HIIT!

Want to work out, but don't want to buy a bunch of equipment?  Or can't pay for a membership to a gym, or fitness place?  My husband and I have been wanting to get in better shape, but with me staying at home we needed to find a cost friendly way to do it.  However; we didn't want to just do your typical home workouts, so my husband found the book, The Idiot's Guide to High Intensity Interval Training at the library.  We liked it so much that we ended up buying our own copy.  You can buy it on Amazon.com.

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It is filled with workouts that you can do at home, without equipment.  We do our workouts together now in our living room after the kids are in bed.  Another great thing, you can taylor the workouts to your schedule, only have 5 min, you can do just one round.  Have some more time then you can do a few!  This is great for us, because some nights it doesn't work to do a long workout.  

We did end up purchasing a couple yoga mats to do our workouts on along with the recovery streches.  But for only a one time purchase of about $35.00 we have been able to get more in shape, on our own time.

***Remember costs vary depending on location and store.  We paid around $35.00 when we bought our equipment, but that may not be what you pay, so make sure to do your own research.***

Like the idea of working out, but don't have the money to spend on another book and or some yoga mats?  Check out my friend Kelsey's blog post, she has a great way to work out without spending any money!


What's your workout routine?  How do you balance working out and spending money?  




This post includes affiliate links, which means if you click on the link I get a portion of any sales at NO COST to you.  See my disclosure page for more details. 

Homemade Latte

Coffee is definately my favorite drink.  Lately, I have been really craving lattes and so have started making one every night.  Well, mostly every night, but I enjoy each and every sip.  With living in my small town I don't have the luxery of going to Starbucks or Friedricks like I did when I was living in Des Moines.  Nor would I have the funds to buy one every night either now that I'm staying at home.  So making my own has been great and so easy to do!

3 easy ingrediants: 

Coffee
Syrup flavor of your choice; I prefer hazelnut
1 Cup milk
*optional: frother

Now you can make your coffee a little stronger for your latte, but I just use the coffee that I didn't drink from the morning (that way I'm not wasting it, again every little bit saves).

Latte How-to: 

1st: Steam milk on stove top or microwave for about 1 minute.
*If you have the frother, froth the milk.
2nd: Add milk to mug
*Hold back the froth for the end if you used a frother.
3rd: Add 2 Tablespoons of syrup
4th: Add coffee until mug is filled.
5th: Stir and ENJOY!!

The only extra ingrediant that I have to purchase is my syrup.  I already have coffee & milk so for only about $3.98 at Walmart, I can have multiple latte evenings.  That's equivalent to one tall latte at Starbucks!  Remember prices vary depending on location and store, so make sure to do your own price research based on your location.

The frother I added as optional because while it does make more like a coffeeshop latte if you don't have one it's not a necessary purchase.  For the last few weeks I didn't have one and my lattes have been great.  Recently, my mother-in-love gave me one for Valentine's Day and I'm super pumped to put it in use.  

What's your favorite drink after a long day, or just because?





This post includes affiliate links, which means if you click on the link I get a portion of any sales at NO COST to you.  See my disclosure page for more details. 

Baby Food update

I just had to do an update on the homemade baby food.  Peanut still strongly detests peas, even when I mix it with any fruit.  It just baffles me, because Baby Girl loved peas.  I guess we had it pretty easy with her.  Maybe she was an odd ball.  Anyone else's little ones like peas or was Baby Girl on her own?  

Anyways, I ended up running out of carrots one day and forgot to make more, so Peanut had to have peas that day.  For lunch it didn't go too bad, I'm pretty sure  the combination ended up being 1 part peas & 2 parts applesauce, but I got her to eat them.  Dinner she actually ate them without problem, I was surprised and thought maybe she's starting to like them.  So since that night was crazy busy I decided she could go one more day with peas, boy was I wrong.  The next day she refused to eat any of the baby food.  That night I made her more carrots, I felt like such a great mom making more carrots for her because that's what she likes.  Oh babies, that's all I can say.  The next day I got her carrots all ready for her, feeling so proud of myself.  Would she eat the carrots? Nope, not only does she shake her head and clench her mouth, the one time I get a little on her tongue she justs sits there holding her mouth open with her tonuge out, refusing to swallow.  Such a stinker!!  She use to LOVE carrots!  I had to mix her carrots with applesauce as well, then she ate it no problem.  So I guess at least she ate them compared to the peas.  Oh the fun of having a baby!

So any tips out there to get your little one to eat their veggie baby food?  Do you have any baby food that your little ones prefer?  I'd love more recipe ideas for fruit, I'm not the greatest with fruit baby food other than applesauce. 

Missed my post about homemade baby food.  Get the how-to here. 

Everyday Things

While drinking coffee this week I was thinking about the little daily things in my life that I do that saves money.  Three things came to mind, our towels, glasses & my coffee.   First, I should say that you know I'm trying to save money when I start messing with my coffee.

TOWELS:

Let's start with towels.  In our house we only wash our towels once a week. That means only one load of towels a week! Or if you're like our family, you have multiple towels, so that would be 1 load every 2 weeks! Now if you are use to washing towels after each use, this might seem extreme, but what if you did every few days instead?  Remember every little bit adds up. I also just read a blog about minimizing the clutter and stuff in your house. One of the things she mentions was to limit your towels to 1 per person and then a set for guests. After reading that I counted our towels, I'm almost embarrassed to say this, but we have 8 towels, just for the main bath; that's 4 towels each!! After counting I decided the hubby and I could survive with 2 towels each and then I would only need 2 towels for guests. That's 2 towels I can purge or donate which adds up to more cupboard space. So just by planning to wash towels less often you can save some space and simplify your life a bit too. 

GLASSES:

How many of you, or your kids, get a drink and then put the glass in the sink! I'm terrible at this. After multiple times a day, this equals a lot of dishes! I've been known to have many cups of 1/2 drank coffee all over the house. Then the kids (ok, or adults) only drink a little and then dump the rest. Not only is that multiple dishes piling up, but it's wasteful. I've started trying to put my glass that I don't finish back in the fridge. By keeping them cold there's a better chance that I'll finish it later. I also, try and re-use that glass as many times as I can, usually until I get something different to drink.

If each member only used one - two glasses a day think about how many less you'd be using compared to before. And those glasses add up to time back in your day you don't have to waste loading/unloading the dishwasher or washing by hand. Try it for a week. Designate one glass per member of the family until they switch drinks (milk to juice, water to milk, etc.) & see how many less glasses you use.

COFFEE:

While this idea has been mentioned places before, I have found it helpful. Like I said, when I start messing around with my coffee, you know I'm pretty serious about saving some money. The 1st day brew your coffee like normal. Then instead of dumping the grounds leave them for tomorrow, or whenever you will make coffee again. The next time you make coffee again add 1/2 the amount of grounds you normally would. This way you are getting new coffee, but not having to use as much coffee.  I also just save the grounds in the frenc press so there's no extra storage needed.  This works great for when I decide to make more coffee for the evening, then I'm not using 2x as much but rather a little less. Just think, if you make coffee everyday for a month, a bag that would normally last 2 weeks could last an entire month.