Changes

Things are changing in our home...we are settling into a new home, K is starting school, I have cut back on some commitments outside the home, and Mike has a smaller class this year (which hopefully means less correcting and a teeny bit more family time!). These changes, I think, have inspired me to make even more changes in our home:

I'm working on monthly menus. I have always done a weekly menu and shopped for those weekly ingredients. I am now trying a monthly menu with a rotating choice of foods to make life simpler and keep us eating at home more. I enjoy menu planning and am having fun putting together all my recipes too. My goal is to try a new recipe every week! We'll see if I can do it!! (I have lots of recipes I want to try.)

I am trying to make more things from scratch...both as a money saver and to make our meals more healthy. I love reading blogs and have found many, many great ones that share homemade recipes for pizza crust, pizza sauce, etc... It will be fun to try!

The budget! Ah, the dreaded budget! We have the usual debt and bills that all people do, but we also want to save up for various things...a new AC next summer, our Disney trip in 2011, summer family vacations, home improvement projects, etc... So, I'm working on a new budget to make bill paying easier and saving up for big things manageable as well. I'm looking forward to have more structure with our money. I'm hoping it makes things a little less stressful.

I've been a coupon gal and stockpiler for a long time, so this isn't really a change but I'm trying to be even better at it. I used to get the deals at Walgreens and CVS along with the grocery store, but then stopped making the rounds. I am determined to get back into since I'm going to have a free morning while K is in school (the other morning I'm volunteering at school). It's really a game, finding the best deals and matching up the coupons to make it an even better deal. I'm going to start devoting more time to finding those deals and getting our stockpiles up again.

I'm excited about the changes the occurring in our household. Hopefully, they bring down the stress level and increase our health and family time.