I skipped last weekend but that’s okay. Everyone was too busy having fun to think of reading a link up, right?
Lots of stuff going on here, all my kids are now back to school except my oldest who will be flying back to his father’s home this week. I’m working with my friend David Wright, aka Blogger Dad, on a redesign of I Hate My Message Board. After putting a lot of thought into it, I’ve decided to narrow the focus of this blog to just food related topics since those are by far my most popular posts. I will still be doing weekend link ups so that those who are interested in my other posts on various sites can easily find them.
Whether you want to learn how to save money, explore ways to make more money or are looking for advice on how to invest, there is a free e-book out there waiting for you to download.
Libraries have always been the frugal person’s best friend. These days, libraries offer much more than just books and the old stereotype of librarians as prim little old ladies making everyone shush has gone out the window.
How many times have you put aside your own needs and desires to take care of your children first? Although our children’s health and safety are always paramount, there are times when it’s okay to devote your time and resources to doing things that make you happy, even if it means your children will have to come second.
Of course, for many people a separate deep freezer makes a lot of sense and can save them both money and time. The real point is that it’s important to think about your own lifestyle and preferences before making an investment or lifestyle change based on common wisdom.
Sometimes being frugal is not enough to meet your financial obligations and goals and you’ll have to look for ways to earn some extra cash. Whether you’re a stay at home parent looking to supplement your family’s income, looking to pay down debt or establish an emergency fund or saving for a special purchase, here are some ideas to help you make some extra money.
Optimism is not pie in the sky thinking but rather a way of looking at the world with the knowledge that positive outcomes are a reality, that individuals can take actions to increase their own happiness and financial well being and that failing at something does not make you a failure.
Speaking of guest posts, I’ve joined Jon Morrow‘s Guest Blogging Apprenticeship program. Membership is closed for now but you can still learn a lot from the free material posted on guestblogging.com. If you’re a blogger, I urge you to check it out, even if you aren’t interested in guest blogging.
Other People
My friend Kathy Frederick of The Junk Drawer was quoted by the Wall Street Journal and other major news outlets about her video demonstrated how loud the new Sun Chips bags are. Congratulations Kathy and I hope this is the start of many great things for you.
Blogger Dad wrote a spectacularly feisty post F@#*! the PTC about their protests against the new show $#*! my Dad Says.
This is not a new post but it’s one I’ve always loved and it was reposted on IttyBiz this week: When You Feel Like a Raging Failure. You are not the only one who ever feels that way.
IMPORTANT! If you are here from Google having searched for information about your toe corns I am afraid I can’t help you but I do wish you a safe and speedy recovery! You too bunion and hammertoe sufferers! One day Google will figure out that I can’t help anyone, much less those suffering from valid afflictions and will remove me from their search results. Until then, it’s hardly my fault that deformed corns are a vegetable and a foot problem.
Anyway, this deformed corn kind of freaked me out. You know those shows on cable tv where people go around their entire life and one day find out totally by accident that they used to be twins but they ate their twin and now they have headaches because they’ve got their twin’s eyeball and toenails growing in their brain? This corn reminds me of that. [click to continue…]
Or, celebrate with me for tomorrow is the first day of school
Picture of a house we didn't buy last year. Now you tell me, even if you weren't able to fix that water damage wouldn't you take the pom pom off the dang mask before you started showing the house?
For those curious, yeah I do just pick random photos from my albums for these link ups. Why not? Somebody has to look at them and it might as well be you.
I want to start this week’s round up by asking a small favor of all my readers that use Facebook. My children’s kindergarten and elementary school have gathering votes to potentially win $500,000 each. All you have to do is become a fan, and vote. You have 20 votes and can distribute them how you wish, five per school. You can do a search for schools so even if you don’t want to vote for my kids’ schools you can vote for a different one. There will be 20 winners and each winning school gets a half million dollars.
Am thinking about making some sort of incentive like I’ll eat something super grody if we hit certain milestones but would be humiliated if nobody cared enough to see me eat huilatache or pig uterus to click vote a few times. I mean, that’ the kind of thing that gets you laughed out of blogging conventions. So if you want me to do it, you better speak up and say so and let me know you’d spread the word far and wide.
Disclaimer: no matter how many votes we get I will NOT eat any sandwich consisting of a bagel and bean sprouts. Is not going to happen /inside joke for the old timers.
Still working on a fool proof way to implement this piece of good advice. Family of five boys is a very, very scary thing for your food bill!
If you don’t want to go to the store every day, make sure your children understand it’s not okay to waste or over-consume food. That said; make sure that you budget for reasonable amounts of healthy, inexpensive snacks.
The choice to have one parent stay at home with the child(ren) is a deeply personal, individual one that goes beyond finances. However, there are many reasons why it’s a good idea for stay at home moms and dads to seek part time work, even if there is no immediate need for income.
I was tickled pink that the above post was linked in the Consumerist and Time.com.
By the way, I am also helping with the Money Ning Facebook stream and would love if you liked us and participated in our lively discussions.
And I’ll play myself off with this video this week. I heard it in the car yesterday and just about sobbed my eyes out from laughing so hard. Then I felt really bad about myself but I think Biggie would understand. Am working on a plan to make friends with both Diddy and Elton John and Eminem so that when I pass I will have the most awesomely epic tribute song of all times. Am hoping Kanye, William Shatner and Charo will agree to a self-deprecating cameos. I’m worth it.
PS I know this was a long ass post so I will remind you to kindly let me know is you is or is you ain’t going to encourage me to engage in cockamamie stunt eating to get people to vote for my kid’s school.
Or fried rice wrapped up in an omelet just like my mom used to make
Om Rice topped with Sriracha and Ketchup
Cheap eats, like this omurice are my new passion. It reminds me of all the wonderfully frugal meals my mother would make for us back before my parent’s salary stretched to T-bone steaks. Since I began writing on personal finance for Money Ning and HealthCompare Guide, I’m even more committed to making the best food possible without spending an exorbitant amount.
As far as cheap eats go, it’s hard to beat fried rice wrapped in an omelet, otherwise known as omurice. Up until 10 minutes ago I would have sworn on Kurt Vonnegut’s grave that it was omie rhymes with homie rice, but when I looked it up to get a correct spelling and kept coming up with omurice I called my mother and she said she didn’t know where I got omie rice from because she always called it omurice.
This is not only an inexpensive dinner, but super easy to throw together. My mother used to keep bags of frozen salad shrimp and frozen mixed vegetables on hand. Unlike most recipes I’ve seen written down for fried rice that call for the rice to be cold, this one does just fine using freshly cooked, hot rice.We use medium grain calrose rice, such as Nishiki. It clumps together slightly and makes an appealingly sticky fried rice.
I make this dish a lot the day after we have roast pork, steak, roast beef to stretch the leftover meat into another full meal for us.
I’m so not going to give you a recipe for fried rice, because this is clean out the fridge food. This is just go wild and crazy and throw everything together food. This is you really can’t go wrong as long as you don’t dump a whole bottle of soy sauce into it food.
Pretty much I make a couple of omelets. One or two for the fried rice and one per person to serve. Set aside the prettiest ones for wrapping and chop up the others.
Next, I chop a small onion or half a medium one and when it is starting to soften I throw a cup or two of frozen vegetable medley in there. You could use fresh veggies, but the frozen ones are cheap, more or less as nutritious and dead easy.
When that’s just about done toss in a bit of chopped garlic and cook until fragrant. Add your protein. Today I used some chopped leftover pork and some thawed salad shrimp. We’ve been known to use cubed Spam or leftover steak or chicken or make it completely vegetarian.
Once that’s all hot, put it in a bowl and pour a tablespoon or so of oil into the pan and once that’s hot add your rice. Probably about 1 – 1.5 cups of cooked rice per serving would be good.
Toss that around a bit, add a bit of sesame oil break up the rice clumps and get every nice and hot.
Take that bowl of cooked veggies and meat and add a little bit of soy sauce. Better to add too little than too much, remember you can always add more. I use a mix of regular Kikoman soy sauce and ketjap manis. Add that to the rice and mix everything up until it’s evenly distributed and everything is hot and yummy. Add the chopped omelet and stir again.
Drape one of the omelets inside a small bowl. Pack full of rice. Tuck the edges up over the bottom and turn out onto a plate. Top with some ketchup, sriracha or both. Chow down. You could also just lay the omelet flat on a plate, put the rice inside and roll like a burrito or something. Whatever suits your fancy.
Do you have a favorite way to use leftovers?
Note: post contains affiliate links for the ingredients. You most likely could find everything you need at your grocery store but if you want or need to order from Amazon, I am not opposed to making money off of it. My Yan Yan habit is not cheap, you know.
