Getting Organized in the Kitchen

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Menu Planner - Do you plan your meals or decide what is for dinner at the last minute? Ever gotten halfway into meal preparation and discovered that you are missing an ingredient? Meal planning can help cut down on eating out because you are too tired or don't know what to fix, and it can also help you get organized for a week at a time. Download our Menu Planner (requires Adobe Acrobat) and plan your meals for the whole week. With room for all three meals plus snacks as well as a grocery list, the Menu Planner will help you to stay organized in the kitchen throughout the week.

Menus 4 Moms

If you have ever wished that someone would plan your meals for you, then Menus 4 Moms is for you! Each week a menu for 5 nights is planned for you including recipes and a grocery list. No more last minute trips through the drive-thru or ordering pizza because you didn't plan ahead for dinner. Menus 4 Moms is completely free!

Each menu is based on the Busy Cooks Pyramid, a wonderful time and money saving plan. Every menu contains notes explaining the meal and recipes to walk you through the preparation. Not only does Menus 4 Moms make meal planning a snap, but you will even end up stocking your freezer with extra meals on a regular basis.

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Breakfast and Lunch Menus

There are several ideas for breakfast and lunch on Menus4Moms.com. If you are looking for planned menus, there are thirteen kid-approved breakfast and lunch menus are also available from Christine Steendahl.

Busy Cooks' Pyramid

Learn the secrets of successful busy cooks in the Busy Cooks' Pyramid, adapted from Lynn Nelson's former website, About Busy Cooks.

Kitchen and cooking articles

Feeding a Family for $300 a month?
by Tawra Kellum
I do something that most people think they can't do today. I feed my family of 5 for $300 a month. Most people say that's an impossible feat, but what boggles minds even more is that I do it without using coupons.

Quick Pantry Lunch Ideas
by Menus4Moms 
It’s lunch time and the kids are hungry. Take a look in your pantry for some quick and filling lunch ideas. You’ll be surprised with how many last minute meal ideas you can come up with using the various cans and bags of dry goods stashed away in your kitchen cupboards.

Work Week Menus
by Tammy Paquin
It's been at least six years since I balanced working outside the home almost full-time and having two kids. Friends were always amazed that I managed homemade meals on the table each night. Becoming a stay home mom with three kids made meal planning a bit easier because I was home, BUT several of the lessons I learned as a work outside the home mom still apply. I'll give you a sample menu for one week to show how I would pull all these easy lessons together.

Eating Clean = Staying Lean
by Jessica Dawn
When I refer to eating clean, I mean you consistently eat high quality foods that are basically free of all unnatural additives. Clean foods are those without man-made sugars, hydrogenated fats, trans-fats and other unnecessary ingredients. Although at first glance eating clean might sound boring, if you're creative and pretty good with spices, you'll be surprised at all the clean food you can eat & create that taste really good.

Healthy Cooking - Spring Greens
by Kathy Nichols
Starting with Mom, you've always heard that you need to eat your veggies. What's the big deal about them? Vegetables are often the least favorite of the food groups. Even for people who like them, it can be challenging to get the recommended 5 servings a day. Are they really that important? Yep! Mom was right: eat your veggies! Eat your fruit too.

Saving Time and Money with Stashes
by Barbara Frank
With the nearest large city an hour away, we’re trying to conserve gas by combining trips there. For example, if I need to take someone to the doctor for a check-up, I think ahead to which stores I pass by on the way home, where I can pick up needed items as long as I’m in the neighborhood. But what’s really helped us limit the amount of driving we’re doing these days is something I’ve done for years: keeping stashes.

An Organized Shopping List Makes All the Difference
by Monica Resinger
Making and using a grocery list will help you buy only necessities and/or sale items so will help you save money. It will also get you out of the store quicker as long as the list is organized.

Get Your Recipes Together
by Monica Resinger
Here a few methods I have found to organize recipes.

An Organized Pantry
by Monica Resinger
One night I was making burritos for dinner. I went to grab refried beans out of the pantry and couldn't find any. Later, while cleaning out the pantry, I found some. If the pantry had been organized to begin with, I would have been able to find the refried beans and save my husband a trip to the neighborhood store, saved money as refried beans at the neighborhood store are not cheap and lots of frustration. Another problem with a cluttered, unorganized pantry is waste. I found spilled flour, noodles, Jello and cornmeal packages. So, in an effort to improve myself and knowing what I had done in the past wasn't working, I put some thought into how I could create a better system.

Let's Play "Hide and Sneak" with Veggies!
by Deborah Taylor-Hough
Do you find yourself sitting by helplessly while your very own little picky eater works her way through every ounce of spaghetti sauce, picking out the almost microscopic bits of cooked onion? Do you wish there were a way to get little Johnny to eat more veggies than just the French fries at the local drive- thru? (Do those even count as veggies, anyway?).

Acres of Apples, Frugal to the Core
by Jill Cooper
I've always dreamed of having an apple tree in my back yard. You know the old saying, "be careful what you wish for?" Now that I actually have my own apple tree, I stand in my yard watching the apples piling up around me thinking, "Oh no -- What do I do with this mess now?"... I have had to come up with some yummier "apple disposal" methods. If you find that you have a few dozen more apples than you know what to do with, these recipes... will help settle your frugal dilemma.

To Roast or Not to Roast!
by Tawra Kellam
Whether you have found yourself with more pumpkins than you know what to do with or you are one of the people who had to buy pumpkins and duct tape them to the vine, these tips for roasting and using pumpkins are sure to help you make the most out of them.

Thanksgiving Feast
by Jill Cooper
It's really hard to find ways to save on your Thanksgiving dinner because, let's face it -- It doesn't get a whole lot cheaper than a turkey dinner! Still, I have found some ways that you can save and today I'll pass them on to you.

How to Choose Cookware
by Benni Jenyfari
Selecting the right cookware for your kitchen is not an easy task. Cookware comes in a wide range of materials from stainless steel to cast iron and everything in between. Each has its own advantages and disadvantages and some forms of cookware work better for some than for others.

A Quick Guide to Crock Pots
by Benni Jenyfari
One of the easiest ways to make stews, soups, barbequed meats, and a variety of other recipes is by using a slow cooker or as it is commonly known a Crock Pot. One huge advantage is that once you put the ingredients into your pot, you can go about your day without having to worry about your meal again until it is time to eat.

Luring Your Kids into Eating Healthy School Lunches
by Michelle Stern
Feeding children is a lot like fishing – you have to have the right lure, or they won’t bite! Packing desirable school lunches is a lot like the fine art of selecting an appealing lure while fishing. Try some of these stress-free strategies for packing lunches that are healthy for your kids and the environment. They’ll be sure to bite!

Save on School Lunches
by Jill Cooper
It’s a bitter sweet time for most moms. Bitter because you’re back to hectic mornings, finding everyone’s books and papers and trying to get them out of the door on time... because you now have 180 lunches to make over the next 9 months if you have 1 child and 720 if you have 4 -- But hey, who’s counting? It is sweet because the peaceful quietness that penetrates the house is like gentle music to your ears and you can take a lovely relaxing bubble bath without what sounds like the whole US army trying to break down the bathroom door. Well, now that I think about it, I’ve not known many moms that had the luxury of a bubble bath in the middle of the day but I can dream can’t I? I can’t help you find time for that bubble bath but maybe I can help you with those 720 lunches.

Perfect Hot Summer Meals
by Christine Steendahl
Cooking in the summer provides a unique challenge. In the winter, turning a cold kitchen in to a warm and cozy place is a benefit of cooking. In the summer, turning that same kitchen into a sweltering inferno is not. Planning ahead can eliminate the need for turning on the oven. Here are several options to help ensure your kitchen remains cool in the hot summer months.

Zucchini Overload? 11 Ideas and Recipes to Get You Through Zucchini Time
by Monica Resinger
It's that time of year when it seems you don't have enough friends and family to give zucchini to. I have come to love zucchini time because over the years I have gathered quite a few ideas and recipes. Here are eleven ideas and recipes to help you through zucchini overload time.

How To Shop For Fruit
by Carolyn Flesch
If you find yourself confused in the produce section trying to remember how to tell if a cantaloupe is ripe, check out these tips from Carolyn Flesch.

Home Cooking
by Jill Cooper
OK -- There's no way around it. Just accept the fact that tomorrow your family will eat three meals -- again. Burying your head in the sand and not thinking about it will not make it go away. I know that even the thought of making a meal at home strikes terror in some of your hearts and the only reason the rest of you aren't feeling terror is because you are probably so tired you can't feel terror or any other emotion. But with going out to eat being one of the top 3 causes of credit card debt and child obesity and diabetes on the rise, I think we need to start reconsidering cooking at home.

Chill Out This Summer
by Tawra Kellam
The day moms dread all year long has arrived: the last day of school and the first day of summer vacation. To help moms keep their cool by helping their kids chill out, here are some recipes.

The 5 Most Forgotten (But Amazingly Useful) Kitchen Products
by Char Gietz
Sure, you use your toaster everyday. Your coffeemaker gets plenty of action in the morning. But you’ve probably got plenty of appliances that could be saving you time that are collecting dust in your basement. Want to know what they are.

Packing Food for Road Trips
by Jill Cooper
If you have some money saved for a trip but you know that the gas cost is going to eat most of your funds, try cutting your budget in another area, like your food. Consider taking your food with you.

Popsicle Paradise!
by Tawra Kellam
Remember when you used to sit on your front steps on a hot summer day eating a popsicle? It was usually red or purple and on special occasions you got a fudgesicle. Remember how you tried to lick the drips faster than the sun could melt them? Sometimes the drips would roll down your fingers, forcing you to make the mind numbing decision whether to lick your fingers or the new drips forming on your popsicle.

Making Your Own Chicken Broth?
by Sara Gray
Making chicken broth doesn't have to be an arduous process. It does take a little more time than opening up a can of store-bought broth. But, I look at it as a gift I'm giving my friends and family. A homemade chicken broth is the cornerstone of any great homemade soup.

Slow Cookers Don't Cook So Slowly Anymore
by Natalie Schloesser
I've been reading a lot of crock pot cooking forums lately and there seems to be a common thread; many people are discouraged from cooking with their new crock pots. Why is this? What has come to pass to make newer crock pots more frustrating to cook with than older crock pots? I saw so many posts claiming that people had returned their new crock pot and dug out the one from their grandmother, or went rummaging around to thrift shops and garage sales to find a "good old crock pot" for $5 or less. And yet, many of those people don't realize that there's an excellent reason why your slow cooker doesn't cook quite as slowly anymore; it's for your own safety.

Kids Cooking From the Garden
by Peg Baron
Okay, so the kids have helped in the garden and grown lots and lots of vegetables. Now what? Besides eating all the peas as they pick them and gnawing on the carrots after the great fun of pulling them out of the ground, what’s next?

Confessions of a Once A Month Cooking Drop-Out
by Peg Baron
Okay, I admit it. I’m a Once-A-Month-Cooking drop-out. I tried to make a month’s worth of meals for the freezer, but I couldn’t come up with enough time or enough meals. Next I tried to make 2 weeks of meals for the freezer and stopped because I ran out of dishes, freezer bags, and patience. I had good intentions, but I’m just not that organized. Even though I flunked OAMC, my freezer is not empty. I do have a few tricks up my sleeve that I’d like to share.

How To Cook Asparagus
by Diane Watkins
Discover how to choose and cook asparagus.

Stop the Eating Out Cycle
by Christine Steendahl
If you are searching for an easier way to achieve a healthy lifestyle for you and your family, one of the most effective ways is to prepare home-cooked meals. Here are some useful hints. With our time being at a premium, eating at home is very often exchanged with on the go meals at fast food or casual dining dining establishments. Not only are these choices usually more taxing on the wallet than eating in, but also less healthy. You can dramatically increase the health benefits by eating at home.

Oven Too Small? Making Everything Fit
by Natalie Schloesser
The neatest thing in my house is my oven. The one problem is it's not a normal size oven. We can't go to our local take n bake pizza shop and buy a 16" pizza because it won't fit. But that's okay, I still love my oven. However, I do experience some difficulty when hosting a dinner party or holiday; I can never fit everything in it. I know there are others like me, hence the article. Below is a list of suggestions, tips, and recipes to help fit everything into your kitchen appliances come holiday time.

Does your crockpot work?
by Natalie Schloesser
It seems like a silly question and you probably already answered ‘yes’. But unless your crock pot physically falls apart (like one of mine just did), how do you know it’s working properly?

Crock Pot Cooking Problems - Are Your Meals Too Dry Or Too Moist?
by Natalie Schloesser
Remember how dry and chewy those crock pot roasts used to be when you were a kid? You had to beg for glass after glass of milk just to wash down the meat, carrots, and potatoes. For some, those memories stick so strongly in their heads that although they receive a crock pot as a housewarming or wedding shower gift, it sits in the back of their cupboard collecting dust...Most of the time, these common problems can be fixed with a few simple adjustments.

Crockpot Recipes Hold the Key to Stress Free Cooking
by Natalie Schloesser
A few years ago, my crock pot would collect dust in my cupboard waiting for me to make chili or a pot roast. Now it’s a rare evening when you don’t see it on my counter with the night’s dinner in it.

Bulk Cooking: The Chicken Plan
by Kim Tilley
Kim Tilley describes how to use 18 whole chickens to create a variety of dishes for the freezer. Many of the recipes in the chicken plan could also be used with cooked fresh turkey, which goes on sale the day after Thanksgiving and the day after Christmas.

Saving Time and Money at the Grocery Store in the Electronic Age
by Paul Davis
Most experts agree that customer loyalty in the grocery sector is virtually dead. Ten years ago it was somewhat unusual for a consumer to drive past the closest grocery store to shop at a competing store. Today, within a few mile radius, eight supercenters and chains can be fighting it out, in a market, which the experts might say can only support three or four. So while the chains struggle to find their niche and battle on price, the price conscious shopper benefits.

10 Pantry Staples to Make Quick Cooking Taste Like All Day Cooking
by Tracy Alt
Stocking up on often used pantry items when they are on sale is the perfect way to not only save money on item you know will not go to waste but also to ensure that you will have enough ingredients on hand at all times to throw a meal together in a matter of minutes. Here is a list of my top ten pantry items that will help you add that all-day cooked flavor to quick cooking meals.

Kids' Snack Ideas
by Mary Ann Kelley
Kids are notoriously fickle. This week's favorite food may be tossed aside next week with an inexplicable, "I don't like them anymore." Moms on TheHomeSchoolMom in the Kitchen Yahoo Group are familiar with that frustration and have suggested the following snacks to help you find something that will keep the kids happy when last week's favorite is ancient history.

Make Meals in 30 Minutes or Less
by Jill Cooper
Why is it that, even though we have faster methods of cooking our meals, they seem to have become more frenzied and hurried than years ago? Then it dawned on me -- With the introduction of the microwave and the idea that meals can be prepares in 30 minutes, most people do nothing to prepare or plan their meals until 30 minutes before they are going to eat. So 30 minutes before dinner you find yourself trying to thaw something, cook it, and slap it on the table and at the same time talk and deal with tired, hungry, cranky kids. Let's not forget how exhausted you are at this time of day, too.

How to Save Money on Groceries by Reducing Food Waste
by Sandy Simmons
Most articles on maximizing your food dollars focus on buying food in bulk, buying food at warehouses, stocking up at sales and related tips. The theme is to always buy as much food as possible for the least amount of money. These tips do work, especially if you have a large family. However, one often overlooked aspect of saving money on food is to buy just the amount your family needs and avoid any waste.

Dinner Planning For School Days
by Christine Steendahl
Another summer has quickly passed us by. The kids have reluctantly gone back to school. It stands to reason that life should be a little less hectic, right? Unfortunately, that’s usually not the case. Between all of your daily ‘Mom obligations’, helping with homework and providing transportation to every extra-curricular activity under the sun, you probably have little time to devote to dinner planning.

Save Up to 50% on your grocery bill!
by Jill Cooper
I have discovered the secret of saving money feeding babies, toddlers and preschoolers...What I have been practicing now for many years has now become one of the new buzz phrases -- "portion control". Usually when we think of portion control it is in connection with dieters and not young children or saving money... Next time you scrape those half eaten plates of food into the trash, think about this: 30% to 50% of the food and drinks we buy, whether we eat at home or out, get thrown away.

Kids School Lunches - 13 Alternatives To Promote Healthy Eating And Avoid Fast Food
by Helen Thompson
For parents, providing your kids with healthy, nutritional lunches that they find interesting can be quite a challenge. The "if it is good for you then it must be boring" mentality makes this particularly challenging and you have such favorites as lollies, sweets and fizzy drinks to compete with. Don't despair, it can be done and here are 13 alternatives to get you started.

8 Fun Ideas To Get Your Kids To Eat Their Veggies
by Susanne Myers
Do you have trouble getting your kids to eat their veggies? I sure do. My daughter used to be great about trying and eating just about anything…and then she turned 2 ½. Now it is pretty much impossible to get her to eat anything other than corn when it comes to vegetables. So I had to come up with some fun and sometimes sneaky ways to get some veggies in her. Here are a few of my favorites.

Basil Fact Sheet
by Monica Resinger
Basil is a very useful, decorative and valuable herb that is well worth the minimal effort to grow. It is a highly flavored tender annual herb that is used in many dishes. Sweet basil can reach 2-3 feet tall. It attracts butterflies and beneficial insects to the garden. There are many different varieties of Basil such as lemon Basil, cinnamon Basil, sweet Basil and more.

Cherries Galore!
by Monica Resinger
We are very lucky have two old sweet cherry trees in our yard. When we first moved here, the trees were so tall you couldn’t get to the cherries, so the birds and squirrels were well fed. After the first year, my husband and his friend topped them to a reachable level and for the first few years we didn’t get many cherries. This year was different, very different. We had enough cherries to supply the birds, squirrels, neighbors, family and our freezer! We also had enough to eat fresh, and make some jam, crisp and pie.

Treat Mom and Dad to the Best French Toast Fodder on Their Special Day
by  ARA
How to show Dad you care with a breakfast - it's the ongoing question faced by families trying to plan the perfect Father's Day. Fortunately, a homemade and heartfelt breakfast of French toast offers a simple solution that pleases parents of all ages. How? Why? Three centuries of history paired with a few fresh recipe ideas provide the answer.

Saving on your grocery budget when you’re tired
by Jill Cooper
Many people with chronic illnesses that cause fatigue are overwhelmed at the thought of grocery shopping. Jill Cooper and Tawra Kellum understand that feeling and offer these tips to help.

Shopping at Aldi
by Tawra Kellam
I spend $250-$300 a month on groceries for my family of five. One of the best things I do to keep my budget is to do most of my food shopping at Aldi. You can get a good price, get in and get out fast and you don’t have to mess with using coupons. Aldi is a small discount warehouse store. It is not an outlet store and does not sell outdated or rejected products.

Making the Perfect Brisket
by Joe Johnson
When a Texan says barbecue, they aren’t talking pork. Barbecue to a Texan really means brisket. This is one of the toughest, leatheriest, most difficult to cook cuts on a cow because the brisket is a muscle used for walking... But, when combined with the magic of a long and low cooking, this piece of leather can be transformed into a piece of meat that creates a lifelong addiction for more and better.

USDA Beef Grades - Be Aware
by Michael Russell
The United States Department of Agriculture, known as the USDA, inspects and grades meats based on nationally uniform Federal standards of excellence. There are eight USDA grades, Prime, Choice, Select, Standard, Commercial, Utility, Cutter and Canner.

The Well-stocked Pantry
by Mary Ann Kelley
Once you get in the habit of keeping a stocked pantry, you will find that your grocery bill decreases. It is not because you are buying less, but because you are paying less. If your pantry isn't stocked, you have to pay whatever the current price is for basic items, but with a stocked pantry you simply refresh your supply when you find the items on sale.

Keeping a Kitchen Journal
by Rachel Paxton
It seems like the busier we get the more forgetful we are. And getting older has something to do with it, right? Whatever the reason, a kitchen journal can be a useful tool for keeping your home and family running smoothly on a day-to-day basis.

Grocery Shopping Tips
by Susanne Myers
I have to admit, grocery shopping isn’t exactly one of my favorite things to do. In case you can’t “hear” the sarcasm in my voice, let me tell you that I’d rather be doing just about anything other than grocery shopping. Since I can’t avoid grocery shopping, I found a few things that make it a more pleasant and most importantly a faster process. I’d like to share my grocery shopping tips with you.

Frugal Tips for A Cleaner Kitchen!
by Cyndi Roberts
Everyone I know likes a sparkling clean kitchen...but no one I know is fond of spending a lot of time in the kitchen! With that in mind, here are a few tips to help you keep your kitchen shining with a minimum investment of time!

Some Assembly Desired
by Jane Snow
For Lisa Donatelli of Cuyahoga Falls, nirvana is not a day at a spa, but dinner in the freezer... Donatelli spent one evening last week making dinner with four of her friends. They made 80 meals -- enough to stock their refrigerators and freezers with 16 dinners each.

Learn How To Plan Your Meals To Free Up Your Time
by Aurelia Williams
Meal planning and bulk cooking are both wonderful techniques you can utilize and modify to fit your families needs. The idea behind this is simple. The principle is that you cook and or prepare your meals ahead of time and then preserve them by either freezing or fridgerating them. Also, meal planning you can cook one large meal and get 2-3 other meals out of it! The key here is to make every meal you cook count!

A Quick Guide to Buying and Cooking Asparagus
by Shauna Hanus
Asparagus is a sweet and nutty flavored vegetable that is as versatile in color as it can be in serving styles.

Learning to Love Vegetables
by Bethany Klug
Impossible, you might say, especially if the vegetables you ate growing up were boiled into oblivion. Or maybe yours were embalmed as canned vegetables or cryogenically frozen. Treated with such disrespect, it’s easy to understand why many of us avoid vegetables, and lose out on the most life sustaining and disease preventing food available to us.

Organize Your Leftover Containers in Four Easy Steps!
by Monica Resinger
It was time to organize my leftover containers that are kept in a kitchen cupboard on a slide out shelf. I didn't realize how long it had been since the last time I did this until I got to the bottom of the shelf and found things I'm ashamed to tell... Here's how I got this cupboard in shape in four easy steps.

Secrets of a Busy Cook
by Lynn Nelson
I love to cook! But I just don't have a lot of time for it and I suspect that those who hate to cook really have trouble. I want to provide wholesome and tasty meals Monday through Friday, but I don't want to spend all evening in the kitchen. In fact, 30 minutes is my maximum limit for week night meal preparation. I have developed a method of accomplishing this, which I will share with you here. This method actually involves a combination of several different techniques with which you are probably already familiar, so these are not really secrets. But I combine them in an organized manner that makes weekday cooking a breeze.

Freezer Cooking
by Maureen Wittmann
A combination of posts to message boards and discussion lists about bulk cooking.

Tablescaping Chic on the Cheap!
by Kathleen Wilson
Most of us who are decorating on a budget at some point decide to entertain in our homes, and would like to do so with a little pizzazz! Unfortunately, many TV shows and magazines would have you believe you must spend $100 and up (on a budget, they claim) to dress your table for an event. Nonsense! Here are some great ways to create a smashing tablescape using creativity, not cash!

Time-Crunched Families can Turn Baking Time into Family Time
by  ARA
Some of the happiest family memories are made in the kitchen. Everyone cherishes a time when they baked cookies with grandma, or remembers the first cake they made for dad’s birthday. Children learn so much though cooking and baking. They learn how to follow directions, math and measurement, as well as food and kitchen safety. They sharpen fine-motor skills and practice getting organized and sharing family responsibilities.

Germ Warfare
by Shay Seaborne
Hand washing and safe food handling are very important to me. I'm not above bringing food safety brochures to potlucks. This fixation is not without cause, though; as a teenager, I contracted my first obvious food-borne illness after eating strawberries in Mexico City. During the space of the next few years, I had the educational experience of coming down with G.I. infections of Staph and Salmonella, also due to the unsafe food handling practices of others. And then, in my youth, I landed a job that required me to become a certified food service manager. It was during this training course that I learned the sad fact that most food-borne illnesses are attributable to fecal matter under the fingernails. Serious "EW!"

Stir it up! Fast and easy cooking
by Deborah Taylor-Hough
On busy days, it's often more than a little tempting to get an expensive drive-thru dinner just because the ingredients you have at home will take too long to make into a meal. But I've found that if I keep ingredients handy in the pantry and refrigerator for simple meal prep, I can have dinner on the table in a flash -- and protect my pocketbook from that ravenous Fast Food Monster at the same time!

What Foods Don't Freeze
by Deborah Taylor-Hough
One of the most common questions I hear from people who are interested in freezer-meal cooking is: "How do I know what will freeze well, and what won't?"

Thirteen Easy Ways to Reduce your Food Budget
by Monica Resinger
When trying to cut expenses, food is a great place to start because there are so many opportunities to save. One way to watch your savings pile up and be able to use it for a goal, such as a vacation, down payment on a home or paying off debt, is to put the cash you saved from any purchase into an envelope or a jar until you get enough to make a bank savings deposit. Make a strict rule to not use the money for anything else but your goal. Here are thirteeen easy ways to reduce your food budget that will help you achieve this.

Kitchen Management and Meal Planning
by Crystal Miller
Busy homemakers can find managing the kitchen and meal planning and preparations a large challenge. The trend towards fast foods and convenience foods is common today as a solution to deal with this challenge. I walk into a nearby grocery store and find the deli loaded with "old-fashioned" goodies like roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, apple pies and any other item one could want for making meal time a breeze. This could seem like an answer to prayer!

A Mom's Best Friends
by Mary Ann Kelley
As a busy mom, I have several "best friends" around the house that make my life easier and more enjoyable. Some are simple and free, others not so cheap, but all are things that I wouldn't want to live without. I have found that consistent and diligent use of these "best friends" makes the difference between an organized day and chaos, as well as the difference between feeling overwhelmed and feeling like I've had some "mommy time". I've chosen my personal top 8 to share with you.