The Frugal Family Home Podcast

The Frugal Family Home Podcast

By Shelly Olson: Mom, Homemaker, Homeschooler, BloggerEducationArtsSelf-ImprovementKids & FamilyFood
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The Frugal Family Home Podcast episodes

  • FFH025: How to Save Money on Groceries, Tips You Need to Know

    Inside: Find 5 tips for how to save money on groceries. We use all of these tips to keep our food budget low and you can too. Changing your food habits is hard to do. You know what food you and your family like to eat. You know how to cook it, so making changes...

    This post How to Save Money on Groceries, Tips You Need to Know was written by Shelly and first appeared on Frugal Family Home.

    14 min
  • FFH 024: How to Stick to Your Goals to Achieve Them

    Inside: 7 tips that can help you stick to your goals and achieve them. These tips worked for me and I’m sure they can help you too. It easy to set goals and it’s easy to stick with them when things are going well. But what if the progress is slow? These tips can show...

    This post How to Stick to Your Goals to Achieve Them was written by Shelly and first appeared on Frugal Family Home.

    13 min
  • Holiday Spending, 7 Tips to Keep You from Overspending

    Inside: A few tips to keep your holiday spending in check. It’s easy to overspend and regret it later. But with these tips, you can be more intentional with your spending and stay on budget. It’s great to give at Christmas time. There are so many people you love and want to give gifts to....

    This post Holiday Spending, 7 Tips to Keep You from Overspending was written by Shelly and first appeared on Frugal Family Home.

    15 min
  • FFH023: Holiday Spending, 7 Tips to Keep You from Overspending - The Frugal Family Home Podcast
    Inside: A few tips to keep your holiday spending in check. It’s easy to overspend and regret it later. But with these tips, you can be more intentional with your spending and stay on budget.
    It’s great to give at Christmas time. There are so many people you love and want to give gifts to. Then there’s friends and neighbors, co-workers and more that could also use a gift.
    But it’s easy to go overboard with your holiday spending and spend too much.

    When you spend too much it’s like having a debt hangover. But it doesn’t last just a few hours or a day it can last months into the new year. This year avoid the new year’s debt hangover and stay on budget.
    It doesn’t matter if you have a little money to spend or a lot, either way without a budget for your holiday spending you can overspend.
    In this episode of the Frugal Family Home podcast, I’m sharing a few tips to help you make your own intentional Christmas budget. I hope these tips will help you spread holiday cheer without having a debt hangover come the new year.
    Show Notes
    Control Your Holiday Spending with These Tips
    1. Make a Christmas Wish List, Make a list of who you’d like to buy for and what you’d like to purchase. I know it seems like you should make a budget first but having a wish or gift list first can show you who and what you’ll be purchasing. You’ll need to revise this some but it’s a good place to start.
    2. Determine How Much You Have to Spend, If you’ve been putting money aside for Christmas as the year went by you have a Christmas fund. If not you’ll need to determine how much money you have in your budget for Christmas gifts. See what else you can cut this month to help fund your Christmas spending.
    3. Write a Budget, Now you know how much you have to spend and who you’ll be buying for, it’s time to write your budget. With your budget you’ll want to allot a certain amount of money for each person you’ll be buying for. This may limit your gift giving a little but it’s better to give less and stay out of debt. Be sure to track your spending as you are purchasing gifts too.
    4. Don’t Be Tempted to Use Credit Cards, It’s easier to overspend when you are using credit cards. You might go into a store with a set amount to spend and end up spending more, especially when you’ll be paying with a credit card. If you can stick to cash to help stay on budget with your Christmas purchases. If you can’t use cash make sure to track your spending on your debit or credit cards to make sure you stay within your written budget.
    5. Consider Homemade Gifts or Cards, If your Christmas budget is really tight, you’ll need to think outside the box for gift giving. A nice card with a personal note written inside of how much you value that person can be worth so much more than a store-bought item. Or make gifts to give, food gifts are easy to make and relatively inexpensive too. They are great to give when you want to make a special gift to someone but are short on funds.
    6. Stretch your Christmas Dollars, During the holiday season, there are lots of good deals to be had. Be sure to shop around and look for the best buy on the items you want to purchase. A little extra time on the computer before you head to the store to shop can yield good savings. Also if you find a great deal online ask if the store will match it. It never hurts to ask.
    7. Plan Ahead for Next Christmas Now, If your Christmas fund is a little lacking in cash this year you might not be able to do too much about it now, but you can plan ahead for next year. Start right now and set an amount you’ll save each month for your Christmas budget. When you put a little away each month it will add up and you’ll have a nice pile of cash to spend next Christmas.
    Easy Candy Recipes for Gift Giving
    15 min
  • 5 Ways to Simplify Your Holiday Meal

    Inside: Find 5 tips to Simplify your Holiday Meal. With these tips you can spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family. Does making a holiday dinner send shivers up your spine. Do you envision a disaster in your kitchen while your family is waiting to be fed? Holiday dinners can...

    This post 5 Ways to Simplify Your Holiday Meal was written by Shelly and first appeared on Frugal Family Home.

    12 min
  • 5 Ways to Simplify Your Holiday Meal - The Frugal Family Home Podcast
    Inside: Find 5 tips to Simplify your Holiday Meal. With these tips you can spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family.
    Does making a holiday dinner send shivers up your spine. Do you envision a disaster in your kitchen while your family is waiting to be fed? Holiday dinners can be stressful. But you can simplify them so you can actually enjoy the holiday too.

    In this episode of the Frugal Family Home podcast, I’m sharing a few tips to help simplify your Thanksgiving. Think of these tips as permission to let go of things that stress you out and call on others to help, whether that be the stores or other family members.
    Because holiday diners shouldn’t be about the stress it should be about spending time with family and friends thinking about all you have to be thankful for this year.

    Tips to Simplify Your Thanksgiving
    1. Leave the guilt behind. Maybe your mom or grandma used to cook a full Thanksgiving dinner from scratch, but you don’t have to. I know growing up our Thanksgiving dinner was a family affair with my grandma, my mom and sometimes even my great-grandma in the kitchen all helping. So don’t feel like you have to do it all.
    2. Make the main dish or turkey and ask others to bring the rest. When I’m hosting the holiday dinner I’m always asked what can I bring. If you have people ask, let them bring something. It will be one less thing for you to make and they will get to contribute their favorite dish to the meal.
    3. Pre-Cook or Freezer Cook Part of the Meal, Make as much as you can ahead of time. Bake the rolls and freeze them. Make the mashed potatoes the night before and then reheat them. Assemble the stuffing and sweet potatoes so all you have to do is cook them. Make the turkey the day before. Do as much as you can before Thanksgiving, so the actually day your not stuck in the kitchen.
    4. Feel Free to Skip Baking, If you don’t like to bake or don’t want to make one more thing, then bag the baking. Pick up your rolls and pies at the bakery at the store. Or from your favorite restaurant. It will save space in the oven and save your sanity too.
    5. Simplify Your Meal, If making a turkey is too intimidating, make chicken breasts instead or a whole chicken. Make simple side dishes like a side salad and mashed potatoes. Don’t feel obligated to make complicated recipes. Put that energy into enjoying your friends and family instead.
    How do you simplify your holiday meals?
    12 min
  • How to Streamline Your Cooking in 10 Easy Steps

    Inside: Find 10 tips for how to streamline your cooking process. In this episode of the Frugal Family Home podcast. Making dinner every night can be hard. It’s so easy to call for a pizza or pick up something in the drive through on a busy day, but the food isn’t that tasty and it’s...

    This post How to Streamline Your Cooking in 10 Easy Steps was written by Shelly and first appeared on Frugal Family Home.

    16 min
  • How to Streamline Your Cooking in 10 Easy Steps - The Frugal Family Home Podcast
    Inside: Find 10 tips for how to streamline your cooking process. In this episode of the Frugal Family Home podcast.
    Making dinner every night can be hard. It’s so easy to call for a pizza or pick up something in the drive through on a busy day, but the food isn’t that tasty and it’s not that great for you either.
    But if you streamline your cooking process you can get dinner on the table even on a busy day.

    In this Frugal Family Home podcast, I’m sharing a few tips that help to streamline my cooking process. There are little tricks you can do from start to finish to make cooking easier even if you don’t like to cook all that much.
    With a little preparation and a little planning, you can streamline your cooking process making it easier to prepare meals on days that are busy and avoid eating out. Which can save you quite a bit of money.
    Show Notes,

    10 Tips to Streamline Your Cooking
    1. Prepare to Cook, Pull back your hair, take off dangling jewelry, and put on an apron. Make sure to have comfortable shoes or slippers to cook in.
    2. Get Familiar with Your Recipe, Read your recipe more than once so you know all the steps before you start.
    3. Prepare Ahead of Time, Cut up vegetables, wash the fruit, get as much ready before you start cooking to make the process a little easier. If you have small dishes to put items in you can pre-measure the ingredients and have them ready to dump into the recipe at the right time.
    4. Group Like Ingredients Together, when you keep items you normal use at the same time in one spot it can cut down on the amount of time it takes to cook. I keep all the baking items in the same cupboard above my mixer. All seasonings are in a cupboard too.
    5. Clean as You Go, keep your counters wiped up and the counters cleared off. Place dirty dishes as you finished with them in the sink. Clean the dishes in the sink while you are waiting for items to cook or place them in the dishwasher. You’ll be happy when you’re done that you cleaned as you went along.
    6. Prepare Simple Meals, Meals with simple whole ingredients can be really delicious. But they can also be easier to prepare. I try to keep most of our dinners simple. I might make the main dish of roasted chicken, add easy to make mashed potatoes and home canned green beans. It’s a delicious meal that doesn’t take much time or many ingredients.
    7. Make a Good Plan, plan your meals for the week so you’ll be sure to have all the ingredients you need when it comes time to cook. There is nothing worst than having to run out for items when you are just getting ready to make dinner.
    8. Batch Cook, After shopping prepare as much of the items as you can for the week. Cook the ground beef if you’ll need cooked ground beef for your recipes. Cut the chicken for the recipe and place it in marinade then freeze until needed.
    9. Prep Sides Ahead, When you are looking over your menu plan look to see what sides you’ll need for the week. Prepare them ahead or make extra when you make a batch early in the week.
    10. Get the Family to Help, Have the kids and/or your husband help with the cooking and planning process. The more they are involved the less complaining you’ll have when it comes time to eat, especially from picky eaters. They are less likely to complain about dinner if they helped prepare it.
    Related Articles to Help Streamline Your Cooking
    How to Make Cooking From Scratch Manageable

    8 Chicken Freezer Meals for the Freezer in an Hour
    16 min
  • Tips for Less Holiday Stress this Holiday Season

    Inside: Holidays don’t have to be stressful. I’m sharing my best tips for less holiday stress. It’s a few little things I do each year to beat holiday stress before the holiday season begins. Do you dread the busyness of the holidays? Do you always have too much to do and not enough time to...

    This post Tips for Less Holiday Stress this Holiday Season was written by Shelly and first appeared on Frugal Family Home.

    19 min
  • Tips for Less Holiday Stress this Holiday Season - The Frugal Family Home Podcast
    Inside: Holidays don’t have to be stressful. I’m sharing my best tips for less holiday stress. It’s a few little things I do each year to beat holiday stress before the holiday season begins.
    Do you dread the busyness of the holidays? Do you always have too much to do and not enough time to get it all done? I know the holidays add so much more to do plus you have all the regular stuff you need to get done too. But what if you could have less holiday stress without all the holiday overwhelm?

    You can. In this episode of the Frugal Family Home podcast, I’m sharing my tips for how I get your tasks done around the holidays without feeling overwhelmed or the holiday stress. It comes down to one thing, having a plan.
    Tips for Reducing Holiday Stress
    I’m sharing how I plan for all the things I do around the holiday. The food, the budget, the shopping and how I get through the holiday season without feeling overwhelmed and stressed.
    Those are my tips for less holiday stress. I hope they are helpful to you and you have a more enjoyable holiday season this year.

    If you’d like to read more about how I get ready for the holidays check these other articles.
    The Holidays are Coming, Are You Ready?

    Time Management for the Holidays

    Getting Organized for the Holidays

    Setting a Budget for Holiday Gifts
    19 min

About The Frugal Family Home Podcast

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This is the podcast for Frugal Family Home by Shelly Olson