Frugal Large Family Cooking: Celebrating Beans Tostadas

The Tostada is the next meal you can make with beans for very little to fill a crowd and make them happy!

Servings 16

• 4 cups Homemade Beans [free these should be left overs]
• 4 Tablespoons margarine/butter [10.25 cents based on margarine)
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese (.32 shredded on sale)
• Shredded iceberg lettuce (.50 1/2 a head)
• 1/2 # tomatoes diced (.50)
• corn tortillas (or pre-made tostadas or corn meal to make tortillas) [$1 for 1/2 of 32)

Only use if you happen to have:

• diced or sliced olives
• sour cream
• salsa

1. Take you homemade beans heat them up butter/margarine & milk and mash them. (You do not have to mash them if you don't want to. My family doesn't care if they are mashed. If you aren't going to mash them don't add the milk!)
2. Either toast the tostadas, fry the corn tortillas or make homemade tortillas according to the package directions (listed in order of cheapness)
3. Top the tostadas 1/4 cup of beans, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes (or any order that makes sense to you *smile* I put cheese on first because I like it melted but you may want to put it on top of the lettuce)  and extras

We serve this with homemade Mexican Rice.  Total Cost....$2.42 or .15 per tostada *BIG SMILE*

Frugal Fun ....Take me out to the ball game....

As we seek to grow closer as family we want to make wonderful family memories together.

Trying on the hat!

Well, we finally made it to a baseball game and what good time we had! The girls received 2 baseball hats with their tickets. At these games they set up lots of games for the kids to participate in and the kids normally win. That made it really fun and encouraging for our children.College League team this summer!

Yes, Bullet knocked over all the blocks! That's my girl!

  The babies even sat happily and watched the game and the people. Now as for the mascot....geesh....they could of done without him all together Other then the mascot we have definitely found something fun & inexpensive to do as a family during the summer and there will be more trips to see our local College League team!

Enjoying the game

Reasons to check out your local College League baseball team:

1. This baseball league allows kids in for free on Saturdays and gives them a hot dog meal or a hat. Plus they give them some tickets to jump on the inflatables.
2. Lots of affordable frugal theme nights (Sundae Funday, $2 Tuesday, Monday feast .50 hot dogs, Kids Free Saturday our favorite,family Fridays etc....)
3.  Lots of games for the kids to play and they feel like they are part of the game.

I hope you are making lots of memories with your families too!

The Frugal Kitchen: Dinner on a dime!

How do you make dinner for your family for less then .50 per person? Each week we make beans and rice/cabbage and corn bread every Wednesday night (which by the way is another way to feed your army for less then a.50 per person. but that's another post).  When I have collected enough leftovers I make these simple and tasty Bean&Cheese Burritos.

Bean & Cheese Burritos

All of my ingredients are generic:
Homemade Beans (any/ all left over beans)................$0
Generic Flour Tortillas (8)......................................... $1.99
Cheese.(Kroger Sale Cheese).....................................$ 1.66
salsa(Walmart Bulk size!) .........................................$.50
taco seasoning(Sam's Club bulk)...............................$.25
rice ..............................................................................$.50

We keep the optional ingredients in the fridge most of the time and we top the  burritos with tomatoes and sour cream and add the cooked onions to the beans them if we have them.
diced onions (optional)
tomatoes (optional)
sour cream (optional)

Total $4.90 or .61 per person, well, I didn't make .50 but .61 is still pretty good I think.

1. Mix beans, salsa, rice, taco seasoning and 1 cup of cheese. mix
2. Spoon about 1/3 cup into each tortilla and fold it up and turn it so the folded side is on the bottom.
3. Put the other cup of cheese on the top cover an bake at 375* for 25 minutes.

We normally serve this with corn (which adds 1.99 to the total meal)which makes it $.86 per person. These burritos are enough to fill up most folks without corn, my kids just eat a lot.

We really enjoy this meal. For me the key to frugal cooking is tasty food, then I don't feel like I am constantly sacrificing!Let's help each other and add links to your frugal meals in the comments.

Blessings!

The Frugal Kitchen: Bread Crumbs

We have several recipes that require the use of bread crumbs. For many years I purchased bread crumbs and they are relatively inexpensive for around $2 you can buy a small canister of Great Value Brand. But you can simply make your own bread crumbs from the heels of bread. Our family goes through a ridiculous amount of bread and no one really likes the heels so I use them for breadcrumbs.

How To...

1. heels of bread, random pieces of bread, etc...
2. leave them over night or toast
3. Put in food processor grind until finely chopped
4. I keep the bag in the freezer

Total Cost: $0
Savings over 1 year (assuming a monthly purchase): $24 

We are trying to maintain a grocery budget of $600/month eating healthy foods for a family of 7so could you please let me know what wonderfully thrifty ideas you have!

Homeschool For Free

This is a repost from August 2011

Instead of new posts I am simply going to add free curriculums & blogs with links here and I'll put the new stuff in bold...

Homeschooling does not have to be expensive, in fact it can be free. Check out some of the free homeschooling curriculum that I've found:

 

http://www.amblesideonline.org/ - Complete K-12 Charlotte Mason purist curriculum
http://www.oldfashionededucation.com/ - Complete K-12 Curriculum that relies mainly on Gutenberg press books that you can print off of your computer
Lesson Pathways - K-5
Letter of the week - Free homeschool for Pre-K & K
19th CenturySchool Books - Free "digitized"...scanned in ;)

 

Math - MEP Math my friend Heather G. uses it and last I spoke to her really liked it.
Typing -Dancemat typing - which I found on Freely Educate!

Blogs/websites dedicated to finding free curriculum:

• Freely Educate - Very nice assortment of free
• Links to all things free for homeschoolers - a truly amazing collection of free curriculum that any frugalistas should spend time checking out!

 

This year I am taking a close look at what we do and trying to figure out if we can school the children just as well for much less. With 5 to school the yearly costs just keep on rising and even if I can manage to only spend $100 per student that's still quite a bit over 12 years! Right now since I have been spending well over that per student but after reading Amish Money Secerets I'm looking for ways to trim all aspects of our budget.

 

If you want to find an amazing amount of free curriculum, courses just head on over to Freely Educate!

 

May the Lord bless you as you steward the monies he gave you.

 

Frugal Spaghetti Sauce

This is my favorite frugal spaghetti sauce I hope you enjoy it too!

Quick, Cheaper & Easy Tomato Sauce
Adapted from the Hillbillyhousewife

■2 tablespoons olive oil


■2 tablespoons dry onion

■1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

■12 oz can tomato paste (.33/each =.66)

■up to 6 cans filled with water

■1 teaspoon basil

■1/4 teaspoon oregano (optional)

■1 tablespoon honey

■1 teaspoon salt

This sauce is so easy, so cheap and so good, you won’t believe it. Heat the oil in a 2 quart size saucepan. Add the dried onion and garlic. Stir the onion and garlic around in the oil for about 30 seconds, or until they start to smell good. Add the tomato paste. Now fill the empty can with fresh water and add it to the pot. Do it again, so two cans of water have been added. Stir it all up until the sauce is smooth and thick. Add the seasonings. Cover and simmer for about 5 or 10 minutes depending on your time and fuel situation. After the flavors have mingled long enough to know each other better, you are done.

All the other ingredients are really just a few pennies each, especially if you buy your spices from Sam's Club. My estimated cost for this is .70 which is .19 or 21% less then the cheapest sauce at Wal-Mart. Plus it tastes much better then the prepacked sauce.

Remember a prudent wife is a gift! Enjoy!!!

6 Ways to save money

6 ways to save money at the grocery store

1. Avoid mixes...instead of buying Bisquick type mix, pancake mix, muffin mix, bread  machine mix (which is super expensive) make your own from scratch. In doing so you save both money and avoid the fillers added by companies to make their product taste or look better. http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/ has a lot of affordable mixes.
2. Make a written menu or meal plan for the week. We also have a two week breakfast / lunch / snack Meal rotation.
3. Make less trips to the grocery store. The less time you are actually in a store the less money you can spend!
4. Set a grocery budget and stick to it! Of course you may need to make periodic adjustments with the birth of children or children who need diapers / no longer need diapers etc... Be willing to set and keep your budget at a reasonable level for your family. Only break it in emergency situations (this may mean leaving $5-10 in your envelope for the unexpected pot luck! or medicine purchase!)
5. Don't let left-overs go to waste! Either remake a dish such as potato pancakes from left over mashed potatoes or use left over rice to make, rice crust for quiche or rice hot cereal or bean & cheese burritos!
6. Learn to cook & eat well. If you cook well the temptation to go out to dinner is greatly reduced. Cooking well is often accomplished by learning to follow the directions on a recipe and keeping & finding great recipes ! Eating well is really just enjoying your time at dinner together with all the talking & babies screaming. Make  your table a place you can't wait to get to at the end of a long day apart.

"A prudent wife is from the Lord" Proverbs 19:14 May the Lord guide our steps as we seek to joyfully & thankfully make the most of what He has provided your family.

Frugal Tip & Menu Plan Monday: Crock Pot Hot Wings

One of the reasons I used to spend so much money at restaurants is that I was not a good cook. So if wanted something tasty we had to go out to get it!  Thanks to my Mother-in-Law I learned how to cook. Though I still find myself going out to eat if a specific craving hits. In order to curtail this I try to add foods to our menu that we all crave as a result I have become a pretty good Mexican & Chinese food cook!  Well, my budget is too tight for such indulgences to spend $40 to feed cravings! The most recent craving is for Hot Wings!  So in order to avoid  the wings places I ended up making these two recipes and they at the end. (They are both crock pot recipes because our oven is broken, we are saving up to fix it or buy a new one. )

Sunday: Last week of Rosemary and white bean soup
Monday: Toscana Soup with bread

Tuesday: Chicken Spaghetti

Wednesday: Beans Rice & Corn bread
Thursday - Chicken strips, waffle Fry & Broccoli (Faux Chick-fil-a)

Friday - Hamburger, French fries and tossed salad

Saturday - Left overs

1st wing recipe was not any good so I deleted!


Chicken Wings Recipe

2 cup of brown sugar
1 cup of Dijon mustard
4 Tbsps of soy sauce
5 lbs of chicken wings; tips removed & cut into 3 parts

1 cup of butter
Place a large nonstick skillet with butter. When the butter melts, fry the chicken wings ’til golden. Transfer to a crock pot.Combine the sugar, soy sauce and mustard in a small bowl. Stir ’til smooth. Heat it using same skillet used for frying chicken.Simmer for approximately 5 minutes. Pour this over the chicken. Mix well. Cover with lid. Set heat to low. Cook for 6-8 hours, stirring occasionally.

This recipe was outstanding! Give it a try we give it a double yummy!

Moorehead Blueberry Farm

We had a great time picking blueberries at Moorheads Blue Berry Farm in Conroe. This is the little stand you start at. You walk up to the guys under the umbrella and you request either a large or small bucket. They give you the run down on where you can pick and how you should pick in between flags (I didn't really pay attention following and knowing all the rules is Wayne's job I just know there were flags!). They also didn't care about eating blueberries while you were picking which is a good thing because the kids ate a bunch

So after we stopped here  went into their 20 or so acres of blueberries! I wish you could see all the folks were sharing the path with the place was packed!

Then we picked some very tasty blue berries for about 2 hours! The kids were not very successful pickers and this was like living in Blueberries for Sal!

But in the end we had 17 pounds of blueberries! We gave a couple of pounds away as gifts and we still have plenty to last us for the rest of the year. Did I mention these berries are only 1.50/#, yes mam! This was a great experience the people are nice it was somewhat shaded in the blueberry bushes as we were picking. You cannot beat the price!

I hope you are having a fruitful summer too! hehehe

Saving money using dryer balls (Septic Safe*Green*Frugal!)

These are dryer balls. You've probably been using them for years but I am not a first acceptor. So I have had my dryer balls for about 5 months. I was skeptical but I bought them because I wanted to save money on dryer sheets. I bought 3 balls at Wal-Mart for $4.97. Let me tell you these things work really well our clothes come out nice and soft as if a fabric softener was used.  These balls are also perfect for your septic system because I am prohibited from using liquid fabric softener in the septic system. So I am no longer buying Fabric Softener. I may need to buy a couple of balls each year but this is nice little savings from the fabric sheets that I was previously using. So I would like to encourage you to buy a couple of these things and try them out in your dryer and see if you can't make the switch!

So the recap:

Septic Users: Eliminates all fabric softeners from entering your system

Frugal Crowd: Saves money eliminating the expense of buying fabric softener.

Green Crowd: Eliminates Fabric Softener sheets and the liquid ...you can also order more expensive pvc free ones if you just look around on line.

Country Living The Septic System

When you live in town you pay for sewer use but when you live the in the country you use a septic system. You are in charge of your septic system, we knew nothing about septic systems. Then I was reading in The Thrifty Gazette that if you do some simple maintenance on your septic system you can save hundreds or thousands of dollars. Our septic system was ready to be pumped as the 'true top' of our pipe is that ring you can see at the bottom of the slightly smaller pipe. Our septic installers were excellent and they provided us with a little bit of extra protection.

During the septic pumping I learned from Tommy the Septic man that we have 3 tanks. Basically two for sludge and 1 that is a pump tank that takes care of all the liquids. If the septic system backs up into the the third tank that is when you incur all kinds of extra expenses.

 Also I found  out that although many folks have their septic system under maintenance contract to make sure it is working right that may or may not include checking the level of sludge.

Our papers recommend pumping the system every two years and this is nearly year 4, OPPS! We will pump again in about three years but we will check it each year to make sure we do not need to pump it earlier.

My paperwork gives the following warnings regarding your septic:

• Don't wash more then two loads a day
• Don't put in grease, fats and oils
• use the garbage disposal sparingly (thus we compost)
• No chemical or mop water into the system
• No non biodegradable items (such as the tea cup and pecans found in our system)
• don't use citrus products
• don't use too much water (no long showers!)
• No strong disinfectants like Lysol, pine sol and tidy bowl
• Use low sudsing, low phosphate and biodegradable washing products
• No liquid fabric softener or laundry detergent
• Recommends use of ivory, sunlight dish washing cascade, sunlight dishwasher detergents, Comet  & Biz and baking soda.

I need to photo copy this and put it in the laundry room and by the kitchen sink!

There was a lot of grease in our system and we do not fry anything but green tomatoes. Yes, my southern friends close your mouths remember we are from California and we don't fry stuff there! I am considering switching to biodegradable soaps and cleansers to make it easier on our septic and we can use the water on our garden if we use these sort of cleaners. Additionally, we may be able to stretch out the time between pumpings and save money in the long run!

And of course everything that occurs around here is a homeschool learning event and the ever curious students learned a lot from Mr Tommy too!

So I encourage everyone with a septic system to check it out and get it pumped before you really have to pay the big bucks!

Saving money at the Zoo ...Cameron Park

An economic trip can be hard to find!

Looking that lemurs and I of course sang "we like to move it, move it...."

During Spring Break we took a trip to the Cameron Zoo in Waco. We have a hard time finding things to do that are affordable for our family. We decided to get a zoo pass this year.

Sliding down with sea otters swimming around the tube.

Saving Money on the entrance...

In this area we are between the Waco and the Houston Zoo. The Waco zoo has a $60 membership and is a member of the same association as the Houston Zoo and a couple of other Texas Zoos. Additionally, for those of you with large and growing families it is a simple family membership with out concern for the number of children on the membership! So I would encourage you to check the memberships at the zoos near you. Perhaps you can join a small zoo and receive the benefits of the areas larger zoos!

Parkiepine's hand against a leopards paw!

Saving Money on Food....

Once you have a membership you can go in and out from the zoo as you wish. So we packed our lunch and went out to the car to eat and regroup and plan the rest of our plans to see the zoo. After years of preparing for these one day trips I discovered that Wal-mart sells 16-18" long hoagies for $5. I pack fruit, chips, paper plates, mayo, mustard and plastic silverware, drinks. We either eat in the car or in the grass near by.

The Girls with Pops!

Saving Money on Additional Trips...

After you have purchased your membership you now have a new "free" destination for family fun. When you go on trips be sure to check and see if your new zoo pass will get you into are zoos free or at a reduced rate.

I hope you can find economical ways to enjoy fun and loving family times. I hope you are having lots of fun with your family here and away.

Saving money using napkins

I have been collecting napkins for the past couple of years because I wanted to save money on paper napkins. I got this idea from a book called the Tightwad Gazette. I purchase my cloth napkins for .10-.25 each. Most recently I purchased 10 napkins for .10 each at a local thrift store.

If you are trying to save money you probably want to watch a couple of things.

1. Your per napkin cost. You really want to try to stay under .25 as much as possible. You could easily sew these with scraps, but due to my schedule my sewing time is limited so I choose not to. If you did sew them using a $1.50 yard fabric I would think you could get about 9 10"x10" for about .18 each or so.
2. You may not want to start washing a load of napkins, that will add to your bottom line! I wash them with my towels as neither receives fabric softener which often causes an item to become waterproof.
3. You will probably want to know about how many napkins your family needs to make it through a week. For us it would be at least 35 for just us. We normally have about 3-5 dinner guests each week so about 40 napkins! At .10 a napkin that just $4 or $10 at .25 a napkin.

An unanticipated bonus is that guests are surprised to see real napkins outside of a restaurant. I think the cloth napkins add a little character to our home making it feel comfortable. They really come in handy when we have a tea party and help give it a more formal feel for the invited guests human and teddy bear. Additionally, since I have such a variety of napkins the kids take great joy in giving everyone just the right napkin...purple for Ms. Julie, blue for Daddy, Red for Mama & pink for the sisters! Thus, we are able to grow and encourage hospitality in the children.

We have really enjoyed the cloth napkins and I think you might enjoy them also.

Rejoicing in savings & hospitality!

K

PS- Green stuff ( no more paper napkins in the landfill, re-use)

A Titus 2 Event : Grocery Shopping & Intro to Homeschooling

This is just a post to announce some Titus 2:3-5 action at Rooster Hill. After sewing with a sweet newly married I thought maybe some of the folks may enjoy basic sewing, bread making and Grocery shopping. So I will start with my passion Grocery Shopping...

Grocery shopping & Meal planning ....August 20th from 1-3

class size: 5 Mamas

• Intro to Homeschooling ......August 22nd

Don't get to excited this is not some high tech light show this just one Mama sitting down with up to 5 other Mamas over some tea with a bunch of kids running around. We'll talk about how I shop, make a meal plan, determine price per ounce use store adds, stockpile and use coupons. After which, you may meet me at the store on a Saturday and shadow me to watch how it's done. We spend $400 month for a family of 5 plus loads of visitors we have lots of snacks and healthy food. Hopefully, Kim Maass will be able to join us as she is the most frugal woman on the planet. Now if you've masterd the basics perhaps you'd like to try Heather's Couponing Class on August 15th.

Some other classes I thought of offering with some of my friends are basic sewing (napkins), sewing II (apron), basic cooking, cleaning , /homeschooling and your life, basic cooking , questions & answers on Thrift.

So if you want to come and fine tune your grocery shopping please post in the comments and I'll get the information to you. If you have a blog I'd love it if you advertised these classes on your blog.

Come on by ...

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, Ecclesiastes 9:10a

Canning, canning, canning some more...... at this point that is about grape jam, diced tomatoes, and dried cream beans. This is the first year we have canned tomatoes. My goal is to have 12-15 cans of diced tomatoes for the year. Right now we are saving 20# of tomatoes to make spaghetti sauce. I still need to make some more of Heather's Tomato Crack also know as Cilantro Salsa! But I still have to find a use for my medium sized tomatoes perhaps tomato juice?

Homesteading on RH

Cheap Meat Alert - Stock up now!

Run do not walk to Village Foods and buy your 2 family packs of Pork Chops for .88! You need to hurry because someone has lost their mind and priced these chops .09 cents less then I have seen time in a while! They also have a "freeze now or cook now" meat selection, nearly day old bread selection (from which I grabbed 2 loaves of sunflower seed bread for about .75 each). Since I can freeze bread I'll just schedule it into the meal rotation. If you cannot make it to Village Foods Wal-Mart will price match! Remember just because you just purchased 15#'s of pork chops does not mean it is time to feed your family pork chops for weeks. Put a pork meal on the menu once a week and look for the next great deal!

Saving Dinero @ RH

The Thrift Report

Seems like all of my posts lately are quick. However, I just wanted to pass along a frugal tip. In the Thrifty Gazette one thing they talk about is sweating the small stuff. We just realized that we need at least 3 new tires but we are going to get 4 new tires on the car before we head off to Dallas to visit friends. The key here is we just got them. I found my Discount Tire Receipt to review the previous purchase and sure enough we have bearly gotten 30K miles out of 80K mile tire. So I called Jake and asked him what to do which was to bring the receipt in and trade out the tires and receive our credit. The next step was to check the Internet for rebates and coupons so I found a $70 off coupon from Discount tire if we purchase Michelin or BF Goodrich. Additionally, there are coupons for for $40-100 off a set of 4 tires. So by spending an extra 20 minutes on the phone and computer I will save us a 66% on the new tires and we will hopefully be eligible for one of the other discounts. Assuming it's all the same as last time....

Current purchase

4 tires ..............................$220.00

3 discounted by 66%.....-$110.40

Total ...............................$109.60 this is a 50% savings

IF we can apply an additional discount

-$70 ..................................$39.60 this is about an 82% savings

-$40 ..................................$69.60 this is a 68% savings

So the next time you need to get tires don't forget to check for sales and review your previous receipt to make sure you are being a good steward.

Keep your eyes open for the

Thrift at Rooster Hill

Frugal Homeschooling: Free Singing Science

I think I've mentioned Trivium Academy before the woman is a homeschool over-achiever thank God. I have found another pearl on her site. A site with singing science songs that cover

• Space Songs
• Energy & Motion Songs
• Experiment Songs
• Weather Songs
• Nature Songs
• More Nature Songs

If your kiddos enjoy learning through song then you may want to check out this wonderful & free resource. I know Wayne will be downloading the songs onto a CD for us!

As we are starting to plan Homeschool for next year. My posts will probably be more sporadic. I am going to try to write and schedule some posts as the ideas occur to me. I am, however, really excited about starting a new regular post on the 15th of each month entitled "Frugal 15th" This will be connected to a Mr. Linky so start getting your frugal juices running!

Schooling at RH

Light of the World!

With Christmastime upon us I wanted to encourage you to find ways to lower your bills this month and focus on Christ as the light of the world!

1. Buy a timer ($11.96 at Wal-Mart) for the lights on your house. I do not know how many times we put the lights on and forgot to turn them off. We have light on the house and also have mechanical deer for the front yard (Albertson's after Christmas Sale for like $5 each reduced from about $50! ) so keeping them on for an hour or so is great and programing the timer so the kids can see the lights when we come home is even better! I do not know how much you could save but I know our light bill has gone up as much as $80 (during an irresponsible year!) Estimate $35 in savings


2. Buy a timer for the lights on the tree! Estimate $5 in savings


3. Why go to Santa's Wonderland (22.50) and a hayride ($39.80) when you can enjoy the lights at Christmas in the Park & take a free hayride at Central Park in College Station. for free Save: $62.30
   
4. Look around your house and replace as many incandescent lights with compact florescent lights. Yes, the McVay's are happy to GO GREEN when it is saving some GREEN! We have over 50 lights in our house, we have so many lights we cannot get an accurate calculation on Midsouth's electric savings calculator! I had six 100 watt light bulbs over our bathroom sink I replaced them and the total wattage went from 600 watts to 72 watts, less then one 100 watt bulb!! So for 40 light bulbs using 100 watt lights for 5 hours a day it costs 70.57 by simply switching to compact florescent the cost is $19.05 a savings of 51.51 per month and 618.16 per year Save: $618 a year!

Total Estimated Savings: $720.30

I'll try to post a picture of our Christmas house soon! Now, make the changes and save the money and buy some chickens or a Water Buffalo for a family in need and make a difference in their lives for Christ and let His light shine!

Camping: Tips

We went camping at Mission Tejas and had a great time! We also visited the Caddo Indian Mounds like a good homeschool family. Now some tips for camping as a family to maximize your enjoyment:

• Plan all of your meals, snacks & drinks. Try to be as an exact as possible because so you don't over pack, there is not a lot of room in a tent!
  Check the weather
• Prepare as much food ahead of time as possible. For instance I put together the baked beans, chili, sugared strawberries & pancake mix at home. I put them in a baggie so I can just pour them out. I read about doing this in some camping for kids magazine or online.
• Plan ahead what you will do and when. Even if its just Saturday-Hike, Saturday- Indian Museum, Park Store & Hike, Monday- Visit local National Park for Hike, Tuesday- Historical Replica hikes . That way you know you'll see & do everything you hoped to do.
• Once you have planned your activities find out how much each activity will cost for your family to do. And most importantly when the attractions are open and closed! We do this on an excel spread sheet. Then we can take out the right amount of money for the trip.
• Pack with a camping check off list. Here's a link to my camping Check-Off list found at my homemaking site.

Mission Tejas Trip Costs:

This is assuming you have already collected the basic camping supplies!

1. Campsite for 4 nights $48
2. Extra propane for light & stove $2.39
3. Caddo Indian Mounds $4 ($2 per adult kids 12 and under free)
4. Camp entrance $0 (we bought a $60 1 year state park pass but I think the entry fee is something like $3 per person per entry!)
5. Groceries $72 (However, all leftover groceries will enter into our regular meal rotation and we were out of some basics like creamer. I may look at the receipt to provide a more accurate estimate)

Total: $126.39

Now each time we go camping we purchase something to make camping easier and more enjoyable this time we purchased 5 canteens at a cost of $2.89 each and a spatula and cooking fork for .99 each. Total expense of $17.79 with tax.

Some ways to lower our camping costs: I can lower my costs is to make a master shopping list and look for sales and stock up in between trips. Since we hope to make 3 trips a year it should be easy to really maximize savings and cut our grocery costs in half.

BTW we will post our camping pictures soon!

RH