Filling the Freezer: Homemade Hashbrowns

  I love the look of a freezer full of food. There is something satisfying about knowing you have food to eat in the coming months. Our freezer seems to fluctuate on being full & then needing to fill it up again.  I also love to fill it up with  stretching my budget as much as I can. Here is one quick ways you can help fill up your freezer without killing your budget.

Hashbrowns. 

My boys love hashbrowns, but to buy a bag of them at my local store is an average price of $2.50-3.50. That usually only makes it through one meal. Scary I know, I can only imagine how much food I am going to go through when my growing boys are actual teenagers. At the price of $3.00 average for a bag, I can't get very far. On the other hand, I can buy a 50 lbs box at my local Potato plant for $12 a box. That means I can buy 4 bags of hashbrowns or 50 lbs on potatoes. Its not rocket science.

 So what? Now, whenever I bake a potato for dinner I always add an extra 10 or so in the oven too. I might as well fill the oven up. You want them to cook until they are almost done. They will grate easier if they are slightly under done than overdone.  After they cook, I throw them into the fridge so they get cold. Once they cool I get out my handy Food Processor. (If you don't have one, you can either cut up the potatoes in a square (Southern style) or just use your cheese grater). 

 
                            I set mine to the largest size it can grate, for our family, this is our favorite. 

         Then I grate up all the potatoes & spread them out on a cookie sheet with a little wax or freezer paper.

           Then go down & set your cookie sheet in the freezer. I usually just let them freeze over night. Or if  I put them in first thing in the morning, usually before bedtime & can take them out. 

Take your frozen cookie sheet of hash browns & begin to break them into pieces and chunks. I put them into gallon freezer bags & mark them. This allows me to get into each bag & only take out what I will need.  

Take out the amount you need for your breakfast, as you need them. Fry them up, or use them in casseroles.

Either way they are delicious. I figured a bag of hashbrowns now only cost me .50 cents instead of $3.00 and a little of my time. I make 3 or so bags at a time & fill my freezer for pennies. 

Do you have any other ideas to help fill your freezer for pennies? If so I would love to hear about them. 

March Goals Follow-up

 So March went by way to fast, but it went great. Last month I decided to try something new & make goals for the month of March. You can read more about it here.

 So how did it go? It went fairly well, but as always there is room for some improvement. 

Goal #1. Was to take better care of myself.  

    I took a little more time for myself, I sewed more. I watched more carefully what I was eating  & tried to move a little more. I tried to enjoy time more. I tried to say no on things instead of stretching myself to thin. 

Goal #2, Was to try to be better of , "Make it up, wear it out, make it do or go without." To heart this month

. 

          Here are some frugal things I did this month:

• Made Cookies, instead of bought them.
• Fixed  the zipper on one sleeping bag & patched holes in another.
• Vacuumed out my car at home instead of a car wash.
• Made Bread.
• Stayed home from 2 different trips, & had my husband go alone, instead of taking the whole family. This was hard to do, because I really wanted to go, but I knew if we all went more $$ would have been spent.
• Touched up paint & patched some whole in walls myself
• Worked on making a quilt with material I already had on hand.
• I put 5 items back on almost every trip at the store. (I learned this trick awhile ago, but haven't used it for awhile.) Right before going up to the checkout. I would go through my cart & choose 5 items to put away. Usually they were impulse buys on things I wanted or didn't need. I would say this saved me an average of $10-20 dollars each trip.
• Rented movies on Netflix for free with the promo codes Breakroom & DVDONME. They go buy credit card, so I could use the same codes different times with a different bank accounts.
• Bought new long T-shirt & tank tops at a local thrift shop (same brand name) instead of the department store.
• When we did eat out we split an adult entree into thirds & bagged getting my kids each a separate kiddie meal.
• Butchered our pigs & filled our freezer with pork.
• I stopped my garbage service for the few weeks I wasn't in town. 
• I have have been reading these 2 blogs a lot. The Prudent Homemaker & Blissful & Domestic.  Trying to get more ideas on how to be more frugal.

So there are some ideas. The more I thought about this & studied it the more I want to learn more about frugality.

As for Goal #3 of learning more Spanish. 

   I have been studying the Book of Mormon in Spanish  & practicing more vocab.

  After a month of this I am understanding more. Not everything just more. However I still really struggle when it comes to forming the words into my head of what I need to relate to the herders. So this one I will just have to keep at it. 

So there you have it. My follow-up on March. How did your March goals go?

Homemade Febreze

I love Pinterest to help you find things you normally wouldn't. My latest find was a recipe for this:



Febreze. We use Febreze a lot of it at this house. On Sunday I ran out. just as I desperately needed some. Then I remembered a pin, about making some & decided it was  great time to try it out. It is simple, only needs 3 ingredients & as far as I can tell works. 


I  used the recipe off of Fake it Frugal  & even though they used the recipe in a 32 oz. bottle I just slightly reduced the Fabric Softener amount & used my 27 oz. bottle. 


Here is the Recipe :


1/8 c. Fabric Softener (I used slightly less)
2 T. baking soda
Fill the rest of your bottle full of HOT water. Shake until you feel it is mixed & go to work.




So far, I am happy with this. I have only been doing it for a day or so. We will see after a while if I change my mind. But considering it cost me less than a quarter to make versus buying it for $5.00 dollars. I am happy woman. And if I use it up fast, it's not a big deal.


So try it out & let me know what you think. 

Homemade Laundry Detergent

My little Dude hand feeding the Pigs.

We do a lot of laundry at this house. A lot.  Some day I think my boys change their clothes more than girls, but then again, I doubt too many little girls spend part of their day trying to wrestle pigs.

See that is what happens almost daily when we head out to do chores.  3 little boys trying to tackle growing pigs. It funny to watch, but usually means a change of clothes when we come back in the house. Which is fine, but we do usually check the animals more than once a day . . . so our laundry pile grows quickly.  Back to the point . . .

We do a lot of laundry  & I finally discovered a home made laundry detergent I  like. It only require 3 ingredients & saves me a lot of $$. I usually go through about a big container of laundry detergent a month. (80+ loads a month)  Or close to. An average  of $15 dollars or so a month. Depending on which type I buy. This new detergent only cost me about $8.50 to make  & it last me somewhere between 3-4 months., usually closer to four. That means instead of spending  $15 or more dollars a month for clean clothes I only spend $2.25. It doesn't sound like much to some, but over the course of  a year I save over $150 dollars a month on only switching 1  item. That could add up.

Back to the soap. It saves some cash, I like it & it quick to make. You need 3 ingredients. Here is what they are:  a bar of  Fels -Naptha Soap, a Box of Borax, & a box of  Washing Soda. That is it.





Here is what you do.  Grate the bar of Fels-Naptha. Put in a big container, dump the other 2 boxes in & mix.  Mix it as well as you can.

That is it. Homemade Laundry Detergent.  It works, it's simple & you only need 1 to 1 & 1/2 Tablespoons a Load. I have a HE Washer Machine  & I use it all the time.

I keep a small container like this one: & the rest somewhere else & just refill as needed.

When I do run out, I do switch to a different laundry detergent for about 3 weeks, and then I go back. Someone once told me it was better for your clothes if you rotate your type laundry detergent a little. So I do, but I use this most of the time.

Try it.

Then use that extra $150 dollars  a year on something you really enjoy.