Stay at Home Mom.com

The harvest festivals are over and Halloween is past. That must mean we are closing in on the holidays. This year more than ever it seems like families are having to make their family budgets stretch in ways they have never stretched before. So, in the next series of articles we are going to be talking about different ways to save money around the holidays.

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Activities for the kids:

Kids like to stay active. There is a short time between activities and then they want to do something else. So, how do you help them keep themselves active and engaged when you have limited funds and a finite amount of super powers. As moms we can do ALOT. But there is a limit to how high we can jump and how fast we can run and on some days the worries of all the world around us seem to be our kryptonite.

1. Leaf Relief

It is still fall in most parts of the country so take advantage of this. Go outside with your kids and make a game of finding the most interesting leaves you can find. Don’t only look for color and shape but also texture. ( This can also be combined with raking leaves and then that makes the chore into a game ).

Take a piece of paper and put it over the leaf. Then take a crayon and rub it over the leaf. An image of the leaf will begin to rise up off the page. You can have your child color in the leaf, cut it out, or just leave it one color.

You can also use these leaves as a christmas present for the grandparents which then serves as a double win. Take your leaf print and paste your childs picture over it and put in a small inexpensive or homemade frame as a gift for grandma. she will love it.

This is a fun activity because the kids always seem to be surprised how some leaves really pop off the page and other leaves do not.

2. Get a deck of cards

Teach your kids card games. Once they know a couple of card games then a deck of cards is all you need to fill time waiting at airports, play a game by candle light if the power goes out, or for a little distraction when visiting the relatives on Thanksgiving.

You may want to get a good book on card games and try some different games, or even dice or backgammon.

3. Read to your kids

Help your child learn to love reading. Kids love doing anything with you. If that activity is reading you will be helping them on a life long love of reading. You do have to stop everything else you are doing and sit down with them and read. Library cards are free. We read to all of our kids and now that they are older they all have books that take with them on every trip. The bigger the kid gets the bigger the book gets. My husband started reading the books the teenagers were reading so that he could talk to them about their books - he said he would not have picked those exact books but has since become a big fan of spy novels.

4. Get ready for the holidays

Get some paper placemats and let the kids draw on them and decorate them for an upcoming family dinner. Giving them an activity like this not only keeps them busy and is inexpensive but it also gets them involved in the family get together.

5. Make a favorite recipe

A few years ago we made meringue cookies as a family activity. There are very few ingredients - 3 large egg whites, 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar , 3/4 cup of superfine suger ( any sugar will work but superfine will make it easier ), 1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract. Beat the egg whites in a mixing bowl until they begin to become stiff, slowly add the cream of tartar and when the egg whites begin to make a peak slowly add the sugar and finally the vanilla.

Then comes the fun part. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper ( we have used paper grocery bags cut to fit which have worked just fine ). Drop the meringue goo onto the paper using a table spoon - ideally make them look like candy kisses - then cook slowly in a cool oven at 200 degrees F for an hour and a half to almost two hours. Check to see if they are done and then just turn off your oven and let them cool right in the oven.

These make very festive holiday cookies - you can add a little green or red sugar sprinkles or food coloring to make them the color of your choice.

It is a little bit of a process to make these little sugar bombs but the end result is definitely worth it and it is a very low cost cookie to make.

This is typically an activity the kids remember. Now, everytime we see a meringue cookie in the store my son says with delight “we made those!”

That is just our recommendation but really any recipe you love making is the perfect recipe to teach your kids to make. It is a fun family activity with essentially very low cost because you would be cooking food anyway so why not make it into an activity. And the best part about this is that once your kids have mastered the skill of cooking or baking they will be able to take over in the kitchen.

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During the holidays we often have more things that need to be done and that seems to be the time the kids are completely underfoot and want our undivided attention.  With just a little planning we can have a couple of these low cost activities on deck to help keep them occupied and happy and give us the chance to get done what needs to be done.

In these days of video games, DS, expensive outings, big wishlists and smaller family budgets there are still many ways we can spend time with our kids and keep them entertained for hours with very little expense.

One of the jobs of the Stay at Home Mom is often to oversee the grocery shopping and management of the food budget. The average family of 4 spends approximately $150 per week on groceries. There are a few ways that you can make that money stretch and still provide your family with a nutritious, well-rounded diet.

Start before you get to the grocery store:

1. Make a list

List out the items that you will need for the next weeks meals and organize that list by sections of the grocery story ( Dairy, frozen, veggie, meat, middle ). By planning out your meals for the week you can save making several trips for just a few items throughout the week. Then, say these words before entering the grocery store, “I will stick to my list!”

2. Never go to the store hungry

Have a little snack at home if you have to in order to make sure you don’t impulse buy. Everything looks better, especially higher priced quick foods, when you’re hungry. Remember to say these words before entering the grocery story, “I will stick to my list!”

Once you get to the grocery store

3. Join the store’s Club Card program

Yes you are giving up your identity - they do track what you are buying and use this information for marketing purposes. But without the club cards you will end up paying much more.

4. Use Coupons (wisely)

Coupons can be a total headache but they can also save you money. The trick with coupons is to only clip those coupons for food that you would buy anyway. It’s not a good deal if you save ten cents off a product that is overpriced to begin with and you wouldn’t have purchased in the first place. 95% of the coupons I have clipped go unused. Use them but just remember you can save the most money at the grocery store if you just say these 6 little words before entering the store, “I will stick to my list!”.

5. Cut out the extravagences

It really isn’t necessary to have dessert every night or have candy sitting around the house all the time. Soda Pop is not a nutrient. Allow yourself to splurge for special occassions but cut out some of those higher priced non-essentials and you will make the biggest dent in your food bill and the biggest impact on your overall health. If you bring that food home you will eat it. If it’s not there you may crave it for a few days if you are used to having it around but after a short time you will find that not only can you get by without it but that you really don’t miss it that much. This will make the biggest impact on your grocery bill.

Other considerations

Some families save money buy joining warehouse shopping clubs like Costco or Sams Club. But you have to be careful in these super warehouse stores. If you have a family of four and you buy the super size broccoli to save money you can actually end up losing money when most of the broccoli goes bad before you are able to eat it up. You can save money on these super sized veggies if you come home and instantly turn them into your own homemade soups, lazagnas or casseroles that you then freeze but this takes on an entire other dimension of planning. You can also end up coming out with alot of extras that you had not intended to buy. For example, books, office equipment, apparel, and snack items. Just remember that even if you are going into a warehouse shopping environment you must say “I will stick to my list!” before entering. And even in warehouse style - bigger and better - say it 3 times before going through the big warehouse doors.

Many experts have suggested that you leave your children at home when you go grocery shopping to save money. The only reason this would actually work is if you like to spend your alone time in the grocery store because this would involve leaving kids at home when your husband is around to be able to keep an eye on them. Getting a babysitter to watch the kids while you grocery shop negates any cost savings. And for our family we enjoyed spending time together as a family once Dad got home from work. So, I always took the kids shopping with me. First I made sure they weren’t hungry or tired when we went. That is a recipe for disaster and many screams, tantrums and tears.

We always went through the process of saying “I will stick to the list” before entering the store. They did finally catch on and begin to put the fun items they wanted on the list before we went to the store but that can be ok as long as they learn to stick to the list and plan ahead. Now that the kids are older they are really good at sticking to the list. There have even been a couple of times where I started to toss a magazine into the checkout line on impulse and they have corrected me saying “Mom, that’s not on the list”.

These are some great tips for saving money at the grocery story. For our favorite ways to eat healthier on a budget check back here for our next installment.

In the meanwhile, have fun at the grocery store by sticking to your list and if you have a favorite tip for saving money at the grocery store we would love to hear from you!

Eat healthy, eat smart, eat inexpensively!