Featured Posts
  • Review & Giveaway: Warehouse B $50 Giftcard- Ends 5/17

    Review & Giveaway: Warehouse B $50 Giftcard- Ends 5/17

    Wednesday I had the opportunity to take a behind the scenes look at the new concept store Warehouse B- located here in Cincinnati, Ohio. What a fun store to shop in, have you checked it out yet? Although there are some similarities to Sam's Club or Costco, with Warehouse B selling ...

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  • Review & Giveaway: Goody Hair Accessories Giveaway- CLOSED

    Review & Giveaway: Goody Hair Accessories Giveaway- CLOSED

      We have 3 girls who all love hair accessories and making their hair look cool! And with summer coming, I am always looking for new ways to keep all of our hair up and out of our face and off our necks to keep us cool during the warmer months! ...

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  • Giveaway: Healthy Helpings Activity Mat- Ends 4/27

    Giveaway: Healthy Helpings Activity Mat- Ends 4/27

    Getting children to eat healthy foods can be a difficult task at times - I have first-hand experience with this since I have a very picky 6 year old. My 8 year old will at least try anything put in front of him and he likes about 99% of it! ...

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  • Giveaway: Big G Curvy Straw Cereal Prize Pack- CLOSED

    Giveaway: Big G Curvy Straw Cereal Prize Pack- CLOSED

    Our girls love straws and of course the bendy or curvy straws are their favorites! General Mills now has some fun new items in their select GM cereal boxes that not only make eating your cereal fun but will help your little ones get the extra calcium they need! Did ...

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  • Kids Eat FREE Nights

    Kids Eat FREE Nights

    Here is a list of the places that offer Kids Eat FREE!! I will continue to update and change this list as I gather more information. Hope this helps when planning a night out with the kids!!! These are based on locations in our area, Cincinnati Ohio. Some of these ...

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  • Daily Linky List- Find Giveaways, Share Your Giveaways and More

    Daily Linky List- Find Giveaways, Share Your Giveaways and More

    Monday Link Ups.......... Org Junkie- Share Your Menu Plan For The Week R They All Yours- Homemaker Monday- Share your homemaking tips, idea Mommmy Gaga- Share Your Giveaway The Morris Bunch Blog- Share Your Giveaway The Girl Creative- Share your crafts projects, baking, anything made My Four Monkey's- Share Your Giveaway Smart ...

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  • Savings & Coupon Site You Should Check Out

    *Tillys Promo Code *Coupon Codes *Coupon Codes *Coupons.com Printable Coupons *Coupon Network Printable Coupons *Home Insurance *Lowes Coupons *Overstock.com Coupon Codes *Printable Coupons *UPromise

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  • Current Giveaways- Come Enter To Win!

    Current Giveaways- Come Enter To Win!

    Here are the current giveaways we having going here at Just Trying To Save Money! This is not the actual giveaway, please click on the giveaway below that you would like to enter and follow the directions as to how to enter! Good Luck! Big G Curvy Straw & Cereal Prize ...

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Recipe: Pizza Quesadilla

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Our girls love pizza and we have made our Homemade Mini Pizza’s at least once a week for either dinner or snack for the last month or 2. So I have been wanting to try something new but keep the pizza idea since I know the kiddos love them! So we tried Pizza Quesadilla’s!

PIZZA QUESADILLA’S

Ingredients:

  • Soft Taco Shells
  • Pizza Sauce
  • Cheese
  • Your choice of pizza toppings- we used pepperoni

Directions:

  1. Throw your soft tacos in a skillet or on a griddle on medium
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  2. Add your pizza sauce, cheese and toppings
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  3. Fold the quesadilla in half, flip a few times until the outside is brown & crispy and the cheese and  toppings are gooing and hot! That’s it! This is a super easy recipe and very inexpensive! My kids were a little hesitant at first, they said soft taco shells are for taco’s, not pizza! But they tried it and now love it!!

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Find more recipes here!

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Recipe: Apple Sausage Stuffing

I have to admit, I was never a huge fan of stuffing, but after making this recipe, I now LOVE IT!!! Here is my Apple Sausage Stuffing! This will make quite a bit, this is my recipe for Christmas and Easter, so it feeds 10-14 people.

Apple Sausage Stuffing

 Ingredients Needed:

  • 1 medium size apple (diced)
  • 1 medium size onion (minced)
  • 1-2 stalks of celery (diced)
  • 1 pound of sausage
  • 2-3 boxes of stuffing (we just use store brand or whatever is on sale)
  • 2 can of chicken broth

Directions:

  • In a sauce pan add about a cup of the chicken broth and onions. Cook for 7-8 minutes on medium until onion are soft.
  • Add sausage, brown sausage with onions
  • Add apples and celery to sausage and onion mix, cook on medium for about 5-8 minutes or until apples and celery are soft
  • Once all these ingredients are good and soft and mixed together, add your stuffing. Each box of stuffing will call for a certain amount of water to be added, I substitute the water for the chicken broth. Sometimes 2 cans of chicken broth is not enough so I will add a little water, but the chicken broth adds more flavor. So follow the instructions on the stuffing box as to how much liquid you need to add. You don’t want to add too much or your stuffing will become soggy. So slowly add the liquid until you get the correct consistency.
  • Stir all ingredients together and then once you have the consistency you want, place your stuffing in a casserole dish and place in the oven for about 20-30 minutes. This will “stiffen” the stuffing up a little!

This has to be my absolute favorite dish now for holiday’s! So yummy!

Find more recipes here!

This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy

Recipe: Strawberry Triffle

I absolutely love this new recipe I found at The Food Network by Paula Deen- Strawberry Triffle! It is easy to make and only took about 25 minutes to whip up!

Ingredients:

  • Betty Crocker Angel Food Cake Mix
  • 1 8 oz package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk
  • 1 12 oz container frozen whipped topping, thawed
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 3 tbsp cornstarch
  • 3 tbsp strawberry gelatin
  • 1 cup water
  • 2 cups fresh strawberries, cut in quarters
  • Whole fresh strawberries for garnish

Directions:

  • Slice angel food cake into 3 horizontal equal layers.

For the custard:

  • Mix together cream cheese, condensed milk, and whipped topping in a bowl; set aside.

For the glaze:

  • In a medium sauce pan, mix together sugar, cornstarch, gelatin and water. Cook on medium stirring until thick. Remove from heat and allow to cool completely. Fold in strawberries into glaze mix.

Add 1 layer of cake in a large clear glass container. Add a layer of glaze, then a layer of custard mixture. Repeat layering in this order until all ingredients are used. Top dessert with 3 sliced in half fresh strawberries.

Find more recipes here!

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Recipe: 3 Way Chili Shells

Since Pinterest is my new addiction, I figured I better make it worth my time. I have been finding recipes to try each week! Last week we tried the 3 Way Chili Shells! If you are a local to Cincinnati you know all about the Chili wars and we all have our favorite chili! We love the GoldStar Chili better than Skyline so we decided to grab cans of GoldStar, it is up to you! Here is our recipe if you want to try it our way or see the original recipe here!

Ingredients:

  • 1-2 lbs of ground beef
  • 1 Box of Jumbo Shells
  • 2 cans of GoldStar Chili
  • 1 bag of shredded cheese ( we used mild cheddar and a taco cheese mix)
  • Beans and onions if you want a 5-way experience

Directions:

  • Cook Shells according to the box
  • Cook ground beef, once done add cans of GoldStar Chili
  • Add chili mix to shells and add cheese
  • Add beans  and onions if you want

This recipe was from Pinterest, check it out here!

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FREEbie: E-Cookbook- 26 Easy Ground Beef Recipes

RecipeLion - Frugal Recipes: 26 Easy Ground Beef Recipe for DinnerFREE eCookbook - ‘Frugal Recipes: 26 Easy Ground Beef Recipe for Dinner’ eCookbook, featuring 42 pages of great cheap meals and easy ground beef recipes. Get yours here!

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Recipe: Homemade Mini Pizza’s

We love pizza! Did I ever tell you we love pizza?!?!  Anyways, with 5 of us with different likes, finding a pizza that we all can eat becomes a battle. The hubby and our oldest will eat anything and everything on their pizza’s, myself and our youngest will eat any variation of cheese and our middle daughter only likes sausage or pepperoni! With my pickyness and the others limited likes, we tend to buy several pizza’s and have tons of leftovers. So we have recently started trying mini pizza’s! Using a muffin tin, a box of our favorite pizza crust and all the ingredients we each like, we now can have our favorite pizza anytime!

I mixed up our favorite pizza crust and put a golf ball size dough ball in each muffin section. I then popped the pizza crust in the oven for about 3 -5 minutes on 350 degrees just to get the crust a little firm.

Then add a spoonful of pizza sauce to your pizza dough.

Add your toppings over the pizza sauce, our girls wanted peperoni but the hubby wanted ham and pineapple, so we made both! Great benefit to making individual pizza’s, prepare them the way you want!

Add as much cheese as you would like, I filled the top to make sure it was completely covered.

Once you cook them for about 8-10 minutes, cheese will be completely melted! Another benefit to making individual pizza’s is that they cook pretty quick and they make great after school snacks! I have not tried to freeze them yet, since the extra’s I had intended to freeze were devoured by the kiddos! So next time I will make a few extra to see how well they do in the freezer!

Find more recipes here!

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FREEbie: Game Day Appetizer Recipes

Are you planning a Big Game Day Event and are in need of a few party pleasing appetizer recipes? Well Recipe Lion has you covered with this 60 page FREE E-Book filled with 39 appetizer recipes made for Game Day parties! Check out all these great recipes to see what you can make for the Big Game!

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Friday Lunchbox Recipe: Cinnamon Ants on Sticks

One way we save money in our house is to pack our kids lunches rather than buying school lunches. With all 3 of our girls attending school this year, packing lunches most of the week is going to be the most cost effective way for us to feed our girls. So I thought I would share with you some recipes I find to spice up our girls lunches! So each Friday, keep an eye for a new recipe for your kiddos lunchbox!

This weeks Friday Lunchbox Recipe:

CINNAMON ANTS ON STICKS

Serves: 3

Cooking Time: 5 min

Ingredients:
  • 1 large stalk celery, cut into 3 pieces
  • 3 tablespoons peanut butter
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 2 tablespoons raisins

Instructions:

  1. Place the celery pieces on a clean surface, hollow part facing up, and sprinkle evenly with cinnamon. Spoon peanut butter into the hollow, and arrange raisins on top.

Recipe credit thanks to All Recipe!

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Recipe Wednesday: Cake Batter Cookie Stackers


Cake Batter Cookie Stackers

Cookies

1 pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® sugar cookie mix

1/2 cup Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® yellow cake mix (dry mix from box)

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 egg

1/2 cup Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® yellow cake mix (dry mix from box)

Frosting

2 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup butter, softened

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 to 2 tablespoons milk

Liquid food colors (neon pink, neon blue, neon green, classic yellow and red to make orange)

Multicolored sprinkles

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Crock Pot Recipe-Homemade Applesauce


Our girls love applesauce, so today we made our own! 2 weeks ago Meijer had apples on sale for .49lb so I grabbed a few extra pounds to make sure we could make some applesauce. You only need a few ingredients to make a great tasting homemade applesauce!

Homemade Applesauce

3/4 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Water
1 tsp. Cinnamon
1 tsp. Vanilla
8 – 10 Apples peeled, cored and cut into cubes

Turn your crock pot and on high and add water, sugar, cinnamon and vanilla and mix thoroughly. Peel and core your apples to get ready for the crockpot. Either slice or cut your apples into cubes and toss them into the pot!


Mix all ingredients together in crock pot. Leave it covered on high for 3-4 hours.

After 3-4 hours you will see your apples turn to mush and ready to smash into applesauce. Our girls like it a little chunky so I use a fork and mash the whole pieces of apple just a little to make it look more like applesauce. If you want a smoother applesauce you can use a mixer on low to get a better consistency. Since this is our first batch of homemade applesauce I only made 1 batch to see how it turned out. Since the whole family loved it, I think this will become a addition to our jar gifts that we make for Christmas gifts!

This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy

Slow Cooker Recipe- Pulled Pork

This week’s recipe is for yummy Pulled Pork using Madame Deals favorite crockpot pork recipe using boneless sirloin tip roast from Costco. Your house will smell like heaven on Earth with this super recipe and the most important thing for a working mom is that it is super easy to prepare.

Part One Ingredients:

  • 3lb pork roast
  • ½ c apple cider vinegar
  • 2 Tbsp minced garlic
  • Dash of pepper

Part Two Ingredients:

  • Bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
  • 1 C water
  • 1 Tbsp crushed red pepper
  • 1 Tbsp garlic powder
  • 1 Tbsp onion powder
  • 1 Tbsp sugar

Instructions:

  1. Put the pork roast, apple cider vinegar, minced garlic and a dash of pepper in the crockpot. Add enough water to cover pork. Cook on low overnight.
  2. In the morning, pour off the cooking juices. Pork should be tender and easy to shred. Shred pork with forks.
  3. Put shredded meat back in the crockpot.
  4. Add remaining ingredients to shredded meat starting with the BBQ Sauce.
  5. Cook on the lowest setting until dinner time. You can add seasonings or BBQ sauce to taste depending in your family’s preferences.

If you want to try this recipe, make sure to check out Costco’s “In The Warehouse“. They currently have $2 Off Coupon on Boneless Sirloin Tip Roast until 10/16/11. We recommend that you also check out PorkBeInspired.com to learn about pork cuts and cooking methods.

Each Thursday during the Fall and Winter The Centsible Family will showcase a slow cooker (crock-pot) recipe that one of the Mavens of Money have tried and tasted. By sharing we hope you will be able to save a little time during the week as we all know saving time is just as valuable as saving money. And you will be able to enjoy a hot meal at the end of your day.

Want more recipes? Check out Crock Pot Cookbook: 440 Slow Cooker Recipes

This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy

Recipe – Crockpot Pumpkin Black Bean Turkey Chili

This week’s recipe is Pumpkin Black-Bean Turkey Chili by Brett at This Mama Loves Her Bargains that is deliciously perfect for Halloween Night to warm all the trick-or-treaters. Prep time should be about 20 minutes and will cook for seven hours and yield about 10-12 servings.

A quintessential fall meal!! Pair with buttermilk biscuits or some cornbread and you are good to go!!

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This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy

Recipe- Yummy Chocolate Truffles

This week I wanted to highlight how cooking frugally can still be delicious. Here’s a wonderful recipe for chocolate truffles I found several months ago. With the holidays approaching these would make great gifts or treats for Holiday parties.


You need:
16 ounces of chocolate or white chocolate (you can use any type, I used Hershey bars because I got them for free)
1 8 ounce package cream cheese
1/2 cup chopped nuts, optional

1. Break 8 ounces of chocolate bars into pieces and place in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave for 1 1/2 minutes, stirring after 45 seconds.

2. Beat cream cheese on low speed until fluffy. Mix in melted chocolate and nuts.

3. Place in freezer for 15 minutes or until firm.

4. Shape chocolate mixture into balls and return to freezer for 30 minutes.

5. Melt remaining chocolate. Using a toothpick, dip balls into melted chocolate until coated. You can decorate these with sprinkles, nuts, or chocolate shavings if desired.

6. Store in fridge. These are easy and delicious!

For more recipes like this visit The Thrifty Things
Photo Credit for Truffle courtesy of Wilton.

This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy

Friday Lunchbox Recipe- Mac & Cheese Soup


One way we save money in our house is to pack our kids lunches rather than buying school lunches. With all 3 of our girls attending school this year, packing lunches most of the week is going to be the most cost effective way for us to feed our girls. So I thought I would share with you some recipes I find to spice up our girls lunches! So each Friday, keep an eye for a new recipe for your kiddos lunchbox!

This weeks Friday Lunchbox Recipe:

MAC & CHEESE SOUP

Serves: 6

Cooking Time: 15 min

Ingredients
  • 2 1/2 cups water
  • 1 (10-ounce) package frozen peas and carrots, thawed
  • 1 (7.25-ounce) package macaroni & cheese mix
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  • 4 cups (1 quart) milk
  • 1 cup (4 ounces) shredded sharp Cheddar cheese
Instructions
  1. In a soup pot, bring water to a boil over high heat. Stir in peas and carrots, macaroni from packaged mix (reserving cheese packet), salt and pepper. Return to a boil, cover loosely, and cook 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
  2. Add remaining ingredients, including reserved cheese packet. Reduce heat to medium, cover loosely, and simmer 10 minutes, or until hot and creamy, stirring occasionally

Recipe and Photo credit thanks to MrFood!

This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy

Slow Cooker Recipe- Venison Chili

Each Thursday during the Fall and Winter The Centsible Family will showcase a slow cooker (crock-pot) recipe that one of the Mavens of Money have tried and tasted. By sharing we hope you will be able to save a little time during the week as we all know saving time is just as valuable as saving money. And you will be able to enjoy a hot meal at the end of your day.

This week’s recipe is Venison Chili by Jenny at The Healthified Mom and Freebie Spot that is sure to warm you on a chilly night! If you don’t have venison you can substitute with ground beef, turkey, chicken, etc. Prep time should be about 15 minutes and will cook for six hours and yield about 8 servings.

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This post may contain a link from a sponsor/affiliate of Just Trying To Save Money. Please see my Disclosure Policy