Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

I whipped up a batch of Artisan Bread dough the other day. I have never made it before. I made my first loaf last night and it was so easy. I wish I had been doing this a long time ago. It really does only take about 5 minutes. If you aren't aware of Artisan 5 minutes a Day Bread Mother Earth wrote a great article about it here.

With this Artisan bread you can mix up a large batch of dough, let it sit for 2 hours, pull off a chunk and shape it into a loaf and bake it. There is no kneading required. Then just refrigerate the remaining dough for up to 2 weeks. Whenever you are hungry for a fresh loaf of homemade bread pull off another chunk of dough, let it rise and bake. It's that easy.

Here is the dough in the container I keep it in.The loaf as it is rising.The finished bread. Ummmm.Here is the basic recipe. This makes (4) 1 pound loaves.
3 Cups water
1 1/2 Tablespoons yeast
1 1/2 Tablespoons salt
6 1/2 Cups flour

You can read more about how to make the bread here. Or check the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes blog which has lots of awesome recipes.

Linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are That Family.

The Great Clothing Exchange

It's that time of year again. The changing of the seasons. With 4 boys its tough to keep up with all the clothing sometimes. Here is how I organize everyone's clothing by season.

Rubber totes.

I buy alot of clothes from garage sales. When I find things that fit for the following season I store them away in rubber totes. Also, when one boy outgrows something I put that in the tub for the next boy down to wear. Each child has their own tote and some totes are organized by items or sizes. Labeling the box is the most important part.

When the seasons change I just pull out the correct tote. I go through all the clothing in the tote and get rid of anything that doesn't fit anymore. I fill the tote back up with the off season clothing make new labels for the outside if needed and back down to the basement it goes.

It works for me! To see what works for others visits We are That Family.

Prepaid Vacations

My family and I just got back from a weeks vacation in Minnesota where we stayed in a cabin, bought groceries for the week, rented a paddle boat, shopped, and even splurged and ate dinner at a steak house all without even dipping into our current bank account. Our vacation was completely paid for. We came home with the same amount of money that we left with!

Here is how we did it and how you can too.

First, figure out what your vacation is likely to cost and when you plan to take it. For us, I budgeted $1600. I knew our vacation was being taken in July. I would need 8 months to save. In November I started putting $200 each month into a separate savings account (I used an online account, earning a higher interest rate. You might as well make your vacation fund grow faster by earning higher rates!). Having it in a separate account, I never saw the money, therefore resisting the urge to spend it.

When July came I had the $1600 already saved up. I transferred the money to my regular savings. For us, what worked was withdrawing part of it and using our debit for the rest. Other options would be to withdraw the entire amount and pay everything with cash. This way you know exactly what you have to spend.

Another option would be you could pay for your entire vacation on one credit card then just use the money you have in your savings to pay off your credit card when the bill comes due. Be careful doing this though you want to make sure you don't go over what you have budgeted and you want to pay the bill as soon as you receive it so you don't accumulate interest and late fees.

By being able to plan and have your vacation already paid for it will give you peace of mind and you can avoid any guilty feelings about overspending.

Linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are that Family.

$.99 Bag of Bananas

What can you do with 2 bags of $.99 ripe bananas? You can make banana bread!This is just a sample of what I made. I made 45 loaves of bread today. 44 mini loaves and 1 large loaf. And I only used 1 1/2 bags of the bananas! I made the mini loaves to sell at my up coming garage sale this weekend. The large loaf is for my family to enjoy for breakfast tomorrow!We always get a huge turn out at our garage sales. I am hoping the bread will be a great success.
Hey, it works for me!

If you want the recipe you can go here.
Head over to We are That Family for more Works for Me Wednesday posts.

Storing Spices

I have very limited cupboard space so I have to use what I have available wisely. I have a ton of spices and have never had a good way of organizing them until now. I bought these plastic bins at Wal-Mart for 3/$1.00. I wrote the names of each spice on the top of the lid and put them in these baskets. Now, I just have to pull out the basket and choose what I want. The baskets are tall enough that they cover the small sized spices so I can stack them up creating even more room in my cupboard. Works for me!

To see what works for others visit Works for Me Wednesday over at We are That Family.

Using Up Those Free Samples

This month I am doing an "Eat from the Pantry Challenge". With that I am also trying to use up some of those many samples I have laying around! This is what I have for samples of laundry detergent. Lucky for me, none of my family have any allergies to soap. I can get an entire weeks laundry done with all these samples! I figured I would hold a couple of them back for those "oops" moments when I run out of soap and don't realize it! It works for me!

Have you used any of your free samples this week? Don't forget to enter my coupon giveaway here!

Check out Works for Me Wednesdays at We are That Family.

Multi-Tasking

There just aren't enough hours in the day. I always find myself doing about 3 things at once.

Making lunch in itself is multi-tasking. Cutting the apples, washing the carrots, microwaving the meat. Not to mention finding the "favorite" fork, washing hands and finding cups.

Making dinner, giving a Spelling pre-test and setting the table.

Talking on the phone, folding laundry while trying to catch the weather report on TV.

But one of the newest multi-tasks I have started is this...

Cleaning and organizing my bathroom while giving my kids a bath. I figured I am in there anyway, I might as well be productive. I went through all my bathroom drawers and pulled everything out and got them cleaned and organized all while the kids splashed in the tub! It worked for me!

To see what works for others visit Works for Me Wednesday at We are That Family.

Keeping Track of Expenses

One of the best things my hubby and I did to really get us jump started into saving money was to write everything down that we bought. I put a notebook on the counter and every time we bought something even if it was a .99 cent pop we wrote it down. We did this for an entire month, recording absolutely everything we purchased. It really helped us see where our money was going and what we could cut back on or even cut out. It is funny how all those little things add up quickly.

I recommend trying it. Especially if you are sitting back at the end of the month saying "where did all our money go". Start keeping track. You might learn a lot about yourself. It worked for us!

To see what works for others visit Works for Me Wednesday at We are That Family.

Homemade Compost Box

Since today is Earth Day I thought I would share with you our way of composting. My husband and I started composting our food scraps a couple months ago.

Just recently by request, we acquired some pallets from a friend of ours so that we could make a compost bin. It is very simple, but I think it will work out perfectly for our needs. We made 2 sides. We used 7 pallets and my hubby just nailed the sides, back and middle together. For the front we are using bungee cords to hold the pallets in place that way we can just open them up as needed to toss it from one side to the other. We dump all of our food scraps into an old coffee can that sits on our counter. Each night I have one of the boys go out and dump the can into one side of the box.

Prior to this we would just throw our scraps into a pile in the woods and cover them with leaves. This process also works. I just like having an official location to through everything. And it will all stay in one place.

To learn more about composting, you can read another article I wrote here.

This post is linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are That Family.

Frugal Decorating

I picked up this picture frame on clearance at Target for under $3.00. I wasn't sure at the time what I wanted it for, I just thought it was really cool looking. When I redid my bathroom last year I knew I wanted to hang something up on the wall but wasn't sure what. My son, then 10 years old offered to make me a picture. He was learning how to do "shadowing" in Art class and was really excited to show me his skill. He came up with this really great drawing of an apple. Once I saw it, I knew what I would use for the frame. It looked perfect! It is definitely one of my favorite decorations!

Linked to Works for Me Wednesday at We are That Family

Organizing Your Drawers

I find that if everything has a place it is much easier to stay organized. I have bought these plastic bins from Wal-Mart. You can get different sizes that fit into your drawers. I use them to organize my drawers as well as many other items around the house. The above picture is a drawer in my kitchen. As you can see there is a bin for tools, matches and lighters and batteries. Having these bins makes it so 1. things are easier to find and 2. it gets put back in its original place instead of just throwing it back into the drawer.

I also have bins randomly around the house for example...

~On my desk to hold recipes until I am ready to balance my checkbook or balance my budget.
~In my bathroom to organize all my supplies. (One for make-up, one for nail supplies, one for hair accessories, one for chap sticks...you get the idea.)
~In my husbands bathroom to organize all his supplies.
~On my hutch to hold keys, wallets and other misc. items.
~Also on my hutch to hold medications.

If you are going crazy with drawer clutter I highly recommend this cheap method. It works for me!

Linked to Finding Freedom Friday at Cents to Get Debt Free
and Works for Me hosted by We are That Family.

Organizing Your Cleaning Supplies and Sleepless Nights

Under my sink is where I keep all my cleaning supplies. It was such a pain to shove bottles all around looking for a certain cleaner. I fixed that problem by putting all my cleaners into this dishpan. I have one under my kitchen sink and both bathroom sinks. Now, when I need to look for something I pull out the dishpan, grab it and push it back into the cupboard! Works for me!

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Ok, now that I have fully read the Works for Me Wednesday post it looks like instead of giving a helpful tip, I am suppose to give you my dilemma and ask for any suggestions. This is the backwards edition of Works for Me! Once I read this I immediately knew what I wanted to ask.

How do you get a 2 year old to stay in his bed and go to sleep? My youngest has a terrible time sleeping at night. He always has. He always wants to be with me or daddy. As cute as it is, sometimes I really want him to just go to bed! We always do a routine each night. Jammies, brushing teeth and read a book. I put him down at 7:30pm and it usually isn't until at least 9pm before he falls asleep. When he does finally fall asleep he is usually in the hallway, our bedroom or laying in front of the door to his room. This picture was taken of him falling asleep on the kitchen floor! Any suggestions for helping him fall asleep and staying in his bed beside Benedryl?

To see what works for others or what dilemmas others are having visit We are That Family,.

Frugal Tip~Dryer Sheets

I haven't completely cut dryer sheets out of my life but I have cut back on buying them tremendously. I have realized that if I cut them in half they still work just as well. So now every time I open a box I take them all out, cut them in half and put them back in the box. Works for me!

For more Works for Me Wednesday tips head over to We are THAT family.

Free Mulch

I have been wanting some mulch to put under my children's play area. I placed some mulch there a couple years ago and now it has almost all turned into compost. It really needed to be added to. I saw that there was a huge pile of mulch in a field by my house. After some research I found out that it was all just leftovers from a tree service and that it was open for anyone to take. A friend of ours came over this weekend and helped us load 2 huge truck loads full and delivered it to our house.

My parents also had a neighbor wanting to get rid of some mulch so we took that too. So check around. Tree services, Craigslist, Freecycle, neighbors, you never know someone may be wanting to get rid of mulch. It was great that I didn't have to pay for any of it. As much as we got, to buy it would have cost us a fortune. Hey it works for me, you can't beat free!

For more Works for Me Wednesday check out We are That Family.

Works for Me Wednesday Craft Cabinet

This is a picture of a cabinet I have in my dining room. The dining room is where I do all my crafts and activiteis with my kiddos. This cabinet holds all my craft papers, supplies, play-dough, books,puzzles, etc. I have all my stuff in one location now instead of all over the house. It makes it so much easier to do projects when I don't have to run all over to find supplies.To see what works for others visit We are That Family.