I'm sitting here watching my beloved VOLS stomp the crap out of the GA Bulldogs an I'm loving every minute of it. That has absolutely NOTHING to do with being a domestic goddess, but I had to throw it in there.
Since being married, Josh and I have been on a budget. We are blessed with two wonderful incomes and have both been spared (in that respect) from the economic downfall. We are truly blessed and want to be good stewards of those blessings.
That's why we follow the Dave Ramsey plan. If you are in debt, frustrated with your finances, or just don't have a financial plan, I highly recommend the Dave Ramsey plan. It will change your life. I promise.
In order to keep within our budget, I clip coupons like crazy. I follow Southern Savers and Money Saving Mom in order to find the best deals out there for my coupons. I love the feeling of walking out of the store knowing I've saved $50+ dollars on my regular grocery bill.
We also eat at home A LOT. I pack Josh's lunches and I menu plan to our nights at home. I typically cook 3-4 meals a week and then we have leftovers and some frozen meals the rest of the week. We also allow ourselves to go out to eat about once a week for date night. Some weeks we don't do this and other weeks we might go out twice. So it evens out over time. Individually we go out with friends too, but that comes out of our individual "blow money" each month.
My part of all of this is to keep us within the food budget and cook a lot of food from scratch. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm a darn good cook. Just ask my husband. :) He lucked out in that department - and can thank my mom for teaching me how to cook over the years.
We eat a lot of chicken recipes because when I find chicken on sale for $1.99 a pound, then I stock up. My freezer is full of chicken right now. And I've found a great recipe for baked chicken. Whenever I need to use cooked chicken in a recipe, I cook it this way. It leaves it moist, tender and quite flavorful!
I got this from Weight Watchers:
Ingredients:
1 spray(s) cooking spray
1 pound(s) uncooked boneless, skinless chicken breast, four 4 oz halves
1/2 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp black pepper, freshly ground
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp fresh lemon juice, or more to taste
2 tsp rosemary, fresh, chopped
2 tsp parsley, fresh, chopped
1/4 cup(s) canned chicken broth
Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 400ºF. Coat a small, shallow roasting pan with cooking spray.
2. Season both sides of chicken with salt and pepper. Transfer chicken
to prepared pan and drizzle with oil; sprinkle with lemon juice,
rosemary and parsley. Pour broth around chicken to coat bottom of pan.
3. Bake until chicken is cooked through, about 30 to 35 minutes.
Yields 1 chicken breast half per
serving.
(Note: I don't use the parsley or rosemary if I'm just making this chicken to go in another dish.)
