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Easy Chili Cheese Dip

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Have leftover chili? Make Easy Chili Cheese Dip!

One of my favorite things to do in the kitchen is to clear out leftovers by making something new with them. This Easy Chili Cheese Dip is a perfect example of how to do this.

On the other hand, this dip is delicious enough that you might want to make chili just so you can have leftovers to make this dip. Or make the chili, skip eating the chili, and make lots of dip. OR, cheat as needed and simply buy a can of chili to use in this recipe!

Easy Chili Cheese DipYum

Easy Chili Cheese Dip
 
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Ingredients
  • 2 cups leftover chili
  • 8-ounces softened cream cheese
  • 1 cup salsa
Instructions
  1. Blend all ingredients together until smooth.
  2. Serve hot or cold with tortilla chips.

What’s great about this recipe is that it’s more than a snack. This can be your entire meal along with fruits and veggies on the side.

Serve it hot or cold, whichever you like!

This recipe works great for my family because I blend everything up which makes a smooth dip without chunks. If you prefer a chunky dip, just stir ingredients together instead of blending.

Need some chili recipes? Use one of these:

  • You can keep your costs for this dip to a minimum when you make this Lentil Chili.
  • This Hearty Chili is meatless, but feel free to cook hamburger or ground turkey to add more protein.

Here are more dip recipes to look through and enjoy!

  1. Easy White Queso
  2. Simple Bean and Cheese Salsa Dip
  3. Creamy Chocolate Fruit Dip
  4. Creamy Italian Veggie Dip
  5. Cream Cheese Salsa Dip
  6. Bacon Ranch Chip Dip
  7. French Onion Dip
  8. Bacon Tomato Dip
  9. Black Bean Salsa
  10. Easy Veggie Dip
  11. Healthier Cheese Dip 
  12. Hot Spinach and Artichoke Dip
  13. Nacho Cheese Pretzel Dip
  14. Easy Guacomole
  15. Easy Cheesy Bean Dip
  16. Hamburber Sauerkraut Dip
  17. Cream Cheese Fruit Dip
Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Make 5 Meals with 1 Pork Roast

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Here’s how to make 5 meals with 1 pork roast!

Yum

This might be one of my favorite Dollar Dinner menu items – x5! If you take a look at our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners calendar, you’ll see that these pork roast meals break down into these:

  1. Pork Roast and Potatoes $3.74
  2. Shredded Pork Tacos $4.08
  3. Pork Roast Melts $3.90
  4. Cheesy Mac and Pork $4.05
  5. Pork Sandwiches $3.90

The recipes for these five meals feed four people, which as you can see, divides down to just over $1.00 or just under $1.00 per person!

In my case, I had a 5-pound pork roast in the freezer that I’d picked up marked down to just $1.79/pound. So my $8.95 purchase was divided into four full meals.

Wait, just four meals, Laura?

Yes indeed, we have way more than 4 people in our house. 10 to be exact. And for a couple of our pork roast meals, we had guests. So I most definitely made our pork roast stretch, as it fed a LOT of people four different meals! But I just couldn’t stretch it into five. ;)

First, I made the roast (recipe below) with cheesy potatoes, green beans, corn, pumpkin bread, and cookies. For this particular meal, we fed 6 adults and 6 kids.

Everyone ate until they were full, then we still had this much meat left over.

With these leftovers, we made Pork Roast Melts, Enchiladas like this (with leftover shredded pork roast instead of ground beef), and Cheesy Mac and Pork. The night we had enchiladas, we had company again so there were five adults and six kids. Fruit and veggie side dishes really help the meat stretch throughout a meal, which is a huge money saver!

How to Make 5 Meals with 1 Pork Roast

Here’s how to make a Pork Roast:

How to Make 5 Meals with 1 Pork Roast
 
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Ingredients
  • 5-pound pork roast
  • 1 chopped onion
  • Sea salt to taste
  • 2 teaspoons garlic powder
Instructions
  1. Put all ingredients into a slow cooker and cook on low for 10 hours or until met shreds easily.
  2. Shred cooked meat and divide it into five equal portions.
  3. Serve one portion over baked potatoes.
  4. Save the remaining portions for four additional meals: Pork Roast Melts, Shredded Pork Tacos, Pork Sandwiches, and Cheesy Mac and Pork.

 

To make it stretch to last through five meals, you’ll eat one portion the night you cook it. Then you’ll save four portions to make other meals as detailed in our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners eCookbook. And hey, guess what?

The eCookbook is READY!!

We finished the cook a few weeks ahead of schedule, so we’re ready to offer it to you now!

This book contains all 30 days worth of recipes so you can make all of our delicious dollar meals! Here are the meals and recipes you’ll find in the book, as well as the dollar amount it takes to make each recipe for 4 people:

  1. Chili = $3.80
  2. Chili on Baked Potatoes $2.82
  3. Broth Rice with Veggies $3.77
  4. Grilled Cheese and Soup $4.59
  5. Pork Roast and Potatoes $3.74
  6. Shredded Pork Tacos $4.08
  7. Pork Roast Melts $3.90
  8. Cheesy Mac $3.09
  9. Cheesy Mac and Pork $4.05
  10. Pork Sandwiches $3.90
  11. Italian Honey’d Chicken Thighs $4.02
  12. Cottage Cheese and Pineapple Bowls with Toast $3.20
  13. Egg in a Nest $3.54
  14. Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges $3.99
  15. Parmesan Chicken and Rice $4.02
  16. Creamy Potato Soup $3.98
  17. Personal Cheese Pizzas $3.99
  18. Cheese Calzones $3.99
  19. Italian Chicken Legs $4.01
  20. Amazing Fried Chicken $4.32
  21. Crepes $3.44
  22. Biscuits and Gravy $3.32
  23. Lemon Garlic Chicken Thighs with Biscuits $4.19
  24. Seasoned Pork Loin with Roasted Broccoli $3.56
  25. Pork Loin Sandwiches $4.02
  26. Scrambled Egg Sandwiches $3.08
  27. Baked Spaghetti Nests $3.10
  28. Pancakes and Eggs $3.48
  29. Bean and Cheese Burritos $3.98
  30. Tex Mex Casserole $3.45

Amazing, right?!

Here’s how to get our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners eCookbook:

If you are a Heavenly Homemakers Club Member, simply log in and head to the eBook section. You’ll find it there so you can use and enjoy it right away!

Not a member? Please join us here so you can have access to all of our eBook, printables, eCurriculum, menu planning resources, and so much more!

Not interested in becoming a member of our club? Head to our shop here to buy the 30 Days of Dollar Dinners eCookbook independently.

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Easy Make-Ahead Breakfast Sandwich Ideas

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These breakfast sandwich ideas are easy and you probably already know how to put these together. But here’s your encouragement to make a bunch of breakfast sandwiches ahead and freeze them for easy meals!

Dare I throw my teenage kid under the bus and tell you about the time I got up early to make him a hearty breakfast sandwich before he left at 6:50 am for a tennis tournament? And how he was so grateful but then he put his hot sandwich in his tennis bag and forgot to eat it on the way to the tournament?? I can’t decide if I should tell you about that or not…

Well. At least I didn’t tell you which kid it was.

But back to how you can make breakfast sandwiches ahead of time.

I like to make a dozen or so at once, then individually wrap them in foil and warm them up in the oven or air fryer as needed when we need a grab-and-go breakfast with protein.

The great thing about making breakfast sandwiches is that you can use any variety of meats, breads, and cheeses that you have on hand and that your family likes!

Easy Make-Ahead Breakfast Sandwich IdeasYum

Start with any bread options you have like:

  • Bagels
  • English Muffins
  • Loaf Bread
  • Croissants
  • Hamburger Buns
  • Tortillas

Make eggs:

  • Scrambled
  • Fried
  • Boiled and made into egg salad

Prepare meat:

  • Sliced Ham
  • Sausage Patties
  • Bacon Strips
  • Sliced Turkey
  • Sliced Canadian Bacon

Add cheese:

  • Sliced Colby Jack
  • Sliced Pepper Jack
  • Sliced Cheddar

Assemble your sandwiches:

  1. If you want to wrap your sandwiches individually, prepare foil wraps according to how many sandwiches you plan to make. Lay them out on the counter.
  2. Place bread on each piece of foil wrap.
  3. Cook eggs – one per sandwich.
  4. Distribute cooked eggs onto each bottom part of the bread.
  5. Top with meat.
  6. Top with cheese.
  7. Place the top sandwich bread over the cheese.
  8. Wrap the sandwich with foil.
  9. Place wrapped sandwiches in freezer bags to store in the freezer or fridge to warm up as needed.
  10. Warm a thawed sandwich in a 350-degree oven or in an air fryer for about 10 minutes.
  11. Eat on the run.

Do you like to make breakfast sandwiches for an on-the-go option?

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Parmesan Chicken and Rice Recipe – $1.00/person!

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You are going to love this Parmesan Chicken and Rice recipe. It’s so easy and flavorful, and can be made for just $1.00 per person!

You realize that this means that your entire dinner for four people only costs $4.00? Throw in a steamed veggie and a salad and you’re up to maybe $6.00, total, for a super-amazing, delicious, wholesome meal that nourishes.

My intent with this series is to encourage all of us. Grocery prices can look discouraging right now, but I’m finding that it really is possible to keep our costs low while still eating well.

This meal idea comes on the tail of this Whole Chicken Recipe in which we cooked a chicken with the goal of making three meals with it.

  1. Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges
  2. Parmesan Chicken and Rice
  3. Creamy Potato Soup (made with broth from the chicken we cooked as described here)

Today, we’ll share how you can take the “leftovers” from the Whole Chicken you made that you saved for this meal. You’ll make rice as detailed below, then you’ll stir in the leftover chicken. This is so delicious and easy.

 Parmesan Chicken and Rice Recipe

Parmesan Chicken and Rice Recipe - $1.00/person!
 
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Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 cup brown rice
  • 2 cups chicken or beef broth
  • 2 Tablespoons dried minced onion
  • Sea salt to taste
  • Leftover baked chicken cut into bites
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder (or fresh garlic)
  • ⅓ cup grated parmesan cheese
Instructions
  1. Stir rice, broth, onion, and salt into a 9x13 inch baking dish.
  2. Cover and bake for one hour in a 350 degree oven.
  3. Stir in cooked chicken and garlic and bake for 10 minutes more.
  4. Remove from oven, sprinkle parmesan cheese over the top and serve.

The rice cooked in broth with onion and salt makes this taste extra good. Now use those bones from the chicken to make broth. Then you can make Creamy Potato Soup too!

Did you get these yet?

All month long we are working our way through 30 Days of Dollar Dinners. Get the calendar filled with 30 dollar meal ideas, plus all these resources too. They are free and will hopefully save you a lot of money at the store!

Sign up here to enjoy these!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Beat Inflation at the Grocery Store

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I’m here to offer some encouragement today. While prices are going up, we can still beat inflation at the grocery store.

As you know, my grocery budget for our Big Family is large. We need to spend $1,200/month to feed all of us, and with prices on the rise, I’ve wondered if I could keep it that “low.”

Currently, we feed four adults and six kids – three meals every day. At $1200/month, the breakdown equals $4/day per person for all meals and snacks. I feel great about this! But I’ve been contemplating if I’d need to bump my budget up to keep up with rising prices.

I may need to, but for now, I’m challenging myself to see if I can focus on more low-cost meals to keep from having to spend more. This personal challenge led me to put this 30 Days of Dollar Dinners packet together, and I’m really encouraged. As it turns out, we really can keep food costs low, even now.

We can buy one big pork roast and make it stretch into 5 different meal!
Join our free 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series so I can show you how!

Let’s talk about meat and cheese.

As I’ve been shopping, I’ve found that meat and cheese tend to be grocery budget killers. So I’ve changed a few things about how I shop and cook.

I’m adding less than half the cheese I used to add to dishes, and they still taste just as good. And as it turns out, I’m able to still feed us a lot of meat – I’m simply choosing cheaper meat options:

  • We’re eating less beef overall, as I’ve found that it’s much pricier than chicken or pork.
  • We’re eating more chicken legs, chicken thighs, and pork roasts.
  • If I need it for a recipe, I’m using more ground turkey instead of ground beef.

No one is complaining. No one has even noticed, actually. Our meals have been delicious and some have cost us less than I was spending before inflation. True story!

NOTE: This decision I’ve made to cut meat costs has meant that I am compromising on buying all grass-fed, free-range meats. God is bigger and I’m choosing to trust him in this decision even though I know that more sustainable meats are better for our bodies. The meat I’m buying is still a healthy, real food choice, and I’m saving hundreds of dollars each month this way. :)

I’m also trying to make time to make more of our food from scratch again. This is still a bit of a challenge with so many littles to care for right now. But I’ve been able to bake more than I used to, so this is wonderful for breakfasts and snacks. (See this great list for 111 Baking Recipes.)

Our 4-year-old likes to help me bake while his three younger sisters are napping.

30 Days of Dollar Dinners

I hope you’ve already signed up to follow along with our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series. I’ll be posting inexpensive meal ideas and recipes here during the next few weeks. Meanwhile, get all these free resources! We’ve come up with 30 dinners we can make for $1/person (sometimes less!) And we’ve put it all – along with a grocery list and other money-saving resources – into this free printable packet.

Are we stuck with chicken legs and meatless meals forever now?

Goodness no. We can still buy and eat whatever we want. But the 30 Days of Dollar Dinners recipes and ideas packet gives us thirty meal ideas that cost $1/person. We can use this as a forever reference any time we want to find ways to cut back at the grocery store. And we can be encouraged that there are 30 great meals we can make that won’t break the bank. It’s fun and encouraging to know this!

What ways have you found to cut back on spending at the grocery store?

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Sign up here so we can send you our
30 Days of Dollar Dinners freebies.

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Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

December Groceries and Meals We Ate

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I took a few pictures of our December groceries and meals we ate to share with you!

I didn’t go grocery shopping in December until part-way through the month, so we had run out of almost all of our staples and then some! :) Therefore, my shopping day in Lincoln that month was a big one!

I loaded my extra large cart so full at Sam’s I could hardly push it. Silly me, I should have gone through check-out, unloaded, then started over.

See those Corn Dogs? That was Malachi’s birthday meal request, haha.

This particular shopping day, I also picked up several cases of fun items for the kids to put together gifts to hand out to friends at church. Since Christmas was on a Sunday this year, we wanted to be sure all the people at church who didn’t have family in town felt loved and cared for. Here, I snuck in a couple of pictures of the kids working on this project plus a picture of our wagon full of gifts to share at church Christmas morning.

Now back to my shopping day:

After Sam’s, I loaded two carts at Costco. My second cart looked like this after I filled it with produce, then it got buried by frozen food. Note to Self: Shop the other way around next time so that the produce doesn’t get smashed and bruised. Silly girl.

Next stop: Aldi.

I hadn’t been to Aldi for a few months, and now I’m regretting that I don’t shop there more often. I found so many good prices there and got several flats of canned fruit, beans, salsa, and corn. I got an entire case of cream cheese because the price there is the best. I got bagels, butter, applesauce, raisins, and all kinds of odds and ends. So much fun and such great savings!

Total cost for groceries that day was $1,125. Our van was completely full, and that’s saying something because our van is very big. :)

When I got home, everyone helped unload the van, even most of our littles. Our house was covered in groceries and it was pretty much chaos for about an hour and a half as we tried to get food put away.

The day after my huge shopping trip, here are some of the meals we ate:

I slow cooked a pork roast for us to eat after church on a Sunday. I served it with Crock Pot Party Potatoes, green beans, corn, pumpkin bread, and cookies.

We fed 6 adults and 6 kids that day and still had this much meat leftover. Hopefully you’ve already signed up to join us for our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series so you can learn how to stretch one pork roast into 5 meals!

Malachi is in our local homeschool melodrama this winter, and parents get to send “snacks” for the kids after rehearsals. I say “snacks” because as it turns out, these kids are starving teens and eat heartily after a three-hour rehearsal! When it was my turn to send food in December, I sent a crock pot full of chip dip loosely based off this burrito filling mixture, chips, fruit, pickles, olives, and rice krispie treats.

One day I made a double batch of White Chicken Chili. We ate half one day and reheated leftovers another day. I love getting a two-for-one on my meal prep!

One evening, I used some of the leftover shredded pork roast to make this Creamy Salsa Enchiliada recipe. It was super good!

I found some pork loins marked down to $3.75 each when I hit our local grocery store so I baked one and served it with Honey’d Carrots, Baked Beans, fresh spinach, and Pumpkin Muffins. We all got full since I’d made so many side dishes, but all of us wished there was a second pork loin that night because it was so good!

We celebrated Malachi’s 18th birthday in December. I decided to be normal that day and NOT put spinach in his birthday cake. You’re welcome, Malachi.

After that, I kind of fell apart when it came to taking pictures of our meals. All six of our littles somehow got head lice just a few days before Christmas. UGH. So we spent hours of our days working on heads and doing about a thousand loads of laundry trying to knock out the problem. It was kind of awful, ha, even while we tried to keep a healthy perspective on the situation.

Somehow we survived. :) :) :) I took exactly one picture of our food on Christmas day, our breakfast of Easy Breakfast Casserole and Pumpkin French Toast Casserole.

After Christmas, I found myself playing catch-up on everything I had to put on hold during our lice debacle. Hopefully, I’ll get more pictures of our meals during the month of January!!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges Recipe – $0.99/person!

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It seems like a good idea to kick off our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series with this Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges recipe. Check out this amazing meal for just $0.99 per person!

Did you sign up for our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series yet? We have these freebies for you, detailing how to make 30 entire meals for just $1.00 per person! Sign up here and we’ll send these to you.

One chicken makes three meals

Here’s what makes this Whole Chicken recipe so great – well besides the fact that it’s easy and tastes really good. :) Your effort to bake a chicken is going to produce three meals!

  1. Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges
  2. Parmesan Chicken and Rice
  3. Creamy Potato Soup (made with broth from the chicken bones we’ll save after de-boning this chicken)

Intentionally only serve half the meat from this baked chicken at your first meal. Save the leftover meat to make the Parmesan Chicken and Rice (recipe coming soon!). Once the meat has been removed, use the bones from this chicken to make broth like this. You’ll save that to make Creamy Potato Soup!

How much does a whole chicken cost?

You can buy a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken for $5 at Sam’s or Costco. If you want to skip the baking part of this recipe idea, buy the cooked chicken for $5, divide the meat into two portions – one for this meal and one for the Parmesan Chicken and Rice. Then, make broth with the bones. This gives you three meals from one $5 chicken, making each chicken portion cost only $1.67. AMAZING!!!

OR, if you want to follow this recipe and bake a chicken at home, a whole chicken at Walmart is around $7. Then you can season it the way you like!

Here’s the recipe:

Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges

Whole Chicken with Potato Wedges Recipe - $0.99/person!
 
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Author:
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 1 whole chicken with the innards removed
  • 2 Tablespoons melted butter
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • ¼ teaspoon sea salt
  • ⅛ teaspoon ground pepper
  • 3 large yukon gold potatoes
  • 2 Tablespoons olive oil
  • Sea salt
Instructions
  1. Place chicken in a 9x13 inch baking dish.
  2. Remove gizzards from the cavity. (Save them to make broth later!)
  3. Spread or brush butter over the chicken.
  4. Mix spices in a bowl, then rub them all over the chicken.
  5. Bake, uncovered, in a 300 degree oven for 2½ hours.
  6. Scrub potatoes and slice into eight wedges each.
  7. Toss them in a bowl large bowl with olive oil until they are evenly coated.
  8. Lay wedges singularly on a cookie sheet.
  9. Sprinkle with salt.
  10. Bake at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Be sure to save half the meat for our Parmesan Chicken and Rice and save the bones to make broth.

Can’t wait to share more in this 30 Days of Dollar Dinners series. We’re working hard to complete our cookbook that goes along with all the freebies, so be watching for that!

 

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

30 Days of Dollar Dinners!

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Is it possible? Can we make dinner for a dollar after all the price increases we’re seeing in grocery stores? Indeed, all the inflation has challenged me to see what I can do to win at the grocery store. I have come up with 30 Days of Dollar Dinners!

Here’s what we’re getting ready to do:

  1. First, we’re going to give you a 30-Day Dollar Dinner printable so you can see all the meals we can all make for $1/person. We’re also going to give you a complete grocery list plus several other money-saving resources. See them here and get signed up. IT’S FREE!
  2. Then, we’re going to start posting the simple recipes that go along with all the Dollar Dinner suggestions on that printable.
  3. At the end of our series, we’ll have all of our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners recipes compiled into a beautiful new eBook. We’ll offer it at a discount to everyone who sticks with us through this series. Or BETTER YET, we’ll put it into our Club Membership site so that all of our members have access to it for no additional cost.

You’re going to want to be a part of this with us!

Why? Because we want to feed our families well, and we want to see ways we can cut costs without cutting nutrition. Here’s another perk to this packet: While prices have gone up, our time for cooking each day remains the same. Our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners promises to provide you with excellent and delicious real food ideas that don’t take much time to prepare.

This is like a win-win-win-win-win.

Happy New Year!!

30 Days of Dollar Dinners

Ready to get started? First, you’ll need our printables packet. (This is all free – did I mention that?)

Why do you need and want the 30 Days of Dollar Dinners printables packet?

  • It’s going to guide us all through saving a fantastic amount of money.
  • It gives us 30 ideas for meals that cost $1 (sometimes much less!) per person to make.
  • It includes a 30 Days of Dollar Dinners grocery list – which is an incredible bonus resource to go with this series and soon-to-be eBook. (Wait till you see your estimated receipt total for this grocery list. You’re going to be shocked at how little it will cost you to make 30 entire meals for a family of 4!!)
  • Signing up for it ensures that you won’t miss any of the emails we’ll send out providing you with the Dollar Recipes and other info and tips.
  • It includes more bonus resources, like our newly-created Seasonal Produce Guide (to save money on fruits and veggies) and our Inexpensive Side Dish List.

Wow, adulting is fun, am I right?

Who is so excited about all of this right now? You know you’re a grown-up when you can’t wait to download an Inexpensive Side Dish List and a calendar that offers 30 Days of Dollar Dinners suggestions.

But for real:

Sign me up!!

Then stay tuned for the recipes we’ll be posting that go along with our 30 Days of Dollar Dinners Calendar. It’s fun, it’s inexpensive, and it’s so delicious!

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NOTE:

The above freebies are for everyone and we are so happy to share them with you! Beyond these resources, in a few weeks will be complete and offer you our brand new 30 Days of Dollar Dinners eCookbook to make creating these meals much easier from here on out. We’ll put it in our shop for purchase ($20) but we think you should do this instead:

Become a Heavenly Homemakers Club Member. Through January 6, we’re letting everyone in at half-price, which is $5/month! You’ll get our new 30 Days of Dollar Dinners eCookbook plus thousands of dollars of other eBooks, eCurriculum, eCourses, printables, menu planning guides and much more. Get more details here and sign up to join at half-price!

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

How to Love People (My New Year Goal)

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I’m writing this post on how to love people because God keeps having to teach me how to love people.

I guess I might be writing this for myself. I need this. Loving people can be hard.

Like, actually loving them. Not just being nice to them. Not just showing kindness. But actually loving them.

I’m not proud of what I am about to share. I’m weeping over it actually. There are some people in our lives that are very hard to love. I’ve never felt this way before.

THESE are MY people, and they are the easiest to love. I don’t have to try to love them and in fact, my love for them is so great that sometimes I can’t even breathe. As God has grown our family, my ability to love has grown. It’s remarkable to experience.

Meanwhile, our little ones come with some baggage. Their baggage becomes mine and I sometimes find myself dealing with texts or communication with people that make me want to scream, ” I JUST WANT TO LOVE AND RAISE THESE KIDS!!! I DON’T WANT TO DEAL WITH THE REST OF IT! I DIDN’T SIGN UP FOR THIS!!!”

But in fact, I did sign up for this when I said yes to God’s yes. So now I have to figure out how to live and love like Jesus through it.

Am I just a mama bear?

A friend of mine (after I puked my feelings on her for the many-eth time) recently kindly and wisely defended my feelings. “Your mama bear instincts want to protect your babies. There’s nothing wrong with that.” And she’s right. I will always and forever do everything I can for the good of our children, protecting them and seeking what is best for them under harder-than-normal circumstances.

But the truth is that while many of my feelings are normal and understandable, I also have to choose how to use my time and energy when I encounter a challenge with an outside source. How can I do this?

How to love people?

Yes, how to actually love them.

Matt, who is calm and wise and always my sounding board, offered some insights recently and I’ve been praying over them ever since. When I face a challenge that I have no choice but to deal with, I can either:

  • shrink and become soft
  • bristle and become hard
  • or I can choose to let the Holy Spirit do its work in me to truly hear and respond in love

I’m not actually ever responding to anyone with angry words. The problem is inside my head and heart.

My energy and time cannot be taken up by swirling angry and frustrated thoughts. I cannot allow myself to choose ugliness or to let ridiculous inside-my-head conversations full of everything I shoulda-coulda-woulda said to overrule my thoughts.

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5

This passage tells me to:

  1. Take my thoughts captive.
  2. Make them obey Christ.

All day long.

A boundary around my heart

Someone else’s words should never set my head on fire. Yet I’ve been surprised at how easily angered I can become.

I have to set boundaries in certain relationships, and I have done this. But the biggest boundary is to be put around my own heart. I’m prayerfully working right now to put a Holy Spirit Filter around my heart and head so that when I read a text or have a conversation that frustrates me or makes me hurt, I can still be at peace.

How? By choosing to hear every word through a filter of love.

By recognizing that my God is already at work in each situation. By accepting that He fully loves me and He fully loves the hard people in my life. Because of this, I can love them too. But only with the help of the Holy Spirit.

So I’ve stopped trying so hard

I can’t do it. I can’t love better or be better or do better. It’s all too hard.

But the Holy Spirit can love wholly and freely, and He lives and works in and through me. I am refusing to take on anything that isn’t mine. This includes conflict and any challenge that someone might want to direct at me. In all circumstances, Matt and I will prayerfully work to do what is best for each of our kids. When we come under attack, we will allow the Spirit to give us a loving response. First in our own hearts, then naturally to others.

This brings incredible peace. It also allows love to flow freely, which beautifully takes the place of anger and hurt.

It’s almost a new year

If you’re hoping to do better or be better in 2023, this is great. But I pray that your focus has to do with that which is Spiritual. Nothing else actually matters and everything else, physical and otherwise, will fall into place if we are seeking to let the Holy Spirit be our complete guide and rescue.

My most necessary goal:

To hear every word through a filter of love.

This is my goal, with the help of the Father who sent a comforter to dwell in my heart. This changes everything about how I use my mental and emotional energy, which changes everything about how I walk through my days and love my people.

Dearest Father, help us when we cannot help ourselves. We need you. We can’t do this without you. Be our God. We praise you and seek you for rescue. In Jesus’ name.

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Easy Meals for Christmas Break

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The kids are home. They eat a lot. We need easy meals for Christmas break. Here are my ideas!

First, I know it’s cold outside but we’ve all been eating too much sugar, am I right? Let’s make everyone some spinach-filled smoothies. Yes, these have sugar in them too. But they also have spinach, so it’s a win. (Turn on a space heater while sipping these cold, but necessary, drinks!)

If you drink these out of a Christmas Mug they taste better. Scientific fact.

Easy Meals for Christmas Break

Beyond the beloved smoothies, here are some meals my kids love and eat well when they play hard all day! By the way, have you found some good indoor places to take your kids to run around so they get their energy out even while it’s cold outside? Looking for ideas!

Here are meals our kids love:

1. Sloppy Joes

2. Beanie Weanies

3. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Tomato Soup 

You can make grilled cheese in the waffle iron for a fun twist on this meal!

4. Pizza 

5. Quesadillas (made like Snowflakes or made like this with extra protein)

6. Chili with cheese, Fritos, and sour cream

7. White Chicken Chili

Sometimes, my kids eat this as a dip with tortilla chips.

French Toast with fruit and sausage or bacon

Pizza Chicken

Here’s hoping your Christmas break is enjoyable and relaxing as you spend great time with your family!

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