It is hard to lose weight.

There, I said it. Unfortunately, this post will not be endorsing a plan that loses X lbs in under 30 days. The reason – because losing weight is hard. It takes discipline and hard work. But, it can be done.

I wanted to share some of the resources I’ve used the last couple of years to help me take and keep off an extra 20 lbs that were previously hanging on. (If you get my drift.) I’m not trying to toot my own horn. Many people have lost more or less using other programs like Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins, etc. but these insights are what worked for me and I did it on a budget. In the end, if you want to lose weight – you have to find a program that works for you.

Insight #1: Get honest with yourself and commit. Weigh yourself, measure yourself (waist, hips, thighs, etc) and then set a realistic goal. No one is expecting you to be a supermodel – but choose a weight that would make you feel good about yourself.

Insight #2: Find out how many calories you need to consume daily in order to get to your realistic goal. There is some good information here or here.

Insight #3: Keep a food journal and write down every thing that goes into your mouth and put a calorie to it, so you’ll stick to the number mention in #2. While this step is tedious, it was the most crucial for me. I finally learned that just because something seems healthy doesn’t mean it is healthy. Case in point – 180 calories equals one tortilla or 3 apples. I found this site really helpful for figuring out calories. And this site is good for tracking calories online.

Insight #4: Find a workout program that challenges you and doesn’t bore you. (And by challenges – I mean you work up a sweat.) I lost my extra baggage using the Your Self Challenge. Each month there was a new set of workouts – both cardio and toning – that require nothing more than a set of dumbells. They also have the workouts online and on-demand so you can fine tune your form. Remember, you don’t have to go to a gym to get a good workout. I find the best workout to be my running shoes, a good trail, and my iPod.

Insight #5: Allow yourself some grace. Grace to eat a piece of cake at your son’s birthday party and not feel guilty because you will never have that opportunity again, but also grace to pass on a Betty Crocker mix brownie because you will have that opportunity again.

Here some other resources/tips:

Find a workout buddy. It is harder to say no to a morning walk if you know someone is waiting for you. Also, they keep you accountable.

Borrow workout videos from the library to test before you buy or trade with a friend.

Download some good music into your iPod. A long run or walk goes faster when you daydream that you are a back-up singer to Justin Timberlake or TobyMac or whomever. (I’m just saying. And if Justin needs a singer, my number is…)

Sign up for the 2011 All You Reality Checked Diet by April 20 and receive a weekly weight-loss guide for three months. Included in the weekly guide are easy-to-follow fitness tips, healthy menu options, and tips to keep you motivated. Even better – one lucky dieter will win a trip to New York City.

Check out on-line sites. Fitsugar.com gives out free workout and stretching videos.

Remember, you can just as easily find coupons for “junk” as you can for “healthy”. Commit to making the “junk” stay out of your house for three or six months – it will make it easier for you to stay on course and no one will die if there isn’t Pop-Tarts in the house.

Okay – that’s my advice in a nutshell. (And remember, it is still HARD.) What about you? What do you do lose or keep off the weight? What’s your secret for working out on a budget?

Part Four: Tricks of the Trade (And no, I’m not a magician.)

When I first started staying home with my kiddos, I couldn’t cook. Not a lick. My idea of a gourmet meal was the frozen orange chicken from Costco with Minute Rice and frozen broccoli. But now, I’d rank myself with the best frugal cook I ever knew – my Grandma Rich.

My transition from “make-it-from-a-box-mom” to “keeping-up-with-my-farmwife-Grandma” took some time, some mistakes, and realizing that modern technology can make most of us good cooks. (Bless the woman from Little House on the Prairie – not sure how they functioned without a food processor.)

This last post is a list of tips I’ve learned over the years. Some tricks might be new, some might be old, but hopefully they will help you save some dollars in the kitchen.

Tip #1: Get the Right Set of Tools
My husband is a contractor and he owns a dozen different saws. The reason? They make him more efficient and less frustrated. Sure they all cut, but they cut different things a different way.

Think of your kitchen the same way. Let yourself own tools that help you cut things, mix things, and chop things. Sure, you could probably do the same job with a paring knife from the Dollar Store (and you were on Survivor) – but you will be inefficient and frustrated. And those two qualities make cooking NOT FUN.

Here is a list of my MOST loved gadgets (meaning, if they broke, I’d buy a new one tomorrow):
- Cuisinart 11-Cup Food Processor
- Kitchen Aid Stand-Up Professional Mixer
- Hand Chopper
- Crockpot
- Top Quality Chef Knife, Paring Knife, Bread Knife, and Boning Knife with sharpener
- Stainless Steel measuring cups
- 8-cup, 2-cup, and 1-cup Liquid Measuring Cup
- 3-inch deep Frying Pan

Tip #2: Get some Inspiration
I love allrecipes.com, but the site only works if I know what I want to cook (ie. French Onion Soup) or have a hodge-podge of ingredients that I want to MacGyver together. To find inspiration, I look in my set of “standard” cookbooks. To me a standard cookbook is one where 90% of the recipes are gonna be good and have ingredients I can buy at Walmart. My favorite standard cookbooks are ANY Junior League cookbook like this one or this one from Paula Deen. I’ve never made anything out any of these cookbooks that I didn’t enjoy.

Tip #3: Tender is Good
A good marinade can make a less than stellar piece of meat turn into a crowd pleaser. This week I took stew meat, marinaded it, and used it for kabobs. How long did I marinade it? Three days. But, it was juicy and tender and Family loved it.

A marinade is a tenderizer and flavor enhancer. It is usually a mix of an acid, an emollient, and spices. Examples of acids are vinegar, cooking sherry, or wine (my favorite). Examples of emollients are oils or the fat on a particular cut of meat. For more details on the inner-workings of marinades – go here.

Bottom line – find some good homemade marinades and don’t be afraid to marinate poorer cuts of meat for a couple of days. If you want a few good basic marinades, shoot me an email, I’d love to share.

Tip #4: Save Scratch, Make From Scratch
Let me say – there is a time and place for store-bought mixes (especially if they are almost free). But, if you think about it, the cost of flour, sugar, and baking soda is a fraction compared store-bought mixes or pre-made items. And 9 times out of 10, scratch items taste better too.

Sometimes our time (or skill) is an issue. I’ll admit – I’m not a bread maker. The whole kneading thing annoys me. But I have a bread machine. And it is like manna from heaven since it does all the kneading for me. All I have to do is pull out the dough when it beeps. How easy is that? Also, there are several “no-knead” recipes for bread – here’s my favorite Peasant Bread.

Tip #5: Cash is King
I only take cash to shop for groceries. This is the last, but my #1 tip to cutting your costs. When I started taking cash to the store instead of my rewards credit card, I cut my grocery bill by 50% over pre-couponing. The reason – I stopped the “extra” or “around” purchases.

I was notorious for going over budget by 5 to 10 bucks every week. It doesn’t seem like a lot – but it adds up. Take 10 bucks times five weeks and that’s $50.

There was the argument for losing the rewards – but even the greatest reward (5% off) is small compared to the extra spending. Let’s say your budget is $100. With 5% you get back $5. But if you go over $5 or $10 a week – the reward is gone. $100 Budget + $10 extra – $5.50 reward = $4.50 over budget.

Cash makes you disciplined. If I only have $75 bucks in my wallet – I can only spend $75. Does it take some time to get used to? Absolutely. But would I go back to the old way? Never.

What about you? What is your tip of saving extra dollars in the kitchen? Let us know. Would love to hear about some out of the box ideas.

Missed the beginning? Here is Part One and Part Two.

Part Three – “Know Thy Family” Meal Plan.

When I first started couponing, I was a weekly meal planner. I would base my meals off what was on sale that week. This worked great as long as I only bought what was on sale. My problem – I picked recipes that called for three things on sale and five things that weren’t.

In an effort to get our grocery budget even lower, I looked into monthly meal planning. But honestly, the more I read, the more intimidated I felt. These crafty-meal-planning women were more organized, creative and disciplined than I could ever be. They used charts like the picture above and I liked scrap paper. I also knew “me” and “me” has a tendency to say “I don’t feel like that tonight” or “I’m going to channel my inner-Julia Child tonight” regardless of what a laminated board with the title “Meal Plan” says.

So, I made my own system – the “Know thy Family” meal plan.

“Know Thy Family” Meal Plan – a monthly meal plan that incorporates Lesson #1 and Lesson #2 from items in the stockpile while allowing flexibility and staying within budget and isn’t written on anything laminated.

Step 1: Divide your meal plan into four weeks (I know some months have five – but I like even numbers.) If you want some pretty meal planning worksheets – check these out from Money Saving Mom.

Step 2: Make slots under each week. Slots are determined by number of meals at home vs. away and amount of leftovers. Assign each slot a “know-thy-family” name. In my house we have seven slots and they are named : Meatless Monday, Children’s Favorite, Soup, Dad’s Favorite, Mom’s Favorite, Homemade Pizza and Leftovers.

Step 3: Evaluate your pantry, stockpile and freezer. Write major ingredients down. Pick recipes from items you have on hand and place them in your “family” slots. Got a hodgepodge of stuff – go to allrecipes.com and type in ingredients and see what recipe comes up.

Note: It’s okay to need one or two things to complete a recipe – but not five or six. The goal is to shop from your stockpile – the place where you bought everything at rock-bottom prices.

Step 4: Make a shopping list of ingredients you need to purchase. Watch circular/sales/etc. for these items and buy on sale (and with coupon) if possible.

Step 5: Place meal plan in a highly visible place. (So “thy family” can see it.)

Step 6: Feel free to interchange different recipes for different days. Kids favorite is pancakes and eggs on Week 3 – but you’ve had a busy week and want to move it to Week 2 – do it. Want to cook like a banshee for five days and take the last two off – do it.

Step 7: Discipline yourself to only buy “rock-bottom” priced items for the rest of the month because you don’t “need” to buy anything. Remember, you have a meal plan in place – enjoy the peace of mind and less hectic 5:00 scramble because of your plan.

This is only one of MANY monthly meal plan styles. Ali talks about her method here. Bottom line: Creating a meal plan is as personal as creating a coupon organizing system – you need to do what works for you. But in order to really save, you need to do it.

PS: I broke into Ali’s house and took a picture of her laminated Meal Plan board – isn’t it pretty? And organized? Just kidding…about the breaking into her house part. But, I’m pretty sure her plan looks like that.

Next Week: Tricks of the Trade

What about you? What kind of meal plan works for you? 7-days, 2-weeks, a month? Do you have a cool online tool that you use? Share with us – we’d love to know.

Last week I wrote about embracing your family’s food style. Our family is mom-lost-20lbs-and-doesn’t-want-it-back, pizza-from-scratch-every-Sunday, kids-addicted-to-chicken-nuggets-and-PB&J, husband-addicted-to-cow, everyone-likes-protein, no-one-likes-casseroles or pre-packaged-dinners, and need-to-stay-under-$300-per-month.

Oh yeah, and our family is a bunch of foodies. We have champagne tastes. Unfortunately, we function on a beer budget. Because of our food snobbery, I learned to embrace what I call “fillers.”

Kelly’s Definition of “Filler” – (1) must provide a full-feeling with minimum complaints from the clan (2) must be healthy (3) any thing you can eat that isn’t an expensive protein – ideally under $.75 per pound.

Looking back, I realized my mom used quite a few fillers in my childhood dinners (remember I’m from Nebraska): potatoes, noodles, minute rice, frozen mixed vegetables (gag), bread, and JELL-O. (Yep, we had jell-o at EVERY meal and sometimes it had vegetables in it. Again, gag. Sorry Mom.) And while those fillers were a great starting point (except the veggies and Jell-O thing) – I needed more options for my foodie family. So I took an adventure to…

…the weird ethnic aisle.

The weird ethnic aisle is like Disneyland’s “It’s A Small World”. All cultural foods you’ve heard of before but have no idea how to make claim residency here. It’s where couscous, dried beans, and tahini hang out with tamales, dried shitake mushrooms, and par-boiled rice. And while I was intimidated when I first ventured into the weird food aisle – I was also excited because everything was so stinkin’ cheap. Then I got adventureous and wandered into the…

…weird vegetable aisle.

I found 10 different kinds of squash, jalepeno peppers, rutabagas, spinach, sweet potatoes, cabbage, cilantro, Italian parsley, and leeks. (Who knew there was more than carrots and onions?) Even better – when these weird vegetables are in season – they are also stinkin’ cheap. So I found some recipes, grabbed some “weird” foods, and gave it a whirl.

The outcome? Most things in the ethnic aisle taste AMAZING compared to their canned or instant counterpart. (Don’t believe me? Make black beans from dried beans and compare them to the canned variety.) The other thing – weird vegetables made great “fillers” for things like soup, side-dishes, or pasta noodles (spaghetti squash).

I’ll admit, there was trial, ERROR (bok choy), and success (cabbage soup). But since the quality was so much better and the fiber so much higher than minute rice or a Knorr’s side dish – my family enjoyed the food and felt more-full off less of the expensive protein.

Since I was having some success, I decided to press-my-luck and talk to DH about having one meatless meal a week (remember, he loves cow). He relunctantly agreed and we gave it a shot. Several months later, we are still carrying on the tradition with minimum complaints.

By incorporating the cheap and filling “fillers” from the weird ethnic and vegetable aisles with our expensive proteins and going meatless one day a week, we were able to have a great variety of foods and lower our grocery bill even farther.

But I still had some work to do….

Next Week: Monthly Meal Planning

What about you? Have you entered the weird ethnic and vegetable aisle? Have you embraced your inner-ethnic-self? What kind of “fillers” do you like to buy? Any recipes you’d like to share. Leave a comment – we’d love to hear from you.

Here is a partial list of “fillers” that I use on a regular basis.

- Dried Black Beans, Lentils, White Beans, Red Beans, and Split Peas
- Par-Boiled Rice (it only takes 20 minutes to make and is LIGHT-YEARS better than minute rice)
- Brown or Wild-Grain Rice
- Whole Wheat Spaghetti
- Wheat Bulger
- Raisins or Cran-Raisins
- Canned Pineapple
- Canned Tomatoes
- Various Nuts
- Green, Red, or Napa Cabbage
- Acorn, Butternut, Delicato, and Spaghetti Squash
- Sweet, Red, and Russet Potatoes
- Red, Green, and Jalapeno Peppers
- Eggs
- Eggplant
- Bread Crumbs
- Onions
- Carrots
- Rutabaga
- Tahini and Garbonzo Beans (homemade hummus – great filler with all those cheap crackers)
- Frozen broccoli, corn, peas, etc.
- Any seasonal fruit under $1 per pound
- Romaine and Butter Lettuce
- Sour Cream Dips with Fresh Veggies
…and Jell-o Desserts with seasonal fruit – NO VEGETABLES.

PS: Really want to walk on the wild side – go to an ethnic market. They’ll have stuff you haven’t even heard of before (or have any idea how to make)- and it will be even cheaper than the grocery store.

My friend Mandy and I were watching our boys particpate in the Pinewood Derby (and I mean our sons, not our husbands..LOL) and talking about couponing and saving money. She had just ordered The Coupon Mom’s Guide To Cutting Your Grocery Bills in Half and $5 Dinners and was lamenting “that she needed to figure out how to feed her hungry brood (DH and (2) DS) for less money because they were beginning to eat her out of house and home.”

After I got back home, I realized my journey for reducing our grocery budget started with couponing – but it has been other “in-the-trench-tactics” that allowed us to really drive down our budget to $300 or less per month.

So over the next four Saturdays – I’ll share some “in-the-trench-tactics” that have worked in our home. (And if you have some you would like to share – I’d LOVE to hear them too.) Hopefully, we’ll all learn a few things from each other and reduce our grocery costs and increase our financial margin a little more.

Trench Tactic #1: Know Thy Family

Some of those most frequent cooking complaints we hear from MOMs…”My family won’t eat leftovers.” or “My husband requires MEAT every night.” or “My child is picky and will only eat Macaroni & Cheese.” Really? Wow! Holy Cow – I have a long lost relative, because my family is the exact same way!

Yep. I’ll admit it – we don’t “do” leftovers. My husband loves things from a cow. And my son’s favorite meal is a peanut butter and honey sandwich. And one more – we don’t like very many casseroles. The good news – “knowing” that. The bad news - learning to “own” that.

Come with me as I flashback to a pretty recent meal…

Kelly would make a BIG 9×13 pan of Chicken Casserole.

First Night: the clan would eat with smiles and compliments.

Second Night: kiddos would refuse to eat it and DH would push it around claiming he had a big lunch and then resort to eating a bag of Doritos after dinner.

Third Night: FULL Revolt. With DS and DH eating peanut butter and honey, DD eating chicken nuggets, and me eating another serving of casserole – with contempt in my heart and fire coming from eyes. Then I’d throw away about a third of the casserole and wonder how much money did I really save by making this.

And when I mention “Chicken Casserole” again a month later everyone in the house starts making gagging noises and DH says “maybe we shouldn’t have that one again for a few months.”

Can anyone relate?

So instead of hitting my head against the wall AGAIN and having dinner time looking like a battle from World War III – I’ve learned to “own” our family’s style and make some changes.

When I make the few casseroles our family will eat – I make two 8×8 pans. One is for dinner and the other is frozen for later. This way there isn’t as much waste and I’ve got another item in the freezer to pull out if I’m having a rushed week. Added benefit – no one is making gagging sounds when I pull the casserole from the oven. I also do this for soups, meats, sauces, etc.

Another example – my kiddos love spaghetti and tacos. They’ll clean their plates (without a thousand reminders) and my DH and I have a nice dining experience. Since I know those meals will be a hit – I schedule them a couple times a month or even weekly (depending what I have in the stockpile.) I’ll cook up several pounds of hamburger at once – freeze them by serving size – and pull them out when I need them.

Finally, because my husband loves all things cow (or chicken or pig) I make sure we have a standard rotation of meat/potato/veggies/dinner roll in the meal plan. It might not be every night – but I try to do it at least once a week in the winter and two/three times in the summer. He’s happy (cause we all know one of the ways to a man’s heart is through his stomach) and he’s willing to put up with Lentil Soup once in awhile.

Once you learn to “own” your family’s eating preferences, you can start to make a plan that means less waste, happier campers, more variety and believe it or not – greater savings.

So, what is your family’s style? Is your style a no-soup-unless-it-is-cream-based, pizza-lovin’, casserole-hatin’, needs-to-have-dessert-twice-a-week? Or is your style a roast-mashed-potatoes-with-gravy-eatin’, can’t-stand-Apple-Jacks-or-Fruit-Loops, leftovers-only-once-a-week, grilled-cheese-with-tomato-soup-addicts?

Next week: Embracing the “fillers”

PS: Don’t you love the “family eating together” beauty shot. I bet Ken and Barbie didn’t have to say “Please sit in your chair or don’t wipe your hands on your shirt” once.