Frugal In Florida

It's been a fairly quiet weekend as we were puppy sitting (12 week old French bull dog) and pressure washing the pavers ... eek! It's hotter than heck too AND we haven't received any rain ... Puppy sitting was fun, but yes, a lot of hands on care. He's so cute but regardless, it's 5pm and I'm waiting for his master to call and retrieve him so I can clean ;-) I've not been to the store myself since last week ... almost 10 days now! Sweet! Hubby did stop on Friday and spent under $50 so that was pretty cool ... and it included a jar of ghee and a 12 pk of Coronas.... Here's what we planned: Saturday - Aussie chicken because I had everything on hand (chicken, bacon in freezer, made the honey mustard dressing, cheese from Costco several weeks ago and shrooms are what Hubby picked up). I also made a bag of frozen chopped spinach for hubby as I know he'd want more than just the chicken Sunday - leftovers ... a few slices of pizza (frozen) from...

It's crazy hot here in South Florida and summertime is in full swing for most of you ... time to start taking the cooler way out for dinner! Using a slow cooker frees up your time, keeps your kitchen cool and generally produces some pretty yummy meals!  Being a single income household still  is starting to put a little cramp on our style ... It's been two years AND we've had the house on the market for over a year ... paying all the household bills as they stood when we were a dual income family (with more than twice the amount of money coming in) has started to take it's toll a little bit ... we honestly thought the house would be sold by NOW!  So, I go through periods of Pantry/Freezer Challenges and just recently started implementing NO SPEND weeks ... they work a lot better for me than the Pantry/Freezer Challenges of years past ... no where near as daunting but I think almost as effective.   Hence, the Italian Beef recipe is making an appearance again...

Hey hey ... it's JULY!!! Can you believe it's the 7th month of the year already? Eek! Being a single income household has started to sink it and the reality of the bills still being the same has really started to sink in the past few weeks. I think it happened while Hubby was away for 2 1/2 weeks and I was in control of all things related to the household. I did good shopping wise, and only ate out with the boy a few times, all those times were basically frugal, oh, except that La Bamba night (damn margaritas!) ... BUT Hubby and I certainly need to sit down soon and discuss finances. We were NOT overly worried about reducing our income. We WERE over confident that the house would sell quick ... it hasn't. Let's face it $1,000,000+ houses don't sell over night, no matter how great they are ... sadly. We had hoped that the house would sell quickly, we'd bank half the proceeds of the sale and buy something half the size of what we currently have and not have a...

*It's summertime and well, shoes are starting to smell a tad funky so it's time to repost this and redo ... it really does work! Honestly, we have real good hygiene habits in my house, I can assure you of that! But, lets face it, living in paradise with 125% humidity can be a little trying sometimes ... my running shoes (which have NOT seen much running action for quite a while) get a little ripe smelling ... and oh man, you should smell the shoes that Hubby wears outside in the yard, patio, garage and boat that constantly get wet ... enough to suck the oxygen right out of your body ... whew! Then you have the Boy ... who works out pretty darn hard and doesn't always wear socks ... I mean, seriously, I've had to throw shoes away because you could smell them just sitting there. No one wants to be the person that people are wrinkling their nose at when they are walking by you! So when I saw the featured post for the Smelly Shoe Solution (and dang, I'm still ...

I envy all of you who have a garden out there ... I wish I had the time to babysit one. Here in Florida, we have that scorching hot sun, monsoon rains and well, you can't just plant stuff and pay attention to it every week ... it needs daily attention otherwise it will either shrivel up and die OR wash away ... I've experienced both and the frustration level is just too much. Ugh. IF I had a garden, I'd plant tomatoes and then green beans. Yup, I'd love nothing more than a wall of green beans. And well, maybe, cucumbers. And strawberries. Oh, and yes, blueberry bushes!  In my dreams. So, instead, I spend money at the grocery store. And normally, I spend a little more getting the skinny dudes. I apparently have a thing for skinny veggies . Costco. 2 pounds $4.99 Whatever. It seems everyone has a specific way of making green beans. And then, there are lots of folks out there who will have nothing to do with them. I was one of those people ... th...

Beef?  Check! BBQ Sauce? Check! Bacon? Check! Paleo? You bet! Whole30? Maybe not so much, however, Jessica DOES share a recipe with sauce sweetened with dates, not sugar or honey or anything else like that ... so maybe ... But ... I'm not aiming for Whole30 with this meal. IF I was, I would just use this bottle of Tessemae's Barbeque Sauce for simplicity. Psst ... I did use Tessemae's sauce anyway! Anyways ... I've had this recipe saved for a little while from Jays Baking Me Crazy (go check it out!) and figured, what the heck, it's Saturday *God Bless Saturdays!* (bonus point if you can tell me who sings that?), I've got 2 pounds of ground beef in the fridge that needs cooked, 1 pound of low sodium bacon (aka, sugar free from Aldi), onions and that there BBQ Sauce, so why NOT?! This cost $2.99 after the markdown ... scooped up 4 packages and tossed them in the freezer a few months ago.  What I really wanted to do was make the Sweet Pota...

Whee ... I'm entering in to WEEK 2 of single girl status! Ok, again, not really. I'm still married to Hubby but he's up in Indiana indefinitely taking care of some business.  Oh, yeah, and the Boy and the cats are still here too ... so single girl status is far from accurate! What I do  mean though is that I get to cook the way I want to ... the Boy is vegetarian and eats odd stuff at even odder times so it's just me! Normally that would mean an abundance of avocados, mangos and steak salad ... but not this time around.  This time, I'm trying to be very mindful and keep a clean meal plan ... not quite Whole30 or Paleo but pretty close ;-) I bought a LOT of stuff last week so I should be good to go without any side trips ... although I am sad that I'm out of the Chameleon Vanilla Cold Brewed Coffee Concentrate ... may make the Boy but it this time since he drinks quite a bit of it as well ... otherwise, I have no intention of stepping foot in a store ...