Money Saving Mom®

Guest post from Kelli of Eat Pray {Read} Love

I am not an organizer by nature, or at least I wasn’t until recently. I’m quite sure I drove my mom crazy with an ever-chaotic bedroom growing up. And my car usually looks like someone lives in it.

But, since having my 4th child a little over a year ago, I have been on the quest to get my home in order.

It hasn’t been easy (it has caused me to reevaluate my overly-sentimental tendencies) but, it has saved my sanity in more ways than one!

After reading Crystal’s new book, Say Goodbye to Survival Mode, I have been even more motivated to get more areas of my life in order so that I don’t feel like I’m constantly hanging on by a thread!

Here are a few areas I’ve organized that have been a tremendous asset to living freely:

1. Homeschooling

Until this school year, I did most of our schooling in the breakfast area of our home. And while that worked okay, I got tired of having to move the books for lunch, immaculately clean the table after lunch, then haul everything back out. If we were in the middle of working on something, it made it much harder to get everything back in order after lunch.

So at the end of the summer, I spent a solid week in our new “school room,” which was formerly our playroom. I re-painted it, then got all of our books organized. I got all of our supplies in order so I didn’t have to spend 20 minutes looking for a pencil before starting school.

This school year has been much smoother. Although it took a while for the room to transition from “playroom” to “schoolroom” in my kids’ minds, it has helped so much to have a defined area for schooling.

When we’re in there, it’s school time, as opposed to being in the kitchen, where food is always on the mind!

2. Toys

I wrote an entire post dedicated to our toy organization (you can read it here), but the basic premises are: purge, purge, purge!

Then, when you’re down to what your kids actually play with, find unique ways to organize them that work for your family.

This is the key in all areas of organization — if it doesn’t work for your family, it won’t help you! We use a dresser in our living room to “hide” our toys when they aren’t being used. It’s one of my favorite organizational tools in our home!

3. Paperwork

This is one area of our home that I feel will always be a struggle for me, but I have found some ideas that have helped tame the paperwork beast a bit.

I use organizers on top of my desk to separate medical bills from kids’ shot records, etc. and that has helped tremendously. I also toss junk mail in our garage trash can before it ever even enters the house. Paying bills as soon as they arrive is also helpful — and you’ll never pay late fees again!

Although perfect organization  is an illusion — especially in a home with six people — taking proactive steps to get a few areas of my life under control has been such a blessing for our family!

Kelli is woman who is never bored! Between loving on 4 kids and her husband, serving her church as the pastor’s wife, developing (and tasting!) new recipes, and looking for the next great book to read, she’s always on the go! You can follow her family’s adventures at Eat Pray {Read} Love.

Guest post from Kelly of New Leaf Wellness

I started making freezer meals after my first child was born. Freezing a casserole for a holiday or birthday party meant I could enjoy the day with my daughter and husband instead of spending it in the kitchen.

Four years and two more children later, I still use freezer meals to simplify our busy lives. To save time, I freeze most of my meals raw.  They’re very easy to prep, and since they’ll cook for the very first time out of the freezer they won’t taste like leftovers at all.

Curious how you can turn your favorite oven or slow cooker recipe into a no-cook (or little cook) freezer recipe? Read on!

How to Turn a Regular Recipe into a Freezer Recipe

1. Start with a recipe that will freeze well.

Here are some of the BEST and WORST foods to freeze.  This isn’t an exhaustive list, but it’s a good place to start.

BEST:

• Chilis, stews, and soups (non-milk based)
• Beef roasts and pork roasts
• Casseroles
• Baked pastas with tomato sauce

WORST:

• Casseroles with potatoes or rice
• Some dairy (like sour cream, mayonnaise, and sour cream)
• Fried foods
• Crumb toppings
• Fruits and vegetables with a high water content (like melons and lettuce)

2. Follow the recipe instructions until the point that you would put the meal into your oven or slow cooker.

If the ingredients go into your oven or slow cooker totally raw, then you can freeze them raw, too. For example, I freeze loaves of raw carrot bread, raw meatloaves, raw beef roasts in sauce for my slow cooker, and raw veggies in broth for slow cooker soups.

If the recipe calls for some cooking before putting the food into your oven or slow cooker, do that cooking before freezing. For example, if a recipe calls for browning ground beef before adding it to your slow cooker, brown the ground beef before freezing. Then, cool the beef to room temperature, add the rest of ingredients, and freeze.

3. Assemble your freezer meal so it won’t get freezer burn or take up a lot of space in your freezer.

For slow cooker recipes:

• Store your meal in a gallon-sized, plastic freezer bag.  I use quality, name-brand bags with a zipper on top and mine never leak.    

• Fill your plastic freezer bag like this: beans and vegetables at the bottom, sauces and spices in the middle, and meat at the top.  Your sauces and spices won’t stick to your freezer bag, and your meat will be the first thing poured into your slow cooker.  

• Remove as much air as possible before sealing the bag. (You can watch me demonstrate here.)

• Lay the bags flat in your freezer and stack to save space. 

For oven recipes:

• Store your meal in a glass casserole dish or aluminum pan (you can use disposable.) Place layers of plastic wrap and aluminum foil on the top of the dish.  

• If you are stacking multiple casseroles in your freezer, place layers of cardboard in-between so they don’t collapse into one another. 

4. Label your freezer meal.

Use a pen or Sharpie marker to label your freezer meal with the following:

• To thaw overnight in the refrigerator before cooking (if necessary)
• Ingredients, if any, that need to be added the day of cooking
• Cooking instructions
• Use-by date (most freezer meals will last in a standard freezer up to three months)

5. Cook your freezer meal.

Most freezer meals need to be thawed in the refrigerator overnight. Thawing helps your meal cook more evenly and quickly.  It will also help your slow cooker meal fit in your slow cooker. (Because it’s hard to fit a frozen square block in an oval-shaped slow cooker!)

Follow your recipe’s instructions for cooking your meal in your slow cooker or oven. Frozen slow cooker recipes may require an extra 1-2 hours of cooking. Frozen oven recipes may need an additional hour of cooking. When you’re first getting started with freezer meals, check your meal at the end of your recipe’s recommended cooking time and add more time as needed.

Dr. Kelly McNelis is a 31 year old mother of three little girls. She’s also a psychologist, wellness coach, and author of two cookbooks: 15-Minute Freezer Recipes and Easy & Healthy Slow Cooker Recipes. Kelly shares her favorite time-saving tips, DIYs, and recipes on her blog, New Leaf Wellness.