by Tricia
I absolutely love the weekend. Yesterday we went out on an adventure to find a u-pick strawberry farm and ended up checking out a local museum that we’ve heard about, but never checked out. It gave a nice look into how early settlers to the area lived. I especially paid attention to the house we were able to tour. I’m into tiny houses so I paid a lot of attention to the layout and got a few ideas.
We didn’t end up picking strawberries. Instead, we found a few boys on the side of the road selling some and picked up two quarts. My son and I dug in as soon as we got home. With a few of them I made a strawberry cake today complete with strawberry frosting (yum!). As of right now, there are only a couple strawberries left.
Besides being able to go out and check out new things, I love the weekend because I can cook to my heart’s delight! During the week, I don’t have the time because I get off at 5pm and by the time I’m done cooking it would be late in the evening. I am also usually very tired after work. But the weekends – oh boy. Then it’s my turn to cook 😉
For breakfast, we had scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, strawberries and a bagel. In the afternoon, I cooked up some chicken breast. I put some aside for ceasar salads next week and with the rest I made chicken tacos for lunch accompanied by apple slices. For dinner, I made homemade pizza from scratch. Then we had my strawberry cake for dessert.
In a way, it’s probably best that I have to work during the week. I’ve never run the cost for my weekend meals, but it probably runs on the high side. At least it is still cheaper than eating out and I enjoy flexing my cooking chops. One of these days I plan on running the numbers and sharing a few of my recipes.
Okay, now onto some articles that caught my eye this week:
My son is still a few years away from being a fifth grader, but I still got a kick out of this article by Kristy, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader (Re: Credit Cards). I wonder how my son will answer those questions when he is in 5th grade.
Livingalmostlarge had a link to a quiz to see what type of billionaire you are. I usually don’t do these, but I couldn’t resist. It said that I would be an investor. I can see that.
SiliconValleyBlogger has an article about fuel efficient cars mpg illusion. Pretty interesting article that goes through the math behind mpg. If you are looking to buy a different car to save on gas, this article is worth a read.
Here’s another gas related article: Cleverdude was forced to get better gas mileage. His findings? He got better gas mileage when he slowed down. I can attest to that as well with our car. We can get 40mpg with going 55-60mph. Once we go 70mph, our mpg goes down to around 32mpg.
It is always beneficial to have a debt capacity check financially as well as astrologically.
http://www.decisioncare.org
Sounds like you had a great weekend; good for you!Your strawberry cake and delicious breakfast sound so yummy! I love weekend breakfasts like that.
Take Care,
Trixie
My 8th grader had to do math homework in which he had to calculate— manually— the APR on a credit card with a minimum monthly payment and how long it would take him to pay off the original amount.
It was a great exercise, and he remembers even now paying the minimum doesn’t get you far because of the fees and interest involved. Hope he hangs on to that idea!
On behalf of Kristy and myself, many thanks for the link Tricia 🙂
I’m impressed by the questions the kids are getting these days as they get up into the elementary grades. Glad to hear they’re including personal finance questions in their math homework! I don’t recall getting so lucky in school with topics like this to mull over.
Tricia-
About the cooking thing…. If you’re trying to save money and your health, now would be a good time to start cooking during the week. You say you can’t cook during the week because you get off work at 5? If I’m not mistaken, you work at home. That means you could start dinner at 5. Why don’t you go to the library and get some “quick meal”-type cookbooks? It’s easy enough to make a dinner in 1/2 hour or so. Martha Stewart FOOD magazine (or whatever it’s called) has a great cookbook you could try. The recipes tend to be very healthy, very easy and very fast. You could also prepare some foods for weekday meals over the weekend—soups, chili, brown rice, etc., that you could use later in the week for lunches and dinners. Rather than salads, you could offer cut up veggies or fruit on the side.
Some of my favorite extra-quick meals:
turkey burgers
whole grain spaghetti
chicken breast
There is nothing in the world like sitting down with your family to a home cooked meal. Somehow, sitting down to eat re-heated prepared foods doesn’t come close. I think you will really find there are health benefits…and it is actually cheaper to make real food than to buy it prepared.
Have fun!
I’m def looking at any way possible to increase mileage on my sedan and its working 🙂 I’ll make a post on it soon!
http://zombiemoney.blogspot.com/