Doing Summer

Well, we are in full swing of summer and everyone is busy.  The big boy, big girl, and middle girl are all working.  The girls are babysitting and teaching swimming lessons and the big boy is working with my hubby.  The great thing is that all of the kids are working for themselves and are self-employed.  I love to see the kids working for themselves and learning about money and life.  I am working summer school for two weeks.  It is only actually 8 days and three of the days is full of testing.  I am working mostly as the runner between the schools and the teachers.  It is good pay and not too bad, so it works for us.  It will be vacation money.

With everyone being at home, the one thing that we have to have lots of is food.  So, I will spend a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon getting some food together for the week.  When you have a large family, a box of cookies only lasts one sitting and will run about $3.00.  My kids snack on mostly homemade foods or fruits and veggies.  Below is a picture of what I make this weekend.  I made granola, cinnamon rolls, granola bars, whole wheat bread, and a pound cake.

I also made some yogurt to go with the granola.  .Yogurt is easy to make and cheap.  You don't have to have a yogurt maker.  I made mine in a cooler until I got the yogurt maker.

A good money saver is buying the oats and making your own granola.  I buy my oats in bulk, but you don't have to.  Just buying the large container from the grocery store is a money saver.  Here is my recipe:

6 Cups of Oats

3/4 cup of vegetable oil

1/2 cup of honey

2 tsp vanilla

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Heat the oil and honey on the stove until hot.  Pour the oil mixture over the oats, and add vanilla, salt and cinnamon.  Spread the granola on a pan and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.  Let the granola cool and move to a container.  I like my granola clumpy, so I spread mine out in the pan and press it down before I bake it.  Make sure you have parchment paper or a silpat on the pan because the granola will stick to the pan and be hard to remove.

While you have all of your ingredients out for granola, make granola bars.  Mix 1/2 cup peanut butter, 1/2 cup of honey, and 1/2 cup of brown sugar.  Cook it on the stove until bubbles.  Mix with 2 cups of oats and 2 cups of cereal (I use Cheerios or rice cereal).  It is yummy and easy.