I was thinking about how easy it is to just jump in the car and hit the drive-thru on these nights when I just don't feel like cooking (which is really every night). If we go to a drive-thru, most often McDonald's, we (me and the kids--with Corey it adds about $6-$9 to the bill) order from the value menu if possible. Usually I get the 10 piece chicken mcnugget ($3.89) for the kids to share and 4 cheeseburgers ($0.99 each) for me and Westley and Caleb. Sometimes, if I'm in the mood, I get 2 small fries, which are also $1 each. That adds up to about $11 with tax. Then I come home and make the chocolate milk ($1.75/gal plus a couple bucks for the chocolate syrup) and cut up apples, pears and bananas (about $0.20 per fruit, so less than a dollar) in a salad. So the whole meal would total to be about $15.
While I was cooking dinner tonight, even though I didn't feel like it, I thought in my head how much the meal was costing me. I made spaghetti with canned green beans and my usual fruit salad and chocolate milk and garlic bread on the side. For my spaghetti, I use 2 cans of tomato sauce, 1 can of paste and one seasoning packet in the 1 pound of ground beef. 2 cans of tomato sauce are about $0.64, one can of paste is about $0.58, the seasoning is about $0.78 and the ground beef I bought at 1.67/lb a few weeks ago. So the sauce was $3.67. The spaghetti was about $2 for the package and the package lasts our family for about 4-5 meals. Let's say 4 to make it easy--so $0.50 for the noodles. The canned green beans were about $0.67. And the fruit salad is the same as I listed above, about $.65-$.70. The milk and chocolate, considering the amount used would put that at about $1.25 for the family. I made the bread by using some Texas Toast, which was $4 for the loaf, but we only used 4 slices, so about $1 worth, and I buttered it and put garlic salt and then lightly toasted it in the oven. If you figure in about $.30 for the garlic salt and butter, the whole meal together was about $7-$8. We have enough leftover for another meal later this week too.
So $15 for a meal from McDonald's versus $7-$8 for a nutritious homemade meal. I guess I'll take the extra 30 minutes and make the food. Figure, if someone ate out every night and substituted a meal like the one described, they would save 50% on food every single time!
I guess a homemade meal sitting around the table as a family, talking about our "highs" and "lows", beats the faster drive-thru any day!
Monday, November 30, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Halloween 2009
Halloween this year was good. We aren't huge Halloween people, mostly because Corey isn't really into it, but I do like letting the kids get dressed up. Westley was very excited because he had started planning his costume in the summer, even drawing up plans. He wanted to be Wall-E, from the Disney/Pixar movie of the same name, and he had it all figured out. We helped him create his Wall-E costume out of a moving box during the week that Corey had off between his training in CA and the interviews for the new stores.
Caleb had wanted to be a ghost, but changed his mind on his birthday when he picked out the construction tool set from Grandpa and Grandma. Since the set came with a hard hat and orange vest and tool belt, he decided to be a construction worker.
Travis chose an easy costume--Spider-man. All he had to do was sort through the costume box and find the Spider-man costume closest to his size (we have three of them!).
Eliza was supposed to be an angel. I bought her costume several weeks in advance, but on the day of the ward Halloween party, which was Wednesday the 28th, I put it on her, or tried to, and it wouldn't go on--way too tight (even though it claimed to be a 2T, which is a size she doesn't even fit into yet!). Fortunately, I had a princess costume that I bought for her in the after-Halloween costume sales last year with the intention of giving it to her for Christmas. It was still so huge that I decided to save it for her birthday this year. Well, she needed something right away, so I pulled it out and she went as that. I was able to return the angel costume, but they didn't have any other ones. Now I just have to figure out a different birthday present for her...
The Santa pumpkin was for a pumpkin-decorating contest for Westley's class. It fell on a week when we had absolutely no money and he was lucky to just get a pumpkin. The night before I happened to have just used a cotton ball for something, so when we were brainstorming ideas, Santa Claus just came to me. I'm so glad we thought of something fun that only required cotton balls, red construction paper and markers, all supplies that we already had. It was so easy and he got an honorable mention.
Westley also got to be in his school's Halloween costume parade. That was really fun to watch, as some of the kids really had great costumes. And Westley was the only Wall-E!
Caleb had wanted to be a ghost, but changed his mind on his birthday when he picked out the construction tool set from Grandpa and Grandma. Since the set came with a hard hat and orange vest and tool belt, he decided to be a construction worker.
Travis chose an easy costume--Spider-man. All he had to do was sort through the costume box and find the Spider-man costume closest to his size (we have three of them!).
Eliza was supposed to be an angel. I bought her costume several weeks in advance, but on the day of the ward Halloween party, which was Wednesday the 28th, I put it on her, or tried to, and it wouldn't go on--way too tight (even though it claimed to be a 2T, which is a size she doesn't even fit into yet!). Fortunately, I had a princess costume that I bought for her in the after-Halloween costume sales last year with the intention of giving it to her for Christmas. It was still so huge that I decided to save it for her birthday this year. Well, she needed something right away, so I pulled it out and she went as that. I was able to return the angel costume, but they didn't have any other ones. Now I just have to figure out a different birthday present for her...
The Santa pumpkin was for a pumpkin-decorating contest for Westley's class. It fell on a week when we had absolutely no money and he was lucky to just get a pumpkin. The night before I happened to have just used a cotton ball for something, so when we were brainstorming ideas, Santa Claus just came to me. I'm so glad we thought of something fun that only required cotton balls, red construction paper and markers, all supplies that we already had. It was so easy and he got an honorable mention.
Westley also got to be in his school's Halloween costume parade. That was really fun to watch, as some of the kids really had great costumes. And Westley was the only Wall-E!
First Snow
On Monday, October 26th, we had the first snow here in Utah since we moved. The three kids at home loved it. I put them in all their snow gear to try it out and see how they would do. Eliza wasn't sure about it all, but the boys loved throwing snowballs at me.
Westley was greatly disappointed because there was no snow when he left for school, it snowed during the day, and then it was mostly melted by the time he got home. It snowed again yesterday all day, but because I was gone at Relief Society Super Saturday all day and Corey was home with three other sick kids and the backyard had mounds of dog poop under the snow because we hadn't made it out to pick it up before the snow started, Westley couldn't go outside (out front) unsupervised to play in it yesterday either. Today it melted down quite a bit, so I'm sure it will be gone by Tuesday and the kids won't be well enough tomorrow to play in it either. I keep telling him there will be more snow, I just hope we get a little more while he's off track and after the kids are better.
Westley was greatly disappointed because there was no snow when he left for school, it snowed during the day, and then it was mostly melted by the time he got home. It snowed again yesterday all day, but because I was gone at Relief Society Super Saturday all day and Corey was home with three other sick kids and the backyard had mounds of dog poop under the snow because we hadn't made it out to pick it up before the snow started, Westley couldn't go outside (out front) unsupervised to play in it yesterday either. Today it melted down quite a bit, so I'm sure it will be gone by Tuesday and the kids won't be well enough tomorrow to play in it either. I keep telling him there will be more snow, I just hope we get a little more while he's off track and after the kids are better.
Little In-N-Out Girl
Eliza is so cute in her In-N-Out shirt and matching bows in her pigtails. We were going to have her wear this ensemble to the opening party this week, but she lost one of her bows in Walmart last week and I have yet to find another set of red-and-white bows. That first set was hard enough to stumble across!
Moving Box Fort
After having moved in 2004, 2005, 2007, 2008 and now 2009, we have quite a collection of moving boxes. Most of those boxes are only good for about 4-5 moves and because Corey likes to load them up super full and heavy, they really are quite fortunate to have survived this long. We had quite a few big boxes that were just not sturdy enough to keep so we decided to build a big fort out of the moving boxes for the kids to play in.
Corey and I worked together on putting the whole thing together. We used about 7 large boxes plus pieces from about 2-3 other boxes. Caleb designated the spots for the windows. Then I went to Walmart and bought a roll of butcher paper and we
covered up most of it and then the kids drew on the paper to decorate it.
As with anything like this, it was more fun to create the fort than to actually play in it. But it was fun while it lasted.
The fort lasted about 3 weeks before they took great joy in destroying it.
Corey and I worked together on putting the whole thing together. We used about 7 large boxes plus pieces from about 2-3 other boxes. Caleb designated the spots for the windows. Then I went to Walmart and bought a roll of butcher paper and we
covered up most of it and then the kids drew on the paper to decorate it.
As with anything like this, it was more fun to create the fort than to actually play in it. But it was fun while it lasted.
The fort lasted about 3 weeks before they took great joy in destroying it.
Messmaker
Eliza is my little messmaker. She is always pulling the DVDs off the shelves or the CD's or dumping out all the puzzle pieces. I found her sitting in the middle of all the books from the kids' bookshelf a few times too. While it's not all that destructive, and actually there are worse things she could be doing, (and when I caught her with the books, she was actually looking at them carefully), it sure is not fun for me to clean up!
Playing Cars
When we got our film developed recently, there were pictures from last year that I found. These were from a car mat that I made out of paper for the boys to play with. I was especially proud because they asked me to add a food place, so we decided to make it an In-N-Out, and that was their favorite part of the mat.
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