VickiMNE
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Posts posted by VickiMNE
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We have five kids (all established adults now) and we regularly save $X amount per month in one category we term: Kids' Life Events. This is separate from b'day and Xmas gifts. We've used that money over the years for: a wedding, grad. school graduations, Covid furlough-with-no-pay gap, bonus promotion celebration, and more. And as long as we are able, we will continue to save for being able to help out with yet unforeseen needs/celebrations for our kids and (possibly one day) grandkids. It's been *great* to be able "afford" these things because we've been saving all along.
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Seems a good time to repost this one. Definitely true for me! Grew up in So. Cal--have lived in 4-season climate for the last 25+ years and I'm still not acclimated to the "cold" weather of fall, winter, spring. 🙂
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I was eleven in 1970 in a family with more disposable income than most here it seems.
Breakfast: cereals, oj, toast, eggs--we fixed our own breakfasts at that age because Mom was working.
Lunch: School (elementary) or Sandwiches with veggie sticks. Occasional chips.
Dinner: meat, salad (fresh lettuce with a few extra veggies--I made it from scratch every night with homemade dressing in the bowl), veggie side, starch side (bread or potatoes or rice--never all at once unless Thanksgiving). Rarely dessert. Veggies were often frozen--more variety that way. Very rarely did we have casseroles.
Being in California and avid readers of Sunset Magazine, we ate more adventurous meals than many. We went out to dinner every Friday night to celebrate the end of the week.
Definitely had some processed foods in the pantry--poptarts and such but they weren't served regularly. Parents were big diet soda drinkers, though, in the mistaken belief that it was healthier. Same with margarine vs. butter.
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25 minutes ago, TexasProud said:
Also, I am a little worried about YNAB's zero budgeting approach. Some months we spend way more than our budget like when we have the giant life insurance payment or tax payment or whatever big payment. Other months we go WAY WAY under. ( But it is coming from savings accounts we have that we put money into.) Overall we are way under. Plus we give away a lot when we have extra... Mint thought we were always way over budget, which I didn't care about. We have a basic expenses that I want to keep track of. The rest is discretionary... Hard to explain. Is it going to MAKE me cause everything to reconcile?
YNAB will work. You set up your categories. You can have a basic monthly section (say with 5, 10, 15 categories like food, mortgage, etc). You can set up a section for non-monthly-but-known-expenses (like life insurance). You fund your categories as you wish.
Zero-sum doesn't mean you *spend* down to zero, but that you allocate each month's income completely--nothing just hanging out, unallocated. If you don't want to be too granular, you can make one big "Discretionary" pot besides your basic expenses.
However, YNAB is designed to encourage you to make that nebulous "discretionary" as small as possible and to embrace what it calls "true expenses." Life insurance payment isn't a true discretionary (say like "vacation") and it would be wise to be putting aside money from every paycheck. If you don't spend all of a category one month (food, gasoline, vacation, life insurance, whatever), the money just sits allocated in that category, maybe being added to each month (ie. Xmas category funded throughout the year).
On the flip side, if you *overspend* a category ("eating out"), YNAB will encourage you to cover that deficit RIGHT NOW, taking money from another category (you choose which one) because that money is gone and you should reflect that reality.
Watch the videos. We use an older version of YNAB (9 years+) and our net worth skyrocketed (we were never in debt--just spending "responsibly" but a bit blindly). If you embrace YNAB and its principles, you can know where *every* penny is going and adjust your spending to match your priorities.
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1 hour ago, Laura Corin said:
Elsewhere mid-wall so that you can use land zones for pans more effectively.
This is how we have it. Oven mid-wall, some counter space, then cooktop, more counter space. I also have an island workspace.
The cupboard over the oven is tall and has vertical dividers. I keep my baking sheets, serving trays, muffin tins, and cutting boards on their sides up there. Efficient and easy to get to.
I have 3 different-sized drawers below the cooktop-a thinnish one where I keep "quick seasoning" blends (eg. lemon pepper, TJ's 21 Seasoning, other flavored salts, chili flakes, bouillon cubes)--stuff I might sprinkle on eggs, chops, or veggies or toss into soup/stew while cooking without measuring plus 2 deeper drawers to store pots and pans. I measured my tallest pan (spaghetti cooker with insert) and made sure the bottom drawer could house it, the middle drawer was designed to fit my typical 8 qt. pot (and smaller ones).
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I have a gas cooktop, a single wall oven, and a separate single microwave/convection oven (Used mostly as a microwave and the occasional second oven (holidays, events). I put the microwave nearer the fridge and coffeemaker because reheating is its main use. 🙂
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My sons really enjoyed Hanayama Puzzles. There are many levels, so I started out with a range.
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I love Connections. I tend to get them all perfectly (perhaps with the last category a surprise to me but since I puzzled out the earlier three, I count it as win), OR I totally bomb when there are two categories that are completely unknown to me (Rappers, Video Games, Actors/Movies, etc)--I may have some of the categories correct in terms of theme but the specifics are hit and miss. I look at those days as learning experiences. 🙂
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How about a savory tomato cobbler? This is a favorite of ours. I like this tomato cobbler recipe--I freely use homegrown tomatoes of all sizes if I don't have enough cherry tomatoes-I just cut bigger ones into pieces. I also tend to use my own tried-and-true biscuit recipes--where we live cheddar is not available. This dish works as a substantial side or vegetarian main dish with a salad. Leftovers reheat beautifully (so I purposefully make a double batch) and are good with an egg for brunch/light lunch.
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I really enjoyed the reading the Mrs. Read series (written in the 50s+). The first book is The Village School. It is all about characters; subsequent books dive deeper.
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How about Irish Stew? Meat and veggies that every one likes? Stew with homemade bread is Yum!
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Reminds me of the time when my 6-year old firstborn purposefully circled a couple of wrong answers on a math test. Since I knew she knew the answers, I asked why. Her answer: "I felt sorry that d. was never the right choice and I didn't think d. should be left out like that." 🙂
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I actually have some leftover roast and lacked inspiration into how to morph it into a tasty dish. Problem solved! Thanks, @saraha and other pps. 🙂
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Another idea for fresh figs (we have a fig tree, too!) is to
1. make a pizza dough (or buy one or use rolled out puff pastry or crostini or any other not-too-thick bread bases that you like
2. Caramelize some onions.
3. Slice fresh figs
4. Grate or shaved tasty cheese (aged Gouda is great but really, go with what you have and like).
5. Assemble and bake! Base dough, smear of EVOO, caramelized onions, fresh figs, cheese--layer in any order you like. A bit of freshly grated black pepper is nice. Bake in hot 400F oven at least 10 minutes til hot and tasty--timing depends on what bread base you used.
SO GOOD! For an extra delight, julienne a few slices of prosciutto and add on top--they'll add a delightful, salty crispiness.
NOTE: you can also make this with fig jam.
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My fave name which husband always nixed: Katrina Rose.
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The one I most remember having is a Chicken Rice Casserole made with cream of xx soups and Lipton's Onion Mix: this recipe is pretty close. My mom used 1 can cream of mushroom and 1 can cream of celery. Plus, she mixed in 1/2 pkt of soup mix into the rice and sprinkled the other half on top.
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12 hours ago, sheryl said:
Vicki, there are 4 T dry to 1 oz. In my 1/2 c there would be 4 oz or 16 T. I always thought there were 3 T to an ounce but I'm wrong.
I've never, ever seen this ratio that you mention above. Per Google:
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recipes needed
in The Chat Board
Posted
Our family enjoys this Sausage and Lentils with Fried Sage recipe. Instead of cooking large chunks of carrots&onion which are later removed, I chop them up and leave them in. Leftovers reheat well, too.