Dinner for Friends at less than $10

Do you enjoy having friends and family over for a nice dinner or making a dinner for your spouse that is so good they agree to wash the dishes...for a year?!? Here it is...a fancy dinner without the fancy price tag.

Roast Chicken with Roasted Vegetables

What do you need:
3-4lb. Whole Chicken
Dried Rosemary
Salt
Pepper
Lemon (optional)
3 tablespoons of unsalted butter
Lots of Red Potatoes (if Kelly's coming over) - quartered
2-3 Carrotts
1-2 Onions - quartered

How to make it:
Heat the oven to 425

Add your chopped vegetables to a square glass pan. Add 1 tablespoon of melted butter, salt, and pepper. Toss to coat.

Wash the chicken and pat dry. Rub the salt, pepper, rosemary, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter over the chicken. Place it in the bed of veggies. Add the quartered lemon to the chicken cavity if desired.

Bake uncovered for 45 minutes.

Remove from the oven. Pour chicken juices over the veggies. Cover with aluminum foil and place in the oven for another 20-25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and enjoy! - I served a salad before hand as well.


I made this on Saturday night for our good friends Kelly and Tony and everyone loved it! It is seriously the easiest and cheapest dinner you can make!!

How much does it cost?

Salad - $1.98 (BOGO at Publix)
Chicken - $4-5 ($1.19 per pound on sale at Publix)
Potatoes - $1-2
Carrotts - $.30 (part of an $.89 bag)
Everything else is stuff that you usually have on hand or in your stockpile.

Total cost: $9
Total cost per person: $2.25


Let me know if you try it out!

Christina

You've Got...Email?

Some people view email as another chore. One more thing to read and one more person bothering me on my own time. If you take time to view email just a little bit differently than you can really save a lot of money. I receive quite a few emails daily from different businesses that I have subscribed to. Fortunately, I have a smart phone and I am able to check my email quite a few times a day to manage them and I have learned to delete the things I don't need at that time (example: I would love to shop at the Loft weekly, but that is not realistic, so I only skim those).

Here are some of the emails that I receive...

Groupon and Living Social - These two are great websites that feature a daily deal for at least 50% off. Sometimes they feature things like $50 worth of food or wine at a local eatery for $25 and other times they have hotel deals or entertainment deals. Shawn and I have gone on a quite a few dates with Groupon and saved money while doing it! I always look forward to my daily Groupon and Living Social emails.

Retail Stores - Almost all retail stores will ask you for your email address, so that they can send you updates on new arrivals, sales, etc. I actually find it very helpful to know when things go onsale at my favorite stores and I try to only shop the sales if I plan to shop. I just got a Pottery Barn email yesterday with their latest Clearance items, which was very helpful since I was in need of a gift.

Ebates - Have you heard of this? I just recently heard of this website while Christmas shopping. Ebates lets you purchase things online from another retail store (Barnes and Noble, Amazon, etc.) and they give you a cash back rebate for going through their site. At first I didn't really believe it, but over the holidays I won an ipod shuffle in one of their give-a-ways and today I got my first check! $20.56 for shopping...gotta love it!





Vistaprint - This could very well be my favorite site. Vistaprint is an online store with all kinds of business supplies and they give them away for free (+shipping). If you just go on their website you'll find a few free items, but if you subscribe to their emails then you will be able to get so much more. Just recently I got baby shower invitations and personalized decorations for very cheap! These items will be part of a "how to host a shower on a budget" series, so stay tuned!

So next time you are asked for your email, take a moment and think twice...it could be worth it!

Christina

Drug Store Sunday

As usual, I spent part of my Sunday visiting my local drug stores in hope of a great deal on things I need for the house. This week I wasn't really in need of anything, but I did find some great deals that I just had to have!

Here was my trip...

1st stop - Walgreens

1- Sunday paper ($1.50)
6- Baby things (for my best friend's baby and she reads this blog, so this is a much as you get)

Baby things were B1G1 and I had $6 in coupons for them.

My total was $19 for everything.

2nd stop - CVS

4- Finish Dishwasher Detergent (-$2.25 on each from last weeks paper)
1- Lysol Air Freshener (-$1 coupon)
1- Air Wick Motion Sensor Air Freshener (-$4 coupon)
1- Travel Size Hand Sanitizer (FREE from the red box coupon dispenser in the store)

-$3 in ECBs from last week
-$4 from an email coupon

Total out of pocket = $0.04 (That's right...I paid with 4 shiny pennies!!)
+ $10 ECBs to use on a purchase later

Here is a pic of my deal!

I wasn't in need of anything I bought at CVS, but I went just to get the $10 back in ECBs. I had $3, but I would rather have $10...wouldn't you? Now I have $10 to use on sale items and they are good until February 8th!

I am still pretty new to drug store shopping, but I am totally loving it!!

DSS totals from both stores...
Paid - $19.04
Saved - $56

Not too shabby :)

Have a great week!

Christina

What's for dessert?

Do you ever finish dinner and ask yourself an hour later, "What's for dessert?". Well if you're like me then you do and if you are also like me you don't keep sweets in the house for the fear that one day you might blow up like a Macy's Day float!

Shawn and I were both craving something sweet after dinner, so I decided to go scrounging around and see what I could come up with. I came across some vanilla ice cream that was left over from a Christmas dinner party I had and DING...I immediately thought, Affogato!

Affogato is an Italian dessert that literally means, "drowned".

To make affogato you take a scoop of vanilla ice cream or gelato and pour a shot of hot espresso over top. To make it even more yummy you can add some whipped cream, chocolate shavings, or cinnamon.

I did not have any espresso or espresso powder, so I make coffee and it was still just as yummy! This is also a good way to use some of those flavored coffees that I know you all got in your stockings from Santa.

Have a FABULOUS FRIDAY!

Christina

Stock Pile Meatloaf

This week I did my weekly grocery shopping as well as my monthly trip to BJ's to purchase my meat. When I came home to put my stuff away I found a bunch of frozen food hiding in the freezer. Do you have food that hides in your freezer too? I decided that before I could break into the new food I had to finish up what was left in the freezer. Saturday night we enjoyed some yummy BBQ chicken thighs, Sunday some meatloaf, and today we will be enjoying Chili that I made a few months ago! On Tuesday we will be clear for the new food. :)

Stock Pile Meatloaf

Hiding in my freezer I found 2 freezer bags of ground meat. I wasn't exactly sure what kind...I'm thinking that one was ground turkey and one was ground beef, so together they would make great meatloaf. I rummaged around the cabinets and found the other ingredients for my stockpile meatloaf.

Approx. 1lb. of hide-a-way ground meat (a variety if you'd like!)
Breadcrumbs
Ketchup
1- egg
Garlic Powder
Worcestershire Sauce
1 small onion - sauteed until translucent first

Glaze:
2 parts Ketchup
1 part Brown Sugar

I don't measure meatloaf ingredients, so take your best guess!

Take all ingredients and mix well. Form into a flat loaf, top with glaze, and place on a cookie sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 40-45 minutes.


I stopped at Publix and picked up some yellow rice for $.77 to go along with it. Nothing says frugal like a $.77 dinner for two plus leftovers for lunch (and a clean freezer)!


Happy Monday!

Christina

Drug Store Sunday

Last summer my good friend Courtney introduced me to a few saving sites and I began to read up on using coupons. I had never been a coupon user before and I never shopped at the drug store for much more than a prescription refill. Once I started to read up on how much people were saving at the local drug store I was hooked! Every week I make it a point to look on my favorite coupon site (www.southernsavers.com) and scan the weekly deals. I may or may not go out and get things depending on the sale and what I actually need. This week my stock piles are running low on most things and the drug stores were running really good deals, so today I went out and shopped!!! My first stop was to Publix to pick up 5 Sunday papers...yes, you heard me...5! I then drove over to my friend Kelly's house and clipped coupons. Kelly likes to save money, but she is not one to sit around figuring out deals (that's where I come in). After clipping the coupons that I needed for today (I don't clip all the coupons) we both headed out to our local Walgreens and CVS for the deal shopping.

Stop #1 - Walgreens

Purchase #1:
(6) Lean Cuisine Meals - on sale 2/$5
(2) Stoffers Meals - on sale 2/$5
(3) Vitamins - on sale $6.99 each
(2) Coffee Creamer - on sale B1G1 at $2.49

Advertised savings - $22.43
Coupons - $9.00
Total Savings: $31.43

Register Receipts Back - $10.00

Total paid - $34.46 (with $10 in RR back)

Purchase #2:
(2) Huggies Diapers (these are for a project that I'm making Kelly for her upcoming baby shower) - $6.99 each on sale
(2) Oatmeal - $1.99 each on sale
(2) Snickers bars - this is what you get when you shop with your pregnant friends!

Advertised savings - $12.23
Coupons - $15.00
Total Savings - $27.23

Used my $10 in RR from Purchase #1, so my total out of pocket was $5.34


Stop #2 - CVS

Purchase #1:
(5) Wisk Laundry Detergent - $5 each on sale
This was the need for the 5 Sunday papers! Each paper had a $2 coupon for the detergent...what a deal!

Advertised savings - $19.95
Coupons - $16
Total savings - $35.95

Total Paid - $10.24 (After my ECBs I paid $0.24 for 32 weeks of laundry detergent!)

ECB (Extra Care Bucks) - $10


Purchase #2:
(4) Playtex Tampons - $7.99 each
(1) Dryer Sheets - $3.99
(1) Sandwich Bags - $1.49

Advertised savings - $5.50
Coupons - $8.00
ECB from Purchase #1 - $10.00

Total Paid - $21.88

ECBs rewarded - $3.00


All in all I think I did pretty well today on Drug Store Sunday! Shawn can do my laundry and have creamer in his coffee for the next 32 weeks! (Yes, my husband does my laundry and no, that's not the ONLY reason I married him!) My stock pile is pretty full, so DSS (Drug Store Sunday) will be pretty light for the next few months.


Total Paid on DSS - $71.92
Total Saved - $118.11

Percentage Saved - 62%



Hope Everyone has a Fabulous week back to work!

Christina

Welcome 2011

Happy New Year! I entered the blogging world last summer when I had lots of time on my hands and quickly found out how time consuming it can be and decided that it was not the time for blogging. With the start of the new year I have decided to try my hand at this again.

I don't have a blogging niche yet, but rather a plethora of ideas and topics that will hopefully keep you interested throughout the year.

2010 was an interesting year. On January 9th I began my first of 40 all-day Saturday classes, my husband and I celebrated one year of marriage in March, in April Shawn was promoted to Underwriting Specialist, in May Shawn embarked on a 6 semester master's degree program, in October I joined Team in Training and began preparing for my first ever half-marathon, in November Shawn received his CPCU, and on December 3rd I completed my master's degree! 2010 was indeed a busy year, but 2011 is the year that we have been waiting for!

2011 is the year that the Harts take on the world! We are planning a Caribbean cruise for our 2nd anniversary, a 16-day trip to Europe which will includes stops in London, Paris, Rome, and Florence, and a celebratory trip to Las Vegas for Shawn's CPCU conferment. Shawn will still be in school, but the beauty of online education is that we can still travel! On February 27th I will run my first ever half marathon with Team in Training (the day after my 28th birthday!). This is definitely a new adventure for me. As you all know I always like to be involved with something new. Shawn will still be busy with school and since I'm done I will need to find some hobbies to keep myself occupied! I have decided to take a cake-decorating class and soon after plan to take a photography class at the local art school. We will see where those hobbies go from there. Although Shawn and I do love our time together with just Noah we are anxious to start our own little family and 2011 just might seem the year to do it, so stay tuned for that! Sounds exciting, huh? Yes, 2011 seems like it will be very exciting and a great year to start blogging!

New Year's just wouldn't be complete without a list of a few resolutions, so here we go:

1. Spend quality time with Shawn (reinvent date night)
2. Volunteer my time and talents to others
3. Stay in shape
4. Continue to eat healthy
5. Continue to make smart financial decisions
6, Join a church
7. Keep a clean and organized house


Well now it's time to go off and see what the New Year brings!

Christina