Homeschooling from your bookshelves? It's possible come see how!.

Time to get ready for the new school year!!! Unless you school year round like us.
Well I'm all for frugal!
Most of us homeschoolers have enough materials on hand to educate a small army...lol.
This summer go through your bookshelves and make 3 piles:

THROW AWAY
KEEP
SELL/GIVEAWAY

Throw Away Pile: The first pile is just plain old junk, stuff that is used up, scribbled on, torn up etc. Get RID OF IT!! Including that workbook you bought on Ebay that smells like nasty musty YUCK!!

Keep Pile: This is stuff that you can use, organize it by subject, I like to buy magazine holders from the Dollar Tree or use cereal boxes with the top and side cut out and some cute wrapping paper to cover them. They are very durable if you put some clear packing tape on the bottoms. Use these for booklets, workbooks and things like that. Put subjects on them and on free days or Mom is sick days, tell our son to go and pick out an activity and spend an hour working on it. It makes learning fun because he can pick what he wants to do. Jot down what you have and later on in the summer when you really start planning out the coming school year you can see what you have to work with.

The sell/giveaway/trade pile is for stuff that is still usable, but you don't need it anymore or it did not work for your child. I have gathered up enough stuff to sell that I was able to buy some new goodies at the homeschool convention that I might not have otherwise been able to afford. The giveaway items are things that are still in usable condition that you can bless another homeschool family with. PaperBackSwap is another great way to get rid of books you no longer need. Check them out to see how they work. Or read my blog post on how it works.

By looking through what you have, you can make a plan of action for your coming school year. I am betting that everyone has at least 1 full subject that they can teach this next school year without having to buy a thing. Take some time and get digging around, see what you can find to
THROW AWAY
KEEP
SELL/GIVEAWAY

Post on here to let us know what you find!
Moe

Freebie from a friends blog

Lynns Kitchen Adventures blog is offering a really cool menu planning print out for FREE! Can't beat that. She also has lots of neat things over there. Check her out she has regular recipes and a section with allergy recipes. Very tasty ideas.

I notice that I feel much better about having to follow a restricted allergy free diet when I plan ahead. If I don't plan and then meal time comes around, it's very hard to just grab something and eat it. I had a rough patch today. I made up a big batch of chicken, potatoes, celery and carrots in the crockpot. It was wonderful, but we were running low on the veggies, so I thought I would add my favorite Asian rice noodles. Cooked them up and had a small bowl of them with some butter on top, I felt not so great for awhile, fuzzy brain, racing heart, aching joints all the sudden, flushed face. Our son grabs the noodle bag out of the trash and says

"MOM!!! These have cornstarch in them!"

I was shocked, I don't know what I was thinking when I bought them!  It's plain as day, WATER, RICE, CORNSTARCH. Nothing hidden, but I sure did goof and now I am paying for it.  And I ruined a yummy batch of food that I made for myself. Oh, well my guys will enjoy it.

Live and learn.

Moe

How to save money when eating Gluten Free (or on any special diet)

I got this listing from a gluten free group that I frequent. Some great ideas here! Sometimes I know we feel like a prisoner to our required diets, so I thought this cartoon was cute!
Moe

Here are some tips from Teri Gruss on cutting costs while eating
gluten-free.

How To Cook Gluten-Free on a Budget - Cut Gluten-Free Food Costs Now!
By Teri Gruss, MS

Here are 6 practical tips and resources to help you save money on the
extraordinarily high costs of gluten-free foods. Plan ahead and you
really can save on your monthly gluten-free food costs- and at the
same time eat delicious, healthy gluten-free foods.

1. Focus on cooking with foods that are naturally gluten-free

Fresh fruits, vegetables, eggs, dairy products, nuts and seeds, meats,
poultry and fish are all healthy, delicious, gluten-free foods. Focus
on planning a gluten-free menu based on these naturally gluten-free
foods. Pound for pound these foods offer a lot of nutritional value
for the buck, compared to refined, processed gluten-free products.

2. Make your own gluten-free foods rather than buying expensive,
processed products

Savings can be substantial when you make your own gluten-free foods,
especially breads and snack foods. Another advantage in making
homemade gluten-free foods is better flavor and healthier ingredients.

3. It is convenient to keep a few packages of commercial gluten-free
mixes on hand. But you can save a lot of money by making your own
mixes. Measure, mix, package and refrigerator or freeze and you have
created your own fresh convenience mixes. Along with saving money,
when you make your own gluten-free flour mixes, you can customize them
to your own tastes and nutritional needs.


4. Join forces with other gluten-free families and friends to lower
costs. Websites like amazon.com and Shop Gluten Free Grocers sell
gluten-free foods in multi-pack cartons, including pastas and flours.
Amazon's Shop Gluten-Free Groceries website offers free shipping on
orders over $25. Bob's Red Mill sells 25 pound bags of several of
their gluten-free products, including tapioca flour and all purpose
gluten-free baking mix. They also sell 4 bag cartons at discounted
prices.

5. Join a local support organization. You'll meet other people, who
like you, are battling the high costs of gluten-free foods- join
forces, buy in bulk and save money.

6. Use coupons

Nancy Lapid, About.com Guide to Celiac Disease recently blogged about
a website that offers printable coupons for gluten-free products.


Tips:

Once a month prepare your favorite gluten free convenience mixes. I
like to make 3 pound bags of all purpose baking mixes. This amount
generally lasts for several weeks. Use it to make homemade breads,
pancakes, waffles, cookies and pizza crust. Making mixes ahead of time
is SO much more convenient than making mixes every time you need a
gluten-free flour blend for a recipe.

Once a week bake your favorite gluten-free breads, wrap them up and
freeze. Remember, making homemade gluten-free bread is like mixing a
cake batter. Combine ingredients in a mixing bowl. Beat. Pour in a
bread pan, let rise and bake. Homemade gluten-free bread is faster and
easier than making traditional wheat-based yeast breads. So don't
shudder at the thought of making gluten-free bread every week. It
requires less time than you think! The savings, not to mention
superior taste and texture make it worth the minimal effort!

Make gluten-free cookie batter and refrigerate or freeze to use as
needed. There is really no need to buy expensive, ready-made mixes.
Mixing and storing cookie dough, like making bread is faster and
easier than you may think.

Make and freeze gluten-free pizza and pie crusts, which become
economical convenience foods, ready when you need them. Use a food
processor and this task is very fast and again, much easier than you
imagined.

Develop a dependable gluten-free recipe file. This will save you not
only money, but time and disappointment. I have a constantly growing
"favorites" recipe file- my "go to" recipes that I know work and taste
great. This not only saves money, it's healthier.

What You Need

Dependable, favorite gluten-free recipes
Gluten-free raw ingredients- purchased in bulk if possible
Homemade gluten-free flour blend mixes
Motivation
Shop with a grocery list and don't shop when you're hungry!
Consult with an accountant to see if you can deduct a portion of your food costs

Pantry Challenge day 8

I found some grilled burgers in the freezer from late this summer and we had those for one dinner, then I made Salisbury steaks for the next night. I used up the rest of the hamburgers and 2 cans of beef broth mixed with some cornstarch and dried onions. I put those into a pot with a lid and put them on med/low for about 45 min minutes, I served with green beans (1 can cut & 1 can string) and packaged rice mix (all from the pantry).

Any good recipes coming your way? Share them with us.
Moe

Pantry Challenege Day 6

We cleaned out the refrigerator and had leftovers, along with corn from the freezer, canned fruit and veggies from the pantry. Sent hubby to work with cookies from the freezer and our large stash of fresh giant oranges from the local school band.

How are you doing? I have a large can of black beans, got any suggestions to hide those in something? We are not big bean eaters (well we like greenbeans......lol) and I bought those when I was on a 'lets get healthy kick.'  Yeah, the family really likes when mom gets on that high horse. lol

Moe

Pantry Challenge Day 5

I thought I would share some pictures of my stockpiles.......lol. I have a few.

First here is my stash of food that sits above my washer & dryer.

This is my NON gluten free stash of things that I need to use up.

My top of the refrigerator stash......ignore the dust up there! I'm too short to see it, so I don't dust if often :O)

My Lazy-Susan cabinet or better known as "The finger pinching spinner thing" to my toddler son back in the day. lol. Yes I have a ton of Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce because the Amish salvage store has it for like .95¢ per bottle and the expiration date is 2013. YUM!

For some reason the server is rejecting my final picture, which is of a tiny cabinet that my Dh and Ds have munchies & snacks stored in. It's not real large, but it has Ritz Crackers, hot cocoa packets and stuff like that in it.

Feel free to share your stash photos with us. I've not even ventured to take pictures of the freezers yet.......lol. Maybe next week.

Happy frugal cooking this month.

Moe

Pantry Challenge Day 4

I used up some zucchinis, mushrooms, carrots, garlic and chicken (from freezer). I put all that in a pan with some olive oil, cooked it up and sprinkled on a tough of seasoning salt. Went over well and I cleaned out some veggies that I had on hand. I think I will make some brown rice that I have (sitting in the pantry in the far back dark corner!) and add that along with a scrambled egg to last nights leftovers to make a fried rice. YUM!

What have you made?
Moe

Pantry Challenge!!!

How about it?? Anyone game for a pantry challenge? It's easy, before you head to the grocery store, shop your freezer, refrigerator and cabinets to see what you can use up. For the first 3 weeks I try to only buy milk, butter and bread, since I usually have an abundance of canned fruits and veggies on hand. If you don't have chickens you may need to buy eggs  :-p    Make a family game out of this, let the kids pick some can goodies from the cabinet, find some meat in the freezer and go from there.

Feel free to post here and let us know how it's going for you, ask for hints and tips on how to go about doing your pantry challenge. I for one sometimes need some help using up those odd cans of black beans, pinto beans and mole sauce that I bought for some odd reason....lol.

This is a great money saver to start the new year out. I think about many of my readers that are saving to adopt and homeschool moms that are eeking out a tight budget. I hope that this post will be a blessing to your household.

What kind of weird things do you have in your cabinet, freezer or refrigerator that need used up? Use things up before they go bad. Get creative and see what interesting things you can make.

Have a wonderful week!
Moe

Dice Math Games

Thinking of my previous post today about the homeschooling mom and the public school math teacher mom, I found these cool Math dice games over at the home iz cool 101 blog stop by and check her out.

I have some really cool extra sided dice (more than 4 sides), I bought them last year and forgot all about them until I read this blog post. Note to self, STOP BUYING THINGS AND USE WHAT YOU HAVE ON HAND! lol. How many of us have all these school goodies that we bought with high hopes of using them and later find them covered in dust? Shake the dust off your dice and roll into some fun & games this school year!

I can't wait for school to start next week! We love to play games in our school and it's a great way to keep your students interested and make concepts real to them.

Now back to the regularly scheduled program of me working on 6 scrapbooks for tomorrow, our church is hosting a 9/11 memorial service for all our fire, police and ambulance personnel.  I was asked to complete the task of making commemorative scrapbooks for them all. Nothing like the last minute, as my MI buddy would say "If it weren't for last minute, nothing would ever get done."
Turn your life over to Jesus Christ and He will bring you comfort even in all of the ills of this world, including the devastation that 9/11 brought to us.