I ran across a pack of 6 chicken leg quarters at Sams Club last week for $4.80. 6 quarters makes two meals for my little family. I put BBQ sauce on half of them in one pan and I mixed honey and spicy brown mustard and poured it over the other three quarters. Put both pans in the oven at the same time - 350 degrees for about an hour. The first 40 minutes I covered them with tin-foil to keep them from burning.
I served it with some garlic spinach. Aldi sells bags of spinach for $1.69. I put a little olive oil and garlic powder in the pot until it got hot, then added half of the spinach. Kept turning it constantly until the leaves began to wilt (about a minute), then I added the rest of the spinach for about two minutes, constantly turning it to cook evenly.
The meal was delicious.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Friday, January 28, 2011
The Best Wedding Ever!
Lately my Facebook friends have been posting their wedding photos. Others have become engaged, and it is fun to witness the excitement of such a special time in their lives. I love weddings! Having had two of them, at this point I'm a pretty decent wedding planner.
My first wedding was big. I mean BIG. Big Dress, big cake, big wedding party, big guest list, big expenses. It was fun. That marriage lasted less than 3 years. Big lessons learned.
My second wedding - almost 5 years ago - was very small and simple. It was the best day of my life at that point.
We got married in our back yard, with a grand total of 16 people in attendance. There were no bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls or ring bearers. No stress. A friend played the guitar and sang, and another friend, a Lutheran minister, married us. The 10-minute ceremony was very simple, but the ceremony itself was still a blur. I remember the minister talking about what each of the letters in LOVE stood for. L is for Listening, but I couldn't remember what the other three letters stood for if my life depended on it.
This was a cheap but classy wedding, and it wasn't overdone. I found my dress for $100 on the rack at Dillard's. My husband purchased a new suit for the occasion, and that was our biggest expense. He needed one anyway, as all of his suits were getting old. I paid $25 for my bouquet from a local florist. My mother insisted we have a wedding cake, so she bought a very small one. My father-in-law and brother-in-law served as our photographers. After the ceremony, we took everyone out to eat at the restaurant where we had our first real date. It was (almost) perfect.
Spending so little on the wedding made it possible to take a nice honeymoon. OK, nice is an understatement. It was AWESOME! We spent 10 days in Salzburg and Vienna, Austria. It was the trip of a lifetime.
Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing about our wedding day. Keeping it simple and cheap made things stress-free and enabled us to put the money we would have spent on a fancy wedding toward our honeymoon. Because it was intimate and relaxed, we actually remembered hanging out with the people who mean the most to us. The delicious dinner afterward was the perfect way to end the day. I would highly recommend that kind of simple wedding to anyone.
My first wedding was big. I mean BIG. Big Dress, big cake, big wedding party, big guest list, big expenses. It was fun. That marriage lasted less than 3 years. Big lessons learned.
My second wedding - almost 5 years ago - was very small and simple. It was the best day of my life at that point.
We got married in our back yard, with a grand total of 16 people in attendance. There were no bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girls or ring bearers. No stress. A friend played the guitar and sang, and another friend, a Lutheran minister, married us. The 10-minute ceremony was very simple, but the ceremony itself was still a blur. I remember the minister talking about what each of the letters in LOVE stood for. L is for Listening, but I couldn't remember what the other three letters stood for if my life depended on it.
This was a cheap but classy wedding, and it wasn't overdone. I found my dress for $100 on the rack at Dillard's. My husband purchased a new suit for the occasion, and that was our biggest expense. He needed one anyway, as all of his suits were getting old. I paid $25 for my bouquet from a local florist. My mother insisted we have a wedding cake, so she bought a very small one. My father-in-law and brother-in-law served as our photographers. After the ceremony, we took everyone out to eat at the restaurant where we had our first real date. It was (almost) perfect.
Spending so little on the wedding made it possible to take a nice honeymoon. OK, nice is an understatement. It was AWESOME! We spent 10 days in Salzburg and Vienna, Austria. It was the trip of a lifetime.
Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing about our wedding day. Keeping it simple and cheap made things stress-free and enabled us to put the money we would have spent on a fancy wedding toward our honeymoon. Because it was intimate and relaxed, we actually remembered hanging out with the people who mean the most to us. The delicious dinner afterward was the perfect way to end the day. I would highly recommend that kind of simple wedding to anyone.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
I love Aldi!
If you have an Aldi near you, be sure to check it out. If you aren't familiar with Aldi, it is a small, no-frills grocery store that sells a lot of off-brand products for very cheap. The product changes frequently - Aldi takes advantage of special buy opportunities with vendors, so they may not always carry the same products. You have to take your own grocery bags, and if you need a shopping cart you will need to put a refundable quarter in the lock to rent it. They only accept cash and Debit cards - no credit cards.
We have an Aldi 5 miles from our house, and another one 20 miles away on the way to my grandparents' house, so it is very convenient to shop there. The one 20 miles away in Lancaster is the cheapest one in the State of South Carolina, according to the cashier. I can get milk at that one cheaper than I can get it at Sam's Club, which is a big deal if you go through a gallon a day like we do!
They have great produce and a good frozen seafood section. They have the prettiest broccoli in our area (better than our upscale grocery stores!) for a great price, $2 pineapples, cheap potatoes, onions & garlic, and right now they have cheap grape tomatoes and avocados. Their bananas are $0.29 per pound, but the flavor can be hit or miss, so we don't typically buy them there. Crackers, Cookies and canned goods are very cheap as well!
Aldi has an assortment of cheeses at our local store, which is a little more upscale than the one in Lancaster. They have a brand of Summer Sausage for $2.99; it is twice the size of the Hickory Farms brand, at less than half of the cost, and we couldn't tell a difference in the taste or fat content! They carry decent $2.99 wines, and I am currently sampling the Merlot at 11:30 in the morning for research for this blog. After my daughter starts her afternoon nap, I plan to paint my nails with a beautiful nail polish I picked up at Aldi for $1.49
We have an Aldi 5 miles from our house, and another one 20 miles away on the way to my grandparents' house, so it is very convenient to shop there. The one 20 miles away in Lancaster is the cheapest one in the State of South Carolina, according to the cashier. I can get milk at that one cheaper than I can get it at Sam's Club, which is a big deal if you go through a gallon a day like we do!
They have great produce and a good frozen seafood section. They have the prettiest broccoli in our area (better than our upscale grocery stores!) for a great price, $2 pineapples, cheap potatoes, onions & garlic, and right now they have cheap grape tomatoes and avocados. Their bananas are $0.29 per pound, but the flavor can be hit or miss, so we don't typically buy them there. Crackers, Cookies and canned goods are very cheap as well!
Aldi has an assortment of cheeses at our local store, which is a little more upscale than the one in Lancaster. They have a brand of Summer Sausage for $2.99; it is twice the size of the Hickory Farms brand, at less than half of the cost, and we couldn't tell a difference in the taste or fat content! They carry decent $2.99 wines, and I am currently sampling the Merlot at 11:30 in the morning for research for this blog. After my daughter starts her afternoon nap, I plan to paint my nails with a beautiful nail polish I picked up at Aldi for $1.49
Monday, January 3, 2011
CLEARANCE time at Walmart - toys & Christmas Decor
So it looks like Walmart overbought toys for the holidays, and sales were not realized. Our local Walmart has an entire section of Toys on clearance - and they are good toys!
It is a great time to stock up for upcoming birthdays or your "gift closet". My daughter got a singing Cinderella doll she has wanted for months for only $5 with her Christmas money. I was also able to sneak a birthday gift into our cart for her birthday next month.
Last week we hit the marked-down Christmas decorations, and there is a lot left today at 75% off.
It is a great time to stock up for upcoming birthdays or your "gift closet". My daughter got a singing Cinderella doll she has wanted for months for only $5 with her Christmas money. I was also able to sneak a birthday gift into our cart for her birthday next month.
Last week we hit the marked-down Christmas decorations, and there is a lot left today at 75% off.
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