I don’t want you to miss out on getting your Grocery Shrink Christmas book at only $3!  Tomorrow the price will go up to $4 and it will continue to rise after that.  To help inspire you I’m going to give away 2 of the pages from the book. You can click on the pages to see bigger views. Remember the book is 96 gorgeous pages long, so there’s plenty more where these came from!

First here’s a glimpse at the Table of Contents:

•The Christmas Budget…………………4

•Gifts………………………………………….8

•Christmas Cards……………………….22

•Decorating……………………………….29

•Gifts from the Kitchen……………….40

•The Reason for the Season…………70

•Holiday Calendar……………………..75

•How to Plan a Holiday Feast……..78

•Traditional Holiday Recipes………80

•Final Thoughts…………………………96

Here is just one of our gift idea pages.  There are also pages of ideas for emergency gifts, gifts that don’t add to clutter, and stocking stuffers.  There are guides for giving handmade gifts including how to plan ahead so there’s no stress and how to make sure the receiver appreciates what you’ve done.  There are pages for planning your gifts so you only have to think about it once and then get it done!  And there are pages of recieps for gifts you can bake economically that are sure to be appreciated.

Here’s just one of our kid’s craft ideas.  This makes a darling ornament or package topper.  It’s a great gift for a child to give a friend.

There is so much in this book, that I’ve already opened it several times and referred to it for recipes and planning guides myself.  It’s meant to be read online and to print the planning pages.  The pages to read are colorful and inspiring and the pages to print are black and white to save you money on printing costs.

Your purchase will help our family reach a special goal.  As you know, we are expecting our 6th child.  We have outgrown our home and found another home to purchase that will meet the needs of our family for many years to come.  In order to make the move, we need to finish some repairs and list our home for sale.  We are using the proceeds from this book to make those repairs and need to do it very quickly.  Not only will you get an amazing value for your $3 purchase, but it helps us a lot too.

P.S.  Don’t forget to Grab your copy of  How to Have A Grocery Shrink Christmas:  Planning a beautiful celebration on a limited budget before the price goes up on Monday.

The recipe for Fajita Marinade is just one of the fabulous tried and true recipes that comes with the Grocery Shrink ebook.  I will never buy a mix or premade fajita mariande again.  As usual, I was out of a few ingredients.  So I substituted fresh limes for the lemon juice and added some jalapenos from the garden that would otherwise go to waste.  Wow!  It was beautiful and delicious. 

Thanks Darren for grilling it for me so beautifully. 

$7 $5

I’ve been dreaming of this book for years and finally pushed myself to make it a reality.  I don’t like to short Thanksgiving to get a headstart on Christmas, so I gave myself an October deadline. 

Eggnog Snickerdoodles: Recipe from How to Have a Grocery Shrink Christmas

It’s not too soon to start planning your Christmas celebration.  This saves money, time, and stress.  Proper planning = peaceful holidays.

When Darren and I started our debt free journey, our Christmas budget was $240.  That included food, gifts (For each other, our pack of children and all our extended family), cards, everything.  It was tight, but doable with proper planning.  I learned a lot from years of living on a tight budget and put it all in this book. 

Cookie Cutter Picture Ornament: Just one of the many craft projects in the book

How to Have a Grocery Shrink Christmasis 95 pages of fabulousness.  It includes printable planning sheets, a budget guide, tips for gifts, Christmas Card organizers, How to plan a feast, recipes for gifts from your kitchen, how to plan a holiday family worship, tips for including little ones in the worship, how to place the holiday focus off gifts and onto Christ,  frugal decorating, and basic Christmas dinner recipes which includes glazed ham, a turkey roasting guide and recipe for herb crusted turkey and much more!

Herb Crusted Turkey: One of the traditional recipes in the book

Here’s the best part!  It’s only $3…for $3 days.  Monday the price will go up to $4 for $4 days and the price will go up again.  So grab your book now while the price can’t be beat.  It’s an instant pdf download, and you will need Adobe Reader to open it. It’s a large file with lots of pictures, so depending on your connection speed may take some patience while downloading.

$7 $5

Kashi TLC crackers; honey smoked ham from Costo; and Sliced Colby Jack = No tantrums from the 3 year old who slept through dinner and had to go with his older brothers and sisters to their Church club meetings.

Since this was an experiment, I used unbleached flour and followed the directions perfectly in the video here. It turned out great. Crusty outside, soft inside, great sourdough flavor. The kids weren’t all impressed but 3 of them begged for a slice and ate it.

Today, I’m making sourdough starter from a potato.  Hopefully it will work since the girls in my Pioneer class want to try it.  Next I’ll try no-knead bread from 100% whole grain flour.

Lori Viets makes awesome bread, but it wasn’t always so.  Her heart told her that bread should be whole grain and healthy but after turning out loaf after loaf of heavy brick like bread, she knew something wasn’t right.  Instead of giving up on whole grains, she delved into a study of how to work with whole grains and achieve the texture and taste she had always dreamed of.

The result is her book, No More Bricks, a step by step explanation of how to achieve the same results she has with whole grain baking.  She even talks about grinding your own flour, and explains the different types of grinders and mixers and how to choose one.  If learning from a book isn’t your thing, Lori gives live classes.  But here’s the best part:  Her classes are now available on the internet!  Here’s a sample video of what you can expect.

Hi friends, I want to introduce you to Angela D.  She is an inspiring wife and mother adding seats to her table through adoption.  Angela loves all things frugal and has some great ideas to share with us about how to be generous on a tight budget.  I love her ideas and I’m going to implement some of them this year.

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One of my favorite things about Christmas is the spirit of giving, but between Visa fees, travel costs and adoption fees, we definitely have to re-evaluate (with some creativity) how we can give this year.  No complaints though.  Our daughter is the best gift our family could get!

Already I’m thinking up ways to save over the holidays.  I would love to share with you some ways to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas and be able to be frugally generous with others even if your wallet is feeling slim.

STOCKING STUFFERS I’ve recently become a “super couponer.”  For the past six months I haven’t paid for toothbrushes, toothpaste, deodorant, dish soap, or razors.  I buy everything else at prices much lower than I used to willingly pay.  

This year I am using my stockpile to fill stockings with freebies and deals I score:  toothbrushes, chapstick, socks, hairclips, and small toys.  I’ve paid less than 50 cents for every item that wasn’t free, so a few dollars will fill a stocking!  I even have enough of all these items to start filling shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child.  It’s so fun to see my kids get excited about sharing with children in need, and I know they are going to have a blast packing boxes for OCC this year!

GIFTS Our children receive three gifts from us, just like Jesus did.  It keeps the shopping list short and helps keep the focus on others.  There are definitely some new ways I’m saving money this year. 

Winning Giveaways Through a few blogs I frequent, I have won giveaways that will be given as gifts this year.  (My kids don’t read my blog so I figure these secrets are safe here!)  My oldest has asked for a tea set to have tea parties when our newest gets home, and I won this adorable one a couple months ago.  The Perplexus ball will be fun for my son, the little engineer-in-the-making.

Within the last year I’ve also won jewelry.  I loved each so much that I kept them for myself, but they would have been wonderful gifts!  

The possibilities are endless for what you might win.  If you have a few minutes, google giveaways and see what’s up for grabs!  A fantastic place to start is right here.  I’m giving away a gift certificate for $35 to CSNstores on October 31.

Creating Personalized Gifts The Grocery Shrink is on my blog reader.  Angela has tutorials for making lots of frugal, personalized gifts: some favs are here, here, or here.

Giving of your Time Why not bless a friend or a single mom with a couple hours to do her shopping while watching her kids?  What about blessing a widow with an invitation to have dessert with your family?  Could you help a friend clean her house before a big get-together?  These ideas aren’t exactly pretty gifts wrapped up with gorgeous bows, but they sure are meaningful.  

MEALS One of the best parts of Christmas is spending time with people you love.  Oh, and lots and lots of eating.  Wish I were pregnant this year so I could eat like it  🙂

Giving of your surplus Another benefit to my couponing habit is snagging steals on basics I’ll need for holiday cooking.  This Christmas, I plan to cook more often for friends… hopefully that will translate to more dinner parties and more meals for families in need.  Also, as I find steals on grocery items, I’m going to buy what I can afford within my budget and share.  

Give of yourself It costs nothing but your time to help serve meals at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter.  I am sure there’s a nearby ministry where you can invest in lives this Christmas.  It is a beautiful way to teach your children the joy that comes from serving others.  That’s a priceless gift to yourself too!

Thanks for the chance to share with you!  If you have ideas to share or have questions, please leave them in the comments and I’ll do my best to respond.  

Blessings, angela

Angela blogs about adoption and her family at A Seat at the Table

Thank you for all your comments on the Miloud Home Introduction Post! If you had trouble commenting, I’ve changed the security on the site to make commenting easier.  I’m still makes spam comments nearly impossible to get through, but the rest of you keep your comments coming.  I can’t tell you how motivated it makes me to make the blog better and keep putting out new stuff when you write a little note. 

Rebecca, Comment #34 won our ebook giveaway set.  Stay tuned for a big announcement on Friday and another chance to get your ebooks at a deal.

I love the private Grocery Shrink dsicussion group! Membership is free wtih the purchase of the Grocery Shrink Ebook. I find out a lot of stuff from the members there that I wouldn’t have stumbled across on my own.

One of those things is no knead bread. Thanks, Marcia for bringing this to my attention! With less than 5 minutes of hands on time you can have gorgeous artisan sour dough bread. The next 2 videos show it with white flour, but you can use whole wheat.

There are more recipes and techniques at Mother-Earth News: http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/Artisan-Free-Form-Loaf.aspx

With the wee babe in my womb, I’m eating every 2 hours.  It needs to be packed with nutrition for every calorie since I pack on excess weight easily.  I had a hankering for granola and yogurt, but I didn’t need all that sugar and fat and I didn’t have 2 hours to wait to make it.  So I tried a single serving in a skillet and it worked great!

I put in a seasoned cast iron skillet (yay for more iron!);

1/4 cup thick rolled oats

1 Tablespoon wheat germ

1 dash salt

1 dash cinnamon

7  almonds, coarsly chopped

1 teaspoon each of brown sugar and butter

I cooked and stirred it on medium heat until everything was smelling toasted and slightly golden.  Then I stirred in 1 Tablespoon of craisins.

Then I mixed 1/2 cup Mountain High plain yogurt with 3 drops of vanilla stevia.

And topped it with the granola. 

It was delicious.  (About 350 calories and full of whole grains, healthy fats, protein, calcium, and yummy goodness.)