Taco Dip for the Wife

I make Emily taco dip....pretty much once a week. It's really not too difficult since we usually have cream cheese and sour cream in the fridge, and we also have an industrial sized bottle of taco seasoning.

Ingredients-

-8oz Package of Cream Cheese
-8oz Sour Cream
-Taco Seasoning to Taste

Directions-

First i leave the cream cheese out on the counter for 15 minutes to soften up a little bit, then place the cream cheese and sour cream in a bowl to mix with an electric hand mixer. Once it has been mixed well, I usually add around 1/4 to 1/3 cup of taco seasoning and mix again with the hand mixer. It's that easy.

I've made Emily taco dip probably 15 times, and we still have seasoning left. I got the taco seasoning from Sam's Club, and it was around $5. I think packets at the store are between $1 and $1.50, So I've saved at least $10 so far by buying the large container!

Homemade Instant Oatmeal

When I get to work in the morning, I fill up my water bottle, and make myself a bowl of oatmeal to take to my desk. I've been doing this for about a month, and I have seen a lot of recipes that are more complicated than they need to be.

To maximize my savings, I bought a 10 lb package of oats from Sam's Club. If you are unsure if you will use all 10 lbs, you may want to just start out with a smaller container of oats.

You only need 3 ingredients. 

-Quaker Oats
-Brown Sugar
-Cinnamon

I don't really measure when I make a batch of oatmeal, but for you, I measured... Somewhat.

I use the Magic Bullet to blend the oats to a powder, and you can do this with as much of the oats as you want. I usually do 2 bullets to prepare for the week.

I put the powdered oats into a bowl and then distribute them into Ziplock sandwich bags, putting 1/3 of a cup in each bag, followed by 1 Tablespoon of Brown Sugar, and finally 1/8th tsp of Cinnamon.

And there you have it, your own instant oatmeal! I'm not sure about you, but I feel better about eating things when I know what is in it. Also, it is ridiculously cheap to buy the ingredients, and is a cost saver compared to buying the packets of instant oatmeal.

Car Repair.... Without the HUGE Mechanic Bill.

Okay, so as many of you have had experience with. You think your car is driving a little weird, so you take it to a local garage to have it looked at. When they call you to tell you what is wrong with it, it's much more than you thought.

For me, I took my wife's Acura MDX to the garage because it seemed to be riding a little rough. They called and told me that the shocks, struts, and tires all needed to be replaced, and it would cost me about $1800 dollars.... That is a lot of money to come up with for when you think that your car is just riding a little rough.

I'm no mechanic, but after talking to a buddy of mine, we figured that we would be able to take care of the shocks ourselves, since the garage said that there was a tangible problem with one of the shocks in the back, the struts they said should be replaced because they are the original ones.... not a compelling argument.

For the shocks, they would have charged almost $300 to replace.

For the struts, they would have charged about $600 to replace.

And for the tires, they were figuring between $800 and $900 for replacing and aligning.

I ended up getting a good deal for Tires Plus for the first time ever! They only cost $550 due to an error on their part.

I searched around locally at auto part stores for the shocks we needed, and they were all about $50 each no matter where I looked. I found them on Amazon for almost $40 dollars cheaper for the pair, delivered to my door for free in two days!

So my friend and I figured out what we needed to do to replace the shocks, and we did it in under an hour, saving me $200! (Minus the food I ordered for him for helping me) Plus, the car drives a lot better now than it did before. Such an inexpensive fix for such a big difference in driving performance. I never thought I would be a person who worked on fixing a car.

Now that the tires and the shocks have been replaced, we are going to replace the struts, but in order to do that, I just ordered the repair manual for her car today. I should have it on Tuesday. Lance and I will need to get together to figure out what we need to do to replace the struts, then I will order them from Amazon and Lance and I will take pictures of us replacing them for your enjoyment!

The moral of the story is that I was able to save money on car repair by doing it myself, and you can too! Find your friend that knows more about it than you, and use Amazon to find inexpensive parts.

A few ideas......

It definitely is not a lack of ideas that is keeping this blog from taking off. 2 ideas that I would like to blog about are soap making (which seems pretty easy when you are using a soap base that is pre-made and just melting, adding color and scent, and pouring into a mold) and making my own powder laundry detergent which would contain some of the soap that I want to make. So they are kind of related.

We haven't really even decided what we want this blog to be about, whether it is about stuff around the house, food, everyday life, or frugality. Right now, most of the ideas that I have are frugal since I enjoy things that keep me busy as well as save money.