Articles | BargainBriana

{#ShakleeBlogger} Vlog: Getting Back on Track

by Briana Carter on May 3, 2013

I’m back on the wagon! I’m taking it one day at a time. So far, I’m 5 days in a row for staying within my calories and on the program! I’ve also exercised 3x in these 5 days so this is progress. I am laughing that YouTube automatically set this as “Comedy” category. Ha ha. I wasn’t trying to be funny and I don’t really think I was!

Read more about my fitness and weight loss journey as well as specific posts with the Shaklee-180 program.

Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post as part of the Shaklee Corporation blogger program. I have received free products, online support and incentives for participating. My opinions are my own. People following the weight-loss portion of the Shaklee 180™ Program can expect to lose 1-2 pounds per week. This Post was written by me and was not edited by the sponsor. Read more on my Disclosure Policy.

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{#ShakleeBlogger} Getting Back on Track…..

by Briana Carter on April 29, 2013

So, it’s time to come clean. I fell off the wagon. I was doing great for the first 3 weeks on the program with sticking to my healthy eating plan, exercising, and getting my water in. Then vacation happened.

You know the whole I’m out of my routine and I’m going to try to be so good attitude. It lasted for about 3 days. Then vacation mentality started. I mean, my FitBit was logging me at over 10,000 steps per day so I deserved to eat whatever I wanted all day long, right? Um, no.

The last three weeks I’ve done horrible. I have many excuses. We’ve been busy with sporting events, practices, and the like. It’s been rainy out. I’m stressed out. I left all of my meal plans and snack bars in our condo on vacation so I don’t have my convenience go to foods. (I did do this but it’s not an excuse since I still had my smoothee mix!) “So many others are having success and now I feel like a failure” type of mentality. I could go on and on about my excuses for not getting back with the program.

I’m honestly afraid to step on the scales at this point. I don’t want to know if I’ve gained back the 5 lbs I lost at the beginning of the program. I’m guessing yes based on the way my ring fits!

I’m sure many of you have been there and done this circle of shame. Actually for the last week, I’ve done decent until about 5 p.m. every day. Then it all goes downhill. There is something about my complete lack of control as soon as I pick up my kids. It is so easy to stick to my plan when I’m at the office where I bring my snacks and lunch and don’t have unlimited access to the refrigerator and pantry and I don’t have kids screaming and fighting with each other, which makes me want to reach for the comfort of my Reese’s cups.

So today, Monday, April 29, 2013 I resolve to stick with the plan. This means:

No more fancy coffees. (I started back up on this habit. I’m now 4 days without caffeine so I think I can stick with this one!)
No more soda/pop. Yeah, I started back up on this one again too. Something about the ballpark makes feel like I have to have a fountain drink.
Get back to walking/jogging 3-5x per week. I feel better when I do this so it will help me stick with the plan!

This month is about motivation. I’m going to motivate myself right back into this program…..

Read more about my fitness and weight loss journey as well as specific posts with the Shaklee-180 program.

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How To Soften Towels

by Briana Carter on April 23, 2013

After time, towels can lose their absorbency and become stiff. I’ve read that the main reason for this is the build up of fabric softeners. Once they start to get stiff, it’s harder to clean your towels and you may notice a musty type of smell no matter how often you clean your towels. The reason is this build up and there is an easy fix for it instead of going out and buying all new towels!

The fix?

Our friend vinegar which is around $0.80 at ALDI or you can buy in bigger bulk at the discount warehouse stores. Just add around 1 cup during the rinse cycle or put in your fabric softener slot in your washing machine.

If you are worried about your towels smelling like vinegar, you shouldn’t worry as I’ve been adding vinegar to my laundry for awhile now and the clothes come out smelling fresh and nothing like vinegar.

Find more DIY Household Cleaners and Spring Cleaning and Organizing posts.

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5 Meal Planning Tips for Busy Families

by Briana Carter on April 16, 2013

Spring is here and the need to freshen up your weekly dinner recipes may be part of your “spring cleaning“. The “what are we having for dinner” moment can be a source of dread and frustration for many people. As a mom of four kids who are extremely active in everything, I feel your pain.

Here’ are some of my favorite meal planning tips to help you save both time and money:

Gather 15-20 family favorite meals

Sit down with your family and ask them what their favorite meals are. You may be surprised by some of the meals they love or some that just don’t appeal to their taste buds. The last thing you want to do is waste time and money by preparing meals that your family doesn’t enjoy. Organize your recipes with a notebook, spreadsheet, or use bookmarking sites like SpringPad.com, Ziplist, or Pinterest.

Once you have the family’s preferences on meals, inventory your pantry and freezer to see if there are ingredients on hand you can utilize for your plan. Be sure to check to see what items you could possibly substitute in your recipes, such as rotini for macaroni. Oftentimes, you can make adjustments based on what you already have on hand to fit the recipe.

Create your menu

Write your menu on a blank calendar or simply on a piece of notebook paper. Write out each day of the week with slots for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you are a beginning meal planner, consider starting with just dinner to keep things simple.

Consult your family calendar and make any notes of specific activities for certain days. This helps to have written out when deciding which meal is best suited for a particular night. Do you have a baseball game? Is there a school program? Take these into account when planning your menu as you want to make it as easy as possible on busy nights.

Create a shopping list

Create your shopping list by consulting weekly circular for your favorite grocery store or use free coupon match-up site. There are also list creating sites such as Ziplist.com, which will help you create a shopping list online and will even create your list based on the recipes you choose.

Fast 5 meals

Fast 5 meals are meals that you can quickly make at home and get on your table in less time than it takes to order take-0ut. Tape a list of your fast five meals on your refrigerator or pantry door. You will save time and money because you won’t be tempted to stop for fast food as you know you have these items in your pantry. Meals that are good for this list are quesadillas, spaghetti, pizza croissants, tacos, and a new household favorite pepperoni pizza balls. These will be things you know your family likes and things you normally have stocked in your pantry.

Freezer meals

Make a double batch of your family’s favorite meals each time you cook to quickly create a freezer full of home-cooked meals. I love to make a double batch of lasagna, enchiladas, chili to name a few. You can save so much money by preparing your own freezer meals that also do not contain all the preservatives of store purchased freezer meals.

Bulk cook and freeze meal components. I often do this with ground beef or chicken breasts. I will cook a double, triple, or quadruple batch and freeze to use on another day. Doing this makes it easy for beef tacos to be on our fast five meal list. See if there is a Zaycon meat delivery in your area for $1.79/lb chicken!

While these tips may seem simple, the savings in dollars and time can be significant. Before you know it, you could cut your grocery bill in half while ensuring you are providing your family with healthy and delicious meals every night of the week.

How do you plan for busy evenings?

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What to Buy in April

by Briana Carter on April 9, 2013

Photo Credit: ewan traveler

What to buy in April?

You will find quite a few great deals in April. Stock up or purchase these items that you need now.

Produce:

Broccoli, Strawberries, Arthicokes, Asparagus, Cauliflower, Lettuce, Spring Peas, Rhubard

Grocery Items:

Eggs, Ham, Frozen Pies, Cake Mix, Pie Crust
Will start to see sales on grillin’ items
Cleaning supplies

Household Items:

After Easter Candy Clearance
Digital Cameras
Vacuum
“Green” products
Grills

What other items are you finding a good deal on in April?

Download the complete list of When To Find the Best Deals for the entire year.

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Save Money | 5 Tips for Travel Snacks

by Briana Carter on April 5, 2013

We are headed on a road trip! Trips inside the convenience stores can add up and take a toll on your vacation budget especially when you are traveling with 4+ kids. This is why I prefer to load the car up with own own snacks and drinks to save as much as possible.

Here’s a Few Snack Travel Tips:

Plan accordingly. Don’t pack food that will spoil before you can get to your destination and know food preferences of the people who are riding along.
Healthy Snacks. Just because you are traveling, doesn’t mean you have to skip healthy fruits and vegetables. I like to pack apples, bananas, and grapes because these are easy to transport and don’t make a big mess. Cucumbers and carrots are also good veggies to transport. If you have something like the Pack-It, you could add small portion containers of veggie dip.
Fun Snacks. Make a batch of your family’s favorite cookies or muffins before your trip. CVS also has a wonderful selection snacks within their Gold Emblem product line that make it easy to travel such as Dark Chocolate Covered Cashews (yum!), Chocolate Chip Cookies, Whole Raw Almonds (great for protein!), and throw in some fun Gold Emblem Gummy Worms. By purchasing these snacks before you get your trip started, you will save money on expensive convenience store goodies as well as having those foods handy when your cravings strike.
Beverages. I like to pack several bottled waters (the smaller ones) and bring flavor packets if we want something a little different. We might also throw in a few cans of pop in there too! Bring along a few reusable water containers too if we need to split drinks. The reusable bottles are also nice for the hotel!
Trash Collection. Be sure to keep a few plastic bags in your car for trash collection during your trip. This makes it easy when you stop to refuel to empty out one bag. Plus, you won’t get those crumblies on your floor.

Save money by buying the CVS/pharmacy Gold Emblem brand of snacks. CVS/pharmacy has a rigorous taste-testing process that includes in-house tasting panel and an independent third-party panel of professional taste testers. Compared to the national competitors you will save a bundle without noticing a difference in quality!

Products were provided by CVS in order to facilitate this review. Post was written 100% by me and was not edited by the sponsor. Read more on my Disclosure Policy.

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Stretching Your Dollar at ALDI with the Savings Nation App

by Briana Carter on April 5, 2013

I’m taping a segment for Fox 59 this morning and I wanted to share a few tips that I will be discussing! This will be a sticky post today so scroll down the latest deals!

The average family spends at the minimum $150 a week on groceries. With a few savvy shopping tips, you can cut your budget by 50% or more. I’m going to share a few simple tips to get you started without using ANY coupons. Yep, I said it. No coupons required but it does still require a shopping plan!

When I shop at grocery stores, I usually whip out my couponizer. When I’m in a time crunch, I love to shop at ALDI for everyday value without sacrificing quality. Otherwise, if I shop at a store that accepts coupons, I just feel guilty that I didn’t have time to clip my coupons for the week.

Use your smart phone: If coupon clipping sounds overwhelming, start by downloading a mobile savings app like the Grocery Nation app from Savings.com, which is available for Android phones in the local market. Money saving experts like myself have hand selected some of the best local deals and coupon match-ups each week to help you save as much money as possible. You can also find these same deals here at BargainBriana.com/stores and can pull it up on your mobile device’s web browser! Make your weekly shopping list, print it out or email it to yourself and get shopping!

Here’s what a list from ALDI looks like on the Savings Nation app:

I like to plan my meal plan around what I already have in the pantry and what is on sale for the week as well! For this shopping trip, I’m sticking to a simple meal plan for dinner for 7 nights and breakfast. If I don’t have a plan, it is too easy to grab take-out or eat out . When making your plan, consider the activities you have going on for that particular evening as well. For this upcoming week, we have a high school basketball semi-state game to go too, middle school awards, father-daughter dance, and multiple practices and tryouts for different kids. It gets CRAZY here in the spring!

Stock up on Pantry Items: Save on pantry staples like sugar, flour, pasta, tortillas, pasta sauce, and more with ALDI every day low prices. Also, they do have weekly sales so take full advantage of any additional mark downs.

Save by Buying Private Store Brands: ALDI exclusive brand products meet or exceed the quality and taste of than the national brand. As you may remember, I have participated in the past in the ALDI Switch & Save taste tests and most of the items I couldn’t tell the difference or thought the ALDI brand was better.

ALDI offers 1,400 of the most commonly used grocery and household items. I find that we can find most of the items we shop for on a regular basis at ALDI. If I’m trying out a new recipe, I may need to head to a store with a larger selection to find exactly what I’m looking for. Otherwise, by sticking to ALDI that doesn’t have several brands to choose from I can save time as opposed to a mega store. I also save money because I’m not adding extra items to our cart that we don’t need!

Check out my Top 10 Reasons I Love ALDI shopping for additional tips and tricks on ALDI shopping! Just remember your quarter for cart rental, your own reusable bags, and cash or debit card!

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{Spring Cleaning} Decluttering the Stray Sock Basket

by Briana Carter on April 4, 2013

I’m sure you can all relate to having a basket full of stray socks! Where do the pairs go? They seem to disappear quite frequently in our house. Usually I find socks under the bed, behind the couch, in a toy box, even rolled up in a sweatshirt occasionally! So it’s no surprise with six people in our household the stray sock basket can get quite full.

Instead of doing this every six months or so, I should make more of an effort to do this monthly. Since it was on my decluttering list, I went ahead and sorted the socks. I had a huge basket full of strays!

I started with sorting by color, black socks, white socks, colored socks, fuzzy socks. Then I tried to sort by person – moms, dads, boys, girls, etc. Then I started matching up. It’s kind of like memory match in a way! Sofia always likes to help me with this game! :)

The sorting game:

As I was sorting, I also made a pile of socks that should be trashed. Either because they are too small, have holes, or oops got washed with the jeans! There were also a few pairs that I knew had been in the random basket for probably a year or more so I put those in the trash pile as well. I’m sure there is something you could do to re-purpose socks but I just wanted them out of my house at this point.

TRASH Socks:

I found quite a few matches and promptly put away in the applicable drawers. There is still quite a few randoms in the basket but I’ve reduced it quite a bit. I’m guessing once I start decluttering the kids rooms, I’ll find many of these matches!

A basket full of sock matches:

I’ve heard of people only buying the same brand of socks so they don’t have to match up socks like this as often. I’ve tried to buy the same brands but it seems like even if you go back in a couple months, they’ve changed their design or material just enough to notice.

Read more on the Decluttering Your Home: Start Small, Really Small series as well as reading the most recent decluttering posts as part of my Spring Cleaning!