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One Hundred Dollars a Month

I am your typical housewife living in high maintenance suburbia. I have a handsome husband, 2 kids and a flock of pet chickens. I try and feed my family with $100 a month. With the help of coupons, gardening and bartering I am able to squeeze the most out of our grocery budget and still manage to have a little fun along the way.


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Free Garden Seed Catalogs

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I received my first garden 2013 garden catalog in the mail yesterday.  Wahoooo… You can bet I’ll be asking Santa for seeds this Christmas.

Thanks to my awesome readers, here is an updated list of seed catalogs. If you have a favorite one you don’t see on the list, let me know in the comment section below and I’ll add it.

Botanical Interests Seed Catalog {My boyfriend Ryan works here}

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds {Cool rare seeds}

Totally Tomatoes Seed Catalog

Burpee Seed Catalog

Seeds of Change Catalog

Seed Savers Seed Catalog

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange

Sustainable Seed Company

Territorial Seeds Catlaog

Peaceful Valley Seed Catalog

Uprising Seeds

Victory Seed Company

Johhny’s Seed Catalog

High Mowing Seed Catalog

Sign up for the Garden’s Alive email newsletter you’ll receive $25 off your order of $50 or more just for signing up.

D. Landreth Seed Company

Amishland Heirloom Seeds

Cherrygal Heirloom Seeds

Bountiful Gardens

Did I miss one of your favorite seed companies?

Let me know and I’ll add it to the list.

~ Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Easy Crock Pot Recipes – Olive Garden Pasta E Fagioli Soup {Copy Cat Recipe}

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Hang on people.  If you are looking for a freakin’ fantastic recipe for a busy weeknight {or lazy weekend} this recipe for Pasta E Fagioli is the one.  Now I have not been to The Olive Garden in like 10 years, but I do remember how good their soup and bread sticks are.

Not only is this recipe awesome, but it makes a lot of soup.  2 dinners and 2 lunches for our family of four to be exact.  So if you don’t want all that soup, then simply cut the recipe in half.

Go make this!  Seriously.  The come back and tell me how good it was.

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs ground beef
2 cups dehydrated carrots or 2 large carrots, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
{4} 14 oz cans diced tomatoes {do not drain}
{1} 16 oz can red kidney beans, drained
{1} 16 oz can white navy beans, drained
{2} 32 oz cartons of  beef stock
1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 teaspoons pepper
1 tablespoon dried parsley
1 24 oz jar spaghetti sauce
8 ounces small pasta {I used mini bow tie}

Directions

Brown the beef in a skillet, drain fat, and transfer to a large crock pot. Place all the ingredients {except the pasta} in the crock pot and turn it on {High 5 hours, Low 8 hours}.

30 minutes before serving, stir in the pasta place the lid back on the crock pot.

Once pasta is done cooking, ladle in to bowls and serve.  YUMMALICIOUS!

Looking for more copy cat recipes?  Check out The Everything Restaurant Recipes Cookbook.  The book is filled with all sorts of copy cat recipes form your favorite restaurants. Amazon currently has this book in stock and ready to ship.

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mavis Garden Blog – Harvesting Broccoli After a Frost

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Last night was the third night in a row we had freezing temps.  So when I woke up this morning I felt like it was now or never time to harvest the last of the broccoli.  Even though the heads were very tiny, I’m glad I was able to harvest them.

Something is better than nothing, right?

I consider this a good learning lesson.  Next year I’ll plant the fall broccoli seeds in mid-July rather than late August. Hopefully then, I’ll get larger heads to use in stir-fry instead of stalks to use in a broccoli casserole.

So even though we wont be eating a ton of broccoli this winter…

The chickens will still get plenty of homegrown food to munch on.

It’s an adventure isn’t it?

Life is Good!

~Mavis

 

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Shopping with Mavis | Albertsons Double Coupon Shopping Trip

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I headed out to Albertsons early this morning so I could grab some free cranberries, and while I was there I also picked up a few other items. The Beech-Nut Baby Cereal and Stove Top Stuffing is for a donation and the Luden’s cough drops will come in handy this winter.  All in all I think I did pretty good for only having spent $0.30 out of pocket.

I do think there are a lot of great deals to use with doublers this weekend, but it’s mostly for stuff we wouldn’t eat.  I’m trying really hard these days to buy the least amount of processed food as I can, and use what we harvested from the garden this summer instead.

It’s not always easy, but I know it’s the best thing for my family.

Here is what I picked up on my Albertsons Double Coupon Shopping Trip:

Transaction #1

Ocean Spray Fresh Cranberries – $1.99
Beech- Nut Baby Cereal – $1.89
Used {2} $1/1 Ocean Spray Fresh Cranberries Printable Coupon
Used {1} $1/1 Beech-Nut Baby Cereal Printable Coupon
Final Price: FREE after double coupons

Transaction #2 

Ricola Cough Drop Bags – $1.89 Buy 2 Get 1 Free
Starbucks Refreshers – $1.50
Used {2} $1/1 Ricola Coupons {10/21 SS}
Used {1} $1/1 Starbucks Refreshers Tearpad Coupon
Final Price: $ FREE after double coupons

Transaction #3

Stove Top Stuffing – $1.00
Used {2} $1.00/2 Stove Top Stuffing coupons {I saved these coupons from last year’s stuffing boxes}
Used {1} Buy 4 get 1 Free Stove Top Stuffing Tearpad coupon {found in-store}
Final Price: FREE after double coupons

Transaction #4

Yoplait Simplait Yogurt – $0.75
Used {2} $0.30/1 Yoplait Simplait Yogurt Printable Coupons
Final Price: $.30/ $.15 each after double coupons

Did you make it to Albertsons this morning? What did you stock up on this time around?

~Mavis

This post may contain affiliate links. These affiliate links help support this site. For more information, please see my disclosure policy. Thank you for supporting One Hundred Dollars a Month.

Mavis Butterfield Etsy