best $15 I ever spent about 10 years ago! Honestly! Now, a LOT of people I know have issues with this the first few times they use it and say that cleaning it is awful. I dare say, that's just NOT true! Once you understand how it works then I think it will make things a little simpler! 1.  Cut food up in to larger chunks. 2.  Always place fleshy/meaty side away from blade and grID i.e. to the side. 3.  Slap that lid down, don't gently push. 4.  Clean grid when you see it getting full. Check out my cheesy video that I made ... I really need to do some video editing online research ;-) Looking forward to sharing with some of these  GREAT Parties  ... go check t

What if I told you my number one post to this day is the Rice Cooker - Hard Boiled Eggs? It is. That and the Cuban Mop post ... odd. And hey, don't judge me on those photos of the mop ... it was WAY back in the beginning of time, like October, 2010. I keep meaning to do a new post on the mop with a video to really show how easy it is! Anyways. With Easter coming up soon, I figured I'd share how I prefer to make my hard boiled eggs ... here you go! One of the things I picked up at Costco was a new Rice Cooker. The one I have, well, I gave that to the Boy when he went away to college (so he could make his macaroni and cheese), not to mention, it was small as heck, like mini size! So, I figured, you know, Hubby likes to make rice occasionally. The Boy makes brown rice in the microwave every other day and leaves the bubbly residue behind for ME to find when I go to heat something up (I hate a dirty microwave, totally wigs me out and sends me running for the windex!) ... so