Frugal Birthday Cupcakes

My kids have been at church camp all week.  Yesterday was Ashley's birthday and today is Evan's birthday.  The youth pastor said that we could bring cupcakes to celebrate.  I could have bought cupcakes at the grocery store, but when I checked the prices for four dozen cupcakes (that is how many I needed) I was floored.  It would have cost me about $40 to get that many already made.  So if you know me I was not going to pay that much so I made my own.

I got out my Bosch mixer and I just mixed two boxes of cake mix and did the recipe on the box except I used milk instead of water and added an extra egg.  I did both mixes at once since the Bosch has such a large capacity.  After that I mixed up homemade icing.  Ashley had asked for blue.  I needed enough for 48 cupcakes, but that wasn't a problem in the Bosch either.

The recipe for the icing is your standard buttercream icing, which is one stick of butter, a little milk, 1 tsp vanilla and about five cups of powered sugar.  Because I was going to take these to a pool party and we were going to be outside, I used half buttered flavored Crisco.  I didn't want it to melt.  

I think they turned out fine and it only took me about an hour and 1/2 from start to finish. I will give you my break down on the cost.  The cake mix was $1.25 each, so  $2.50 for the mix.  The liners were $1.00.  I buy powdered sugar in bulk from Sams for around $1.00 a pound and I used 2 pounds.  The Crisco ran about $1.25 for the amount I used.  I buy butter for $10.00 for 4 pounds and I only used one stick, which is about $.60.  I already had the blue coloring.  So for less than $7.00 I was able to supply plenty of birthday cupcakes.

Easy, simple, and cheap meals that feed a crowd.

It is summer.  I have everyone here which is great but expensive.  All of a sudden I have 5 teens eating here three meals a day plus all of that snacking.  The older kids have jobs and are in and out and the younger ones have a constant flow of friends over and numerous trips on outings, I try to feed the seven of us dinners that cost less than $10.00.  Our budget for groceries is $600 a month, but I try to come in under budget as much a possible.  Here is a meal that we eat often. Everyone loves it and it is cheap!  It is tacos with all of the fixings.

The main reason that tacos are so cheap for us is that we deer hunt and grind most of the meat ourselves.  So instead of ground beef we use ground venison for tacos.  I also can my own salsa in the summer from home grown tomatoes or tomatoes from the farmers market.  So all I have to by are the taco shells, cheese, lettuce, sour cream and any other fixings that we want.  I buy taco shells at Aldi for $1.00 a box ( we use two), sour cream from Aldi for $1.19, cheese from Sams Club for $12.00 for five pounds (so we spent about $2.00 for the tacos), and we buy lettuce from Sams for three dollars for six heads of romaine (so about .50 for the lettuce).  The seasoning we buy in bulk, but it can't be more than .50.  So I calculate that for less than $7.00 our whole family can eat tacos.  

In this picture are some grapes that were going to go bad, so we put them out.  We will sometimes buy a $2.00 bag of chips and eat them with the salsa or buy some avocados if they are on sale and make some guacamole.  Yummy!

This meal will feed us and a few extras if needed.  We usually have some flour tortillas around that I can get out if need be.  So you see, you can feed a big family for cheap and they will eat it.  I will try to include some other money saving meals throughout the summer.

End of the year awards

Well the school year is winding down.  Everyone is getting awards.  Here is Evan getting his for A and B honor roll.

Then we had Tyler graduate from the youth home.

Now here is Natalie getting top five percent of the sophomore class.

My kids are really smart and work hard at their school work, but that is not what I am interested in.  I want these kids to love God and be servants of him.  I also want them to be good people and love their fellow man.  If they can accomplish this, then that is an accomplishment to me.  So far my kids are doing pretty well.

Favorite Kind of Friday Night

This is my favorite kind of Friday night.  It is so relaxing.  We picked up a take and bake pizza from Wal-Mart (Yeah, no cooking) and watched a movie off of Netflix.  We watched the movie Unconditional.

 

I liked it.  It is PG 13 for some violence, but it is a Christian movie and has an uplifting ending.  We popped popcorn and made flavored coffee so life is good.

 

 

Tomorrow I am going grocery shopping early.  I do hate to go on Saturday, but I really don't have any other day. I do wish I could work part time and have a day during the week to shop, but I don't.  I get so spoiled in the summer.  I love having the stores all to myself to shop.  Tomorrow is Aldi and Sams (maybe) and the bakery outlet.  I will also hit Kroger up for some sales if there are any good ones.  I am working to trim the grocery budget so I have to shop smart.

 

Well, I have some bananas that I want to slice and put in the oven and then put some laundry away.  I do love my new dryer, but it does make it so that I have to put more clothes away more often.  I will post my shopping trip if I get a chance.

New Year

We made it through the new year mostly unscathed.  Christmas was enjoyable.  My mom and dad came over and so did my sister and her family.  I love having little kids here at Christmas.  I did not like the excess of presents for the little kids.  I know that they are little and all, but I like for children to have a few quality toys and learning and art supplies, but not toys to excess.  I know my kids had too many toys and if I had to do it again they would not have plastic junk, just a few high quality toys.  Oh well, not my battle.

We also had a large group from the church over for new years.  This year we decided to shoot off fire works and our black lab got in the way.  He ran up and picked up a lit rocket and was killed.  Yes we were careful with the kids, but never imagined that the dog would do that.  The kids were a little sad and so were we. 

So school has started back and we are having a full we this week.  Back to college for me too.  I like it except for the late nights.  I prefer to stay home by the fire.

Here are a few pictures from the girls mission trip.  So proud of them!

College is out and it is almost Christmas

My college classes are done. I pulled A's thank goodness. Not that I have to get all A's but I hate to do all of that work and it not be recognized. So now we are in Christmas mode. We are making pumpkin bread for folks at school.

It is just enough that everyone gets a good taste and wants more. It is so yummy. I like giving baked goods at Christmas because I can make a bunch for cheap and not many people bake anymore, so it is a good treat. 

The oldest two are in El Salvador for a week. They earned all of their own money to go and I am so proud of them. It should be a memorable trip for sure. 

Fall Break

We have been very busy lately. So busy that I have had no time to blog or anything else. Between me working full time and going to school full time at night and football season and soccer we are busy. Add our church commitments and we are slightly overloaded. We don't want to quit anything so we keep going. 

Natalie recently got her learners. God help us all. 

Ashley went to homecoming dance. So pretty and growny. 

We also have baby pigs. Ha ha. 

We are going to look at colleges tomorrow. I will let you know what we think.